Where did the slaves come from and go to? - Teacher's Notes

The origins and destinations of slaves during the transatlantic slave trade are a somber chapter in human history. Initially, European contact with African nations began as trade without the intent to enslave. However, over time, the slave trade emerged as a distinct and devastating enterprise. Africans were often purchased by the British from other slave traders, but this changed when Charles II established the Royal African Company in 1672, which became notorious for its role in enslaving a vast number of African people. The Duke of York, later James II, oversaw the company which enslaved approximately 150,000 Africans.

The transatlantic slave trade represented history's most extensive forced migration, with an estimated 12-15 million Africans forcibly taken to the Caribbean, North, Central, and South America between 1500 and 1800. The Middle Passage, the perilous sea journey to the Americas, resulted in the deaths of over 2 million Africans. The legacy of this mass displacement is a global African Diaspora, with descendants of the enslaved living worldwide. The economic motive behind this trade was the production of commodities such as tobacco, cotton, sugar, and indigo dye in the Americas through the exploitation of slave labor, which generated immense wealth for Europeans, including the British, and led to the rapid growth of major British port cities.