What was the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade?

Slavery was not new at this time, as it had existed in almost all human cultures throughout history.

Buying and selling other people was central to ancient Rome and Greece and had also existed in Africa.

The trans-Atlantic slave trade began in the 15th century when Portugal had begun exploring the west coast of Africa while trying to find a sea-route to India.

These Portuguese explorers kidnapped local people and took them back to Europe as slaves.

After Columbus' first voyage to the New World, the Spanish began transporting Africans to the Americas in the early 16th century. 

Most of these enslaved people came from the west coast of Africa, in the areas of modern Nigeria and Cameroon.

Over the next four hundred years, over ten million Africans would be taken and sold in this manner.

The early European slave traders simply kidnapped Africans, sometimes tricking victims onto ships by offering to trade with them.

Later, slavers made deals with African tribes who agreed to attack enemy tribes and trade any captives in return for expensive European products, like clothes and weapons.

During this time, slave traders built small prisons along the coast of Africa, where captives could be held until the slave ships arrived to pick them up.

While imprisoned, the African victims were branded with a red-hot iron to indicate their slave status.

The role of African tribes in the capture of other Africans can often seem confusing.

There are a number of reasons that tribal chiefs may have done this:

• Traditional African society had used slavery to punish people for committing crimes, to pay off debts, or as a result of being captured in war.
• European merchants were offering to sell them the latest technology and luxury goods, so it was economically attractive to sell their captives.
• Tribal chiefs may have simply acted to boost their own power, by using European firearms to defeat their enemies.

The most notorious element of the trans-Atlantic slave trade was the ship journey from the coast of Africa to the Americas.

This stretch of water was known as the 'Middle Passage' and was particularly brutal for the victims. 

Since the slave traders' main aim in selling other humans was to make as much money as possible, they treated the captive Africans as 'things' rather than people.

On the coast of Africa, the ships would be filled with as many Africans as they could fit in, even if this meant that there was no room for them to move at all during the duration of the journey.

This resulted in horrific conditions on slave ships.

Many Africans did not survive to reach the Americas. Historians estimate that only three quarters of those who entered a ship in Africa exited it in the Americas. 

Those that didn't reach their destination may have died from disease and starvation, been killed by the harsh treatment of the ship's crew, or were simply thrown overboard if the slave traders needed to reduce numbers.

Once the slave ships reached the Americas, the slaves were then sold to landowners for use on their plantations.

European colonists in the new world were growing crops like sugar, cotton, and tobacco, which could be sold for huge profits.

However, these goods required a lot of manual labour to grow and harvest. Therefore, the farmers relied upon slave labour.

As the victims were slaves, they were not paid for their work, which meant that the landowners made a much larger profit when they sold their crops.

African slaves worked long hours, often for six days every week, and were forced to live in poor housing with limited food. 

It was common for them to suffer significant injuries during their work or die due to starvation or beatings from their owners.

The higher the death rate, the higher the demand for more slaves, which only encouraged slave traders to capture more Africans.

The removal of millions of people from the continent of Africa over 400 years devastated the growth and development of many parts of the region.

This led to a decline in population growth, technological development and standard of living.

By the time the European powers began colonizing parts of Africa, the local kingdoms were already weakened, which made the process of colonization easier.

By the 19th century, almost all of Africa had been claimed by one of the European nations.

Also, the long-term impact of treating people of African descent as slaves continued to influence the thinking of many people of European descent in the Americas.

This led to laws that disadvantaged African Americans in particular in North America, even after the slave trade was formally abolished in the 19th century.