The Transatlantic Slave

Transatlantic Slave Trade From the 1520s to the 1860s an estimated 11 to 12 million African men, women, and children were forcibly embarked on European vessels for a life of slavery in the Western Hemisphere. Many more Africans were captured or purchased in the interior of the continent but a large number died before reaching the coast. About 9 to 10 million Africans survived the Atlantic crossing to be purchased by planters and traders in the New World, where …

…f abolition, when external demand for slaves ended rather suddenly. In the Americas the slave trade ensured that, for three centuries, the subtropical areas remained the focal point of New World economic activity. It also ensured a much more complex social milieu and cultural environment than would have been possible without contacts with Africa. With all of its horrors and inhumanity, the transatlantic slave trade was critical in the formation of the modern world.