transatlantic slave trade
Forced African diaspora
The transatlantic slave trade was the forced transportation of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas, lasting roughly from the 16th through the 19th century.
European and American ships carried millions of people from West and Central Africa to work on plantations in the Caribbean, Brazil, and North America.
The trade formed one leg of the triangular trade route connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
The transatlantic slave trade shaped the demographics and economies of four continents.
- chattel slaveryPersons owned as movable property
- enslavementForced human ownership
- triangular tradeThree-legged Atlantic exchange system
- slaveryOwnership of people
- Middle PassageTransatlantic slave trade crossing
slave ship · racial hierarchy · freedom papers · colonialism · African diaspora · slave codes · resistance · historical memory · human trafficking · mercantilism · forced migration · iron chains · family separation · abolition movement · shackles · plantation economy · white supremacy · forced labor
- slaverychattel slavery, enslaved, slave, enslavement, slave traders
- atrocitiesHolocaust, genocide, massacre, massacres, ethnic cleansing
- migrationmigration, immigrants, refugees, immigration, emigration
transatlantic slave tradefreedom of movement
Liberty to travel unimpeded
asylum seeking · economic migration · chain migration · refugee resettlement · repatriation
transatlantic slave tradeabolition
Formal discontinuation of practice
emancipation · abolitionist movement · Juneteenth · manumission · liberation
transatlantic slave tradehumanitarianism
Promoting welfare through compassion
human rights · abolitionism · anti-slavery movement · racial justice · reparations