Slavery Transatlantic

The transatlantic slave trade (approximately 1500-1880) forcibly transported an estimated 12.5 million African people to the Americas — with 10.7 million surviving the Middle Passage — making it the largest forced migration in history and the foundation of American, Caribbean, and Brazilian economic development. The trade was organized as a triangle: European goods to West Africa → enslaved Africans to Americas → American products (sugar, tobacco, cotton, coffee) to Europe. The Middle Passage (6-8 week Atlantic crossing) was deliberately dehumanizing: people were chained together, unable to stand or turn, with mortality rates of 15-20% (from disease, suicide, and violence). The sugar plantations of the Caribbean (especially Barbados, Jamaica, Saint-Domingue/Haiti) and tobacco/cotton plantations of North America generated enormous wealth for European colonizers. Haiti's Revolution (1791-1804) — the only successful slave revolt in history — produced the world's first Black republic and terrified slaveholders across the Americas.