View source for History:Atlantic slave trade

{{Short description|Slave trade – 16th to 19th centuries}}
[[File:Slaveshipposter (cropped).jpg|upright=1.5|thumb|Stowage of a British slave ship, ''Brookes'' (1788)]]
[[File:Slave Auction Ad.jpg|thumb|Reproduction of a handbill advertising a slave auction in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1769.]]

The '''Atlantic slave trade''', '''transatlantic slave trade''', or '''Euro-American slave trade''' involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, and existed from the 16th to the 19th centuries.<ref name=nmltls>{{cite web | title=The history of the transatlantic slave trade | website=National Museums Liverpool | date=10 July 2020 | url=https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/history-of-slavery/transatlantic-slave-trade | access-date=26 March 2021}}</ref> The vast majority of those who were transported in the transatlantic slave trade were people from Central and [[Place:West Africa|West Africa]] that had been sold by other West Africans to Western European slave traders,<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/opinion/23gates.html|title=Opinion – How to End the Slavery Blame-Game|author=Henry Louis Gates Jr.|date=April 22, 2010|quote=The historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University estimate that 90 percent of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders.|newspaper=The New York Times|accessdate=March 22, 2022|archive-date=April 26, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100426120726/https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/opinion/23gates.html|url-status=bot: unknown}}</ref><ref name="Sowell 2005 p. 121"/><ref name="Thornton, p. 112">Thornton, p. 112.</ref> while others had been captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids;<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zy7fr82/revision/3|title=The transatlantic slave trade|publisher=BBC|quote=* Some of those enslaved were captured directly by the British traders. Enslavers ambushed and captured local people in Africa. * Most slave ships used British 'factors', men who lived full-time in Africa and bought enslaved people from local leaders.|access-date=2021-05-06}}</ref> Europeans gathered and imprisoned the enslaved at forts on the African coast and then brought them to the Americas.<ref>{{cite web|title=Implications of the slave trade for African societies|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zxt3gk7/revision/7|publisher=BBC|access-date=12 June 2020|location=[[Place:London|London]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=West Africa – National Museums Liverpool|url=https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/history-of-slavery/west-africa#section--the-capture-and-sale-of-enslaved-africans|publisher=International Slavery Museum|access-date=14 October 2015|location=Liverpool}}</ref> Except for the [[Place:Portuguese Empire|Portuguese]], European slave traders generally did not participate in the raids because [[Biology:Life expectancy|life expectancy]] for Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa was less than one year during the period of the slave trade (which was prior to the widespread availability of [[Chemistry:Quinine|quinine]] as a treatment for [[Medicine:Malaria|malaria]]).<ref name="Sowell 2005 p. 121">{{cite book|last1=Sowell|first1=Thomas|title=Black Rednecks and White Liberals|chapter=The Real History of Slavery|publisher=Encounter Books|place=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/blackredneckswhi00thom/page/121 121-122]|isbn=978-1-59403-086-4|year=2005|title-link=Black Rednecks and White Liberals}}</ref> The colonial South Atlantic and Caribbean economies were particularly dependent on labour for the production of sugarcane and other commodities. This was viewed as crucial by those Western European states which, in the late 17th and 18th centuries, were vying with one another to create overseas empires.<ref name="Mannix 1962 Introduction-1–5">{{cite book|last=Mannix|first=Daniel|title=Black Cargoes|url=https://archive.org/details/blackcargoeshist00mann|url-access=registration|year=1962|publisher=The Viking Press|pages=Introduction–1–5}}</ref>

The Portuguese, in the 16th century, were the first to buy slaves from West African slavers and transport them across the Atlantic. In 1526, they completed the first transatlantic slave voyage to Brazil, and other Europeans soon followed.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Shipwreck Shines Light on Historic Shift in Slave Trade|url = http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/150605-shipwreck-slave-trade-south-africa-18th-century-brazil|publisher = National Geographic Society|access-date = June 8, 2015|first = Greta|last = Weber|date = June 5, 2015}}</ref> Shipowners regarded the slaves as cargo to be transported to the Americas as quickly and cheaply as possible,<ref name="Mannix 1962 Introduction-1–5"/> 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.<ref name="Covey-Eisnach 2009">{{cite book |editor1-last=Covey |editor1-first=Herbert C. |editor2-last=Eisnach |editor2-first=Dwight |year=2009 |chapter=Slave Cooking and Meals – Arrival in the Americas |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xhpBsIa5yqEC&pg=PA49 |title=What the Slaves Ate: Recollections of African American Foods and Foodways from the Slave Narratives |location=Santa Barbara, California |publisher=Greenwood Press |pages=49–72 |isbn=978-0-313-37497-5 |lccn=2009003907}}</ref> The first Africans kidnapped to the English colonies were classified as indentured servants, with legal standing similar to that of contract-based workers coming from Britain and Ireland. However, 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 [[Finance:Slave market|sold at markets]] with other goods and services.

{{anchor|slave-factor}}
The major Atlantic slave-trading nations, in order of trade volume, were [[Place:Portuguese Empire|Portugal]], [[Place:British Empire|Britain]], [[Place:Spanish Empire|Spain]], France, the [[Place:Dutch Empire|Netherlands]], and Denmark. Several had established outposts on the African coast, where they purchased slaves from local African leaders.<ref>Klein, Herbert S., and Jacob Klein. ''The Atlantic Slave Trade''. Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 103–139.</ref> These slaves were managed by a [[Finance:Factor (agent)|factor]], who was established on or near the coast to expedite the shipping of slaves to the New World. Slaves were imprisoned in a factory while awaiting shipment. Current estimates are that about 12 million to 12.8&nbsp;million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic over a span of 400 years.<ref>Ronald Segal, ''The Black Diaspora: Five Centuries of the Black Experience Outside Africa'' (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995), {{ISBN|0-374-11396-3}}, p. 4. "It is now estimated that 11,863,000 slaves were shipped across the Atlantic." (Note in original: Paul E. Lovejoy, "The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Africa: A Review of the Literature", in ''Journal of African History'' 30 (1989), p. 368.)</ref><ref name=Martin/>{{rp|194}} The number purchased by the traders was considerably higher, as the passage had a high death rate with approximately 1.2–2.4&nbsp;million dying during the voyage and millions more in [[Biology:Seasoning (colonialism)|seasoning camps]] in the Caribbean after arrival in the New World. Millions of people also died as a result of slave raids, wars, and during transport to the coast for sale to European slave traders.<ref name="online at pp. 119–120">Patrick Manning, "The Slave Trade: The Formal Demographics of a Global System" in Joseph E. Inikori and Stanley L. Engerman (eds), ''The Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Economies, Societies and Peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe'' (Duke University Press, 1992), pp. 117–44, [https://books.google.com/books?id=abvkqNGSTZ0C&pg=PA119 online at pp. 119–120.]</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">Stannard, David. ''American Holocaust''. Oxford University Press, 1993.</ref><ref>Eltis, David and Richardson, David, "The Numbers Game". In: Northrup, David: ''The Atlantic Slave Trade'', 2nd ed., Houghton Mifflin Co., 2002, p. 95.</ref><ref>Basil Davidson. ''The African Slave Trade''.</ref> Near the beginning of the 19th century, various governments acted to ban the trade, although illegal smuggling still occurred. In the early 21st century, several governments issued apologies for the transatlantic slave trade.

==Background==

===Atlantic travel===

The Atlantic slave trade developed after trade contacts were established between the "[[Earth:Old World|Old World]]" ([[Earth:Afro-Eurasia|Afro-Eurasia]]) and the "[[Earth:New World|New World]]" (the Americas). For centuries, tidal currents had made ocean travel particularly difficult and risky for the ships that were then available. Thus, there had been very little, if any, maritime contact between the peoples living in these continents.<ref>Thornton 1998, pp. 15–17.</ref> In the 15th century, however, new European developments in seafaring technologies resulted in ships being better equipped to deal with the tidal currents, and could begin traversing the Atlantic Ocean; the Portuguese set up a [[Earth:Escola de Sagres|Navigator's School]] (although there is much debate about whether it existed and if it did, just what it was). Between 1600 and 1800, approximately 300,000 sailors engaged in the slave trade visited West Africa.{{sfn|Christopher|2006|p=127}} In doing so, they came into contact with societies living along the west African coast and in the Americas which they had never previously encountered.<ref>Thornton 1998, p. 13.</ref> Historian Pierre Chaunu termed the consequences of European navigation "disenclavement", with it marking an end of isolation for some societies and an increase in inter-societal contact for most others.<ref>Chaunu 1969, pp. 54–58.</ref>

Historian John Thornton noted, "A number of technical and geographical factors combined to make Europeans the most likely people to explore the Atlantic and develop its commerce".<ref>Thornton 1998, p. 24.</ref> He identified these as being the drive to find new and profitable commercial opportunities outside Europe. Additionally, there was the desire to create an alternative trade network to that controlled by the [[Religion:Islam|Muslim]] [[Place:Ottoman Empire|Ottoman Empire]] of the Middle East, which was viewed as a commercial, political and religious threat to [[Earth:Europe|Europe]]an [[Religion:Christendom|Christendom]]. In particular, European traders wanted to trade for gold, which could be found in western Africa, and also to find a maritime route to "the Indies" (India), where they could trade for luxury goods such as spices without having to obtain these items from Middle Eastern Islamic traders.<ref>Thornton 1998, pp. 24–26.</ref>

During the [[History:First wave of European colonization|first wave of European colonization]], although many of the initial Atlantic naval explorations were led by the [[Place:Iberian Peninsula|Iberian]] ''conquistadors'', members of many European nationalities were involved, including sailors from Spain, [[History:Kingdom of Portugal|Portugal]], [[History:Kingdom of France|France]], [[History:Kingdom of England|England]], the Italian states, and the [[Place:Dutch Republic|Netherlands]]. This diversity led Thornton to describe the initial "exploration of the Atlantic" as "a truly international exercise, even if many of the dramatic discoveries were made under the sponsorship of the Iberian monarchs". That leadership later gave rise to the myth that "the Iberians were the sole leaders of the exploration".<ref>Thornton 1998, p. 27.</ref>

European overseas expansion led to the contact between the Old and New Worlds producing the [[Biology:Columbian exchange|Columbian exchange]], named after the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus.<ref name="McNeill 2019">{{cite encyclopedia |last1=McNeill |first1=J. R. |last2=Sampaolo |first2=Marco |last3=Wallenfeldt |first3=Jeff |date=30 September 2019 |orig-date=28 September 2019 |title=Columbian Exchange |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Columbian-exchange |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |location=[[Place:Edinburgh|Edinburgh]] |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200421055242/https://www.britannica.com/event/Columbian-exchange |archive-date=21 April 2020 |url-status=live |access-date=5 September 2021}}</ref> It started the global silver trade from the 16th to 18th centuries and led to direct European involvement in the Chinese porcelain trade. It involved the transfer of goods unique to one hemisphere to another. Europeans brought cattle, horses, and sheep to the New World, and from the New World Europeans received tobacco, potatoes, tomatoes, and maize. Other items and commodities becoming important in global trade were the tobacco, sugarcane, and cotton crops of the Americas, along with the gold and silver brought from the American continent not only to Europe but elsewhere in the Old World.<ref name="oxfordbibliographies1">{{cite web |last=Hahn |first=Barbara |date=31 July 2019 |orig-date=27 August 2018 |title=Tobacco - Atlantic History |url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0141.xml |website=oxfordbibliographies.com |location=Oxford |publisher=[[Organization:Oxford University Press|Oxford University Press]] |doi=10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0141 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201028093226/https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0141.xml |archive-date=28 October 2020 |access-date=4 September 2021}}</ref><ref name="Escudero 2014">{{cite book |last=Escudero |first=Antonio Gutiérrez |year=2014 |chapter=Hispaniola's Turn to Tobacco: Products from Santo Domingo in Atlantic Commerce |editor1-last=Aram |editor1-first=Bethany |editor2-last=Yun-Casalilla |editor2-first=Bartolomé |title=Global Goods and the Spanish Empire, 1492–1824: Circulation, Resistance, and Diversity |location=Basingstoke |publisher=[[Company:Palgrave Macmillan|Palgrave Macmillan]] |pages=216–229 |doi=10.1057/9781137324054_12 |isbn=978-1-137-32405-4}}</ref><ref name="Knight 2010">{{cite book |last=Knight |first=Frederick C. |year=2010 |title=Working the Diaspora: The Impact of African Labor on the Anglo-American World, 1650–1850 |chapter=Cultivating Knowledge: African Tobacco and Cotton Workers in Colonial British America |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZqQUCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA65 |location={{wipe|New York City}} and [[Place:London|London]] |publisher=New York University Press |pages=65–85 |doi=10.18574/nyu/9780814748183.003.0004 |isbn=978-0-8147-4818-3 |lccn=2009026860}}</ref><ref name="Nater 2006">{{cite book |author-last=Nater |author-first=Laura |year=2006 |chapter=Colonial Tobacco: Key Commodity of the Spanish Empire, 1500–1800 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mnvBYQqpJbQC&pg=PA93 |editor1-last=Topik |editor1-first=Steven |editor2-last=Marichal |editor2-first=Carlos |editor3-last=Frank |editor3-first=Zephyr |title=From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 1500–2000 |location=Durham, North Carolina |publisher=Duke University Press |pages=93–117 |doi=10.1215/9780822388029-005 |isbn=978-0-8223-3753-9}}</ref>

===European slavery in Portugal and Spain===
By the 15th century, slavery had existed in the [[Place:Iberian Peninsula|Iberian Peninsula]] (Portugal and Spain) of Western Europe throughout recorded history. The Roman Empire had established its system of slavery in ancient times. Since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, various systems of slavery continued in the successor Islamic and Christian kingdoms of the peninsula through the early modern era of the Atlantic slave trade.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Phillips |first=William D., Jr. |title=Slavery in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia |url=https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15140.html |date=2013 |access-date=2020-09-03 |website=University of Pennsylvania Press}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2012-10-18 |title=Iberian Roots of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1440–1640 |url=https://www.gilderlehrman.org/node/324 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160810140644/http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/origins-slavery/essays/iberian-roots-transatlantic-slave-trade-1440%E2%80%931640 |archive-date=2016-08-10 |access-date=2020-09-03 |website=The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |language=en}}</ref>

===African slavery===
[[Social:Slavery|Slavery]] was prevalent in many parts of Africa<ref name="Britannica">{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24157 |title=Historical survey, Slave societies |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006131931/https://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24157 |archive-date=2014-10-06}}</ref> for many centuries before the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade. There is evidence that enslaved people from some parts of Africa were exported to states in Africa, Europe, and Asia prior to the [[History:European colonization of the Americas|European colonization of the Americas]].<ref name="Ferro221">Ferro, Mark (1997). ''Colonization: A Global History''. Routledge, p. 221, {{ISBN|978-0-415-14007-2}}.</ref>

The Atlantic slave trade was not the only slave trade from Africa, although it was the largest in intensity in terms of number of humans over a unit of time. As Elikia M'bokolo wrote in ''Le Monde diplomatique'':

{{blockquote|The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the [[Religion:Muslim world|Muslim countries]] (from the ninth to the nineteenth) ... Four million enslaved people exported via the Red Sea, another four million<ref name="afbis"/> through the Swahili ports of the [[Earth:Indian Ocean|Indian Ocean]], perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean.<ref>Elikia M'bokolo, "The impact of the slave trade on Africa", ''Le Monde diplomatique'', [http://mondediplo.com/1998/04/02africa 2 April 1998.]</ref>}}

However, estimates are imprecise, which can affect comparison between different slave trades. Two rough estimates by scholars of the numbers African slaves held over twelve centuries in the Muslim world are 11.5 million<ref>[Total of black slave trade in the Muslim world from Sahara, Red Sea and Indian Ocean routes through the 19th century comes to an estimated 11,500,000, "a figure not far short of the 11,863,000 estimated to have been loaded onto ships during the four centuries of the Atlantic slave trade." (Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformation in Slavery (CUP, 1983).</ref> and 14 million,<ref>Raymond Mauny estimates a total of 14 million black slaves were traded in Islam through the 20th Century, including 300,000 for part of the 20th century. (p.57, source: "Les Siecles obscurs de l'Afrique Noire (Paris: Fayard, 1970)]</ref><ref name="nyt-2015">{{cite news|last1=HOCHSCHILD|first1=ADAM|date=March 4, 2001|title=Human Cargo|agency=New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/01/03/04/reviews/010304.04hochsct.html|url-status=live|access-date=1 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171219112928/http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/03/04/reviews/010304.04hochsct.html|archive-date=19 December 2017|quote=Early on in ''Islam's Black Slaves,'' his history of slavery in the Muslim world, Ronald Segal cites some estimates. One scholar puts the rough total at 11.5 million slaves during more than a dozen centuries, and another at 14 million.}}</ref> while other estimates indicate a number between 12 and 15 million African slaves prior to the 20th century.<ref name="Beigbeder2006">{{cite book|last=Beigbeder|first=Yves|title=Judging War Crimes and Torture: French Justice and International Criminal Tribunals and Commissions (1940-2005)|date=2006|publisher=[[Company:Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|Martinus Nijhoff Publishers]]|isbn=978-90-04-15329-5|location=Leiden|page=42|quote=Historian Roger Botte estimates that Arab slave trade of Africans until the 20th century has involved from 12 to 15 million persons, with the active participation of African leaders.}}</ref>

According to John K. Thornton, Europeans usually bought enslaved people who were captured in [[Social:Endemic warfare|endemic warfare]] between African states.<ref name="Thornton, p. 112"/> Some Africans had made a business out of capturing Africans from neighboring ethnic groups or war captives and selling them.<ref name="Thornton, page 310">Thornton, p. 310.</ref> A reminder of this practice is documented in the Slave Trade Debates of England in the early 19th century: "All the old writers ... concur in stating not only that wars are entered into for the sole purpose of making slaves, but that they are fomented by Europeans, with a view to that object."<ref>''Slave Trade Debates 1806'', Colonial History Series, Dawsons of Pall Mall, London 1968, pp. 203–204.</ref> People living around the Niger River were transported from these markets to the coast and sold at European trading ports in exchange for [[Engineering:Musket|musket]]s and manufactured goods such as cloth or alcohol.<ref>Thornton, p. 45.</ref> However, the European demand for slaves provided a large new market for the already existing trade.<ref>Thornton, p. 94.</ref> While those held in slavery in their own region of Africa might hope to escape, those shipped away had little chance of returning to Africa.

