triangular trade
Three-continent commerce
Triangular trade refers to a pattern of commerce connecting three regions, with ships carrying different goods along each leg of the route.
The term most often describes the Atlantic slave trade: European manufactured goods went to Africa, enslaved Africans were transported to the Americas, and American raw materials like sugar and tobacco returned to Europe.
The triangular trade shaped colonial economies for centuries.
- sea routesNavigable ocean pathways
- rumMolasses-based liquor
- mercantilismTrade policy favoring exports
- Middle PassageTransatlantic slave trade crossing
- slave shipsVessels transporting enslaved people
human cargo · slavery · molasses · chattel slavery · abolition movements · sugar · demographic shifts · plantation economy · European imperialism · port cities · tobacco · diaspora · New England · British Empire · colonialism · cotton · firearms · crossings
- Americas HistoryAmerican Revolution, Aztec Empire, colonial era, colonization, Columbus
- maritime historysailors, ships, seamen, sailing ships, celestial navigation
- Colonial AmericaGeorge Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, Declaration of Independence
- trade routesspice route, silk road, Silk Road, cargo routes, merchant routes
- African historyNubia, Dahomey, Oyo Empire, Scramble for Africa, scramble for Africa
- trade historycommerce, merchant, colonial economy, merchant ships, Silk Road
triangular tradebilateral trade
Two-nation reciprocal exchange
direct trade · domestic trade · barter · local trade · autarky
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