Beaufort, North Carolina, was involved in the Trans-Atlantic human trade and is a documented Middle Passage arrival site where enslaved people disembarked at or near the location now called Topsail Park. Records from 1769 show that one ship carried thirty-six Africans directly from the coast of Africa to the Port of Beaufort. The Middle Passage was a treacherous and brutal ocean voyage within the largest forced migration in human history, in which twelve million Africans were captured and taken from their homeland and approximately two million perished on the journey to the Americas, their remains lying at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The men, women, and children who survived disembarked here and were sold into chattel slavery for profit and for the development of the town and nation. Over the centuries, these men and women and their descendants made possible the region’s agricultural and maritime commercial development, especially in the menhaden and turpentine industries, and their descendants continued to contribute to the town’s success, culture, and community in countless ways. As a documented arrival site, Beaufort has been designated a Site and Itinerary of Memory by the UNESCO Slave Route Project, an international effort launched in 1994 to address the history of the slave trade and slavery through intercultural dialogue, promote research and education, preserve archives, oral traditions, living cultures, and sites of memory, and support reconciliation and social cohesion.