DOCUMENT PROJECT 3

The Atlantic Slave Trade

The trade in human cargo was central to European nations’ larger Atlantic ambitions. British and Anglo-American ships alone brought three million slaves to the Americas between 1700 and 1808, when the international slave trade ended in the young United States. Africans who were captured from their homelands and sold to Europeans entered a world of horror. They crossed the Atlantic on overpacked slave ships, where a large percentage of them died before reaching their final destination. Those who did survive were consigned to lives of endless backbreaking labor in South America, the West Indies, or North America. This exploitation allowed European nations to solidify empires and to enrich plantation owners, seaport merchants, and slave traders.

The following documents—written by English and Dutch traders and the slaves themselves—explore the process of the Atlantic slave trade: the capture of the slave, the sale to European merchants, and the Middle Passage. As you read, consider who participated in the slave trade and why they did so. Think also about the ways in which enslaved people tried to come to grips with their grim fate.