How the slave trade between Europe, Africa and the American colonies began
Why did anyone embark on perilous trading journeys?
International trade led to enormous losses of men, ships and fortunes
Documents on this site and much more featured in an exhibition at Westminster Hall that is now closed.
Behind the scenes look at the Parliamentary Archives.
The urge to explore, conquer and settle became a defining characteristic of all the major European maritime powers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The English were not at the forefront of this drive, but the pioneering discoveries of the Spaniards, Portuguese and Dutch revealed to everyone the potential and abundance of overseas trade and settlement.
The tentative efforts under Elizabeth I to break into what had become foreign monopolies whetted the appetite for more. But it was the military and political turmoil in Europe in the early seventeenth century which allowed the English to establish their own trading systems to Africa and the Americas. Above all, it was the pull of exotic commodities and riches which proved irresistible.
At first, Europeans were not drawn to Africa for slaves, although they did occasionally acquire them. Africa was more attractive, to the early pioneering settlers, for its valuable commodities - especially gold (we tend to forget why the basic English currency was known as a Guinea). Therefore the early development of trading companies to Africa aimed at 'normal' trade: gold, dyes, timbers, ivory and hides. What transformed everything was the development of colonies in the Americas.
A New General Chart for the West Indies. Published in The English Pilot. The Fourth Book describing the West India Navigation from Hudson's Bay to the River Amazones (London, 1773)
© Royal Geographical Society
Discover more about A New General Chart for the West Indies, 1773The settlement of colonies across the Americas (including the Caribbean islands) was to transform Europe's dealings with Africa. The introduction of plantations, especially the labour intensive sugar plantations, led to the use of African slave labour. In time some 70 per cent of all enslaved Africans shipped across the Atlantic were destined to work in the sugar fields.
Pioneered by the Spaniards and perfected by the Dutch, the concept of sugar plantations was eagerly adopted by the English from the 1620s in their own West Indian islands - but plantation slavery was not unique to sugar. In the North American colonies the development of the tobacco industry (a crop acquired from local Indians) led to the use of enslaved African labour.
By the end of the seventeenth century Parliament (with Royal support and backing) had supervised the development of a large (and increasing) African population throughout the English colonial possessions of the Americas.
