The British played a major part in the Atlantic slave trade. Enslaved Africans were the most profitable source of labour. Britain’s military and commercial strength were vital in its development.
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transatlantic slave trade, segment of the global slave trade that transported between 10 million and 12 million enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th century. It was the second of three stages of the so-called triangular trade, in which arms, textiles, and wine were shipped from Europe to Africa, enslaved people from Africa to the Americas, and sugar and coffee from the Americas to Europe. By the 1480s Portuguese ships were already transporting Africans for use as enslaved labourers on the sugar plantations in the Cape Verde and Madeira islands in the eastern Atlantic. Spanish conquistadors took enslaved Africans to the Caribbean after 1502, but Portuguese merchants continued to dominate the transatlantic slave trade for another century and a half, operating from their bases in the Congo-Angola area along the west coast of Africa. The Dutch became the foremost traders of enslaved people during parts of the 1600s, and in the following century English and French merchants controlled about half of the transatlantic slave trade, taking a large percentage of their human cargo from the region of West Africa between the Sénégal and Niger rivers. In 1713 an agreement between Spain and Britain granted the British a monopoly on the trade of enslaved people with the Spanish colonies. Under the Asiento de negros, Britain was entitled to supply those colonies with 4,800 enslaved Africans per year for 30 years. The contract for this supply was assigned to the South Sea Company, of which British Queen Anne held some 22.5 percent of the stock. Study the history of the African slave trade and its economic effect on western Africa, where coastal states became rich and powerful while savanna states were destabilized as their people were taken captive
Probably no more than a few hundred thousand Africans were taken to the Americas before 1600. In the 17th century, however, demand for enslaved labour rose sharply with the growth of sugar plantations in the Caribbean and tobacco plantations in the Chesapeake region in North America. The largest numbers of enslaved people were taken to the Americas during the 18th century, when, according to historians’ estimates, nearly three-fifths of the total volume of the transatlantic slave trade took place.
The slave trade had devastating effects in Africa. Economic incentives for warlords and tribes to engage in the trade of enslaved people promoted an atmosphere of lawlessness and violence. Depopulation and a continuing fear of captivity made economic and agricultural development almost impossible throughout much of western Africa. A large percentage of the people taken captive were women in their childbearing years and young men who normally would have been starting families. The European enslavers usually left behind persons who were elderly, disabled, or otherwise dependent—groups who were least able to contribute to the economic health of their societies.
Sea otters are social animals that float on their backs in groups called “rafts” to rest. Sometimes these groups exceed 1,000 otters.
See All Good FactsHistorians have debated the nature and extent of European and African agency in the actual capture of those who were enslaved. During the early years of the transatlantic slave trade, the Portuguese generally purchased Africans who had been enslaved during tribal wars. As the demand for enslaved people grew, the Portuguese began to enter the interior of Africa to forcibly take captives; as other Europeans became involved in the slave trade, generally they remained on the coast and purchased captives from Africans who had transported them from the interior. Following capture, the abducted Africans were marched to the coast, a journey that could be as many as 300 miles (485 km). Typically, two captives were chained together at the ankle, and columns of captives were tied together by ropes around their necks. An estimated 10 to 15 percent of the captives died on their way to the coast.
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Find out about the slave trade, resistance and eventual abolition at the Atlantic gallery.
Africa and Enslavement
Ivory, gold and other trade resources attracted Europeans to West Africa. As demand for cheap labour to work on plantations in the Americas grew, people enslaved in West Africa became the most valuable ‘commodity’ for European traders.
Slavery existed in Africa before Europeans arrived. However, their demand for slave labour was so great that traders and their agents searched far inland, devastating the region. Powerful African leaders fuelled the practice by exchanging enslaved people for goods such as alcohol, beads and cloth.
Britain became the world’s leading slave-trading country. Transatlantic slavery was especially lucrative because ships could sail with full holds on every stage of their voyage, making large profits for merchants in London, Bristol and Liverpool.
Around 12 million Africans were enslaved in the course of the transatlantic slave trade. Between 1640 and 1807, British ships transported about 3.4 million Africans across the Atlantic.
The Middle Passage
The ‘Middle Passage’ was the harrowing voyage experienced by the millions of African captives transported across the Atlantic in European ships, to work as slaves in the Americas. Conditions on board slave ships were appalling: huge numbers of people were crammed into very small spaces. Men, women and children were separated, families being torn apart.
Overcrowding, poor diet, dehydration and disease led to high death rates. 450,000 of the 3.4 million Africans transported in British ships died on the Atlantic crossing. Those who resisted by refusing food and water were beaten and force-fed. Attempts at more violent, organised rebellion were even more savagely punished. Some people preferred death to slavery and committed suicide during the voyage or later.
