The Triangle Trade

The Slave Trade by Auguste Francois Biard (1840)

There is one evil which has crept secretly into the world: at first its presence scarcely makes itself felt amid the usual abuses of power; it begins with one individual whose name history does not record; it is cast like an accursed seed somewhere in the soil; it then feeds itself, grows without effort, and spreads naturally inside the society which has accepted it: that evil is slavery. Christianity had destroyed slavery; Christians of the sixteenth century restored it, even though they only ever acknowledged it as an exception to their social system. They carefully restricted it to one single human race; thus they inflicted a wound on humanity... infinitely more difficult to cure."
- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America" (1835)

The practice of human slavery, which had been happily absent from Europe for a thousand years, was reintroduced in the fifteenth century as explorers from Spain, Portugal, France, and Great Britain connected Europe, Africa, and the Americas through a network of trade routes.

Most infamous was the Triangle Trade: in Africa, the Ottoman and Asanti Empires, Barbary states, Kingdom of Congo, and other African powers would enslave and sell conquered neighbors to European merchants. Occasionally, Europeans would conduct slave raids themselves. Enslaved people would then be transported under harsh conditions across the Atlantic and sold in exchange for fruit, sugar, rum, cocoa, and other New World products. These products were then brought to Europe and traded for gold, weapons, and technology, which were sailed to Africa and the process was repeated.

The Atlantic slave trade lasted roughly three-and-a-half centuries, during which time it is believed over twelve million Africans were forcibly transported to the Americas. Both Great Britain and the United States abolished the slave trade in 1808. Great Britain made slavery fully illegal in 1833, although it continued in the United States until the end of the Civil War in 1865. The last major power to outlaw slavery was Brazil in 1888. The social and economic impact of slavery would last far longer.

The law may abolish slavery, but only God can remove its effects."
- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America" (1835)