===European colonization and slavery in West Africa===

Upon discovering new lands through their naval explorations, European colonisers soon began to migrate to and settle in lands outside their native continent. Off the coast of Africa, European migrants, under the directions of the [[History:Kingdom of Castile|Kingdom of Castile]], invaded and colonised the Canary Islands during the 15th century, where they converted much of the land to the production of wine and sugar. Along with this, they also captured native Canary Islanders, the Guanches, to use as slaves both on the Islands and across the Christian Mediterranean.<ref>Thornton 1998, pp. 28–29.</ref>

As historian John Thornton remarked, "the actual motivation for European expansion and for navigational breakthroughs was little more than to exploit the opportunity for immediate profits made by raiding and the seizure or purchase of trade commodities".<ref>Thornton 1998, p. 31.</ref> Using the Canary Islands as a naval base, Europeans, at the time primarily Portuguese traders, began to move their activities down the western coast of Africa, performing raids in which slaves would be captured to be later sold in the Mediterranean.<ref>Thornton 1998, pp. 29–31.</ref> Although initially successful in this venture, "it was not long before African naval forces were alerted to the new dangers, and the Portuguese [raiding] ships began to meet strong and effective resistance", with the crews of several of them being killed by African sailors, whose boats were better equipped at traversing the west African coasts and river systems.<ref>Thornton 1998, pp. 37.</ref>

By 1494, the Portuguese king had entered agreements with the rulers of several West African states that would allow trade between their respective peoples, enabling the Portuguese to "tap into" the "well-developed commercial economy in Africa ... without engaging in hostilities".<ref>Thornton 1998, p. 38.</ref> "Peaceful trade became the rule all along the African coast", although there were some rare exceptions when acts of aggression led to violence. For instance, Portuguese traders attempted to conquer the Bissagos Islands in 1535.<ref name="Thornton ,1998. p. 39">Thornton 1998, p. 39.</ref> In 1571 Portugal, supported by the Kingdom of Kongo, took control of the south-western region of Angola in order to secure its threatened economic interest in the area. Although Kongo later joined a coalition in 1591 to force the Portuguese out, Portugal had secured a foothold on the continent that it continued to occupy until the 20th century.<ref>Thornton 1998, p. 40.</ref> Despite these incidents of occasional violence between African and European forces, many African states ensured that any trade went on in their own terms, for instance, imposing custom duties on foreign ships. In 1525, the Kongolese King Afonso I seized a French vessel and its crew for illegally trading on his coast.<ref name="Thornton ,1998. p. 39" />

Historians have widely debated the nature of the relationship between these African kingdoms and the European traders. The Guyanese historian Walter Rodney (1972) has argued that it was an unequal relationship, with Africans being forced into a "colonial" trade with the more economically developed Europeans, exchanging raw materials and human resources (i.e. slaves) for manufactured goods. He argued that it was this economic trade agreement dating back to the 16th century that led to Africa being underdeveloped in his own time.<ref>Rodney 1972, pp. 95–113.</ref> These ideas were supported by other historians, including Ralph Austen (1987).<ref>Austen 1987, pp. 81–108.</ref> This idea of an unequal relationship was contested by John Thornton (1998), who argued that "the Atlantic slave trade was not nearly as critical to the African economy as these scholars believed" and that "African manufacturing [at this period] was more than capable of handling competition from preindustrial Europe".<ref>Thornton 1998, p. 44.</ref> However, Anne Bailey, commenting on Thornton's suggestion that Africans and Europeans were equal partners in the Atlantic slave trade, wrote:

{{blockquote|[T]o see Africans as partners implies equal terms and equal influence on the global and intercontinental processes of the trade. Africans had great influence on the continent itself, but they had no direct influence on the engines behind the trade in the capital firms, the shipping and insurance companies of Europe and America, or the plantation systems in Americas. They did not wield any influence on the building manufacturing centres of the West.<ref>Anne C. Bailey, [https://archive.org/details/africanvoicesofa00bail <!-- quote=Africans were equal partners. --> ''African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Beyond the Silence and the Shame''], Beacon Press, 2005, p. 62.</ref>}}

==16th, 17th, and 18th centuries==
[[File:Map of Meridian Line set under the Treaty of Tordesillas.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Map of Meridian Line set under the Treaty of Tordesillas]]thumb|''The Slave Trade'' by [[Auguste François Biard, 1840]]

A burial ground in Campeche, Mexico, suggests slaves had been brought there not long after Hernán Cortés completed the subjugation of Aztec and Mayan Mexico in the 16th century. The graveyard had been in use from approximately 1550 to the late 17th century.<ref>[http://www.livescience.com/history/060131_first_slaves.html "Skeletons Discovered: First African Slaves in New World"], 31 January 2006, LiveScience.com. Accessed September 27, 2006.</ref>

The Atlantic slave trade is customarily divided into two eras, known as the first and second Atlantic systems. Slightly more than 3% of the enslaved people exported from Africa were traded between 1525 and 1600, and 16% in the 17th century.

The first Atlantic system was the trade of enslaved Africans to, primarily, South American colonies of the Portuguese and Spanish empires. During the first Atlantic system, most of these traders were Portuguese, giving them a near-monopoly. Initially, the slaves were transported to Seville or Canary Islands, but from 1525, slaves were transported directly from the island of Sao Tomé across the Atlantic to Hispaniola.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.institutomora.edu.mx/Documentos_RHITMO/Atlantic-History-and-the-Slave-Trade-to-Spanish-America.pdf| title = Atlantic History and the Slave Trade to Spanish America by ALEX BORUCKI, DAVID ELTIS, AND DAVID WHEAT, p. 446, 457, 460}}</ref> Decisive was the Treaty of Tordesillas which did not allow Spanish ships in African ports. Spain had to rely on Portuguese ships and sailors to bring slaves across the Atlantic. Around 1560, the Portuguese began a regular slave trade to Brazil. From 1580 until 1640, Portugal was temporarily united with Spain in the Iberian Union. Most Portuguese contractors who obtained the asiento between 1580 and 1640 were conversos.<ref>{{cite book|last=Israel|first=Jonathan|title=Diasporas within the Diaspora. Jews, Crypto-Jews and the World Maritime Empires (1510–1740)|publisher=Brill|date=2002}}</ref> For Portuguese merchants, many of whom were "New Christians" or their descendants, the union of crowns presented commercial opportunities in the slave trade to Spanish America.<ref>Lockhart and Schwartz, ''Early Latin America'', p. 225, p. 250.</ref><ref>Arnold Wiznitzer, ''the Jews of Colonial Brazil''. New York: 1960.</ref>

Until the middle of the 17th century, Mexico was the largest single market for slaves in Spanish America.<ref name=rawley63>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UQcOo4csdzEC&pg=PA63 |title= The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History |first1=James A. |last1=Rawley |first2=Stephen D. |last2=Behrendt |  date= December 2005 |page=63 |isbn= 0-8032-0512-0 }}</ref> While the Portuguese were directly involved in trading enslaved peoples to Brazil, the Spanish Empire relied on the Asiento de Negros system, awarding (Catholic) Genoese merchant bankers the license to trade enslaved people from Africa to their colonies in Spanish America. Cartagena, Veracruz, Buenos Aires, and Hispaniola received the majority of slave arrivals, mainly from Angola.<ref>[https://www.institutomora.edu.mx/Documentos_RHITMO/Atlantic-History-and-the-Slave-Trade-to-Spanish-America.pdf Atlantic History and the Slave Trade to Spanish America by ALEX BORUCKI, DAVID ELTIS, AND DAVID WHEAT ], p. 437, 446</ref> This division of the slave trade between Spain and Portugal upset the British and the Dutch who invested in the British West Indies and Dutch Brazil producing sugar. After the Iberian Union fell apart, Spain prohibited Portugal from directly engaging in the slave trade as a carrier. According the Treaty of Munster the slave trade was opened for the traditional enemies of Spain, losing a large share of the trade to the Dutch, French, and English. For 150 years, Spanish transatlantic traffic was operating at trivial levels. In many years, not a single Spanish slave voyage set sail from Africa. Unlike all of their imperial competitors, the Spanish almost never delivered slaves to foreign territories. By contrast, the British, and the Dutch before them, sold slaves everywhere in the Americas.<ref>[https://www.institutomora.edu.mx/Documentos_RHITMO/Atlantic-History-and-the-Slave-Trade-to-Spanish-America.pdf Atlantic History and the Slave Trade to Spanish America by ALEX BORUCKI, DAVID ELTIS, AND DAVID WHEAT ], p. 453-4</ref>

The second Atlantic system was the trade of enslaved Africans by mostly English, French, and Dutch traders and investors.<ref>P.C. Emmer, ''The Dutch in the Atlantic Economy, 1580–1880. Trade, Slavery and Emancipation'' (1998), p. 17.</ref> The main destinations of this phase were the Caribbean islands Curaçao, Jamaica and Martinique, as European nations built up economically slave-dependent colonies in the New World.<ref>Klein 2010.</ref><ref>[https://www.institutomora.edu.mx/Documentos_RHITMO/Atlantic-History-and-the-Slave-Trade-to-Spanish-America.pdf Atlantic History and the Slave Trade to Spanish America by ALEX BORUCKI, DAVID ELTIS, AND DAVID WHEAT ], p. 443</ref> In 1672, the Royal Africa Company was founded. In 1674, the New West India Company became deeper involved in slave trade.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/africa_caribbean/docs/account_rac.htmThe| title = Royal African Company Trades for Commodities Along the West African Coast}}</ref> From 1677, the Compagnie du Sénégal, used Gorée to house the slaves. The Spanish proposed to get the slaves from Cape Verde, located closer to the demarcation line between the Spanish and Portuguese empire, but this was against the WIC-charter".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HGoyvMF7xw8C&pg=PA41 |title=The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1815 |first=Johannes |last=Postma |date=3 January 2008 |page=40 |isbn=978-0-521-04824-8 }}</ref> The Royal African Company usually refused to deliver slaves to Spanish colonies, though they did sell them to all comers from their factories in [[Place:Kingston, Jamaica|Kingston, Jamaica]] and Bridgetown, Barbados.<ref>[https://www.institutomora.edu.mx/Documentos_RHITMO/Atlantic-History-and-the-Slave-Trade-to-Spanish-America.pdf Atlantic History and the Slave Trade to Spanish America by ALEX BORUCKI, DAVID ELTIS, AND DAVID WHEAT ], p. 451</ref> In 1682, Spain allowed governors from Havana, Porto Bello, Panama, and Cartagena, Colombia to procure slaves from Jamaica.<ref name=rawley60>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UQcOo4csdzEC&pg=PA60 |title= The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History |first1=James A. |last1=Rawley |first2=Stephen D. |last2=Behrendt |date= December 2005 |page=60 |isbn= 0-8032-0512-0 }}</ref>
[[File:Island of Gorée, Senegal.jpg|thumb|Island of Gorée, Senegal.]]
[[File:William Hoare of Bath - Portrait of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, (1701-1773).jpg|thumb|upright|''Portrait of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (Job ben Solomon)'', painted by William Hoare in the 18th century]]

By the 1690s, the English were shipping the most slaves from West Africa.<ref>{{Harvnb|Hair|Law|1998|p=257}}.</ref> By the 18th century, Portuguese Angola had become again one of the principal sources of the Atlantic slave trade.<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Atlantic Slave Trade from Angola: A Port-by-Port Estimate of Slaves Embarked, 1701–1867|first=da Silva, Daniel B.|last=Domingues|date=1 January 2013|journal=The International Journal of African Historical Studies|volume=46|issue=1|pages = 105–122|jstor = 24393098}}</ref> After the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, as part of the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), the Asiento was granted to the [[Company:South Sea Company|South Sea Company]].<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.ehs.org.uk/ehs/conference2004/assets/paul.doc |title = The South Sea Company's slaving activities by Helen Paul, University of St. Andrews |archive-url=https://archive.today/20121209151433/http://www.ehs.org.uk/ehs/conference2004/assets/paul.doc |archive-date=9 December 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Despite the South Sea Bubble, the British maintained this position during the 18th century, becoming the biggest shippers of slaves across the Atlantic.<ref>{{Harvnb|Christopher|2006|p=6}}.</ref><ref name="Martin">{{cite book |last1=Meredith |first1=Martin |title=The Fortunes of Africa |date=2014 |publisher=PublicAffairs |location=New York |isbn=978-1-61039-635-6 |page=191}}</ref> It is estimated that more than half of the entire slave trade took place during the 18th century, with the British, Portuguese and French being the main carriers of nine out of ten slaves abducted in Africa.<ref>{{cite book | title=The Cambridge World History of Slavery | publisher=Cambridge University Press |author1=Keith Bradley |author2=Paul Cartledge | year=2011 | pages=583 | isbn=978-0-521-84066-8}}</ref>  At the time, slave trading was regarded as crucial to Europe's maritime economy, as noted by one English slave trader: "What a glorious and advantageous trade this is ... It is the hinge on which all the trade of this globe moves."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20090417104348/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/books/review/Hochschild-t.html Voyage of the Damned], {{wipe|The New York Times}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| url = https://www.google.com/books/edition/Dr_H_s_Memoirs_of_his_own_Life_time_coll/WV5iAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA148| title = Dr H.'s Memoirs of his own Life time| year = 1747}}</ref>

Meanwhile, it became a business for [[Finance:Privately held company#Privately owned enterprise|privately owned enterprises]], reducing international complications.<ref name=rawley63/> After 1790, by contrast, captains typically checked out slave prices in at least two of the major markets of Kingston, Havana, and Charleston, South Carolina (where prices by then were similar) before deciding where to sell.<ref>[https://www.institutomora.edu.mx/Documentos_RHITMO/Atlantic-History-and-the-Slave-Trade-to-Spanish-America.pdf Atlantic History and the Slave Trade to Spanish America by ALEX BORUCKI, DAVID ELTIS, AND DAVID WHEAT ], p. 43?</ref> For the last sixteen years of the transatlantic slave trade, Spain was the only transatlantic slave-trading empire.<ref>[https://www.institutomora.edu.mx/Documentos_RHITMO/Atlantic-History-and-the-Slave-Trade-to-Spanish-America.pdf Atlantic History and the Slave Trade to Spanish America by ALEX BORUCKI, DAVID ELTIS, AND DAVID WHEAT ], p. 457</ref>

Following the British and United States' bans on the African slave trade in 1807, it declined, but the period after still accounted for 28.5% of the total volume of the Atlantic slave trade.<ref>Lovejoy, Paul E., "The Volume of the Atlantic Slave Trade. A Synthesis". In: Northrup, David (ed.): ''The Atlantic Slave Trade''. D.C. Heath and Company, 1994.</ref>  Between 1810 and 1860, over 3.5 million slaves were transported, with 850,000 in the 1820s.<ref name=Martin/>{{rp|193}}

===Triangular trade===

The first side of the triangle was the export of goods from Europe to Africa. A number of African kings and merchants took part in the trading of enslaved people from 1440 to about 1833. For each captive, the African rulers would receive a variety of goods from Europe. These included guns, ammunition, alcohol, [[Chemistry:Indigo dye#History|indigo dyed]] Indian textiles, and other factory-made goods.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2013-06-27|title=Indian cotton textiles in the eighteenth-century Atlantic economy|url=https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2013/06/27/indian-cotton-textiles-in-the-eighteenth-century-atlantic-economy/|access-date=2020-09-09|website=South Asia@LSE}}</ref> The second leg of the triangle exported enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas and the Caribbean Islands. The third and final part of the triangle was the return of goods to Europe from the Americas. The goods were the products of slave plantations and included cotton, sugar, tobacco, [[Chemistry:Molasses|molasses]] and rum.<ref name=Inikori>{{cite book |title=The Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Economies, Societies and Peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe |first1=Joseph E. |last1=Inikori |first2=Stanley L. |last2=Engerman}}</ref> Sir John Hawkins, considered the pioneer of the English slave trade, was the first to run the triangular trade, making a profit at every stop.

