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Africa

The main source of slave labour in the early European colonies, were the people who lived there already. They had little immunity from European diseases and were so brutally treated that they rarely lived more than a year or two after being enslaved. In 1511, a friar of the order of Saint Dominic, called Bartolome de las Casas, called for the Africans to be substituted in their place in the Spanish colonies. The Africans, he argued, had had long contact with Europeans and made fitter, more skilled and dependable workers. Africans had been used as workers on Spanish and Portuguese plantations elsewhere. He later regretted his actions. But by then it was too late. More and more enslaved peoples from Africa were captured, sold and brought across the Atlantic Ocean to work on the plantations.

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• Europe
• Africa
• The Caribbean Islands
• Europe to Africa - Manufactured Goods
• Caribbean to Europe - Raw Materials
• Africa to Caribbean - Enslaved Africans

Click on the areas involved in the transatlantic slave trade to find out more.

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