The transatlantic slave trade

The Atlantic slave trade, started by the Portuguese, was the sale and exploitation of African slaves by Europeans that occurred in and around the Atlantic ocean from the 15th century to the 19th century.
European and North American slave traders transported most of these slaves to areas in tropical and subtropical America, where the vast majority worked as laborers on large agricultural plantations.
These slaves were then transported to other locations around the Atlantic Ocean. The vast majority went to Brazil, the Caribbean, and Spanish-speaking regions of South America and Central America.
Some contemporary historians estimate that 12 million Africans arrived in the new world, making it one of the largest forced migrations in human history
The Atlantic slave trade began because a great demand for labor developed on plantations spread about the Atlantic, especially in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. Most of the plantations produced sugarcane for Europe, but planters eventually grew such other products as coffee, cocoa, rice, indigo, tobacco, and cotton. The Atlantic slave trade became an integral part of an international trading system


The Atlantic slave trade involved the largest intercontinental migration of people in world history prior to the 20th century. This transfer of so many people, over such a long time, had enormous consequences for every continent bordering the Atlantic. It profoundly changed the racial, social, economic, and cultural makeup in many of the American nations that imported slaves. It also left a legacy of racism that many of those nations are still struggling to overcome.


The trans-Atlantic slave trade resulted in a vast loss of life for African captives both in Africa and in America. Around 20 million Africans died during the brutal process, which turned human beings into property. The savage nature of the trade, where most of the slaves were procured during African wars, led to the destruction of individuals and cultures. For every African captive arriving in the New World two died during capture, storage, transport or "seasoning". The exact number of dead may never be known, but records of the period and modern research paint a grim picture.
The thing about history is that the deeper you look into it, the more complex it is. The term slavery is extremely broad and don't always serve well in describing a centuries long, extremely large process such as the "Atlantic slave trade". There had always been slavery and slave trading in Europe and Africa, and most everywhere in the world.
The kind of slavery that developed after about 1500 was dramatically different from that which existed today.
In today world slavery is in every corner of the world, Specially in developing nations and third world countries like Ethiopia ,Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan Iraq ,Iran ,Afghanistan and coastal part of Africa are only some . Large multinational firms attract the unemployed and underemployed unskilled workers. They travel to that respective countries in search for fortune and prosperity .however they only face racism abuse and a cultural shock. They work like dogs for seventeen hours a day for just minimal wage. This is the modern slavery where the world slavery is literally substituted by the word employed to satisfy the human right groups. This type of slavery is very common in the oil rich kingdom of Dubai.
In usa ,every year hundreds of maxicans force entry in usa illegally .they are mostly employed by Americans as there housekeepers or factory workers. They are exploited as the employers know that the can not take legal action against them because of their illegal status. This is also the same type of slavery that existed in the trans Atlantic slavery era but in a different light.
Still in Africa people are brought as slaves and are made to work in coal mines or diamonds mines.
The trans Atlantic slavery is an unfinished business. Developed nations such as America had passed act in the past to ban slavery and in present they have made them stricter. Organization such as united nations have taken steps to abolish slavery all together. in future more efforts make slavery the history of past.