Timelapse of transatlantic slave trade, by individual vessel movement

ID 109263699 © Ventura69 | Dreamstime.com

The shipping industry has become well versed in using AIS and other data sets to track global vessel movements. However, none are anything like as profoundly moving as this – a timelapse of all vessels that operated the vile slave trade from its inception around 1520 to its culmination in 1866 – largely out of west Africa and to what was then known as the New World. It is the result of decades of research in libraries and archives around the world and is a stunning – in every sense of the word – and hugely important piece of work that graphically illustrates why there is, and why there should be, so much anger today. This is where it all started.