Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

The Atlantic slave trade involved the transportation of enslaved African people to the Americas from the 15th to the 19th century. European slave ships used the triangular trade route and Middle Passage to gather and imprison the enslaved at forts on the African coast before transporting them to the Americas, where they were sold to work on plantations and mines. The vast majority of those transported were from Central Africa and West Africa, with some being captured in coastal raids and others being sold by West African slave traders to European slave traders. The European slave traders generally did not participate in slave raids due to the high mortality rate of Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa, and instead relied on established commercial relations with local African leaders. The colonial South Atlantic and Caribbean economies were particularly dependent on slave labour, and the major Atlantic slave trading nations included Portugal, Britain, Spain, France, the Netherlands, the United States, and Denmark.learn more on wikipedia