Slave Coffle: Chained March to the Coast

Devastating historical illustration depicting a slave coffle—a line of enslaved Africans chained together and forced to march to the coast for transport to the Americas. The image shows men, women, and children bound together with neck yokes and chains, being driven by armed slavers across the African landscape toward waiting ships visible in the distance. Palm trees and tropical vegetation frame this scene of horror, while a figure lies collapsed in the foreground, unable to continue the brutal march. This illustration documents the first stage of the transatlantic slave trade, when African people were kidnapped from their homes, chained together in coffles, and marched sometimes hundreds of miles to coastal slave ports. Many died during these forced marches from exhaustion, dehydration, or violence. Those who survived faced the Middle Passage across the Atlantic. A haunting document of slavery's origins in Africa and the beginning of the horrific journey that would end in American bondage, available in three sizes with your choice of black or silver aluminum frame.