The Atlantic Slave Trade: Scale and System

Between the early 1500s and the 1860s, European and American traders forcibly carried about 12. 5 million Africans across the Atlantic, of whom roughly 10. 7 million survived the voyage, known as the Middle Passage. Most were taken to Brazil and the Caribbean to produce sugar, and later coffee, cotton and other crops. The trade was a system linking African states and merchants who sold captives, European shippers and investors, and plantation owners across the Americas.

Slavery in the Americas became racialized and hereditary: children of enslaved mothers were born enslaved, and laws defined enslaved people as property. Enslaved people resisted in many ways, from preserving their cultures to running away and revolting. Understanding the scale and economic importance of slavery explains why abolition was so hard: ending it meant confronting powerful interests, deeply rooted racism and enormous sums of invested wealth.