slave trade: Quick Facts

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Sep. 23, 2026

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Print by John Raphael Smith after George Morland showing enslaved husband and wife being separated by traders on a tropical shore, with boats, palm trees, and distressed onlookers.

Engraving showing African captives in chains being brought aboard a slave ship, with white crew members overseeing and preparing them on the deck.

slavery: attempting to escape

Colored engraving of the slave ship Brooks shows tightly packed rows of enslaved people lying side by side on two decks, illustrating overcrowded conditions during the Middle Passage.

Color illustration from Uncle Tom's Cabin showing a slave auction scene, with a group of enslaved people on a platform and a trader examining a man for sale in front of a crowd.

East African slave market in the port of Zanzibar, engraving from Harper's Weekly. The city was infamous for its trade in slaves, having some 7,000 slaves sold annually by the 1860s.

How Portugal rose and fell as a colonial power

Study the history of the African slave trade and its economic effect on western Africa, where coastal states became rich and powerful while savanna states were destabilized as their people were taken captive

History of Zanzibar's slave trade

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Topics

transatlantic slave trade Middle Passage triangular trade asiento de negros Mantatee Blackbirding Liverpool Triangle slavery sex slavery trade international trade commodity trade human trafficking opium trade fair trade spice trade international payment and exchange trade agreement balance of trade pawnbroking

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Key People

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Saʿīd ibn Sulṭān

ruler of Muscat, Oman, and Zanzibar

Sir John Hawkins

Sir John Hawkins

English naval commander

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João Fernandes

Portuguese explorer

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Thomas Clarkson

English abolitionist

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Karl Polanyi

Hungarian politician

Frontispiece and title page of Phillis Wheatley's book of poetry, "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" 1773. Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784). African American slave. Black woman poet.

Slavery and Resistance Through History Quiz

Engraving of Solomon Northup, c. 1853. (Twelve Years a Slave, 12 Years a Slave, slavery, African-American, Black History)

The History of Slavery in North America Quiz