# The slave trade The trade in human beings that built empires: the transatlantic Middle Passage, the Arab and internal African trades, the plantation economies, the resistance and revolts, and the long fight for abolition. *Cecil Rhodes and the dream of empire parallel this story* ## c. 451 BCE — Athens and slavery in ancient Greece Classical Athens depended heavily on enslaved labour in homes, workshops and the silver mines at Laurion. Slaves may have numbered close to a third of the city's population. ## 74 BCE to 72 BCE — The revolt of Spartacus An enslaved gladiator named Spartacus led a rebellion of tens of thousands against Rome. The uprising was defeated and thousands of the captured were crucified along the Appian Way. ## c. 51 BCE — Slavery in ancient Rome Slavery was central to the Roman economy, and enslaved people may have made up a fifth to a third of Italy's population. Most were captives of war, put to work in fields, mines and households. ## c. 700 — The Arab and Indian Ocean slave trade An eastern trade carried enslaved Africans across the Red Sea and Indian Ocean to Arabia, Persia and India. Older and longer lasting than the Atlantic trade, it moved millions of people over more than a millennium. ## c. 700 — The trans-Saharan slave trade For over a thousand years caravans carried enslaved Africans north across the Sahara to the Mediterranean and Middle East. Estimates suggest several million people were moved along these desert routes. ## 869 to 883 — The Zanj Rebellion Enslaved East Africans, known as the Zanj, rose in a massive revolt against the Abbasid Caliphate that lasted 14 years. It was one of the largest slave uprisings in history before it was crushed. ## c. 900 — Saqaliba and the word slave Medieval traders moved so many Slavic captives, called saqaliba, into Islamic lands that the ethnic name became the root of the word slave in several European languages. The trade ran across central and eastern Europe for centuries. ## c. 900 — Vikings and the thrall trade Norse raiders seized captives across the British Isles and eastern Europe and sold them as thralls. Slave trading was a major part of the Viking economy alongside raiding and settlement. ## c. 1250 — Mamluk slave soldiers rule Egypt The Mamluks were enslaved soldiers, mostly from the Caucasus and Central Asia, who seized power and ruled Egypt and Syria for centuries. Their rise shows how slavery could take military and political forms far from plantation labour. ## August 1444 — Portugal opens the Atlantic slave trade In August 1444 a Portuguese company auctioned more than 200 enslaved Africans at Lagos, the first large sale of its kind in Europe. It marked the start of a direct European maritime trade in African captives sponsored by Prince Henry. ## c. 1450 — The Ottoman devshirme The Ottoman state levied Christian boys from the Balkans, converted them to Islam and trained them as soldiers and officials. The most famous became the elite Janissary infantry that served the sultan. ## 8 January 1455 — Papal bull sanctions enslavement The bull Romanus Pontifex granted Portugal the right to seize lands and enslave non-Christians along the African coast. Church authority gave the emerging trade a legal and religious cover. ## 1482 — Elmina Castle built on the Gold Coast The Portuguese built Sao Jorge da Mina, the first permanent European trading fort in sub-Saharan Africa. It later became a major holding point for enslaved people awaiting shipment across the Atlantic. ## c. 1501 — First enslaved Africans shipped to the Americas Spain authorized the shipment of enslaved Africans to its Caribbean colonies, opening the transatlantic slave trade. Over the next four centuries the trade forcibly carried more than 12 million people across the ocean under brutal conditions. ## 1518 — Spain grants the first asiento Charles V granted a licensed monopoly, the asiento, to supply enslaved Africans to Spanish America. The contract system turned human trafficking into a regulated and lucrative arm of state finance. ## 1576 — Portugal founds Luanda in Angola The founding of Luanda opened West Central Africa as the single largest source of captives for the Atlantic trade. Angola and the Kongo region alone supplied several million people over the following centuries. ## c. 1600 — Barbary corsairs enslave Europeans Raiders from the Barbary coast captured ships and coastal villages across the Mediterranean and beyond. Between roughly 1500 and 1800 they enslaved an estimated one million Europeans. ## August 1619 — First Africans arrive in English Virginia In late August 1619 an English ship landed some twenty enslaved Africans at Point Comfort, the first recorded in England's mainland American colonies. Their arrival began the long history of racial slavery in what became the United States. ## June 1631 — The sack of Baltimore Barbary corsairs raided the Irish village of Baltimore and carried off more than 100 inhabitants into slavery in North Africa. The raid showed how far the corsairs' reach extended. ## c. 1650 — The sugar plantation economy Sugar was the crop that drove the Atlantic trade, grown on plantations that worked enslaved people to death. Europe's growing appetite for sweetness rested on a system of extreme violence. ## 1672 — Royal African Company chartered England chartered the Royal African Company with a monopoly on the West African trade. It shipped tens of thousands of enslaved people and branded many with the company's initials. ## c. 1680 — The tobacco economy of the Chesapeake Tobacco made the early English colonies of Virginia and Maryland profitable and drew in enslaved African labour. The crop shaped the plantation society of the American South. ## 1688 — The Germantown Quaker petition Quakers in Pennsylvania signed the first known written protest against slavery in the English colonies. It argued that owning people violated the Christian principle of doing to others as