===Labour and slavery===
[[File:BLAKE10.JPG|thumb|left|upright|Wedgwood anti-slavery medallion, produced in 1787 by Josiah Wedgwood]]

The Atlantic slave trade was the result of, among other things, labour shortage, itself in turn created by the desire of European colonists to exploit New World land and resources for capital profits. Native peoples were at first utilized as slave labour by Europeans until a large number died from overwork and [[Earth:Old World|Old World]] diseases.<ref>{{cite web|title=Smallpox Through History |url=http://encarta.msn.com/media_701508643/Smallpox_Through_History.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091029184350/http://encarta.msn.com/media_701508643/Smallpox_Through_History.html |archive-date=2009-10-29 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Alternative sources of labour, such as indentured servitude, failed to provide a sufficient workforce. Many crops could not be sold for profit, or even grown, in Europe. Exporting crops and goods from the New World to Europe often proved to be more profitable than producing them on the European mainland. A vast amount of labour was needed to create and sustain plantations that required intensive labour to grow, harvest, and process prized tropical crops. Western Africa (part of which became known as "the [[Place:Slave Coast of West Africa|Slave Coast]]"), Angola and nearby Kingdoms and later [[Place:Central Africa|Central Africa]], became the source for enslaved people to meet the demand for labour.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.africafederation.net/Kongo_History.htm|title=History Kingdom of Kongo|website=www.africafederation.net}}</ref>

The basic reason for the constant shortage of labour was that, with much cheap land available and many landowners searching for workers, free European immigrants were able to become landowners themselves relatively quickly, thus increasing the need for workers.<ref>Solow, Barbara (ed.) (1991). ''Slavery and the Rise of the Atlantic System'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,{{ISBN?}}</ref>

Thomas Jefferson attributed the use of slave labour in part to the climate, and the consequent idle leisure afforded by slave labour: "For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefVirg.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=18&division=div1|title=''Notes on the State of Virginia'' Query 18.}}</ref> In a 2015 paper, economist Elena Esposito argued that the enslavement of Africans in colonial America was attributable to the fact that the American south was sufficiently warm and humid for malaria to thrive; the disease had debilitating effects on the European settlers. Conversely, many enslaved Africans were taken from regions of Africa which hosted particularly potent strains of the disease, so the Africans had already developed natural resistance to malaria. This, Esposito argued, resulted in higher malaria survival rates in the American south among enslaved Africans than among European labourers, making them a more profitable source of labour and encouraging their use.<ref>{{cite thesis |last=Esposito |first=Elena |url=http://eh.net/eha/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Esposito.pdf |title=Side Effects of Immunities: the African Slave Trade |type=Working Paper |date=2015 |publisher=Economic History Association |access-date=May 7, 2019 |archive-date=November 12, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201112014228/https://eh.net/eha/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Esposito.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Historian David Eltis argues that Africans were enslaved because of cultural beliefs in Europe that prohibited the enslavement of cultural insiders, even if there was a source of labour that could be enslaved (such as convicts, prisoners of war and vagrants). Eltis argues that traditional beliefs existed in Europe against enslaving Christians (few Europeans not being Christian at the time) and those slaves that existed in Europe tended to be non-Christians and their immediate descendants (since a slave converting to Christianity did not guarantee emancipation) and thus by the fifteenth century Europeans as a whole came to be regarded as insiders. Eltis argues that while all slave societies have demarked insiders and outsiders, Europeans took this process further by extending the status of insider to the entire European continent, rendering it unthinkable to enslave a European since this would require enslaving an insider. Conversely, Africans were viewed as outsiders and thus qualified for enslavement. While Europeans may have treated some types of labour, such as convict labour, with conditions similar to that of slaves, these labourers would not be regarded as chattel and their progeny could not inherit their subordinate status, thus not making them slaves in the eyes of Europeans. The status of chattel slavery was thus confined to non-Europeans, such as Africans.<ref>Eltis, David. The rise of African slavery in the Americas. Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp.59-84, 224</ref>

===African participation in the slave trade===
[[File:Marchands d'esclaves de Gorée-Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur mg 8526.jpg|thumb|upright|Slave traders in Gorée, Senegal, 18th century.]]
Africans played a direct role in the slave trade, kidnapping adults and stealing children for the purpose of selling them, through intermediaries, to Europeans or their agents.<ref name=afbis>{{cite journal|url=http://www.afbis.com/analysis/slave.htm |title=Slave trade: a root of contemporary African Crisis|journal=Africa Economic Analysis|year=2000|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120502172215/http://www.afbis.com/analysis/slave.htm|archive-date=2012-05-02|last=Obadina|first=Tunde}}</ref> Those sold into slavery were usually from a different ethnic group than those who captured them, whether enemies or just neighbors.{{citation needed|date=September 2015}} These captive slaves were considered "other", not part of the people of the ethnic group or "tribe"; African kings were only interested in protecting their own ethnic group, but sometimes criminals would be sold to get rid of them. Most other slaves were obtained from kidnappings, or through raids that occurred at gunpoint through joint ventures with the Europeans.<ref name=afbis/>

According to Pernille Ipsen, author of ''Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast,'' Africans from the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) also participated in the slave trade through intermarriage, or ''[[Social:Cassare|cassare]]'' (taken from Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese), meaning 'to set up house'. It is derived from the Portuguese word 'casar', meaning 'to marry'. ''Cassare'' formed political and economic bonds between European and African slave traders. ''Cassare'' was a pre-European-contact practice used to integrate the "other" from a differing African tribe. Early on in the Atlantic slave trade, it was common for the powerful elite West African families to marry off their women to the European traders in alliance, bolstering their syndicate. The marriages were even performed using African customs, which Europeans did not object to, seeing how important the connections were.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ipsen|first1=Pernille|title=Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast|date=2015|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=978-0-8122-4673-5|pages=1, 21, 31}}</ref>

===African awareness of the conditions of the slave trade===
It is difficult to reconstruct and generalize how Africans residing in Africa understood the Atlantic slave trade, though there is evidence for some societies that African elites and slave traders had awareness of the conditions of the slaves who were transported to the Americas.<ref name ="law">{{cite book |last1=Law |first1=Robin |title=Ouidah : the social history of a West African slaving 'port', 1727-1892 |date=2004 |publisher=Ohio University Press |location=Athens, Ohio |isbn=978-0-8214-1572-6 |page=148-149}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Sparks |first1=Randy J. |title=Where the Negroes are masters : an African port in the era of the slave trade |date=2014 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |isbn=978-0-674-72487-7 |page=243}}</ref> According to Robin Law, the royal elites of the kingdom of [[History:Dahomey|Dahomey]] must have had an "informed understanding" of the fates of the Africans they sold into slavery. <ref name = "law"/> Dahomey sent diplomats to Brazil and Portugal who returned with information about their trips.<ref name = "law"/> In addition, a few royal elites of Dahomey had experienced slavery for themselves in the Americas before returning to their homeland. <ref name = "law"/> The only apparent moral issue that the kingdom had with slavery was the enslavement of fellow Dahomeyans, an offense punishable by death, rather than the institution of slavery itself.<ref name = "law"/>

On the Gold Coast, it was common for slave-trading African rulers to encourage their children to learn about Europeans by sending them to sail on European ships, live inside European forts, or travel to Europe or America for an education.<ref name="sparks">{{cite book |last1=Sparks |first1=Randy J. |title=Where the Negroes are masters : an African port in the era of the slave trade |date=2014 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |isbn=978-0-674-72487-7 |pages=186–197}}</ref> Diplomats also traveled to European capital cities. The elites even rescued fellow elites who were tricked into slavery in the Americas by sending demands to the Dutch and the British governments, who complied due to fears of reduced trade and physical harm to hostages.<ref name="sparks"/> An example is the case of William Ansah Sessarakoo, who was rescued from slavery in Barbados after being recognised by a visiting slave trader of the same Fante ethnic group, and later became a slave trader himself.<ref>{{cite web |title=William Ansah Sessarakoo, Slave Trader born |url=https://aaregistry.org/story/william-ansah-sessarakoo-merchant-born/ |website=African American Registry |language=en}}</ref> 

Fenda Lawrence was a slave trader from the Gambia who lived and traded in Georgia and South Carolina as a free person.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Akyeampong|first1=Emmanuel Kwaku|last2=Gates|first2=Henry Louis Jr.|title=Dictionary of African Biography|date=2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0-19-538207-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=39JMAgAAQBAJ&q=Fenda+Lawrence&pg=RA2-PA475}}</ref>

A common assumption by Africans who were unaware of the true purpose of the Atlantic slave trade was that the Europeans were cannibals who planned on cooking and eating their captives.<ref name="thornton"/> This rumour was a common source of significant distress for enslaved Africans.<ref name="thornton">{{cite book |last1=Thornton |first1=John K. |title=Africa and Africans in the making of the Atlantic world, 1400-1800 |date=1998 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0-521-62724-5 |page=316 |edition=Second |ref=thornton}}</ref>

===European participation in the slave trade===
Europeans provided the market for slaves, rarely traveling beyond the coast or entering the African interior, due to fear of disease and native resistance.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24159|title=Historical survey > The international slave trade.}}</ref> They typically resided in fortresses on the coasts, where they waited for Africans to provide them captured slaves from the interior in exchange for goods. Cases of European merchants kidnapping free Africans into slavery often resulted in fierce retaliation from Africans, who stopped trade or captured or killed Europeans.<ref name = "spark">{{cite book |last1=Sparks |first1=Randy J. |title=Where the Negroes are masters : an African port in the era of the slave trade |date=2014 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |isbn=978-0-674-72487-7 |page=46}}</ref> Europeans who desired safe and uninterrupted trade aimed to prevent kidnapping incidents, and the British passed the "Acts of Parliament for Regulating the Slave Trade" in 1750 which outlawed the abduction of free Africans by "fraud, force, or violence".<ref name="spark"/> In parts of Africa, convicted criminals could be punished by enslavement, a punishment which became more prevalent as slavery became more lucrative. Since most of these nations did not have a prison system, convicts were often sold or used in the scattered local domestic slave market.{{citation needed|date=September 2015}}
[[File:The inspection and sale of a slave.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|A slave being inspected]]
In 1778, Thomas Kitchin estimated that Europeans were bringing an estimated 52,000 slaves to the Caribbean yearly, with the French bringing the most Africans to the French West Indies (13,000 out of the yearly estimate).<ref name=Kitchin1>{{cite book|last=Kitchin|first=Thomas|title=The Present State of the West-Indies: Containing an Accurate Description of What Parts Are Possessed by the Several Powers in Europe|year=1778|publisher=R. Baldwin|location=London|page=21|url=http://www.wdl.org/en/item/4397/view/1/21/}}</ref> The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the last two decades of the 18th century,<ref>Thornton, p. 304.</ref> during and following the Kongo Civil War.<ref>Thornton, p. 305.</ref> Wars among tiny states along the Niger River's Igbo-inhabited region and the accompanying banditry also spiked in this period.<ref name="Thornton, page 310" /> Another reason for surplus supply of enslaved people was major warfare conducted by expanding states, such as the kingdom of Dahomey,<ref>Thornton, p. 311.</ref> the Oyo Empire, and the Ashanti Empire.<ref>Thornton, p. 122.</ref>

===Slavery in Africa and the New World contrasted===
Forms of slavery varied both in Africa and in the New World. In general, slavery in Africa was not heritable—that is, the children of slaves were free—while in the Americas, children of slave mothers were considered born into slavery. This was connected to another distinction: slavery in West Africa was not reserved for racial or religious minorities, as it was in European colonies, although the case was otherwise in places such as Somalia, where Bantus were taken as slaves for the ethnic Somalis.<ref>Howard Winant (2001), ''The World is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy Since World War II'', Basic Books, p. 58.</ref><ref>Catherine Lowe Besteman, ''Unraveling Somalia: Race, Class, and the Legacy of Slavery'' (University of Pennsylvania Press: 1999), pp. 83–84.</ref>

The treatment of slaves in Africa was more variable than in the Americas. At one extreme, the kings of Dahomey routinely slaughtered slaves in hundreds or thousands in sacrificial rituals, and slaves as human sacrifices were also known in Cameroon.<ref>Kevin Shillington, ed. (2005), ''Encyclopedia of African History,'' CRC Press, vol. 1, pp. 333–334; Nicolas Argenti (2007), ''The Intestines of the State: Youth, Violence and Belated Histories in the Cameroon Grassfields'', University of Chicago Press, p. 42.</ref> On the other hand, slaves in other places were often treated as part of the family, "adopted children", with significant rights including the right to marry without their masters' permission.<ref>[http://www.accessgambia.com/information/slave-treatment-rights-privileges.html Rights & Treatment of Slaves] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101223234940/http://accessgambia.com/information/slave-treatment-rights-privileges.html |date=2010-12-23 }}. Gambia Information Site.</ref> Scottish explorer Mungo Park wrote:

{{blockquote|The slaves in Africa, I suppose, are nearly in the proportion of three to one to the freemen. They claim no reward for their services except food and clothing, and are treated with kindness or severity, according to the good or bad disposition of their masters ... The slaves which are thus brought from the interior may be divided into two distinct classes—first, such as were slaves from their birth, having been born of enslaved mothers; secondly, such as were born free, but who afterwards, by whatever means, became slaves. Those of the first description are by far the most numerous ...<ref>Mungo Park, ''Travels in the Interior of Africa'' [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5305 v. II, Chapter XXII – War and Slavery.]</ref>}}

In the Americas, slaves were denied the right to marry freely and masters did not generally accept them as equal members of the family. New World slaves were considered the property of their owners, and slaves convicted of revolt or murder were executed.<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/negroplot/plotchronology.html The Negro Plot Trials: A Chronology.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100722115800/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/negroplot/plotchronology.html |date=2010-07-22 }}</ref>

===Slave market regions and participation===
[[File:Africa slave Regions.svg|thumb|upright=1.2|Major slave trading regions of Africa, 15th–19th centuries]]
Europeans would buy and ship slaves to the Western Hemisphere from markets across West Africa. The number of enslaved people sold to the New World varied throughout the slave trade. As for the distribution of slaves from regions of activity, certain areas produced far more enslaved people than others. Between 1650 and 1900, 10.2&nbsp;million enslaved Africans arrived in the Americas from the following regions in the following proportions:<ref name="Lovejoy">Lovejoy, Paul E. ''Transformations in Slavery''. Cambridge University Press, 2000.</ref>
* Senegambia (Senegal and the Gambia): 4.8%
* Upper Guinea (Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Sierra Leone): 4.1%
* [[Place:Pepper Coast|Windward Coast]] (Liberia and Ivory Coast): 1.8%
* Gold Coast (Ghana and east of Ivory Coast): 10.4%
* Bight of Benin (Togo, Benin and Nigeria west of the Niger Delta): 20.2%
* [[Place:Bight of Biafra|Bight of Biafra]] (Nigeria east of the Niger Delta, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon): 14.6%
* West Central Africa (Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola): 39.4%
* Southeastern Africa (Mozambique and {{wipe|Madagascar}}): 4.7%

Although the slave trade was largely global, there was considerable intracontinental slave trade in which 8 million people were enslaved within the African continent.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|title=The Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Economies, Societies and Peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe|last=Inikori|first=Joseph|publisher=Duke University Press|year=1992|pages=120}}</ref> Of those who did move out of Africa, 8 million were forced out of Eastern Africa to be sent to Asia.<ref name=":2" />

===African kingdoms of the era===

There were over 173 city-states and kingdoms in the African regions affected by the slave trade between 1502 and 1853, when Brazil became the last Atlantic import nation to outlaw the slave trade. Of those 173, no fewer than 68 could be deemed nation states with political and military infrastructures that enabled them to dominate their neighbours. Nearly every present-day nation had a pre-colonial predecessor, sometimes an African empire with which European traders had to barter.

====Ethnic groups====
The different ethnic groups brought to the Americas closely correspond to the regions of heaviest activity in the slave trade. Over 45 distinct ethnic groups were taken to the Americas during the trade. Of the 45, the ten most prominent, according to slave documentation of the era are listed below.<ref name="Hall">{{cite book|last1= Hall |first1= Gwendolyn Midlo |title= Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas |url= http://uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=742 |access-date= 2011-01-24 |year= 2007 |publisher= University of North Carolina Press |isbn= 978-0-8078-5862-2 |page= {{page needed|date=January 2011}} }}</ref>
# The BaKongo of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of the Congo and Angola
# The Mandé of Upper Guinea
# The Gbe speakers of Togo, Ghana, and Benin (Adja, Mina, Ewe, Fon)
# The Akan of Ghana and Ivory Coast
# The Wolof of Senegal and the Gambia
# The Igbo of southeastern Nigeria
# The Mbundu of Angola (includes both Ambundu and Ovimbundu)
# The Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria
# The Chamba of Cameroon
# The Makua of Mozambique

==Human toll==
[[File:African_Slave_Trade.png|thumb|upright=1.2|Slave trade out of Africa, 1500–1900]]
The transatlantic slave trade resulted in a vast and as yet unknown loss of life for African captives both in and outside the Americas. "More than a million people are thought to have died" during their transport to the [[Earth:New World|New World]] according to a BBC report.<ref name="news.bbc.co.uk">[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6445941.stm Quick guide: The slave trade; Who were the slaves?] BBC News, 15 March 2007.</ref> More died soon after their arrival. The number of lives lost in the procurement of slaves remains a mystery but may equal or exceed the number who survived to be enslaved.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

The trade led to the destruction of individuals and cultures. Historian Ana Lucia Araujo has noted that the process of enslavement did not end with arrival on Western Hemisphere shores; the different paths taken by the individuals and groups who were victims of the Atlantic slave trade were influenced by different factors—including the disembarking region, the ability to be sold on the market, the kind of work performed, gender, age, religion, and language.<ref>''Paths of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Interactions, Identities, and Images''.</ref><ref name="FreedmensInquiry">American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission report, page 43-44</ref>

Patrick Manning estimates that about 12 million slaves entered the Atlantic trade between the 16th and 19th century, but about 1.5 million died on board ship. About 10.5 million slaves arrived in the Americas. Besides the slaves who died on the Middle Passage, more Africans likely died during the slave raids and wars in Africa and forced marches to ports. Manning estimates that 4 million died inside Africa after capture, and many more died young. Manning's estimate covers the 12 million who were originally destined for the Atlantic, as well as the 6 million destined for Asian slave markets and the 8 million destined for African markets.<ref name="online at pp. 119–120"/> Of the slaves shipped to the Americas, the largest share went to Brazil and the Caribbean.<ref>Maddison, Angus. ''Contours of the world economy 1–2030 AD: Essays in macro-economic history''. Oxford University Press, 2007.</ref>

Canadian scholar [[Biography:Adam Jones (Canadian scholar)|Adam Jones]] characterized the deaths of millions of Africans during the Atlantic slave trade as genocide. He called it "one of the worst holocausts in human history", and claims arguments to the contrary such as "it was in slave owners' interest to keep slaves alive, not exterminate them" to be "mostly sophistry" stating: "the killing and destruction were intentional, whatever the incentives to preserve survivors of the Atlantic passage for labour exploitation. To revisit the issue of intent already touched on: If an institution is deliberately maintained and expanded by discernible agents, though all are aware of the hecatombs of casualties it is inflicting on a definable human group, then why should this not qualify as genocide?"<ref>Jones, Adam (2006). Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Publishers. pp. 23-24 ISBN 978-0-415-35385-4.</ref>

Saidiya Hartman has argued that the deaths of enslaved people was incidental to the acquisition of profit and to the rise of capitalism: "Death wasn't a goal of its own but just a by-product of commerce, which has the lasting effect of making negligible all the millions of lives lost. Incidental death occurs when life has no normative value, when no humans are involved, when the population is, in effect, seen as already dead."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hartman|first=Saidiya V.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1255859695|title=Lose your mother : a journey along the Atlantic slave route|date=2021|isbn=978-1-78816-814-4|location=London|oclc=1255859695|page=31}}</ref> Hartman highlights how the Atlantic slave trade created millions of corpses but, unlike the concentration camp or the gulag, extermination was not the final objective; it was a corollary to the making of commodities.

