Atlantic slave trade

Reproduction of a handbill advertising a slave auction in Charleston, British Province of South Carolina, in 1769 The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people to the Americas. This trade was operated by slave ships from both Europe and the New World. Some of these voyages used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, particularly in the early phases. Europeans established a coastal slave trade in the 15th century, and trade to the Americas began in the 16th century, lasting through the 19th century. The vast majority of those who were transported in the transatlantic slave trade were from Central Africa and West Africa. In contrast to other slave trades, those taking slaves from Africa generally bought their cargo from West and Central African slave merchants. This applied to both Europeans in the transatlantic trade and to Arab slave traders supplying their own markets. Whilst Europeans did get involved in some raiding, this was much less common and was usually discouraged. In general, the Portuguese built barracoons in their African slaving bases, in which to gather newly purchased captives ready for the next ship to arrive. Though the Dutch established some forts as African bases (some of which were captured by the British) for similar purposes, the usual approach by North European slave traders was to use their ship as a base in which to gather their cargo. This meant that these ships spent much longer on the African coast than Portuguese vessels, and the first slaves to be bought had to endure much longer confined to the ship.

The colonial South Atlantic and Caribbean economies were particularly dependent on slave labour for the production of sugarcane and other commodities. This was viewed as crucial by those Western European states which were vying with one another to create overseas empires. The Portuguese, in the 16th century, were the first to transport slaves across the Atlantic. In 1526, they completed the first transatlantic slave voyage to Brazil. Other Europeans soon followed. Shipowners regarded the slaves as cargo to be transported to the Americas as quickly and cheaply as possible, there to be sold to work on coffee, tobacco, cocoa, sugar, and cotton plantations, gold and silver mines, rice fields, the construction industry, cutting timber for ships, as skilled labour, and as domestic servants. The first enslaved Africans sent to the English colonies were classified as indentured servants, with legal standing similar to that of contract-based workers coming from Britain and Ireland. By the middle of the 17th century, slavery had hardened as a racial caste, with African slaves and their future offspring being legally the property of their owners, as children born to slave mothers were also slaves (partus sequitur ventrem). As property, the people were considered merchandise or units of labour, and were sold at markets with other goods and services.