Visions of the Caribbean: plantation conditions
By the 16th century, Europeans had started to develop and cultivate regions in the Caribbean, North and South America. As demand for labour grew, Europeans turned to West Africa to supply an enslaved workforce.
These people were defined in law as ‘chattels’ – the personal property of their ‘owners’ – and were denied the right to live and move as they chose. Their forced labour produced commodities like tobacco, cotton and sugar, for which there was a huge European demand.
Nearly two-thirds of all enslaved people cut cane on sugar plantations. These were places of hard labour and cruel treatment with very high mortality rates. Despite this, African music, dance and religious ceremonies flourished, evolving into new hybrid cultures and traditions.
Visions of the Caribbean: resistance
Enslaved people fought to retain their families, cultures, customs and dignity. Resistance took many forms: from keeping aspects of their identity and traditions alive to escaping and plotting uprisings.
On the plantations they broke tools, damaged crops and feigned injury or illness in order to frustrate plantation owners and their ambitions for greater profits. At other times, they made bids for freedom by escaping. Sometimes these ‘runaways’ grouped together and built their own independent, self-sufficient communities of resistance, often known as ‘maroons’.
Large-scale organised uprisings were a common reaction to the cruelties of the slave system. Potential and actual armed resistance also contributed to the ending of the slave trade and eventually slavery itself.
How did the slave trade develop in Britain?
Elizabeth I believed that capturing Africans against their will 'would be detestable and call down the vengeance of Heaven upon the undertakers', yet after seeing the huge profits available she lent Royal Ships to two slaving expeditions of John Hawkins – the first English trader of enslaved people from West Africa to the Americas.
No English settlements were established in North America or in the West Indies during the reign of Elizabeth, but in the 17th century the English began to acquire territory in the New World. The English colonies expanded rapidly and the development of a plantation system and the growth of the Atlantic economy brought further demands for African labour. This increased the scale of the trade in enslaved people.
In the first third of the 18th century, Britain’s involvement in the slave trade grew enormously. In the 1710s and 1720s, nearly 200,000 enslaved Africans were transported across the Atlantic in British ships.
Abolitionism in Britain
Abolitionism was one of Britain’s first lobbying movements. The first meeting of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade took place in London in May 1787. African writers and activists such as Olaudah Equiano spoke out against the trade and its inhumane treatment of Africans. High-profile figures such as William Wilberforce MP, and Thomas Clarkson also used their influence to effect its abolition.
Abolitionists argued that, in addition to stopping an immoral practice, ending the slave trade would save the lives of thousands of European sailors and open new markets for British goods. But their pro-slavery opponents pointed out how important Caribbean plantations were to Britain’s economy.
Parliament finally passed an Act to abolish the slave trade in 1807. It stated that all slave trading by British subjects was ‘utterly abolished, prohibited and declared to be unlawful’. But it did not end the institution of slavery itself and nearly 750,000 people remained enslaved in British colonies across the Caribbean.
Mobilizing public support
Abolitionists succeeded in mobilizing unprecedented public support. Through a campaign of information they demonstrated what lay behind the sugar, tobacco and coffee enjoyed by Britons. People signed petitions, attended lectures and abstained from eating West Indian sugar.
Many people who signed petitions could not vote and this was their only means of expressing their opinion to Parliament. Over 100 petitions against the slave trade were submitted to Parliament in 1788, rising to 519 in 1792. For the first time in a public political campaign, women were extensively involved, adding their voices to the calls for abolition.
The continuation of slavery
Although the British Parliament outlawed slavery in 1807, a quarter of all Africans who were enslaved were transported across the Atlantic after this date. In British colonies, the institution of slavery carried on as before, until Parliament passed an Emancipation Act in 1833. This was achieved by a combination of active resistance in the Caribbean and campaigning in Britain. Even then, full emancipation was not realized until 1838 when a period of unpaid labour ended and 800,000 people were freed across the British Caribbean. But Parliament also voted to pay the plantation owners £20 million in compensation. No payment was made to the ex-slaves.
After 1807: the Royal Navy and suppression of the slave trade
In 1808, the British West Africa Squadron was established to suppress illegal slave trading. Between 1820 and 1870, Royal Navy patrols seized over 1500 ships and freed 150,000 Africans destined for slavery in the Americas.
Many people believed that the only way to eradicate slavery was to promote ‘legitimate’ trade and European forms of religion and government in Africa. This paved the way for colonial rule later in the 19th century.