Enslaved Africans working the sugarcane crop in Hispaniola

Some European explorers did not initially consider the Americas an opportunity for existing profitable goods. Instead they recognized the potential for plantations to grow crops that could not be produced in Europe. On other lands, they mined gold and silver and shipped it to Europe. Eventually, maintaining these plantations and mines led to the widespread use of slave labor in European colonies.

By the middle 1400s, the Portuguese began planting sugar on the tropical islands off the coast of Africa. They concentrated on Madeira, the Azores, Cape Verde, and São Tomé. At the time, sugar was in high demand in Europe, and it was expensive. It was a versatile product because it was easy to ship and store, and it was profitable to trade. It could also be easily made into alcohol (rum), which was another highly-valued item.

However, sugar was hard to grow for several reasons. It required painful physical labor. The islands were uninhabited and it was difficult to convince Portuguese workers to leave home to do field work. To fill the labor shortage, the Portuguese began importing enslaved people from the African coast. The early expeditions around the African continent had helped the Portuguese establish trade relationships with people there. European traders had traded previously with Africans for generations for products like ivory and gold, and the exchange of people for goods was an extension of that relationship. Slave labor was cheap, so the sugar could be sold at a low price in Europe. This cheap crop quickly gained popularity, and it made these colonies financially successful. The Portuguese found a way to make these tropical islands profitable. This would set the stage for the use of enslaved Africans all over the Americas.

Think About It

Chances are that the computer you’re working on, the clothes you are wearing, and even the last food you ate came from hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Why are goods shipped from so far away, and do you agree with this practice?

Triangular Trade

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The first Portuguese and Spanish colonies in the Americas used enslaved Native Americans to grow these crops. But this solution did not last long. Within only a few years of European arrival in the Americas, local people were dying by the thousands from disease. People of the Americas did not have the resistance to diseases brought from Europe and Africa. Those who did not die from disease suffered unspeakable cruelty at the hands of Europeans. Many died from being overworked, or they ran away from possible enslavement. Others reacted with violent resistance, or they hid from Europeans to avoid punishment. Bartholomé de las Casas, a Catholic priest and companion on one of Columbus's voyages, estimated that over 3 million Native Americans had died on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola alone between 1494, Columbus's arrival, and 1508. Though de las Casas's example was likely exaggerated, whole native communities were decimated by disease.

For Europeans, the natural solution to the labor problem was importing enslaved Africans. Trading posts were already established in Africa for gold and ivory, so they began to trade in human beings, as well. In 1502, enslaved Africans were first brought to Hispaniola to work on sugar plantations. As Europeans expanded their holdings in the Americas, more land meant an even greater demand for enslaved labor. A hundred years later, thousands of enslaved Africans were being brought to the Caribbean, North America, and South America every year.

Enslaved Africans became part of a larger economy that developed throughout the 1500s and 1600s. The Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and British all claimed land in the Americas and trading outposts in Africa. Yet, in their colonies, they did not have the artisans or equipment to turn raw goods and crops into finished products. Because of that missing link, Africa, the Americas, and Europe all relied on goods from one another. The system that emerged to meet these needs was known as the triangular trade. This trading system became popular for hundreds of years and made Europe extremely wealthy.

In the colonies, enslaved workers harvested sugar, tobacco, cotton, and other natural resources. From there, the products were shipped to European factories, which processed the sugar into rum and the cotton into fabric. Items such as tobacco and cocoa were sold for profit. These manufactured goods, together with other goods such as guns and gunpowder, were traded for enslaved Africans. Enslaved Africans were then taken to the colonies and exchanged for raw goods where the cycle began again. British sailors referred to this leg of the journey from Europe to the Americas as the Middle Passage because from their perspective the trip began in Europe.

The European ship owners made large profits on every leg of the journey. The countries that sponsored and taxed the trade also grew rich. Over the next few centuries, as colonies in the Americas became more populated and advanced, the trade grew stronger. The success of these trade routes meant that thousands of African people were brought to the Americas over the next 300 years. Most of the enslaved Africans, as many as 85%, worked on plantations in the Caribbean. A smaller percentage of enslaved Africans worked on plantations, in homes, and in factories in the British colonies of North America. Though the North American enslaved workers were a small percentage of the overall slave trade, hundreds of thousands of people were brought to these colonies.

This international impact of the slave trade is still visible today in the populations of Central and South America. Currently, many Caribbean islands, such as Haiti and Jamaica, are composed mostly of people of African descent. In other countries, such as Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, it is estimated that between 20% and 50% of the people have African roots. In Latin America this mixed heritage is common. In the United States, about 13% of people in the United States have African heritage. This scattering of African people to places around the world is sometimes called the African diaspora. The triangular trade and the institution of slavery shaped the history of North and South America.

Practice Questions

Take some time to answer the following questions and to write your answers down in your notebook. Then click the “Check Answers” button to see our suggested answers. Some of these questions may be asked in the submission for this lesson.

Why did European explorers such as the Portuguese come to Africa in the 1400s?

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Why was sugar a good crop for trading across oceans?

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Why are the islands of Madeira, the Azores, and Cape Verde important to African history?

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What goods did European traders provide to Africa as part of the triangular trade in return for raw materials and enslaved people?

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The Trade of Enslaved Africans

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