-
1440
Atlantic slave trade begins
Portugal, along with other European countries, were finally able to expand overseas and reach Africa. The Portuguese began kidnapping people from the west coast Africa and taking those enslaved people back to Europe. Portugal made slave trading agreements with Moorish and African chiefs. The Portuguese built the first slave-trade post at Elmina, Gold Coast which is now Ghana -
1502
New World slavery of Africans begins in Hispaniola (now Haiti)
Slavery in Hispaniola began with the arrival of Christopher Columbus. This practice was very devastating to the native population. The economy of Haiti was based on slavery. Slavery in Haiti was regarded as the most brutal in the world. Haiti was based almost entirely on the production of plantation crops for export. Slaves grew sugar and coffee in the mountainous interior of the country. The treatment of the slaves would result in the Haitian Revolution. -
1542
New Laws of 1542
The New Laws of 1542 were a series of laws and regulations approved by the King of Spain in November of 1542. The purpose of the New Laws was to regulate the Spaniards who were enslaving the natives in the Americas, specifically Peru. The laws were very unpopular in the New World and ended up leading to a civil war in Peru. -
Dutch traders begin transporting slaves regularly
The Dutch soon began to see the wealth their fellow European neighbors had through the exploitation of their colonies in North and South America. As a result, the Dutch copy these methods in hopes of receiving the same results. When the Dutch West India Company conquers part of Brazil from the Portuguese, the interest in African slave trade is sparked. Around 600,000 Africans are shipped by the Dutch into slavery. -
King Louis XIII authorizes French involvement in the triangular slave trade
The French were the third largest slave traders during this time. 1,381,000 Africans were loaded on ships during the Transatlantic Slave Trade, only 1,165,000 survived the middle passage. Most of the slaves that survived the journey were sent to Saint-Domingue, which was the world's most profitable colony at the time. The French created many port cities for the goods slaves produced which were very profitable. -
Royal African Company founded
The Royal African Company was an English mercantile company that traded along the west coast of Africa. The company was granted a similar to monopoly to the previously active Company of Royal Adventures Trading to Africa. Between 1680 and 1686, the company transported an average of 5,000 slaves per year, sponsoring 249 voyages to Africa. English merchants were not a fan of this company and their monopoly. As a result, the English increased the amount of slaves transported. -
Colony for former slaves established in Sierra Leone, Africa
Freetown, Sierra Leone was the city founded by many abolitionists, such as William Wilberforce. This city sought to rehabilitate former slaves of North America by bringing them back to the settlement where they would stop the African slave trade by spreading Christianity throughout the country. Freetown eventually became the capital of Sierra Leone after it gained its independence and population of 100,000. -
Pinckeny's Treaty/Treaty of San Lorenzo
Pinckney's Treaty was signed in San Lorenzo de El Escorial on October 7, 1795. The main goal of this treaty was to establish friendship between the United States and Spain. The treaty defined the border between the United States and Spanish Florida along with guaranteeing the United States navigation rights on the Mississippi River. This treaty was very important for the future of American expansionism, later known as Manifest Destiny. -
The United States and Slave Trading
Slavery was heavily practiced in the Americas during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. African Slaves helped build the new nation into an economic powerhouse through the production of crops such as tobacco and cotton. Towards the middle of the nineteenth century, the westward expansion of the Americas and the abolition movement caused great debate over slavery. This debate would eventually brake out into the country's first civil war. -
Atlantic slave trade abolished
The Atlantic slave trade was abolished over a thirty year period. However, legal abolition did not end slave trading. The trading carried on illegally throughout the nineteenth century. The trade would continue as long as there was a market for slaves in the Americas, Brazil, and Cuba. There were many abolitionists during this time such as William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman.
