Transatlantic Slave Trade In Africa

The transatlantic slave trade was the largest horrific forced migration of Africans from their homelands to western hemisphere from 15th to 19th Century. Over twelve million men, women and children became the victim of this extreme exploitation. It was one of the terrific assaults in the human history which greatly influenced Africa’s Political and economic state. The purpose of the slave trade was to obtain profit and goods from European traders .Europeans used the slaves for plantations in Americas and also imported them to Brazil.
The development of slave trade begun in the mid 15th century , when Portuguese sailed down to the African coast in order to get spices and gold from there they started capturing slaves. Eventually the African
Portuguese planted sugar plantations in the islands of Madeira, Cape Verde, and especially São Tomé. Enslaved Africans were sent all over the world for the profit including middle east, India , Persia and Russia. Europeans needed slaves for plantations , the most importantly sugar. Sugar Plantations are highly labor intensive , for which Africans were captured and traded across their country. The population of enslaved people consisted of mostly men with strong bodies and thick skin ,however, the population of women was about 1/3 of the total men captured. Slaves were sent to Americas to produce luxury items that were valuable in Europe such as tobacco , cotton, gunpowder and rice. This Three sided slave trade is also known as Triangular trade; Europe to Africa , Africa to Americas and Americas back to
It was the second intense phase of slave trade. In that period, Larger Sugar plantations were created along with several other crops once again raising the demand of labor. An estimated of seven million Africans were migrated between 1650- 1807 from western and central Africa. The high demand of labor encouraged entrepreneurs and numerous innovations came into play. It was a fortune period for a lot of slave traders as they gained a lot of wealth and respect. However, the impact of trade on Africa was huge, it was downfall.
In 1807, the Britain and United states imposed a ban on transatlantic slave trade putting a top to human exploitation. Besides the ban a lot of Africans were still smuggled into United States until the late 1840’s.
First Denmark in 1803, and Britain in 1807, and then other countries in Europe and the Americas abolished the transatlantic slave trade for a variety of reasons including changes in their economic requirements. However, an illegal trade continued for many years, and slavery itself was not abolished in some countries until the 1880s. In Brazil for example, slavery continued to be legal until 1888 (The Transatlantic Slave