Trade · 16th–19th centuries
The Atlantic slave trade
Atlantic coast of West and Central Africa (pin: Luanda, Angola)
From the 16th century until well into the 19th, European and American traders bought captives from West and Central African merchants and states and shipped them across the Atlantic on the 'Middle Passage' to be sold into slavery in Brazil, the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas. An estimated 12.5 million people were carried off from Africa, of whom about 10.7 million survived the voyage.
Why it mattered
In the first three centuries after Columbus far more Africans than Europeans crossed to the Americas, and the trade and the slavery it fed shaped the populations, economies and societies of the Atlantic world.
Elsewhere
Queen Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba (in present-day Angola) fought Portuguese expansion in the 17th century. Britain banned its slave trade in 1807 and the United States soon followed, but slavery itself lasted in Brazil until 1888.
Related
- The world in 1530: Conquerors and Reformers chapter
- Akbar and the Mughal high point previous moment · 1556–1605
- The Qing take Beijing next moment · 1644 (conquest completed 1683)