Coming From The Sea, also, The Norman B. Leventhal Walk to the Sea. The Middle Passage, also, Boston Harbor Islands. , Coming from the Sea , The Middle Passage , In 1637, Massachusetts Bay colonist shipped enslaved Native Americans to Providence Island in the Caribbean on the Desire. The ship returned in 1638 with the first documented enslaved Africans in the colony. From 1638-1858 there are nearly two hundred recorded slaving voyages from Boston. This ocean journey brough enslaved Africans through the horrific Middle Passage to the Americas as part of a “triangle trade” route between West Africa, Europe, North and South America and the Caribbean. , Long Wharf served as a disembarkation point of the slave trade in Boston, and newspapers advertised enslaved Africans for sale aboard the ships docked at the wharf. ,

To be Sold by Henry Cafwall at his Warehoufe (on the head of the Long Wharf, Soofets, Perfians, Taffities, Lemones, Ginghams, Long Cloths, Irifh Linnens of all forts, Men and Womens Worfled and Silk Hofe, Powder, Cordage, Duck, Nails, Sweeds and Spanish Iron, with fundry other European and Eaft India Goods, lately Inported, alfo Negro Boys and Girls, and Barbados Rum. Boston Gazette, June 10, 1728 , A Parcel of Likely Negros of both sexes, just imported in the Sloop Speedwell, William Dickinson Mafler lying at the upper end of the Long Wharffe, aldo a parcel of Lisbon Falt, on board a Brigantine at Clark’s Wharffe, to be sold by Charles Apthorp at his warehoufe in Merchants Row. Boston Gazette, September 13, 1731 , Juft imported from Africa, and to be Sold at No. 19 on the Long Wharf, A Parcel of likely, healthy Negro Slaves. Boston Gazette, June 22, 1761

, The Norman B. Leventhal Walk to the Sea , Boston Harbor Islands , Like much of the local terrain, Boston’s 34 Harbor Islands were formed by glaciers during the last Ice Age. The islands provide natural protection for the harbor. Their use dates back to the regions’s first native people. Ancient heaps of seashells and refuge on the islands testify to the presence and seafood diet of the local Native Americans. , To early European visitors, the islands presented both a hazard and, once charted, a help to navigation. Today, they are an important recreational asset for residents and visitors, overseen by the National Park Service, with ferries serving many of the islands. , Bostonians found various uses for the islands over the centuries. Early English settlers made homes on the islands and farmed them. Spectacle Island, one of the closest, was used in the 18th century as a quarantine area during smallpox outbreaks, and in the 19th century as a gambling resort. Boston also began to use Spectacle Island as a garbage dump in the 19th century, expanding the landmass by 32 acres before the dumping stopped. , Managing the waste of a large population became critical to Boston in the late 20th century. The construction of a sewage plant on Deer Island helped clean the harbor and increase the recreational use of the harbor and its islands.