===Destinations and flags of carriers ===
Most of the Atlantic slave trade was carried out by seven nations and most of the slaves were carried to their own colonies in the new world. But there was also significant other trading which is shown in the table below.<ref>{{cite web |title=Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade – Estimates |url=https://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates |website=slavevoyages |access-date=5 February 2021}}</ref> The records are not complete, and some data is uncertain. The last rows show that there were also smaller numbers of slaves carried to Europe and to other parts of Africa, and at least 1.8 million did not survive the journey and were buried at sea with little ceremony.
 
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:right;"
|+ Flag of vessels carrying the slaves
|-
!scope="col"| Destination
!scope="col"| Portuguese
!scope="col"| British
!scope="col"| French
!scope="col"| Spanish
!scope="col"| Dutch
!scope="col"| American
!scope="col"| Danish
!scope="col"| Total
|-
!scope="row"| Portuguese Brazil
| 4,821,127 || 3,804 || 9,402 || 1,033 || 27,702 || 1,174 || 130 || 4,864,372
|-
!scope="row"| British Caribbean
| 7,919 || 2,208,296 || 22,920 || 5,795 || 6,996 || 64,836 || 1,489 || 2,318,251
|-
!scope="row"| French Caribbean
| 2,562 || 90,984 || 1,003,905 || 725 || 12,736 || 6,242 || 3,062 || 1,120,216
|-
!scope="row"| [[Place:Hispanic America|Spanish Americas]]
| 195,482 || 103,009 || 92,944 || 808,851 || 24,197 || 54,901 || 13,527 || 1,292,911
|-
!scope="row"| Dutch Americas
| 500 || 32,446 || 5,189 || 0 || 392,022 || 9,574 || 4,998 || 444,729
|-
!scope="row"| {{wipe|United States}}
| 382 || 264,910 || 8,877 || 1,851 || 1,212 || 110,532 || 983 || 388,747
|-
!scope="row"| Danish West Indies
| 0 || 25,594 || 7,782 || 277 || 5,161 || 2,799 || 67,385 || 108,998
|-
!scope="row"| [[Earth:Europe|Europe]]
| 2,636 || 3,438 || 664 || 0 || 2,004 || 119 || 0 || 8,861
|-
!scope="row"| Africa
| 69,206 || 841 || 13,282 || 66,391 || 3,210 || 2,476 || 162 || 155,568
|-
!scope="row"| ''did not arrive''
| 748,452 || 526,121 || 216,439 || 176,601 || 79,096 || 52,673 || 19,304 || 1,818,686
|-style="font-weight:bold;"
!scope="row"| '''Total'''
| 5,848,266
| 3,259,443
| 1,381,404
| 1,061,524
| 554,336
| 305,326
| 111,040
| 12,521,339
|}

The timeline chart when the different nations transported most of their slaves.
[[File:Slaves transported per 25 year period by 6 nations.png|thumb|center|400px]]
{{clear}}

The regions of Africa from which these slaves were taken is given in the following table, from the same source.<!-- as what? Which source?? -->
{| class="wikitable sortable" style=text-align:right;
|+ Source of slaves, by region
!scope="col"| Region
!scope="col"| Embarked
!scope="col"| Disembarked
!scope="col"| ''did not arrive''
!scope="col"| ''% did not arrive''
|-
!scope="row"| Angola Coast, [[History:Loango slavery harbour|Loango coast]] and St. Helena 
| 5,694,570
| 4,955,430
| 739,140
| 12.98%
|-
!scope="row"| Bight of Benin 
| 1,999,060
| 1,724,834
| 274,226
| 13.72%
|-
!scope="row"| [[Place:Bight of Biafra|Bight of Biafra]] 
| 1,594,564
| 1,317,776
| 276,788
| 17.36%
|-
!scope="row"| [[Place:Gold Coast (region)|Gold Coast]] 
| 1,209,322
| 1,030,917
| 178,405
| 14.75%
|-
!scope="row"| Senegambia and off-shore Atlantic 
| 755,515
| 611,017
| 144,498
| 19.13%
|-
!scope="row"| [[Place:Southeast Africa|Southeast Africa]] and Indian ocean islands 
| 542,668
| 436,529
| 106,139
| 19.56%
|-
!scope="row"| Sierra Leone 
| 388,771
| 338,783
| 49,988
| 12.87%
|-
!scope="row"| Windward Coast 
| 336,869
| 287,366
| 49,503
| 14.70%
|-style="font-weight:bold;"
!scope="row"| '''Total'''
| 12,521,339
| 10,702,652
| 1,818,687
| 14.52%
|}

===African conflicts===
[[File:Slave ship diagram.png|right|thumb|Diagram of a slave ship from the Atlantic slave trade. From an Abstract of Evidence delivered before a select committee of the House of Commons in 1790 and 1791.]]
[[File:Thomas-Clarkson-De-kreet-der-Afrikanen MG 1315.tif|thumb|Diagram of a large slave ship. Thomas Clarkson: ''The cries of Africa to the inhabitants of Europe'', c. 1822]]
According to Kimani Nehusi, the presence of European slavers affected the way in which the legal code in African societies responded to offenders. Crimes traditionally punishable by some other form of punishment became punishable by enslavement and sale to slave traders.{{citation needed|date=September 2015}} According to David Stannard's ''American Holocaust'', 50% of African deaths occurred in Africa as a result of wars between native kingdoms, which produced the majority of slaves.<ref name="ReferenceA" /> This includes not only those who died in battles but also those who died as a result of forced marches from inland areas to slave ports on the various coasts.<ref name="Gomez">Gomez, Michael A. ''Exchanging Our Country Marks''. Chapel Hill, 1998</ref> The practice of enslaving enemy combatants and their villages was widespread throughout Western and West Central Africa, although wars were rarely started to procure slaves. The slave trade was largely a by-product of tribal and state warfare as a way of removing potential dissidents after victory or financing future wars.<ref>Thornton, John. ''Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800'', Cambridge University Press, 1998.</ref> However, some African groups proved particularly adept and brutal at the practice of enslaving, such as Bono State, Oyo, [[History:Kingdom of Benin|Benin]], Igala, Kaabu, Ashanti, [[History:Dahomey|Dahomey]], the Aro Confederacy and the Imbangala war bands.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Peterson|first1=Derek R.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Om12BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA113 |title=The Politics of Heritage in Africa|last2=Gavua|first2=Kodzo|last3=Rassool|first3=Ciraj|date=2015-03-02|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-09485-7|language=en}}</ref><ref>Stride, G. T., and C. Ifeka. ''Peoples and Empires of West Africa: West Africa in History 1000–1800''. Nelson, 1986.</ref>

In letters written by the Manikongo, Nzinga Mbemba Afonso, to the King João III of Portugal, he writes that Portuguese merchandise flowing in is what is fueling the trade in Africans. He requests the King of Portugal to stop sending merchandise but should only send missionaries. In one of his letters he writes:

{{blockquote|Each day the traders are kidnapping our people—children of this country, sons of our nobles and vassals, even people of our own family. This corruption and depravity are so widespread that our land is entirely depopulated. We need in this kingdom only priests and schoolteachers, and no merchandise, unless it is wine and flour for Mass. It is our wish that this Kingdom not be a place for the trade or transport of slaves ...

Many of our subjects eagerly lust after Portuguese merchandise that your subjects have brought into our domains. To satisfy this inordinate appetite, they seize many of our black free subjects ... They sell them. After having taken these prisoners [to the coast] secretly or at night ... As soon as the captives are in the hands of white men they are branded with a red-hot iron.<ref name="Adam Hochschild 1998">{{cite book |title=King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa|first=Adam|last=Hochschild |isbn=0-618-00190-5|year=1998|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Books|title-link=King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa}}</ref>}}

Before the arrival of the Portuguese, slavery had already existed in the Kingdom of Kongo. Afonso I of Kongo believed that the slave trade should be subject to Kongo law. When he suspected the Portuguese of receiving illegally enslaved persons to sell, he wrote to King João III in 1526 imploring him to put a stop to the practice.<ref>[http://www.millersville.edu/~winthrop/Thornton.html Winthrop, reading by John Thornton, "African Political Ethics and the Slave Trade"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100316075617/http://www.millersville.edu/~winthrop/Thornton.html |date=March 16, 2010 }}, Millersville College.</ref>

The kings of [[History:Dahomey|Dahomey]] sold war captives into transatlantic slavery; they would otherwise have been killed in a ceremony known as the Annual Customs. As one of West Africa's principal slave states, Dahomey became extremely unpopular with neighbouring peoples.<ref>[http://www.museeouidah.org/Theme-Dahomey.htm Museum Theme: The Kingdom of Dahomey], Musee Ouidah.</ref><ref>[https://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-149772/Dahomey "Dahomey (historical kingdom, Africa)"], ''Encyclopædia Britannica''.</ref><ref>[http://www.finalcall.com/national/slave_trade10-08-2002.htm "Benin seeks forgiveness for role in slave trade"], ''Final Call'', 8 October 2002.</ref> Like the Bambara Empire to the east, the Khasso kingdoms depended heavily on the slave trade for their economy. A family's status was indicated by the number of slaves it owned, leading to wars for the sole purpose of taking more captives. This trade led the Khasso into increasing contact with the [[Earth:Europe|Europe]]an settlements of Africa's west coast, particularly the French.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.histoire-afrique.org/article76.html?artsuite=5|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111201193105/http://www.histoire-afrique.org/article76.html?artsuite=5|url-status=dead|title=Le Mali précolonial.|archive-date=December 1, 2011}}</ref> Benin grew increasingly rich during the 16th and 17th centuries on the slave trade with Europe; slaves from enemy states of the interior were sold and carried to the Americas in Dutch and Portuguese ships. The Bight of Benin's shore soon came to be known as the "Slave Coast".<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/4chapter7.shtml ''The Story of Africa''], BBC.</ref>

King Gezo of [[History:Dahomey|Dahomey]] said in the 1840s:

{{blockquote|The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth ... the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery ...<ref>{{cite magazine |title=The Editor's Shanty |magazine=The Anglo-American Magazine |date=July–December 1854 |volume=V |page=94 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qDQiAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA94 |access-date=2 July 2014}}</ref><ref name="BBCAfrican" />}}

In 1807, the UK Parliament passed the Bill that abolished the trading of slaves. The King of Bonny (now in Nigeria) was horrified at the conclusion of the practice:

{{blockquote|We think this trade must go on. That is the verdict of our oracle and the priests. They say that your country, however great, can never stop a trade ordained by God himself.<ref name="BBCAfrican">[https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/9chapter2.shtml African Slave Owners], BBC.</ref>}}

===Port factories===
After being marched to the coast for sale, enslaved people were held in large forts called factories. The amount of time in factories varied, but Milton Meltzer states in ''Slavery: A World History'' that around 4.5% of deaths attributed to the transatlantic slave trade occurred during this phase.<ref name = dup2/> In other words, over 820,000 people are believed to have died in African ports such as [[Place:Benguela|Benguela]], Elmina, and Bonny, reducing the number of those shipped to 17.5&nbsp;million.<ref name=dup2>Meltzer, Milton. ''Slavery: A World History''. Da Capo Press, 1993.</ref>

===Atlantic shipment===
[[File:A Liverpool Slave Ship by William Jackson.jpg|thumb|upright|''A Liverpool Slave Ship'' by William Jackson. Merseyside Maritime Museum]]
After being captured and held in the factories, slaves entered the infamous Middle Passage. Meltzer's research puts this phase of the slave trade's overall mortality at 12.5%.<ref name="dup2" /> Their deaths were the result of brutal treatment and poor care from the time of their capture and throughout their voyage.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Wolfe|first1=Brendan|title=Slave Ships and the Middle Passage|url=http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Slave_Ships_and_the_Middle_Passage|website=encyclopediavirginia.org|access-date=24 March 2016}}</ref> Around 2.2&nbsp;million Africans died during these voyages, where they were packed into tight, unsanitary spaces on ships for months at a time.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Duquette|first=Nicolas J.|date=June 2014|title=Revealing the Relationship Between Ship Crowding and Slave Mortality|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050714000357/type/journal_article|journal=The Journal of Economic History|language=en|volume=74|issue=2|pages=535–552|doi=10.1017/S0022050714000357|s2cid=59449310|issn=0022-0507}}</ref> Measures were taken to stem the onboard mortality rate, such as enforced "dancing" (as exercise) above deck and the practice of force-feeding enslaved persons who tried to starve themselves.<ref name="Gomez" /> The conditions on board also resulted in the spread of fatal diseases. Other fatalities were suicides, slaves who escaped by jumping overboard.<ref name="Gomez" /> The slave traders would try to fit anywhere from 350 to 600 slaves on one ship. Before the African slave trade was completely banned by participating nations in 1853, 15.3&nbsp;million enslaved people had arrived in the Americas.

Raymond L. Cohn, an economics professor whose research has focused on [[Finance:Economic history|economic history]] and [[Biology:International migration|international migration]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.econ.ilstu.edu/vitas/rlcohn.html|title=Raymond L. Cohn.|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070622201438/http://www.econ.ilstu.edu/vitas/rlcohn.html|archive-date=2007-06-22}}</ref> has researched the [[Mortality rate|mortality rate]]s among Africans during the voyages of the Atlantic slave trade. He found that mortality rates decreased over the history of the slave trade, primarily because the length of time necessary for the voyage was declining. "In the eighteenth century many slave voyages took at least 2½ months. In the nineteenth century, 2 months appears to have been the maximum length of the voyage, and many voyages were far shorter. Fewer slaves died in the Middle Passage over time mainly because the passage was shorter."<ref>Cohn, Raymond L. "Deaths of Slaves in the Middle Passage", ''Journal of Economic History'', September 1985.</ref>

Despite the vast profits of slavery, the ordinary sailors on [[Engineering:Slave ship|slave ship]]s were badly paid and subject to harsh discipline. Mortality of around 20%, a number similar and sometimes greater than those of the slaves,<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/atlanticslavetra0000curt/page/282 |title=The Atlantic slave trade: a census |last=Curtin |first=Philip D. |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |year=1969 |isbn=0-299-05400-4 |location=Madison, WI |pages=[https://archive.org/details/atlanticslavetra0000curt/page/282 282–286]|oclc=46413}}</ref> was expected in a ship's crew during the course of a voyage; this was due to disease, flogging, overwork, or slave uprisings.<ref name="Edwards(Captain.)2007">{{cite book|author1=Bernard Edwards|author2=Bernard Edwards (Captain.)|title=Royal Navy Versus the Slave Traders: Enforcing Abolition at Sea 1808–1898|year=2007|publisher=Pen & Sword Books|isbn=978-1-84415-633-7|pages=26–27}}</ref> Disease ([[Medicine:Malaria|malaria]] or [[Medicine:Yellow fever|yellow fever]]) was the most common cause of death among sailors. A high crew mortality rate on the return voyage was in the captain's interests as it reduced the number of sailors who had to be paid on reaching the home port.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Bury the Chains: Prophets, Slaves, and Rebels in the First Human Rights Crusade |last=Hochschild |first=Adam |date=2005 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |isbn=0-618-10469-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/burychainsprophe00hoch/page/94 94] |url=https://archive.org/details/burychainsprophe00hoch/page/94 }}</ref>

The slave trade was hated by many sailors, and those who joined the crews of slave ships often did so through coercion or because they could find no other employment.<ref name="Rediker2007">{{cite book|author=Marcus Rediker|title=The Slave Ship: A Human History|date=4 October 2007|publisher=Penguin Publishing Group|isbn=978-1-4406-2084-3|pages=138}}</ref>

===Seasoning camps===
Meltzer also states that 33% of Africans would have died in the first year at the seasoning camps found throughout the Caribbean.<ref name="dup2" /> Jamaica held one of the most notorious of these camps. [[Medicine:Dysentery|Dysentery]] was the leading cause of death.<ref>{{Cite book
 | last = Kiple
 | first = Kenneth F.
 | title = The Caribbean Slave: A Biological History
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=veMLoyrX0BEC&pg=PA65
 | publisher = Cambridge University Press
 | year = 2002
 | page = 65
 | isbn = 0-521-52470-9 }}
</ref>  Captives who could not be sold were inevitably destroyed.<ref name="FreedmensInquiry" />  Around 5 million Africans died in these camps, reducing the number of survivors to about 10&nbsp;million.<ref name="dup2" />

== Diseases ==
Many diseases, each capable of killing a large minority or even a majority of a new human population, arrived in the Americas after 1492. They include [[Medicine:Smallpox|smallpox]], [[Medicine:Malaria|malaria]], [[Medicine:Bubonic plague|bubonic plague]], [[Medicine:Typhus|typhus]], [[Medicine:Influenza|influenza]], [[Medicine:Measles|measles]], [[Medicine:Diphtheria|diphtheria]], [[Medicine:Yellow fever|yellow fever]], and [[Medicine:Whooping cough|whooping cough]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Epidemics and enslavement : biological catastrophe in the Native Southeast, 1492–1715|last=Paul.|first=Kelton|date=2007|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0-8032-1557-3|location=Lincoln|oclc=182560175}}</ref> During the Atlantic slave trade following the discovery of the New World, diseases such as these are recorded as causing mass mortality.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|title=Epidemics in the modern world|last=P.|first=Krieg, Joann|date=1992|publisher=Twayne Publishers|isbn=0-8057-8852-2|location=New York|oclc=25710386|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/epidemicsinmoder0000krie}}</ref>

Evolutionary history may also have played a role in resisting the diseases of the slave trade. Compared to African and Europeans, New World populations did not have a history of exposure to diseases such as malaria, and therefore, no genetic resistance had been produced as a result of adaptation through [[Biology:Natural selection|natural selection]].<ref name=":5">{{Cite book|title=When Disease Makes History: Epidemics and Great Historical Turning Points|last1=Diamond|first1=Jared|last2=Panosian|first2=Claire|publisher=Helsinki University Press|year=2006|isbn=951-570-640-8|editor-last=Hämäläinen|editor-first=Pekka|location=Helsinki|pages=18–19, 25}}</ref>

Levels and extent of immunity varies from disease to disease. For smallpox and measles for example, those who survive are equipped with the immunity to combat the disease for the rest of their life in that they cannot contract the disease again. There are also diseases, such as malaria, which do not confer effective lasting immunity.<ref name=":5" />

