The Transatlantic Slave Trade (1480-1783)
Slavery in the New World
Over 400 years ago in 1619, the first enslaved Africans arrived on the shore of the British settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. In 1662, Europeans (mainly from England, France, and Portugal) brought the trade of enslaved Africans to the Caribbean, effectively creating the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
Much of the prosperity of the New World is owed to the exploitation of enslaved Africans. Throughout the 18th century, an estimated 6 to 7 million enslaved Africans were brought to the New World to work on plantations harvesting cash crops, such as tobacco, rice, cotton, and indigo in the present-day United States, and sugar, molasses, and rum in the Caribbean.
Cape Coast Castle (Ghana, Africa)