you would have done to you. ## c. 1700 — African kingdoms as suppliers States such as Oyo, Ashanti, Kongo and Dahomey captured people in war and raids and sold them to European traders on the coast. Internal African slavery long predated the Atlantic trade, which then vastly enlarged the demand. ## c. 1700 — Brazil, the largest single destination Brazil received close to five million enslaved Africans, more than any other country in the Americas. They laboured on sugar, coffee and mining estates that made Portugal's colony immensely rich. ## c. 1700 — The Caribbean sugar islands Islands such as Barbados, Jamaica and Saint-Domingue consumed enslaved labour at a brutal rate to produce sugar. High death rates meant planters relied on constant new shipments to replace those who died. ## c. 1700 — The Middle Passage The ocean crossing packed captives below deck for six to eight weeks in filth, disease and chains. Roughly 15 percent of those embarked died at sea, and around 1.8 million people are estimated to have perished on the passage. ## c. 1700 — The triangular trade Ships carried manufactured goods from Europe to Africa, enslaved people from Africa to the Americas, and plantation crops back to Europe. The pattern tied three continents into a single system of profit built on forced labour. ## c. 1720 — Dahomey and the port of Ouidah The Kingdom of Dahomey built much of its power on selling war captives through the port of Ouidah. It became one of the busiest points of departure on the West African coast. ## c. 1740 — Liverpool becomes Britain's leading slave port By the mid 1700s Liverpool overtook Bristol and London to dominate the British slave trade. Its ships carried roughly half of all enslaved Africans transported by Britain in the century's later decades. ## c. 1740 — Rum, molasses and the New England trade New England merchants distilled Caribbean molasses into rum and shipped it to Africa to buy captives. The northern colonies profited from slavery even where plantations were few. ## c. 1750 — Nantes dominates the French slave trade Nantes was the busiest French slaving port, fitting out expeditions that carried hundreds of thousands of captives to the Caribbean. Its wealth built grand quays and townhouses that still stand. ## c. 1770 — Marine insurance and the trade Slaving voyages were underwritten by marine insurers, with enslaved people treated as insured cargo. London's insurance market, including Lloyd's, grew alongside the trade it covered. ## 22 June 1772 — The Somerset case limits slavery in England An English court ruled that an enslaved man named James Somerset could not be forcibly removed from England. The judgment was widely read as meaning slavery had no basis in English law itself. ## c. 1780 — Wealth flows to European ports Profits from the trade and its crops enriched Liverpool, Bristol, Nantes, Lisbon and Bordeaux. Fine buildings, banks and civic institutions in these cities were funded in part by slavery. ## 29 November 1781 — The Zong massacre The crew of the slave ship Zong threw about 130 enslaved people into the sea, later claiming the loss on insurance. The atrocity exposed how the trade reduced human beings to property. ## 1783 — Gregson v Gilbert, the Zong insurance case The English courts heard the Zong case not as murder but as a dispute over an insurance claim for lost cargo. The proceedings shocked the public and galvanized the early abolition movement. ## 22 May 1787 — Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade founded Abolitionists led by Quakers and Thomas Clarkson formed a committee to campaign against the trade. Their petitions, pamphlets and boycotts built the first mass human rights movement. ## 1789 — Olaudah Equiano publishes his narrative The formerly enslaved Olaudah Equiano published a bestselling account of his capture, the Middle Passage and his path to freedom. His voice gave the abolition campaign a powerful firsthand testimony. ## August 1791 — The Haitian Revolution begins In August 1791 enslaved people in the French colony of Saint-Domingue rose in a massive revolt. It grew into the only slave uprising to found an independent state and shook slaveholders across the Americas. ## 1793 — The cotton gin and the cotton boom Eli Whitney's cotton gin made short-staple cotton hugely profitable and revived a declining slave economy. Demand for enslaved labour in the American South surged as cotton spread west. ## 4 February 1794 — France first abolishes slavery The revolutionary National Convention abolished slavery throughout the French colonies. Napoleon reinstated it in 1802, and the fight had to be won again decades later. ## 1 January 1803 — Denmark bans the slave trade A Danish law taking effect in 1803 made Denmark the first nation to ban the transatlantic slave trade. It set a precedent that larger powers would follow within a few years. ## 1 January 1804 — Haiti declares independence After defeating French forces, the former colony declared independence as Haiti on 1 January 1804. It became the first nation created by a successful revolt of enslaved people. ## 25 March 1807 — Britain abolishes the slave trade Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act, ending British participation in the transatlantic traffic after a long campaign led by William Wilberforce and others. Slavery itself in the colonies remained legal for another generation. ## 1808 — The Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron Britain stationed a naval squadron off West Africa to intercept slave ships after abolishing the trade. Over decades it freed roughly 150,000 captives, though the trade continued under other flags. ## 1 January 1808 — United States bans the importation of slaves A federal law took effect on 1 January 1808 prohibiting the import of enslaved people from abroad. Slavery itself continued and expanded, now fed by an internal trade rather than transatlantic shipments. ## January 