=== Smallpox ===
Epidemics of smallpox were known for causing a significant decrease in the indigenous population of the New World.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|title=Epidemics and history : disease, power, and imperialism|last=Watts|first= S. J. (Sheldon J.)|date=1997|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=0-585-35620-3|location=New Haven|oclc=47009810}}</ref> The effects on survivors included pockmarks on the skin which left deep scars, commonly causing significant [[Medicine:Disfigurement|disfigurement]]. Some Europeans, who believed the plague of [[Medicine:Syphilis|syphilis]] in Europe to have come from the Americas, saw smallpox as the European revenge against the Natives.<ref name=":3" /> Africans and Europeans, unlike the native population, often had lifelong immunity, because they had often been exposed to minor forms of the illness such as [[Medicine:Cowpox|cowpox]] or variola minor disease in childhood. By the late 16th century there existed some forms of inoculation and [[Biology:Variolation|variolation]] in Africa and the Middle East. One practice features Arab traders in Africa "buying-off" the disease in which a cloth that had been previously exposed to the sickness was to be tied to another child's arm to increase immunity. Another practice involved taking pus from a smallpox scab and putting it in the cut of a healthy individual in an attempt to have a mild case of the disease in the future rather than the effects becoming fatal.<ref name=":4"/>

==European competition==
The trade of enslaved Africans in the Atlantic has its origins in the explorations of Portuguese mariners down the coast of West Africa in the 15th century. Before that, contact with African slave markets was made to ransom Portuguese who had been captured by the intense North African Barbary pirate attacks on Portuguese ships and coastal villages, frequently leaving them depopulated.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/white_slaves_01.shtml|title= British History in depth: British Slaves on the Barbary Coast|magazine=BBC History}}</ref> The first Europeans to use enslaved Africans in the New World were the Spaniards, who sought auxiliaries for their conquest expeditions and labourers on islands such as Cuba and Hispaniola. The alarming decline in the native population had spurred the first royal laws protecting them (Laws of Burgos, 1512–13). The first enslaved Africans arrived in Hispaniola in 1501.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ukcouncilhumanrights.co.uk/webbook-chap1.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061003165601/http://www.ukcouncilhumanrights.co.uk/webbook-chap1.html|url-status=dead|title=Webbook Chap1|archive-date=October 3, 2006|website=www.ukcouncilhumanrights.co.uk}}</ref> After Portugal had succeeded in establishing sugar plantations (''engenhos'') in northern Brazil c. 1545, Portuguese merchants on the West African coast began to supply enslaved Africans to the sugar planters. While at first these planters had relied almost exclusively on the native Tupani for slave labour, after 1570 they began importing Africans, as a series of epidemics had decimated the already destabilized Tupani communities. By 1630, Africans had replaced the Tupani as the largest contingent of labour on Brazilian sugar plantations. This ended the European medieval household tradition of slavery<!--Explain-->, resulted in Brazil's receiving the most enslaved Africans, and revealed sugar cultivation and processing as the reason that roughly 84% of these Africans were shipped to the New World.

[[File:Charles II.jpg|thumb|upright|Charles II of Spain]]

On November 7, 1693, Charles II issued a Royal Decree, providing sanctuary in Spanish Florida for fugitive slaves from the British colony of South Carolina.<ref>Alejandra Dubcovsky, ''Informed Power: Communication in the Early American South'' (Harvard University Press, 2016)</ref>

As Britain rose in naval power and settled continental North America and some islands of the [[Place:West Indies|West Indies]], they became the leading slave traders.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/slavery/europe/index.aspx | title=European traders | publisher=International Slavery Museum | access-date=7 July 2014}}</ref> At one stage the trade was the monopoly of the Royal Africa Company, operating out of London. But, following the loss of the company's monopoly in 1689,<ref>Elkins, Stanley: ''Slavery''. New York: Universal Library, 1963, p. 48.</ref> Bristol and Liverpool merchants became increasingly involved in the trade.<ref>Rawley, James: ''London, Metropolis of the Slave Trade'', 2003.</ref> By the late 17th century, one out of every four ships that left Liverpool harbour was a [[Engineering:Slave ship|slave trading ship]].<ref name="Anstey">Anstey, Roger: ''The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, 1760–1810''. London: Macmillan, 1975.</ref> Much of the wealth on which the city of Manchester, and surrounding towns, was built in the late 18th century, and for much of the 19th century, was based on the processing of slave-picked cotton and manufacture of cloth.<ref>[http://www.revealinghistories.org.uk/how-did-money-from-slavery-help-develop-greater-manchester/articles/slave-grown-cotton-in-greater-manchester-museums.html "Slave-grown cotton in greater Manchester"], Revealing Histories.</ref> Other British cities also profited from the slave trade. Birmingham, the largest gun-producing town in Britain at the time, supplied guns to be traded for slaves.<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Birmingham Gun Trade and The American System of Manufactures |first=David J. |last=Williams |s2cid=110533082 |url=http://www.pubs-newcomen.com/tfiles/75ap085.pdf |archive-url=https://www.webcitation.org/6cRfwedHS?url=http://www.pubs-newcomen.com/tfiles/75ap085.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=2015-10-21 |journal=Trans. Newcomen Soc. |volume=75 |pages=85–106 |date=2005 |access-date=3 October 2015 |doi=10.1179/tns.2005.004 }}</ref> 75% of all sugar produced in the plantations was sent to London, and much of it was consumed in the highly lucrative coffee houses there.<ref name="Anstey" />

==New World destinations==
The first slaves to arrive as part of a labour force in the New World reached the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) in 1502. Cuba received its first four slaves in 1513. Jamaica received its first shipment of 4,000 slaves in 1518.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Wynter | first1 = Sylvia | year = 1984a | title = New Seville and the Conversion Experience of Bartolomé de Las Casas: Part One | journal = Jamaica Journal | volume = 17 | issue = 2| pages = 25–32 }}</ref> Slave exports to Honduras and Guatemala started in 1526.

The first enslaved Africans to reach what would become the United States arrived in July{{citation needed|date=October 2016}} 1526 as part of a Spanish attempt to colonize San Miguel de Gualdape. By November, the 300 Spanish colonists were reduced to 100, and their slaves from 100 to 70{{why?|date = August 2014}}. The enslaved people revolted in 1526 and joined a nearby Native American tribe, while the Spanish abandoned the colony altogether (1527). The area of the future Colombia received its first enslaved people in 1533. El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Florida began their stints in the slave trade in 1541, 1563, and 1581, respectively.

The 17th century saw an increase in shipments. Africans were brought to Point Comfort – several miles downriver from the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia – in 1619. The first kidnapped Africans in English North America were classed as indentured servants and freed after seven years. Virginia law codified chattel slavery in 1656, and in 1662 the colony adopted the principle of ''partus sequitur ventrem'', which classified children of slave mothers as slaves, regardless of paternity. Under British law, children born of white male slave owners and black female slaves would have inherited the father's status and rights. The change to maternal inheritance for slaves guaranteed that anyone born with any slave ancestors was a slave, with no regard to the nature of the relations between the white father and the black mother, consensual or not.

In addition to African persons, indigenous peoples of the Americas were trafficked through Atlantic trade routes. The 1677 work ''The Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians'', for example, documents English colonial prisoners of war (not, in fact, opposing combatants, but imprisoned members of [[Religion:Praying Indian|English-allied forces]]) being enslaved and sent to Caribbean destinations.<ref name="Gookin">{{cite book|surname=Gookin|given=Daniel|year=1836|orig-date=1677|title=The Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians|title-link=s:The Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians|publisher=Worcester, etc.|hdl=2027/mdp.39015005075109?urlappend=%3Bseq=459|oclc=3976964|id=archaeologiaame02amer|quote=But this shows the prudence and fidelity of the [[Religion:Praying Indian|Christian Indians]]; yet notwithstanding all this service they were, with others of our Christian Indians, through the harsh dealings of some English, in a manner constrained, for want of shelter, protection, and encouragement, to fall off to the enemy at Hassanamesit, the story whereof follows in its place; and one of them, viz. Sampson, was slain in fight, by some scouts of our praying Indians, about Watchuset; and the other, Joseph, taken prisoner in Plymouth Colony, and sold for a slave to some merchants at Boston, and sent to Jamaica, but upon the importunity of Mr. Elliot, which the master of the vessel related to him, was brought back again, but not released. His two children taken prisoners with him were redeemed by Mr. Elliot, and afterward his wife, their mother, taken captive, which woman was a sober Christian woman and is employed to teach school among the Indians at Concord, and her children are with her, but her husband held as before, a servant; though several that know the said Joseph and his former carriage, have interceded for his release, but cannot obtain it; some informing authority that he had been active against the English when he was with the enemy.}}</ref><ref name="Bodge1">{{cite book|surname=Bodge|given=George Madison|author-link=George Madison Bodge|year=1906|title=Soldiers in King Philip's War: Being a Critical Account of that War, with a Concise History of the Indian Wars of New England from 1620–1677|title-link=iarchive:soldiersinkingph1906bodg|chapter=Capt. Thomas Wheeler and his Men; with Capt. Edward Hutchinson at Brookfield|edition=Third|location=Boston|publisher=The Rockwell and Churchill Press|page=109|lccn=08003858|hdl=2027/bc.ark:/13960/t4hn31h3t|oclc=427544035|quote=Sampson was killed by some English scouts near Wachuset, and Joseph was captured and sold into slavery in the West Indies.}}</ref> Captive indigenous opponents, including women and children, were also sold into slavery at a substantial profit, to be transported to [[Place:West Indies|West Indies]] colonies.<ref name="Bodge2">{{cite book|surname=Bodge|given=George Madison|author-link=George Madison Bodge|year=1906|title=Soldiers in King Philip's War: Being a Critical Account of that War, with a Concise History of the Indian Wars of New England from 1620–1677|title-link=iarchive:soldiersinkingph1906bodg|chapter=Appendix A|edition=Third|location=Boston|publisher=The Rockwell and Churchill Press|page=479|lccn=08003858|hdl=2027/bc.ark:/13960/t4hn31h3t|oclc=427544035|quote={{smallcaps|Captives.}} The following accounts show the harsh custom of the times, and reveal a source of Colonial revenue not open to our country since that day. {{smallcaps|Account of Captives sold by Mass. Colony.}} ''August 24th, 1676.'' John Hull's Journal page 398.}}</ref><ref name="Winiarski2004">{{cite journal|surname=Winiarski|given=Douglas L.|date=September 2004|editor-surname=Rhoads|editor-given=Linda Smith|title=A Question of Plain Dealing: Josiah Cotton, Native Christians, and the Quest for Security in Eighteenth-Century Plymouth County|url=https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1030&context=religiousstudies-faculty-publications|format=PDF|journal=The New England Quarterly|volume=77|issue=3|pages=368–413|jstor=1559824|oclc=5552741105|issn=0028-4866|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200322224607/https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1030&context=religiousstudies-faculty-publications|archive-date=2020-03-22|url-status=live |quote=While Philip and the vast majority of hostile Natives were killed outright during the war or sold into slavery in the West Indies, the friendly Wampanoag at Manomet Ponds retained their lands.}}</ref>

By 1802, Russian colonists noted that "Boston" (U.S.-based) skippers were trading African slaves for otter pelts with the Tlingit people in Southeast Alaska.<ref name=Dauenhauer>{{Cite book
 | last = Dauenhauer
 | first = Nora Marks
 |author2=Richard Dauenhauer |author3=Lydia T. Black
  | title = ''Anóoshi Lingít Aaní Ká'', Russians in Tlingit America: The Battles of Sitka, 1802 and 1804.
 | publisher = University of Washington Press
 | year = 2008
 | location = Seattle
 | pages = XXVI
 | isbn = 978-0-295-98601-2}}</ref>
[[File:Atlantic Ocean slave location map by source and destination.png|thumb|upright=1.3|West Central Africa was the most common source region of Africa, and Portuguese America (Brazil) was the most common destination.]]
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:right;"
|+ Distribution of slaves (1519–1867)<ref>Stephen D. Behrendt, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research, [[Organization:Harvard University|Harvard University]]. Based on "records for 27,233 voyages that set out to obtain slaves for the Americas". {{cite book |last=Behrendt |first=Stephen |title= Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience |year= 1999 |publisher= Basic Civitas Books |location= New York |isbn= 0-465-00071-1 |chapter= Transatlantic Slave Trade |chapter-url= https://archive.org/details/africanaencyclop00appi |url-access= registration |url= https://archive.org/details/africanaencyclop00appi}}</ref>
|-
!scope="col"| Destination
!scope="col"| Percent
|-
!scope="row"| [[Place:Portuguese America|Portuguese America]]
| 38.5%
|-
!scope="row"| British West Indies
| 18.4%
|-
!scope="row"| [[Place:Spanish Empire|Spanish Empire]]
| 17.5%
|-
!scope="row"| French West Indies
| 13.6%
|-
!scope="row"| English/British North America / {{wipe|United States}}
| 9.7%
|-
!scope="row"| Dutch West Indies
| 2.0%
|-
!scope="row"| Danish West Indies
| 0.3%
|}
'''Notes:''' 
* Before 1820, the number of enslaved Africans transported across the Atlantic to the New World was triple the number of Europeans who reached North and South American shores. At the time this was the largest oceanic [[Social:Forced displacement|displacement or migration]] in history,<ref name="VoyagesIntro">{{cite web |url=https://slavevoyages.org/voyage/about#methodology/introduction/0/en/|title=Understanding the Database - Methodology - Introduction|surname=Eltis|given=David|year=2018 |department=Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade|work=[[Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database| The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database]]|quote=But what is often overlooked is that, before 1820, perhaps three times as many enslaved Africans crossed the Atlantic as Europeans. This was the largest transoceanic migration of a people until that day, and it provided the Americas with a crucial labour force for their own economic development.}}</ref> eclipsing even the far-flung, but less-dense, expansion of Austronesian-Polynesian explorers.
* The number of Africans who arrived in each region is calculated from the total number of slaves imported, about 10,000,000.<ref>Curtin, ''The Atlantic Slave Trade'', 1972, p. 88.</ref>
*Includes British Guiana and British Honduras

<gallery widths="160px" heights="130px">
File:Punishing negroes at Calabouco.jpg|Punishing slaves at Calabouco, in Rio de Janeiro, c. 1822
File:Slaves resting by Rugendas 01.jpg|Recently bought slaves in Brazil on their way to the farms of the landowners who bought them c. 1830
File:Tropenmuseum Royal Tropical Institute Objectnumber 3581-33h Ingekleurde litho voorstellende de oo.jpg|A 19th-century lithograph showing a sugarcane plantation in Suriname
</gallery>

==Economics of slavery==
[[File:1670 virginia tobacco slaves.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Slaves processing tobacco in 17th-century Virginia]]

In 18th century France, returns for investors in plantations averaged around 6%; as compared to 5% for most domestic alternatives, this represented a 20% profit advantage. Risks—maritime and commercial—were important for individual voyages. Investors mitigated it by buying small shares of many ships at the same time. In that way, they were able to diversify a large part of the risk away. Between voyages, ship shares could be freely sold and bought.<ref>Daudin 2004.</ref>

By far the most financially profitable West Indian colonies in 1800 belonged to the United Kingdom. After entering the sugar colony business late, British naval supremacy and control over key islands such as Jamaica, Trinidad, the Leeward Islands, and Barbados and the territory of British Guiana gave it an important edge over all competitors; while many British did not make gains, a handful of individuals made small fortunes. This advantage was reinforced when France lost its most important colony, St. Domingue (western Hispaniola, now Haiti), to a slave revolt in 1791<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h34-np2.html|title=Haiti, 1789 to 1806|website=www.fsmitha.com}}</ref> and supported revolts against its rival Britain, in the name of liberty after the 1793 French revolution. Before 1791, British sugar had to be protected to compete against cheaper French sugar.

