Barracoon

A barracoon is a type of barracks used historically for the temporary confinement of slaves or criminals.

In the African slave trade, captured individuals were temporarily transported to and held at barracoons along the western coast of the continent, where they awaited transportation across the Atlantic Ocean. A barracoon simplified the trader's task of keeping their slaves alive and in captivity, with the barracks being closely guarded and the slaves being fed and allowed exercise.^[1][2] These barracoons varied in size and design, from small enclosures adjacent to the factories of European traders to larger protected buildings.^[3] The amount of time a slave spent inside a barracoon depended primarily on two factors: their health and the availability of slave ships.^[3]

References

1. ^ Rodriguez, Junius P. (1997). The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. pp. 73. 
2. ^ Lloyd, Christopher (1968). The Navy and the Slave Trade: The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century. Routledge. pp. 29–30. 
3. ^ ^{a b} Gomez, Michael Angelo (1998). Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South. UNC Press. pp. 155–156.