[Ads-l] Antedating of "Middle Passage"

[Shapiro, Fred]

Middle Passage (OED, sea journey of enslaved persons, 1788)

1758 Robert Barker The Unfortunate Shipwright 10 (Eighteenth Century Collections Online)

Captain Fitzherbert entreated me to go with the boat's crew to cut fire wood, for cooking the slaves victuals in the middle passage.

Fred Shapiro

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org