After 1791, the British islands produced the most sugar, and the British people quickly became the largest consumers. West Indian sugar became ubiquitous as an additive to Indian tea. It has been estimated that the profits of the slave trade and of [[Place:West Indies|West Indian]] plantations created up to one-in-twenty of every pound circulating in the British economy at the time of the [[History:Industrial Revolution|Industrial Revolution]] in the latter half of the 18th century.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/topic_display.cfm?tcid=104|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090226181840/http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/con_economic.cfm|url-status=dead|title=Digital History|archive-date=February 26, 2009|website=www.digitalhistory.uh.edu}}</ref>

Following the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 which gradually abolished slavery in the British Empire, the UK government took out a loan of £15 million ($4.25 billion in 2023) to compensate former slave owners for the loss of their "property" after their slaves were freed. Compensation was not given to the formerly enslaved people.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Britain's Slave Owner Compensation Loan, reparations and tax havenry|date=9 June 2020|url=https://www.taxjustice.net/2020/06/09/slavery-compensation-uk-questions/,%20https://www.taxjustice.net/2020/06/09/slavery-compensation-uk-questions/|access-date=18 June 2020|language=en-GB}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-04/benedict-cumberbatch-slavery-reparations/101822368 | title=His parents urged him to keep their 'dodgy' family history quiet. Now Benedict Cumberbatch could pay | newspaper=ABC News | date=3 January 2023 }}</ref>

==Effects==
{{col-start}}{{col-2}}
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:right;"
|+World population (in millions)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/sixbillion/sixbilpart1.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101220025/http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/sixbillion/sixbilpart1.pdf|url-status=dead|title=UN report.|archive-date=January 1, 2016}}</ref>
|-
!scope="col"| Year
!scope="col"| 1750
!scope="col"| 1800
!scope="col"| 1850
!scope="col"| 1900
!scope="col"| 1950
!scope="col"| 1999
|-
!scope="row"| World
| 791
| 978
| 1,262
| 1,650
| 2,521
| 5,978
|-
!scope="row"| Africa
| 106
| 107
| 111
| 133
| 221
| 767
|-
!scope="row"| Asia
| 502
| 635
| 809
| 947
| 1,402
| 3,634
|-
!scope="row"| Europe
| 163
| 203
| 276
| 408
| 547
| 729
|-
!scope="row"| Latin America and the Caribbean
| 16
| 24
| 38
| 74
| 167
| 511
|-
!scope="row"| Northern America
| 2
| 7
| 26
| 82
| 172
| 307
|-
!scope="row"| Oceania
| 2
| 2
| 2
| 6
| 13
| 30
|}

{{col-break}}

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:right;"
|+World population (by percentage distribution)
|-
!scope="col"| Year
!scope="col"| 1750
!scope="col"| 1800
!scope="col"| 1850
!scope="col"| 1900
!scope="col"| 1950
!scope="col"| 1999
|-
!scope="row"| World
| 100
| 100
| 100
| 100
| 100
| 100
|-
!scope="row"| Africa
| 13.4
| 10.9
| 8.8
| 8.1
| 8.8
| 12.8
|-
!scope="row"| Asia
| 63.5
| 64.9
| 64.1
| 57.4
| 55.6
| 60.8
|-
!scope="row"| Europe
| 20.6
| 20.8
| 21.9
| 24.7
| 21.7
| 12.2
|-
!scope="row"| Latin America and the Caribbean
| 2.0
| 2.5
| 3.0
| 4.5
| 6.6
| 8.5
|-
!scope="row"| Northern America
| 0.3
| 0.7
| 2.1
| 5.0
| 6.8
| 5.1
|-
!scope="row"| Oceania
| 0.3
| 0.2
| 0.2
| 0.4
| 0.5
| 0.5
|}
{{col-end}}

Historian Walter Rodney has argued that at the start of the slave trade in the 16th century, although there was a technological gap between Europe and Africa, it was not very substantial. Both continents were using Iron Age technology. The major advantage that Europe had was in ship building. During the period of slavery, the populations of Europe and the Americas grew exponentially, while the population of Africa remained stagnant. Rodney contended that the profits from slavery were used to fund economic growth and technological advancement in Europe and the Americas. Based on earlier theories by Eric Williams, he asserted that the industrial revolution was at least in part funded by agricultural profits from the Americas. He cited examples such as the invention of the steam engine by James Watt, which was funded by plantation owners from the Caribbean.<ref name="WalterRodney">Walter Rodney, ''How Europe Underdeveloped Africa''. {{ISBN|0-9501546-4-4}}.</ref>

Other historians have attacked both Rodney's methodology and accuracy. Joseph C. Miller has argued that the social change and demographic stagnation (which he researched on the example of West Central Africa) was caused primarily by domestic factors. Joseph Inikori provided a new line of argument, estimating counterfactual demographic developments in case the Atlantic slave trade had not existed. Patrick Manning has shown that the slave trade did have a profound impact on African demographics and social institutions, but criticized Inikori's approach for not taking other factors (such as famine and drought) into account, and thus being highly speculative.<ref>Manning, Patrick: "Contours of Slavery and Social change in Africa". In: Northrup, David (ed.): ''The Atlantic Slave Trade''. D.C. Heath & Company, 1994, pp. 148–160.</ref>

===Effect on the economy of West Africa===
[[File:Different cowries.jpg|thumb|[[Biology:Cowrie|Cowrie]] shells were used as money in the slave trade]]
The effect of the trade on African societies is much debated, due to the influx of goods to Africans. Proponents of the slave trade, such as Archibald Dalzel, argued that African societies were robust and not much affected by the trade. In the 19th century, European [[Social:Abolitionism|abolitionists]], most prominently Dr. David Livingstone, took the opposite view, arguing that the fragile local economy and societies were being severely harmed by the trade.

[[File:Birmingham History Galleries - Birmingham its people, its history - A Stranger's Guide to 18th Century Birmingham - gun barrels (8165019515).jpg|thumb|Slaving guns (Birmingham History Galleries). In the second half of the 18th century, Europeans sold 300,000 rifles a year in Africa, maintaining the endemic state of war in which men, who were taken prisoner, were sold to supply the demand for slaves.<ref>{{Cite book |last=François Hubert, Christian Block and Jacques de Cauna |title=Bordeaux in the 18th century : trans-Atlantic trading and slavery |publisher=Le Festin |pages=92 |year=2010 |isbn=978-2-36062-009-8 |location=Bordeaux}}</ref>]]
Some African rulers saw an economic benefit from trading their subjects with European slave traders. With the exception of Portuguese-controlled Angola, coastal African leaders "generally controlled access to their coasts, and were able to prevent direct enslavement of their subjects and citizens".<ref name=":0">Thornton, John. ''A Cultural History of the Atlantic World 1250–1820''. 2012, p. 64.</ref> Thus, as African scholar John Thornton argues, African leaders who allowed the continuation of the slave trade likely derived an economic benefit from selling their subjects to Europeans. The Kingdom of Benin, for instance, participated in the African slave trade, at will, from 1715 to 1735, surprising Dutch traders, who had not expected to buy slaves in Benin.<ref name=":0" /> The benefit derived from trading slaves for European goods was enough to make the Kingdom of Benin rejoin the trans-Atlantic slave trade after centuries of non-participation. Such benefits included military technology (specifically guns and gunpowder), gold, or simply maintaining amicable trade relationships with European nations. The slave trade was, therefore, a means for some African elites to gain economic advantages.<ref name=":1">Fage, J. D. "Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Context of West African History", ''The Journal of African History'', Vol. 10. No 3, 1969, p. 400.</ref> Historian Walter Rodney estimates that by c.1770, the King of [[History:Dahomey|Dahomey]] was earning an estimated £250,000 per year by selling captive African soldiers and enslaved people to the European slave-traders. Many West African countries also already had a tradition of holding slaves, which was expanded into trade with Europeans.

The Atlantic trade brought new crops to Africa and also more efficient currencies which were adopted by the West African merchants. This can be interpreted as an institutional reform which reduced the cost of doing business. But the developmental benefits were limited as long as the business including slaving.<ref>{{cite book|author=Baten, Jörg |title=A History of the Global Economy. From 1500 to the Present.|date=2016|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=321|isbn=978-1-107-50718-0}}</ref>

Both Thornton and Fage contend that while African political elite may have ultimately benefited from the slave trade, their decision to participate may have been influenced more by what they could lose by not participating. In Fage's article "Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Context of West African History", he notes that for West Africans "...{{nbsp}}there were really few effective means of mobilizing labour for the economic and political needs of the state" without the slave trade.<ref name=":1" />

===Effects on the British economy===
[[File:Joseph Cross, The Impolicy of Slavery, 1823 Cornell CUL PJM 1039 01.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|This map argues that import prohibitions and high duties on sugar were artificially inflating prices and inhibiting manufacturing in England. 1823]]
Historian Eric Williams in 1944 argued that the profits that Britain received from its sugar colonies, or from the slave trade between Africa and the Caribbean, contributed to the financing of Britain's industrial revolution. However, he says that by the time of the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, and the emancipation of the slaves in 1833, the sugar plantations of the British West Indies had lost their profitability, and it was in Britain's economic interest to emancipate the slaves.<ref>Eric Williams, ''Capitalism & Slavery'' (University of North Carolina Press, 1944), pp. 98–107, 169–177.</ref>

Other researchers and historians have strongly contested what has come to be referred to as the "Williams thesis" in academia. David Richardson has concluded that the profits from the slave trade amounted to less than 1% of domestic investment in Britain.<ref>David Richardson, "The British Empire and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1660–1807," in P. J. Marshall, ed. ''The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume II: The Eighteenth Century'' (1998), pp. 440–464.</ref> Economic historian Stanley Engerman finds that even without subtracting the associated costs of the slave trade (e.g., shipping costs, slave mortality, mortality of British people in Africa, defense costs) or reinvestment of profits back into the slave trade, the total profits from the slave trade and of West Indian plantations amounted to less than 5% of the British economy during any year of the [[History:Industrial Revolution|Industrial Revolution]].<ref name="The Slave Trade and British Capital Formation in the Eighteenth Century">{{cite journal|author=Stanley L. Engerman|title=The Slave Trade and British Capital Formation in the Eighteenth Century|journal=The Business History Review|jstor=3113341 | volume=46|issue=4|pages=430–443|year=1972|doi=10.2307/3113341|s2cid=154620412}}</ref> Engerman's 5% figure gives as much as possible in terms of benefit of the doubt to the Williams argument, not solely because it does not take into account the associated costs of the slave trade to Britain, but also because it carries the full-employment assumption from economics and holds the gross value of slave trade profits as a direct contribution to Britain's national income.<ref name="The Slave Trade and British Capital Formation in the Eighteenth Century"/> Historian Richard Pares, in an article written before Williams' book, dismisses the influence of wealth generated from the West Indian plantations upon the financing of the Industrial Revolution, stating that whatever substantial flow of investment from West Indian profits into industry there occurred after emancipation, not before. However, each of these works focus primarily on the slave trade or the Industrial Revolution, and not the main body of the Williams thesis, which was on sugar and slavery itself. Therefore, they do not refute the main body of the Williams thesis.<ref name="The Economic Factors in the History of the Empire">{{cite journal|author=Richard Pares|title=The Economic Factors in the History of the Empire|journal=The Economic History Review|jstor=2590147 | volume=7|issue=2|pages=119–144|year=1937|doi=10.2307/2590147}}</ref><ref name="Eric Williams 1964">Eric Williams, ''Capitalism and Slavery'' (London: Andre Deutsch, 1964).</ref>

Seymour Drescher and Robert Anstey argue the slave trade remained profitable until the end, and that moralistic reform, not economic incentive, was primarily responsible for abolition. They say slavery remained profitable in the 1830s because of innovations in agriculture. However, Drescher's ''Econocide'' wraps up its study in 1823, and does not address the majority of the Williams thesis, which covers the decline of the sugar plantations after 1823, the emancipation of the slaves in the 1830s, and the subsequent abolition of sugar duties in the 1840s. These arguments do not refute the main body of the Williams thesis, which presents economic data to show that the slave trade was minor compared to the wealth generated by sugar and slavery itself in the British Caribbean.<ref>J.R. Ward, "The British West Indies in the Age of Abolition," in P. J. Marshall, ed. ''The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume II: The Eighteenth Century'' (1998), pp. 415–439.</ref><ref name="Eric Williams 1964"/><ref>Seymour Drescher, ''Econocide: British Slavery in the Era of Abolition'' (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010).</ref>

[[Biography:Karl Marx|Karl Marx]], in his influential economic history of capitalism, ''Das Kapital'', wrote that "...{{nbsp}}the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signaled the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production". He argued that the slave trade was part of what he termed the "primitive accumulation" of capital, the 'non-capitalist' accumulation of wealth that preceded and created the financial conditions for Britain's industrialisation.<ref>{{cite web|last=Marx|first=Karl|title=Chapter Thirty-One: Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist|url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch31.htm|work=Karl Marx: Capital Volume One|access-date=21 February 2014|quote=the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation.}}</ref>

===Demographics===
[[File:Agostino Brunias - A Linen Market with a Linen-stall and Vegetable Seller in the West Indies - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|A Linen Market with enslaved Africans. West Indies, circa 1780]]
The demographic effects of the slave trade is a controversial and highly debated issue. Although scholars such as Paul Adams and Erick D. Langer have estimated that sub-Saharan Africa represented about 18 percent of the world's population in 1600 and only 6 percent in 1900,<ref>{{Cite book|title=Experiencing World History|last1=Adams|first1=Paul|last2=Hwa|first2=Lily|publisher=New York University Press|year=2000|location=New York|pages=334|display-authors=1}}</ref> the reasons for this demographic shift have been the subject of much debate. In addition to the depopulation Africa experienced because of the slave trade, African nations were left with severely imbalanced gender ratios, with females comprising up to 65 percent of the population in hard-hit areas such as Angola.<ref name=":2" /> Moreover, many scholars (such as Barbara N. Ramusack) have suggested a link between the prevalence of prostitution in Africa today with the temporary marriages that were enforced during the course of the slave trade.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Women in Asia: Restoring Women to History|last=Ramusack|first=Barbara|publisher=Indiana University Press|year=1999|pages=89}}</ref>

Walter Rodney argued that the export of so many people had been a demographic disaster which left Africa permanently disadvantaged when compared to other parts of the world, and it largely explains the continent's continued poverty.<ref name="WalterRodney"/> He presented numbers showing that Africa's population stagnated during this period, while those of Europe and Asia grew dramatically. According to Rodney, all other areas of the economy were disrupted by the slave trade as the top merchants abandoned traditional industries in order to pursue slaving, and the lower levels of the population were disrupted by the slaving itself.

Others have challenged this view. J. D. Fage compared the demographic effect on the continent as a whole. David Eltis has compared the numbers to the rate of emigration from Europe during this period. In the 19th century alone over 50 million people left Europe for the Americas, a far higher rate than were ever taken from Africa.<ref>David Eltis, ''Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade''.</ref>

Other scholars accused Walter Rodney of mischaracterizing the trade between Africans and Europeans. They argue that Africans, or more accurately African elites, deliberately let European traders join in an already large trade in enslaved people and that they were not patronized.<ref>Thornton, John. ''Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800''. Cambridge University Press, 1992.</ref>

As Joseph E. Inikori argues, the history of the region shows that the effects were still quite deleterious. He argues that the African economic model of the period was very different from the European model, and could not sustain such population losses. Population reductions in certain areas also led to widespread problems. Inikori also notes that after the suppression of the slave trade Africa's population almost immediately began to rapidly increase, even prior to the introduction of modern medicines.<ref>Joseph E. Inikori, "Ideology versus the Tyranny of Paradigm: Historians and the Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on African Societies", ''African Economic History'', 1994.</ref>

===Legacy of racism===
[[File:Agostino Brunias - West Indian Creole woman, with her Black Servant - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|West Indian Creole woman, with her black servant, circa 1780]]

Walter Rodney states:

<blockquote>The role of slavery in promoting racist prejudice and ideology has been carefully studied in certain situations, especially in the USA. The simple fact is that no people can enslave another for four centuries without coming out with a notion of superiority, and when the colour and other physical traits of those peoples were quite different it was inevitable that the prejudice should take a racist form.<ref name="WalterRodney"/></blockquote>

Eric Williams argued that "A racial twist [was] given to what is basically an economic phenomenon. Slavery was not born of racism: rather, racism was the consequence of slavery."<ref>{{cite book |last=Williams |first=Eric |year=1994 |orig-date=1944 |title=Capitalism and Slavery |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=B6AWWVGBaswC&pg=PA7 7]}}</ref>

Similarly, John Darwin writes "The rapid conversion from white indentured labour to black slavery... made the English Caribbean a frontier of civility where English (later British) ideas about race and slave labour were ruthlessly adapted to local self-interest...Indeed, the root justification for the system of slavery and the savage apparatus of coercion on which its preservation depended was the ineradicable barbarism of the slave population, a product, it was argued, of its African origins".<ref>Darwin, John (2013) ''Unfinished Empire'', p40</ref>

==End of the Atlantic slave trade==
{{Main|Social:Abolitionism}}
[[File:Wilberforce john rising.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|William Wilberforce (1759–1833), politician and philanthropist who was a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade.]]
[[File:SisterSlave.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|left|"Am I not a woman and a sister?" antislavery medallion from the late 18th century]]

In Britain, America, Portugal and in parts of Europe, opposition developed against the slave trade. David Brion Davis says that abolitionists assumed "that an end to slave imports would lead automatically to the amelioration and gradual abolition of slavery".<ref>David Brion Davis, ''The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution: 1770–1823'' (1975), p. 129.</ref> In Britain and America, opposition to the trade was led by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Thomas Clarkson and establishment Evangelicals such as William Wilberforce in Parliament. Many people joined the movement and they began to protest against the trade, but they were opposed by the owners of the colonial holdings.<ref>Library of Society of Friends Subject Guide: Abolition of the Slave Trade.</ref> Following Lord Mansfield's decision in 1772, many abolitionists and slave-holders believed that slaves became free upon entering the British isles.<ref name="CUP">Paul E. Lovejoy (2000). ''Transformations in Slavery: a history of slavery in Africa'', Cambridge University Press, p. 290.</ref> However, in reality slavery continued in Britain right up to abolition in the 1830s. The Mansfield ruling on ''Somerset v Stewart'' only decreed that a slave could not be transported out of England against his will.<ref>Simon Schama, ''Rough Crossings'' (London: BBC Books, 2005), p. 61.</ref>

Under the leadership of Thomas Jefferson, the new state of Virginia in 1778 became the first state and one of the first jurisdictions anywhere to stop the importation of slaves for sale; it made it a crime for traders to bring in slaves from out of state or from overseas for sale; migrants from within the United States were allowed to bring their own slaves. The new law freed all slaves brought in illegally after its passage and imposed heavy fines on violators.<ref>John E. Selby and Don Higginbotham, ''The Revolution in Virginia, 1775–1783'' (2007), p. 158.</ref><ref>Erik S. Root, ''All Honor to Jefferson?: The Virginia Slavery Debates and the Positive Good Thesis'' (2008), p. 19.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-02-02-0019|title=Founders Online: Bill to Prevent the Importation of Slaves, &c., [16 June 1777]|website=founders.archives.gov}}</ref> All the other states in the United States followed suit, although South Carolina reopened its slave trade in 1803.<ref>{{cite book|author=Lacy K. Ford|title=Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xEC9K7quBoEC&pg=PA105|year=2009|publisher=Oxford UP|pages=104–107|isbn=978-0-19-975108-2}}</ref>

{{wipe|Denmark}}, which had been active in the slave trade, was the first country to ban the trade through legislation in 1792, which took effect in 1803.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.virgin-islands-history.org/en/danish-prohibition-on-transatlantic-slave-trade-in-1792/ |title=Danish decision to abolish transatlantic slave trade in 1792 |access-date=2016-09-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160921070732/http://www.virgin-islands-history.org/en/danish-prohibition-on-transatlantic-slave-trade-in-1792/ |archive-date=2016-09-21 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Britain banned the slave trade in 1807, imposing stiff fines for any slave found aboard a British ship (''see Slave Trade Act 1807''). The Royal Navy moved to stop other nations from continuing the slave trade and declared that slaving was equal to piracy and was punishable by death. The United States Congress passed the Slave Trade Act of 1794, which prohibited the building or outfitting of ships in the U.S. for use in the slave trade. The U.S. Constitution barred a federal prohibition on importing slaves for 20 years; at that time the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves prohibited imports on the first day the Constitution permitted: January 1, 1808.

