Passage

Through word and image, Fred Hagstrom’s artist’s book Passage presents a glimpse of the brutal reality of the transatlantic slave trade that outraged so many Americans of conscience and served as the principal catalyst for the American Civil War (1861-1865). Using excerpted quotations and diagrams of slave ships from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century anti-slavery publications, along with historic photographs of enslaved men, women, and children, Hagstrom evokes some of the moral outrage voiced over the mistreatment of free Africans who were captured, transported, and held captive for economic gain by Northerners and Southerners alike. The book also serves as a memorial to the countless individuals who suffered and died under this cruel system of human trafficking.