Until it was banned in 1807, Britain was the biggest slave trader in the world. The crown made more money on the slave trade than on anything else.

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This page has three parts of the Slave Trade:

Slave Trade Beginnings, The Slave Trade, The “End” of Slavery

Slave Trade Beginnings:

The slave trade began long before Europeans reached the New World. Portuguese ships began arriving in the early 1400s on the shores of Africa. They sought after gold and African captives to send over to Lisbon to be sold into slavery. By 1453 a monopoly on trade with Africa had began under Pope Nicholas, and by 1453 Portuguese practiced enslaving “pagans and unbelievers inimical to Christ.” In 1505 The Spanish crown sent seventeen black slaves, probably all born in either Spain or Portugal, to the island of Hispaniola. By 1515 Portuguese began bringing slaves directly from West Africa to Hispaniola to produce sugar.

During the year of 1522 the Africans resisted against the slave trade, and this became the first recorded slave revolt. It wasn’t until the 1550s that the Europeans challenged the Portuguese monopoly, by sending a vessel to West Africa. The Dutch quickly followed the Europeans starting the world wide slave trade.

In 1607 England established a colony in Jamestown, Virginia. In 1619 a Dutch ship brought the colony it’s first Africans. England began colonizing in the new world, and invested in the colonization in Barbados. In 1625 20,000 African slaves worked that island’s sugar plantations. By the early eighteenth century the English and the Dutch had replaced the Portuguese as the New World’s slave traders, though not without resistance from slaves. Between 1675, and the 1730s many slave revolts were recorded on the islands of Jamaica and Barbados. By the 1730s, 53,200 Africans were brought to the New World.

The Slave Trade:

The slave trade took triangular routs from Europe to the coast of West Africa, and to the West Indies. From Europe ships would transport manufactured goods to the coast of West Africa. Europeans would trade guns, and other needed goods to the Africans. Africans needed these goods for war against other African tribes. The Africans would either trade African captives of war, or tribe members that have broken the African law. Europeans as well as other countries often kidnapped Africans and sold them to slavery.

The ships would carry the Africans to the West Indies. The captains of these ships used two methods of transportation. Some captains used a system called “loose packing”. Under this system the belief was that by caring less slaves they could reduce sickness and death among them. The other system that captains used was called “tight packing”. This system boarded as many slaves as possible figuring that some slaves were going to die regardless. The Africans were carried across the Atlantic Ocean in some of the most horrible conditions. Once arriving to the West Indies the Africans were sold into slavery to plantation owners. The plantation owners would often trade with either currency, or spices. The ships would then began their trip home carrying spices and currency back to Europe.”