=== British abolitionism ===
[[Religion:Quakers|Quakers]] began to campaign against the [[Place:British Empire|British Empire]]'s slave trade in the 1780s, and from 1789 William Wilberforce was a driving force in the British Parliament in the fight against the trade. The abolitionists argued that the trade was not necessary for the economic success of sugar on the British West Indian colonies. This argument was accepted by wavering politicians, who did not want to destroy the valuable and important sugar colonies of the British Caribbean. Parliament was also concerned about the success of the Haitian Revolution, and they believed they had to abolish the trade to prevent a similar conflagration from occurring in a British Caribbean colony.<ref>Christer Petley, ''White Fury: A Jamaican Slaveholder and the Age of Revolution'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 200–209.</ref>

On 22 February 1807, the House of Commons passed a motion 283 votes to 16 to abolish the Atlantic slave trade. Hence, the slave trade was abolished, but not the still-economically viable institution of slavery itself, which provided Britain's most lucrative import at the time, sugar. Abolitionists did not move against sugar and slavery itself until after the sugar industry went into terminal decline after 1823.<ref>Williams, ''Capitalism and Slavery''.</ref>

The United States passed its own Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves the next week (March 2, 1807), although probably without mutual consultation.  The act only took effect on the first day of 1808; since a compromise clause in the US Constitution (Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1) prohibited federal, although not state, restrictions on the slave trade before 1808. The United States did not, however, abolish its internal slave trade, which became the dominant mode of US slave trading until the 1860s.<ref>{{cite book |first=Marcyliena H. |last=Morgan |year=2002 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mhJcsiydNe8C&pg=PA20 |title=Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture|publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=20 |isbn=978-0-521-00149-6 }}</ref>  In 1805 the British Order-in-Council had restricted the importation of slaves into colonies that had been captured from France and the Netherlands.<ref name="CUP"/> Britain continued to press other nations to end its trade; in 1810 an Anglo-Portuguese treaty was signed whereby Portugal agreed to restrict its trade into its colonies; an 1813 Anglo-Swedish treaty whereby Sweden outlawed its slave trade; the Treaty of Paris 1814 where France agreed with Britain that the trade is "repugnant to the principles of natural justice" and agreed to abolish the slave trade in five years; the 1814 Anglo-Dutch treaty where the Dutch outlawed its slave trade.<ref name="CUP"/>

=== Castlereagh and Palmerston's diplomacy ===
Abolitionist opinion in Britain was strong enough in 1807 to abolish the slave trade in all British possessions, although slavery itself persisted in the colonies until 1833.<ref>Seymour Drescher, "Whose abolition? Popular pressure and the ending of the British slave trade." ''Past & Present'' 143 (1994): 136–166. {{JSTOR|651164}}.</ref> Abolitionists after 1807 focused on international agreements to abolish the slave trade. Foreign Minister Castlereagh switched his position and became a strong supporter of the movement. Britain arranged treaties with Portugal, Sweden and Denmark in the period between 1810 and 1814, whereby they agreed to end or restrict their trading. These were preliminary to the Congress of Vienna negotiations that Castlereagh dominated and which resulted in a general declaration condemning the slave trade.<ref>Jerome Reich,  "The Slave Trade at the Congress of Vienna{{snd}}A Study in English Public Opinion." ''Journal of Negro History'' 53.2 (1968): 129–143. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2716488 Online]</ref> The problem was that the treaties and declarations were hard to enforce, given the very high profits available to private interests. As Foreign Minister, Castlereagh cooperated with senior officials to use the Royal Navy to detect and capture slave ships. He used diplomacy to make search-and-seize agreements with all the governments whose ships were trading. There was serious friction with the United States, where the southern slave interest was politically powerful. Washington recoiled at British policing of the high seas. Spain, France and Portugal also relied on the international slave trade to supply their colonial plantations.

As more and more diplomatic arrangements were made by Castlereagh, the owners of slave ships started flying false flags of nations that had not agreed, especially the United States. It was illegal under American law for American ships to engage in the slave trade, but the idea of Britain enforcing American laws was unacceptable to Washington. Lord Palmerston and other British foreign ministers continued the Castlereagh policies. Eventually, in 1842 in 1845, an arrangement was reached between London and Washington. With the arrival of a staunchly anti-slavery government in Washington in 1861, the Atlantic slave trade was doomed. In the long run, Castlereagh's strategy on how to stifle the slave trade proved successful.<ref>James C. Duram, "A Study of Frustration: Britain, the USA, and the African Slave Trade, 1815–1870." Social Science (1965): 220–225. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/41885111 Online]</ref>

Prime Minister Palmerston detested slavery, and in Nigeria in 1851 he took advantage of divisions in native politics, the presence of Christian missionaries, and the maneuvers of British consul John Beecroft to encourage the overthrow of King Kosoko. The new King Akitoye was a docile non-slave-trading puppet.<ref>Giles D. Short, "Blood and Treasure: The reduction of Lagos, 1851" ''ANU Historical Journal'' (1977), Vol. 13, pp. 11–19. {{ISSN|0001-2068}}</ref>

=== British Royal Navy ===
The Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron, established in 1808, grew by 1850 to a force of some 25 vessels, which were tasked with combating slavery along the African coast.<ref>Huw Lewis-Jones, [https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/royal_navy_article_02.shtml "The Royal Navy and the Battle to End Slavery"], BBC, 17 February 2011.</ref> Between 1807 and 1860, the Royal Navy's Squadron seized approximately 1,600 ships involved in the slave trade and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard these vessels.<ref>Jo Loosemore, [https://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/content/articles/2007/03/20/abolition_navy_feature.shtml "Sailing against slavery"], BBC, 24 September 2014.</ref> Several hundred slaves a year were transported by the navy to the British colony of Sierra Leone, where they were made to serve as "apprentices" in the colonial economy until the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.<ref>Caroline Davies, [https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/aug/02/wilberforce-condoned-slavery-files-claim "William Wilberforce 'condoned slavery', Colonial Office papers reveal...Rescued slaves forced into unpaid 'apprenticeships'"], ''The Guardian'', 2 August 2010.</ref>
[[File:HMS Black Joke (1827).jpg|thumb|Capture of slave ship ''El Almirante'' by the British Royal Navy in the 1800s. {{HMS|Black Joke|1827|6}} freed 466 slaves.<ref>{{cite web|url = http://publishing.yudu.com/An8w/navynewsjune2007/resources/36.htm|title = Navy News|date=June 2007|access-date =2008-02-09}}</ref>]]

=== Last slave ship to the United States ===
Even though it was prohibited, after and in response to the North's reluctance or refusal to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the Atlantic slave trade was "re-opened by way of retaliation".{{citation needed|date=January 2022}} In 1859, "the trade in slaves from Africa to the Southern coast of the United States is now carried on in defiance of Federal law and of the Federal Government."<ref>{{cite news
|title=How to Oppose Slavery with Effect
|newspaper=Anti-Slavery Bugle (Lisbon, Ohio)
|date=October 29, 1859
|page=1
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63975588/chattel-slavery-is-the-root-of-the/}}</ref>

The last ''known'' slave ship to land on U.S. soil was the [[Engineering:Clotilda (slave ship)|''Clotilda'']], which in 1859 illegally smuggled a number of Africans into the town of Mobile, Alabama.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/question/july05/|title=Question of the Month&nbsp;– Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University<!-- Bot generated title -->}}</ref> The Africans on board were sold as slaves; however, slavery in the U.S. was abolished five years later following the end of the American Civil War in 1865. Cudjoe Lewis, who died in 1935, was long believed to be the last survivor of ''Clotilda'' and the last surviving slave brought from Africa to the United States,<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/dreamsofafricain0000diou |title=Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America |isbn=978-0-19-531104-4 |first=Sylvianne |last=Diouf |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2007 |url-access=registration }}</ref> but recent research has found that two other survivors from ''Clotilda'' outlived him, Redoshi (who died in 1937) and Matilda McCrear (who died in 1940).<ref name="Durkin-2019">{{cite journal |last=Durkin |first=Hannah |s2cid=150975893 |title=Finding last middle passage survivor Sally 'Redoshi' Smith on the page and screen |journal=Slavery & Abolition |date=2019 |volume=40 |issue=4 |pages=631–658 u|doi=10.1080/0144039X.2019.1596397}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Durkin|first=Hannah|date=2020-03-19|title=Uncovering The Hidden Lives of Last Clotilda Survivor Matilda McCrear and Her Family|journal=Slavery & Abolition|volume=41|issue=3|pages=431–457|doi=10.1080/0144039X.2020.1741833|s2cid=216497607|issn=0144-039X}}</ref>

However, according to Senator Stephen Douglas, Lincoln's opponent in the Lincoln–Douglas debates:

{{blockquote|In regard to the slave trade, Mr. Douglas stated that there was not the shadow of doubt but that it had been carried on quite extensively for a long time back, and that there had been more slaves imported into the Southern States during the last year [1858] than had ever been imported before in any one year, even when the slave trade was legal. It was his confident belief that over 15,000 slaves had been brought into this country during the past year. He had seen, with his own eyes, three hundred of these recently-imported, miserable beings, in a slave-pen in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and also large numbers at Memphis, Tennessee.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Mr. Douglas' position
|newspaper=Richmond Enquirer (Richmond, Virginia)
|date=30 Aug 1859
|page=4
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/93416794/stephen-douglas-slavery-presidential/ }}</ref>}}

=== Brazil ends the Atlantic slave trade ===
The last country to ban the Atlantic slave trade was Brazil in 1831. However, a vibrant illegal trade continued to ship large numbers of enslaved people to Brazil and also to Cuba until the 1860s, when British enforcement and further diplomacy finally ended the Atlantic slave trade.{{citation needed|date=September 2019}} In 1870, Portugal ended the last trade route with the Americas, where the last country to import slaves was Brazil. In Brazil, however, slavery itself was not ended until 1888, making it the last country in the Americas to end involuntary servitude.

===Economic motivation to end the slave trade===

The historian Walter Rodney contends that it was a decline in the profitability of the triangular trades that made it possible for certain basic human sentiments to be asserted at the decision-making level in a number of European countries—Britain being the most crucial because it was the greatest carrier of African captives across the Atlantic. Rodney states that changes in productivity, technology, and patterns of exchange in Europe and the Americas informed the decision by the British to end their participation in the trade in 1807.{{citation needed|date=September 2019}}

Nevertheless, [[Biography:Michael Hardt|Michael Hardt]] and [[Biography:Antonio Negri|Antonio Negri]]<ref>Hardt, M. and A. Negri (2000), ''Empire'', Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 114–128.</ref> argue that it was neither a strictly economic nor moral matter. First, because slavery was (in practice) still beneficial to capitalism, providing not only an influx of capital but also disciplining hardship into workers (a form of "apprenticeship" to the capitalist industrial plant). The more "recent" argument of a "moral shift" (the basis of the previous lines of this article) is described by Hardt and Negri as an "ideological" apparatus in order to eliminate the sentiment of guilt in western society. Although moral arguments did play a secondary role, they usually had major resonance when used as a strategy to undercut competitors' profits. This argument holds that Eurocentric history has been blind to the most important element in this fight for emancipation, precisely, the constant revolt and the antagonism of slaves' revolts. The most important of those being the Haitian Revolution. The shock of this revolution in 1804, certainly introduces an essential political argument into the end of the slave trade, which happened only three years later.{{citation needed|date=September 2019}}

However, both James Stephen and Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux wrote that the slave trade could be abolished for the benefit of the British colonies, and the latter's pamphlet was often used in parliamentary debates in favour of abolition. William Pitt the Younger argued on the basis of these writings that the British colonies would be better off, in economics as well as security, if the trade was abolished. As a result, according to historian Christer Petley, abolitionists argued, and even some absentee plantation owners accepted, that the trade could be abolished "without substantial damage to the plantation economy". William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville argued that "the slave population of the colonies could be maintained without it." Petley points out that government took the decision to abolish the trade "with the express intention of improving, not destroying, the still-lucrative plantation economy of the British West Indies."<ref>Petley, ''White Fury'', pp. 190-209.</ref>

==Legacy==
===Sierra Leone===
In 1787, the British helped 400 freed slaves, primarily African Americans freed during the American Revolutionary War who had been evacuated to London, to relocate to Sierra Leone. Most of the first group of settlers died due to disease and warfare with indigenous peoples. About 64 survived to establish the second "Province of Freedom" following the failed first attempt at colonization between 1787 and 1789.<ref name="Schama">{{cite book|title=Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution|last=Schama|first=Simon|year=2006|isbn=978-0-06-053916-0}}'' ''</ref><ref>Cassandra Pybus, ''Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty,'' (Beacon Press, Boston, 2006); [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2947159 ''The Black Loyalist Directory: African Americans in Exile After the American Revolution''.] by Graham Russell Hodges, Susan Hawkes Cook, Alan Edward Brown (JSTOR)</ref><ref>Sivapragasam, Michael, "Why Did Black Londoners not join the Sierra Leone Resettlement Scheme 1783–1815?" Unpublished master's dissertation (London: Open University, 2013), pp. 40–43.</ref>

In 1792, 1200 Nova Scotian Settlers from Nova Scotia settled and established the Colony of Sierra Leone and the settlement of [[Place:Freetown|Freetown]]; these were newly freed African Americans and their descendants. Many of the adults had left Patriot owners and fought for the British in the Revolutionary War. The Crown had offered slaves freedom who left rebel masters, and thousands joined the British lines. More than 1,200 volunteered to settle and establish the new colony of Freetown, which was established by British abolitionists under the Sierra Leone Company.<ref name="Schama"/><ref>{{cite book|last=Walker |first=James W. |year=1992 |chapter=Chapter Five: Foundation of Sierra Leone |title=The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783–1870 |location=Toronto |publisher=University of Toronto Press |pages=[https://archive.org/details/blackloyalistsse0000walk/page/94 94]–114 |url=https://archive.org/details/blackloyalistsse0000walk |url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-8020-7402-7}} Originally published by Longman & Dalhousie University Press (1976).</ref> 
===Liberia===
In 1816, a group of wealthy European-Americans, some of whom were abolitionists and others who were racial segregationists, founded the American Colonization Society with the express desire of sending liberated African Americans to West Africa. In 1820, they sent their first ship to Liberia, and within a decade around two thousand African Americans had been settled there. Such resettlement continued throughout the 19th century, increasing following the deterioration of race relations in the Southern states of the US following Reconstruction in 1877.<ref>Handley 2006, p. 21.</ref>

The American Colonization Society's proposal to send African Americans to Liberia was not universally popular among African-Americans, and the proposal was seen as a plot to weaken the influence of the abolitionist movement.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Egerton|first=Douglas R. |date=June 1997|title=Averting a Crisis: The Proslavery Critique of the American Colonization Society |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/421411/pdf |journal=Civil War History |volume=43|pages=142–156|doi=10.1353/cwh.1997.0099|via=[[Project MUSE]] |number=2|access-date=July 24, 2019 |archive-date=July 24, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190724144305/https://muse.jhu.edu/article/421411/pdf|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=Hubbard>{{cite news|title=Jeremiah Hubbard's letter|newspaper=Middlebury Free Press (Middlebury, Vermont)|date=23 Jun 1834|first=Orson S.|last=Murray|page=1|via=newspapers.com|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/96901719/colonization-of-freed-slaves/}}</ref> The scheme was widely rejected by prominent African-American abolitionists such as James Forten<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wesley |first=Dorothy Porter|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gaUFeuToWhwC&pg=PA250|title=Early Negro Writing, 1760–1837|date=1995|publisher=Black Classic Press|isbn=978-0-933121-59-1|page=250|language=en|access-date=March 8, 2020|archive-date=August 19, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819151300/https://books.google.com/books?id=gaUFeuToWhwC&pg=PA250 |url-status=live }}</ref> and  Frederick Douglass.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/opinion/23gates.html | title=Opinion &#124; Ending the Slavery Blame-Game | newspaper=The New York Times | date=23 April 2010 | last1=Gates | first1=Henry Louis Jr. }}</ref>

===Rastafari movement===
The Rastafari movement, which originated in Jamaica, where 92% of the population are descended from the Atlantic slave trade, has made efforts to publicise the slavery and to ensure it is not forgotten, especially through reggae music.<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/rastafari/history/reggae.shtml "Reggae and slavery"], BBC, 9 October 2009.</ref>

===Apologies===

====Worldwide====
In 1998, [[Organization:UNESCO|UNESCO]] designated 23 August as International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. Since then there have been a number of events recognizing the effects of slavery.

At the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, African nations demanded a clear apology for slavery from the former slave-trading countries. Some nations were ready to express an apology, but the opposition, mainly from the United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United States blocked attempts to do so. A fear of monetary compensation might have been one of the reasons for the opposition. As of 2009, efforts are underway to create a UN Slavery Memorial as a permanent remembrance of the victims of the Atlantic slave trade.

