A barracoon (a corruption of

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

''barracão'', an augmentative form of the Catalan

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...

''barraca'' ('hut') through

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

''barracón'') is a type of barracks used historically for the internment of slaves or

criminals In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

. In the Atlantic slave trade, captured individuals were temporarily transported to and held at barracoons along the coast of

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...

, where they awaited transportation across the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. A barracoon simplified the slave trader's job of keeping the prospective slaves alive and in captivity, with the barracks being closely guarded and the captives being fed and allowed exercise. The barracoons varied in size and design, from small enclosures adjacent to the businesses of European traders to larger protected buildings. The amount of time slaves spent inside a barracoon depended primarily on two factors: their health and the availability of

slave ship Slave ships were large cargo ships specially built or converted from the 17th to the 19th century for transporting slaves. Such ships were also known as "Guineamen" because the trade involved human trafficking to and from the Guinea coast ...

s. Many captive slaves died in barracoons, some as a consequence of the hardships they experienced on their journeys and some as a result of their exposure to lethal European diseases (to which they had little immunity).{{cite book, last1=White, first1=Deborah, title=Freedom On My Mind, date=2013, publisher=Bedford/St.Martens, location=New York, page=23, edition=1

References

African slave trade Imprisonment and detention Barracks Slave cabins and quarters

See also

References