African Slave Trade Late 1400s-mid 1800s • Slavery- the treatment of human beings as property, depriving them of personal rights • The Atlantic slave trade stands out for the magnitude of its global scale and its legacy. How it Began • In 1441: the Portuguese kidnapped 10 Africans from the west coast • This is generally seen as the beginning of the Atlantic Slave Trade • They then set up the original slave trading posts on Africa’s west coast How many people were taken into slavery? • It’s estimated that between 9 million- 11 million people were taken out of Africa by European slave traders and delivered alive on the other side of the Atlantic. • The death toll of the slave trade may have been more than 5 million a. This doesn’t include what happened to the slaves after they reached the Americas The Middle Passage • Middle Passage- The leg of the triangular trade from the west coast of Africa, across the Atlantic, to the east coast of the Americas • Suffocating conditions and lack of sanitation meant there was a constant threat of disease. https://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/ship