====Benin====
In 1999, President Mathieu Kerekou of Benin (formerly the Kingdom of [[History:Dahomey|Dahomey]]) issued a national apology for the role Africans played in the Atlantic slave trade.<ref name="apology">"[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/opinion/23gates.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 Ending the Slavery Blame-Game"], ''The New York Times'', 22 April 2010.</ref> Luc Gnacadja, minister of environment and housing for Benin, later said: "The slave trade is a shame, and we do repent for it."<ref name="dahomey">"[http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2000-05-01/news/0005010158_1_slave-trade-benin-president-mathieu-kerekou Benin Officials Apologize For Role In U.S. Slave Trade"]. ''Chicago Tribune'', 1 May 2000.</ref> Researchers estimate that 3&nbsp;million slaves were exported out of the [[Place:Slave Coast of West Africa|Slave Coast]] bordering the Bight of Benin.<ref name="dahomey"/>

====Denmark====

Denmark had foothold in Ghana for more than 200 years and trafficked as many as 4,000 enslaved Africans per year.<ref>{{cite book|last=Andrews|first=Kehinde|year=2021|title=The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World|place=London|publisher=Allen Lane|page=98|isbn=978-0-241-43744-5}}</ref>
Danish Foreign Minister, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen declared publicly in 1992:
"I understand why the inhabitants in the West Indian Islands celebrate the day they became part of the U.S. But for Danish people and Denmark the day is a dark chapter. We exploited the slaves in the West Indian Islands during 250 years and made good money on them, but when we had to pay wages, we sold them instead, without even asking the inhabitants (…) That really wasn't a decent thing to do. We could at least have called a referendum, and asked people which nation they wanted to belong to. Instead we just let down the people."
<ref>{{cite journal|last=Andersen|first=Astrid Nonbo|title="We Have Reconquered the Islands": Figurations in Public Memories of Slavery and Colonialism in Denmark 1948-2012|journal=International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society|volume=26|number=1|year=2013|pages=57–76|doi=10.1007/s10767-013-9133-z|jstor=42636435|s2cid=189952970}}</ref>{{rp|69}}

====France====
On 30 January 2006, Jacques Chirac (the then French President) said that 10 May would henceforth be a national day of remembrance for the victims of slavery in France, marking the day in 2001 when France passed a law recognising slavery as a crime against humanity.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4662442.stm "Chirac names slavery memorial day"]. BBC News, 30 January 2006. Accessed 22 July 2009.</ref>

====Ghana====
President Jerry Rawlings of Ghana apologized for his country's involvement in the slave trade.<ref name="apology"/>

====Netherlands====
At a UN conference on the Atlantic slave trade in 2001, the Dutch Minister for Urban Policy and Integration of Ethnic Minorities Roger van Boxtel said that the Netherlands "recognizes the grave injustices of the past." On 1 July 2013, at the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the Dutch West Indies, the Dutch government expressed "deep regret and remorse" for the involvement of the Netherlands in the Atlantic slave trade. Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte apologized for the Netherlands' role in the history of slavery on 19 December 2022.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.government.nl/latest/news/2022/12/19/government-apologises-for-the-netherlands-role-in-the-history-of-slavery | title=Government apologises for the Netherlands' role in the history of slavery - News item - Government.nl | date=19 December 2022 }}</ref> The municipal government of Amsterdam, which co-owned the colony of Surinam, and De Nederlandsche Bank, which was involved in slavery between 1814 and 1863, had already apologized for their involvement on 1 July 2021 and 1 July 2022, respecively.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.amsterdam.nl/bestuur-organisatie/college/burgemeester/speeches/toespraak-slavernijherdenking-2021/ | title=Toespraak slavernijherdenking 2021 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.dnb.nl/over-ons/slavernijverleden-dnb/excuses-voor-betrokkenheid-en-maatregelen/ | title=Excuses voor betrokkenheid en maatregelen }}</ref>

====Nigeria====
In 2009, the Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria has written an open letter to all [[Social:Tribal chief|African chieftains]] who participated in trade calling for an apology for their role in the Atlantic slave trade: "We cannot continue to blame the white men, as Africans, particularly the traditional rulers, are not blameless. In view of the fact that the Americans and Europe have accepted the cruelty of their roles and have forcefully apologized, it would be logical, reasonable and humbling if African traditional rulers ... [can] accept blame and formally apologize to the descendants of the victims of their collaborative and exploitative slave trade."<ref name=SmithGuardian>{{cite news|last=Smith|first=David|title=African chiefs urged to apologise for slave trade|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/18/africans-apologise-slave-trade|work=BBC News|access-date=1 March 2014}}</ref>

====United Kingdom====
On 9 December 1999, Liverpool City Council passed a formal motion apologising for the city's part in the slave trade. It was unanimously agreed that Liverpool acknowledges its responsibility for its involvement in three centuries of the slave trade. The City Council has made an unreserved apology for Liverpool's involvement and the continual effect of slavery on Liverpool's black communities.<ref>National Museums Liverpool, [http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/srd/liverpool.aspx "Liverpool and the transatlantic slave trade"]. Accessed 31 August 2010.</ref>

On 27 November 2006, British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a partial apology for Britain's role in the African slavery trade. However African rights activists denounced it as "empty rhetoric" that failed to address the issue properly. They feel his apology stopped shy to prevent any legal retort.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6185176.stm "Blair 'sorrow' over slave trade"]. BBC News, 27 November 2006. Accessed 15 March 2007.</ref> Blair again apologized on 14 March 2007.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6451793.stm "Blair 'sorry' for UK slavery role"]. BBC News, 14 March 2007. Accessed 15 March 2007.</ref>

On 24 August 2007, Ken Livingstone (Mayor of London) apologized publicly for London's role in the slave trade. "You can look across there to see the institutions that still have the benefit of the wealth they created from slavery," he said, pointing towards the financial district, before breaking down in tears. He said that London was still tainted by the horrors of slavery. Jesse Jackson praised Mayor Livingstone and added that reparations should be made.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Muir|first1=Hugh|title=Livingstone weeps as he apologises for slavery|url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2007/aug/24/london.humanrights |newspaper=The Guardian |date=24 August 2007|access-date=30 July 2014}}</ref>

====United States====
On 24 February 2007, the Virginia General Assembly passed House Joint Resolution Number 728<ref>[http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?071+ful+HJ728H2 House Joint Resolution Number 728]. Commonwealth of Virginia. Accessed 22 July 2009.</ref> acknowledging "with profound regret the involuntary servitude of Africans and the exploitation of Native Americans, and call for reconciliation among all Virginians". With the passing of that resolution, Virginia became the first of the 50 United States to acknowledge through the state's governing body their state's involvement in slavery. The passing of this resolution came on the heels of the 400th-anniversary celebration of the city of Jamestown, Virginia, which was the first permanent English colony to survive in what would become the United States. Jamestown is also recognized as one of the first slave ports of the American colonies. On 31 May 2007, the Governor of Alabama, Bob Riley, signed a resolution expressing "profound regret" for Alabama's role in slavery and apologizing for slavery's wrongs and lingering effects. Alabama is the fourth state to pass a slavery apology, following votes by the legislatures in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.<ref>Associated Press. [http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,276724,00.html "Alabama Governor Joins Other States in Apologizing For Role in Slavery"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130522181207/http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,276724,00.html |date=2013-05-22 }}. Fox News, 31 May 2007. Accessed 22 July 2009.</ref>

On 30 July 2008, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution apologizing for American slavery and subsequent discriminatory laws. The language included a reference to the "fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow" segregation.<ref>Fears, Darryl. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/29/AR2008072902279.html "House Issues An Apology For Slavery"]. ''{{wipe|The Washington Post}}'', 30 July 2008, p. A03. Accessed 22 July 2009.</ref> On 18 June 2009, the United States Senate issued an apologetic statement decrying the "fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery". The news was welcomed by President [[Biography:Barack Obama|Barack Obama]].<ref>Agence France-Presse. [https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iyMeHvk7WyJys7iAyehSzik11Yqg "Obama praises 'historic' Senate slavery apology"]. [[Software:Google News|Google News]], 18 June 2009. Accessed 22 July 2009.</ref>

==See also==
{{div col|colwidth=18em}}
* [[Earth:Atlantic history|Atlantic history]]
* Atlantic slave trade to Brazil
* Barbary slave trade
* Bristol slave trade (UK)
* Edward Colston
* Indian indenture system
* Indian Ocean slave trade
* Liverpool slave trade
* Piracy
* The Slave Route Project
* Slave Trade Acts
* Slavery in Britain
* Slavery in Canada
* Slavery in contemporary Africa
* Slavery in the colonial United States
* Slavery in the Ottoman Empire
* Slavery in the Spanish New World colonies
* Slavery in the United States
* ''Tobacco and Slaves'' (1986 book)
* Trans-Saharan slave trade
* United States labor law
* [[Biography:Zephaniah Kingsley|Zephaniah Kingsley]]
{{div col end}}

== References ==
=== Citations ===
{{reflist|30em}}

=== General bibliography ===
==== Academic books ====
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite book |last= Austen |first= Ralph |year= 1987 |title= African Economic History: Internal Development and External Dependency |publisher=James Currey |location= London |isbn=978-0-85255-009-0 |ref=Aus87}}
* {{cite book |last= Christopher |first= Emma |year= 2006 |title= Slave Ship Sailors and Their Captive Cargoes, 1730–1807 |location= Cambridge |publisher= Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-67966-4 }}
* {{cite book |last1=Hair |first1=Paul |last2=Law |first2=Robin |chapter=The English in western Africa to 1700 |pages=241–263 |editor=Nicholas Canny |title=Oxford History of the British Empire volume 1: The Origins of Empire. British Overseas Enterprise to the Close of the Seventeenth century |date=1998 |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford university press |isbn=978-0-19-164734-5}}
* {{cite book |last= Rodney |first= Walter |year= 1972 |title= How Europe Underdeveloped Africa |publisher=Bogle L'Ouverture |location= London |isbn=978-0-9501546-4-0 |ref=Rod72}}
* {{cite book |last= Thornton |first= John |year= 1998 |title= Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800 |edition= 2nd |publisher= Cambridge University Press |location= New York |isbn= 978-0-521-62217-2 |ref=Tho98}}
* {{cite book |last= Williams |first= Eric |orig-date= 1944 |title=Capitalism and Slavery|publisher=Andre Deutsch |location= London |year= 2015}}
{{refend}}

==== Academic articles ====
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite journal|title= Back to Africa: Issues of hosting 'Roots' tourism in West Africa |last= Handley, Fiona J. L. |year= 2006|journal= African Re-Genesis: Confronting Social Issues in the Diaspora |location= London: UCL Press |pages=20–31 |ref=Han06}}
* {{cite journal|title= Contested Monuments: African-Americans and the commoditization of Ghana's slave castles |last= Osei-Tutu, Brempong |year= 2006|journal= African Re-Genesis: Confronting Social Issues in the Diaspora |location= London: UCL Press |pages=9–19 |ref=Ose06}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Landers |first1=Jane |title=Spanish Sanctuary: Fugitives in Florida, 1687-1790 |journal=Florida Historical Quarterly |date=1984 |volume=62 |issue=3 |pages=296–313 |jstor=30146288}}
{{refend}}

==== Non-academic sources ====
* [http://www.revealinghistories.org.uk/how-did-money-from-slavery-help-develop-greater-manchester/articles/slave-grown-cotton-in-greater-manchester-museums.html Revealing Histories, Remembering Slavery.]
* [https://www.nga.gov/learn/teachers/lessons-activities/afro-atlantic-histories.html Afro Atlantic Histories resource], National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.

== Further reading ==
{{refbegin|30em}}
* Anstey, Roger: ''The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, 1760–1810''. London: Macmillan, 1975. {{ISBN|0-333-14846-0}}.
* Araujo, Ana Lucia. [https://books.google.com/books/about/Public_Memory_of_Slavery.html?id=kymzngEACAAJ ''Public Memory of Slavery: Victims and Perpetrators in the South Atlantic''] [[Company:Cambria Press|Cambria Press]], 2010. {{ISBN|978-1-60497-714-1}}
* Bailey, Anne. ''African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Beyond the Silence and the Shame''. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-8070-5513-7}}
* {{cite book |last=Blackburn |first=Robin |year=2011 |title=The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights |location=London & New York |publisher=Verso |isbn=978-1-84467-569-2}}
* Boruki, David Eltis, and David Wheat, "Atlantic History and the Slave Trade to Spanish America." ''American Historical Review'' 120, no. 2 (April 2015).
* [[Biography:John Henrik Clarke|Clarke, Dr. John Henrik]]: ''Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism''. Brooklyn, NY: A & B Books, 1992. {{ISBN|1-881316-14-9}}.
* {{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/atlanticslavetra0000curt|title=The Atlantic Slave Trade|last=Curtin|first=Philip D.|date=1969|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|isbn=978-0-299-05400-7|location=Madison|oclc=46413|url-access=registration}}
* {{Cite journal|last=Daudin|first=Guillaume|s2cid=154025254|date=2004|title=Profitability of Slave and Long-Distance Trading in Context: The Case of Eighteenth-Century France|journal=The Journal of Economic History|volume=64|issue=1|pages=144–171|doi=10.1017/S0022050704002633|issn=1471-6372|url=http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8fbd/65cbaf8c100207702a7442256ece292d43bd.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200809134718/http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8fbd/65cbaf8c100207702a7442256ece292d43bd.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=2020-08-09}}
* Domingues da Silva, Daniel B. ''The Atlantic Slave Trade from West Central Africa, 1780–1867''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. {{ISBN|978-1-107-17626-3}}
* {{Cite book|title=From Slavery to Freedom : Comparative Studies in the Rise and Fall of Atlantic Slavery|last=Drescher|first=Seymour|date=1999|publisher=New York University Press|isbn=0-333-73748-2|location=New York|oclc=39897280}}
* Eltis, David: "The volume and structure of the transatlantic slave trade: a reassessment", ''William and Mary Quarterly'' (2001): 17–46. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2674417 in JSTOR]
* Eltis, David. ''The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas''. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
* Eltis, David, and David Richardson, eds. ''Extending the Frontiers: Essays on the New Transatlantic Slave Trade Database''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.
* Emmer, Pieter C.: ''The Dutch in the Atlantic Economy, 1580–1880. Trade, Slavery and Emancipation''. Variorum Collected Studies Series CS614. Aldershot [u.a.]: Variorum, 1998.
* {{Cite book |last=French |first=Howard |year=2021 |title=Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War |location=New York |publisher=Liveright Publishing Company |isbn=978-1-63149-582-3 |oclc=1268921040}}
* Green, Toby. ''The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300–1589''. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
* Guasco, Michael. ''Slaves and Englishmen: Human Bondage in the Early Modern Atlantic''. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.
* Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo: ''Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links''. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006. {{ISBN|0-8078-2973-0}}.
* Heywood, Linda and John K. Thornton, ''Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585–1660''. New York: Cambridge University Press 2007.
* Horne, Gerald: ''The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil, and the African Slave Trade''. New York: New York University Press, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0-8147-3688-3|978-0-8147-3689-0}}.
* {{cite book |editor=Inikori, Joseph E. |editor2=Stanley L. Engerman |title=The Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Economies, Societies and Peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=abvkqNGSTZ0C |year=1992 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=0-8223-8237-7}}
* Klein, Herbert S. (2010). ''The Atlantic Slave Trade'' (2nd ed.){{ISBN?}}
* Lindsay, Lisa A. ''Captives as Commodities: The Transatlantic Slave Trade''. Prentice Hall, 2008. {{ISBN|978-0-13-194215-8}}
* McMillin, James A. ''The Final Victims: Foreign Slave Trade to North America, 1783–1810'', {{ISBN|978-1-57003-546-3}}. Includes database on CD-ROM.
* Meltzer, Milton: ''Slavery: A World History''. New York: Da Capo Press, 1993. {{ISBN|0-306-80536-7}}.
* Miller, Christopher L. ''The French Atlantic Triangle: Literature and Culture of the Slave Trade''. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008 {{ISBN|978-0-8223-4127-7}}
* Nimako, Kwame and Willemsen, Glenn. ''The Dutch Atlantic: Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation''. London: Pluto Press, 2011. {{ISBN|978-0-7453-3108-9}}
* Newson, Linda and Susie Minchin, ''From Capture to Sale: The Portuguese Slave Trade to Spanish South America in the Early Seventeenth Century''. Leiden: Brill 2007.{{ISBN?}}
* Northrup, David (ed.). ''The Atlantic Slave Trade'' Independence, KY: Wadsworth Cengage, 2010. {{ISBN|978-0-618-64356-1}}
* Rawley, James A., and Stephen D. Behrendt: ''The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History'' (University of Nebraska Press, 2005)
* Rediker, Marcus. ''The Slave Ship: A Human History''. New York: Penguin Books, 2008 {{ISBN|978-0-14-311425-3}}
* Rodney, Walter: ''How Europe Underdeveloped Africa''. Washington, DC: Howard University Press; Revised ed., 1981. {{ISBN|0-88258-096-5}}.
* Rodriguez, Junius P. (ed.), ''Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World''. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0-7656-1257-1}}.
* Smallwood, Stephanie E. ''Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008. {{ISBN|978-0-674-03068-8}}
* Schultz, Kara. "The Kingdom of Angola is not very far from here: The South Atlantic Slave Port of Buenos Aires, 1585–1640." ''Slavery & Abolition'' 36, no. 3 (2015).
* {{cite journal |last1=Jensen |first1=Niklas Thode |last2=Simonsen |first2=Gunvor |year=2016 |title=Introduction: The historiography of slavery in the Danish-Norwegian West Indies, c. 1950-2016 |journal=[[History:Scandinavian Journal of History|Scandinavian Journal of History]] |volume=41 |issue=4–5 |pages=475–494 |doi=10.1080/03468755.2016.1210880 |doi-access=free}}
* Solow, Barbara (ed.), ''Slavery and the Rise of the Atlantic System''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. {{ISBN|0-521-40090-2}}.
* Thomas, Hugh: ''The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440–1870''. London: Picador, 1997. {{ISBN|0-330-35437-X}}
* Thornton, John: ''Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800'', 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 1998. {{ISBN|0-521-62217-4|0-521-62724-9|0-521-59370-0|0-521-59649-1}}.
* {{cite book |last=Williams |first=Eric |year=1994 |orig-date=1944 |title=Capitalism & Slavery |location=Chapel Hill |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=0-8078-2175-6}}
* Wheat, David. ''Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean, 1570–1640''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016.
* Wheat, David. "The First Great Waves: African Provenance Zones for the Transatlantic Slave Trade to Cartagena de Indias". ''Journal of African History'' 52, no. 1 (March 2011). pp. 1–22. {{JSTOR|23017646 }}.
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Wikivoyage|Atlantic slave trade}}
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* [http://digitalscholarship.emory.edu/projects/featured/voyages-slave-trade.html Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190705223316/http://digitalscholarship.emory.edu/projects/featured/voyages-slave-trade.html |date=2019-07-05 }}
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6445941.stm Quick guide: The slave trade]&nbsp;– BBC News
* [http://www.blackhistory4schools.com/slavetrade/ Slave Trade and Abolition of slavery]&nbsp;– Teaching resources at Black History 4 Schools
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100612112047/http://fax.libs.uga.edu/HT857xA1/stamenu.html British documents on slave holding and the slave trade, 1788–1793]

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