- Major slave routes passed through West, East, and Southern Africa
- Brazil was single biggest market for exported slaves, last to abolish the practice in Americas
ISTANBUL
The transatlantic slave trade, carried out by Western powers for nearly four centuries, remains one of humanity's darkest chapters, leaving deep scars through the suffering, loss, and shattered lives of millions torn from Africa.
From the late 15th to the 19th century, European colonial powers forcibly transported millions of Africans to the Americas, then described as the “New World.”
From 1501 to 1867, historical records show that 12.5 million Africans survived the forced journey across the Atlantic – a figure that excludes the countless men, women, and children who died before reaching coastal ports, perished in holding camps or were trafficked without record.
Because vast portions of documentation were destroyed or never kept, scholars widely agree that the true number is significantly higher.
Estimates suggest that over four centuries, an estimated 25 to 30 million people – nearly a third of Africa’s population at the time – were forcibly taken from their homes to be sold in the slave trade.
While slavery existed elsewhere in the world, no system matched the scale, brutality, and global impact of the transatlantic trade.
Expansion of the slave trade across Africa and the Americas
Slavery in North Africa dates back to Ancient Egypt. Between 1558-1080 BC, many Africans were brought to the Nile Valley as war captives and sold to wealthy families – a system that continued under the Roman Empire.
However, the mass slave trade in Africa began in the late 15th century with Portugal’s maritime expansion. Countries like England, France, the Netherlands, and Spain quickly joined the trade, turning it into a cornerstone of their colonial economies.
Ships from Europe brought Africans, either captured or enslaved in local conflicts, to coastal ports, where they were forced to cross the Atlantic.
One of the deadliest stretches was the infamous Middle Passage, the transatlantic crossing marked by extreme overcrowding, starvation, beatings, disease, and total confinement.
At least 1.8 million people died on the journey alone, according to historians – a figure considered conservative due to incomplete archives.
Key routes and destinations of the slave trade
While most voyages followed a triangular route between Europe, Africa, and the Americas, thousands also began directly from US ports such as Newport, Rhode Island, and Charleston, South Carolina.
European ships departing from Nantes, Bordeaux, and Lisbon often anchored at Senegal’s Goree Island, one of the most notorious slave-trading hubs in West Africa. Many enslaved Africans were held in “slave houses” on the island – cramped, windowless cells – before being shipped across the Atlantic.
For centuries, West Africa was the primary hub of the slave trade. But as European empires expanded into Africa, ports in East and Southern Africa also became major centers for trafficking.
The "Bimbia slave port" near Limbe, Cameroon, was another key center of the intercontinental slave trade, with reports suggesting that around 10% of the trade passed through this port.
Brazil remained the largest single destination, with around 4.7-5 million Africans arriving between 1501 and 1867. Between 1580 and 1760, that was the destination of around 38% of the enslaved Africans.
An estimated 9 million Africans were taken to Latin America overall.
Meanwhile, an estimated 388,000 Africans were brought to North America, though the domestic trade flourished and the enslaved population in the US multiplied over generations.
By the early 17th century, an estimated 50,000 slaves were sold in markets across Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Human life became so devalued that some traders exchanged as many as 30 slaves for a single horse.
Southern Africa was similarly reshaped by forced labor.
When the Dutch founded their first colony in Cape Town in 1652, the settlement had around 90 inhabitants.
By 1795, the number of enslaved Africans had grown to 16,839, and two-thirds of Cape Town’s population were slaves.
East Africa also became a major center in the 19th century. From Tanzania’s Bagamoyo region – the heart of German East Africa – enslaved Africans were transported to India, Iran, the Arabian Peninsula and French sugarcane plantations on Reunion Island and Mauritius.
Slavery abolished, but its legacy continues
The transatlantic slave trade formed the economic backbone of plantation agriculture in the Americas, producing immense wealth for European empires while devastating African societies.
Pressure from abolitionist movements in the 19th century eventually forced Western powers to end the practice. England abolished the slave trade in 1807 and slavery in 1833. France followed in 1848, and in the US, slavery ended in 1865 with the 13th Amendment.
Brazil was the last in the Americas to abolish slavery in 1888 with the "Lei Aurea" (Golden Law).
Yet the end of the trade marked only the beginning of its long aftermath.
Countries across Africa continue to reckon with the demographic loss, economic underdevelopment and deep social scars it left behind – reminders that the transatlantic slave trade’s legacy is not confined to history, but still shapes realities today.
