Bartolomé de Las Casas, later the bishop of Chiapas, Mexico, proposed in 1517 the large-scale importation of African slaves to replace the local Indian slaves, whom he deemed unsuitable.
The subsequent conquest of the New World encouraged transatlantic slave trading as early as 1502 in support of plantations instituted in the Americas. Renaissance Europeans discovered the existence of the Americas in 1492 when Christopher Columbus stumbled upon the New World during an attempt to find a sea-trading route to the Far East. Demand for slaves proved to be greater than the usual practices could provide, and coastal tribes resorted to slave-catching raids to supply Europeans' demands, using firearms supplied by slavers. By 1444, Europe began to buy African slaves, and the first leg of the slave trade triangle became established. However, the exportation of African slaves had its real origins in 1419, when Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal began to send expeditions to explore the West African coast. Local kings would often sell surplus slaves, in addition to criminals, debtors, and prisoners of war, to European traders. The inhabitants along the west coast of Africa had long recognized the practice of slavery however, trafficking existed mainly to supply domestic slaves. The next leg sent these slaves and domestic goods to the West Indies and North American coast, where shippers traded their cargo for tobacco, fish, lumber, flour, foodstuffs, and rum distilled in New England before returning with these goods to England. This cargo made the voyage from England to the African "Slave Coast" to be traded for slaves and other riches such as gold and silver. The economics of such trafficking went something like this: England produced textiles and other manufactured goods like firearms and gunpowder, unavailable in either North America or Africa. The so-called Middle Passage consisted of the leg across the Atlantic that connected Africa to the Americas.
Ships in these triangular lanes carried goods among the three continents, taking advantage of the fact that none of these regions was economically self-sufficient each depended on the other two for goods they could not provide themselves. Even before African slaves arrived on the shores of Virginia in 1619, the slave trade figured significantly in the economy of the Atlantic nations.Įstablished primarily by sea captains from England and New England, a system of trading routes developed among Europe, Africa, and North America and became known collectively as the triangular trade.
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