1811 — The German Coast uprising Hundreds of enslaved people marched on New Orleans in the largest slave revolt in US history. The rising was crushed within days and its leaders executed. ## 8 February 1815 — Congress of Vienna condemns the trade The European powers issued a joint declaration condemning the slave trade as contrary to justice. The statement carried no enforcement, but it set an international standard against the traffic. ## c. 1820 — The domestic US slave trade After 1808 roughly one million enslaved people were sold from the Upper South to the cotton and sugar lands of the Deep South. This forced migration, sometimes called the Second Middle Passage, tore apart countless families. ## c. 1830 — Zanzibar, hub of the East African trade Under the Sultanate of Oman, Zanzibar became the great market of the East African slave trade, feeding clove plantations and export routes to Arabia. Tens of thousands of captives passed through its market each year. ## 1 January 1831 — William Lloyd Garrison launches The Liberator Garrison began publishing the radical antislavery newspaper The Liberator, demanding immediate emancipation. It became a leading voice of the American abolition movement. ## 21 August 1831 — Nat Turner's rebellion Nat Turner led a revolt of enslaved people that killed around 60 white Virginians before it was suppressed. The reprisals and new restrictive laws that followed deepened the divide over slavery. ## 28 August 1833 — Britain abolishes slavery in its colonies The Slavery Abolition Act freed around 800,000 enslaved people across the British Empire, taking effect in 1834. Many were forced into several more years of unpaid apprenticeship before full freedom. ## c. 1837 — Britain compensates slave owners After abolition Britain paid 20 million pounds to slave owners for the loss of their human property, and nothing to the freed. The enslaved received no compensation and were bound to years of unpaid apprenticeship. ## July 1839 — The Amistad revolt Captives aboard the schooner Amistad seized the ship and tried to sail back to Africa. Their case became a landmark test of freedom in the American courts. ## 9 March 1841 — United States v The Amistad The US Supreme Court ruled that the Africans of the Amistad had been illegally enslaved and were free. The survivors were allowed to return to Sierra Leone. ## 27 April 1848 — France ends slavery for good The Second Republic abolished slavery in all French colonies, this time permanently. It freed around a quarter of a million people, mainly in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean. ## 4 September 1850 — Brazil ends the Atlantic slave trade The Eusebio de Queiros Law of 1850 finally suppressed Brazil's importation of enslaved Africans under heavy British pressure. Slavery within Brazil, however, lasted almost four more decades. ## c. 1850 — Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad Harriet Tubman, herself escaped from slavery, guided dozens of people to freedom through a secret network of routes and safe houses. The Underground Railroad helped thousands flee the American South. ## July 1860 — The Clotilda, the last US slave ship In 1860, decades after the import ban, the schooner Clotilda smuggled about 110 captives from West Africa to Alabama. The survivors later founded Africatown, and the ship's wreck was identified in 2019. ## c. 1860 — King Cotton and the American South By 1860 raw cotton grown by enslaved workers was the largest US export and fed textile mills in Britain and the North. The wealth of the South and much of the wider economy rested on this crop. ## 3 March 1861 — Russia abolishes serfdom Tsar Alexander II emancipated more than 20 million serfs bound to the land and their lords. Serfdom was not chattel slavery, but the comparison shows how widespread bonded labour remained in the 1800s. ## 1 January 1863 — The Emancipation Proclamation President Lincoln declared enslaved people in the rebelling Confederate states to be free. It reframed the Civil War as a struggle over slavery, though it freed no one immediately in areas beyond Union control. ## 6 December 1865 — The US Thirteenth Amendment The Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, abolishing slavery throughout the United States. It freed roughly four million people, though it left an exception for punishment of crime. ## c. 1867 — Cuba receives the last transatlantic captives Cuba was the final major destination of the Atlantic trade, with the last known slaving voyages arriving around 1867. The transatlantic traffic that began in the 1500s had run for more than three and a half centuries. ## 5 June 1873 — Zanzibar closes its slave market Under British pressure the Sultan of Zanzibar signed a treaty closing the great slave market and banning the seaborne trade. It marked a turning point against the East African traffic. ## 13 May 1888 — Brazil's Golden Law The Lei Aurea abolished slavery in Brazil without compensation to owners, freeing around 700,000 people. Brazil was the last country in the Americas to end slavery. ## 25 September 1926 — The League of Nations Slavery Convention The Slavery Convention bound signatory states to suppress slavery and the slave trade in all their forms. It was the first international treaty to define and outlaw slavery worldwide. ## 1944 — Eric Williams links slavery to capitalism In Capitalism and Slavery the historian Eric Williams argued that profits from slavery helped finance Britain's industrial revolution. His thesis reshaped debate over how central the trade was to modern economic growth. ## 1962 — Saudi Arabia and Yemen abolish slavery Saudi Arabia and Yemen formally abolished slavery in 1962, among the last states to do so. Legal slavery persisted into the second half of the twentieth century. ## 1981 — Mauritania, the last to abolish slavery Mauritania became the last country to formally abolish slavery, and only made it a crime in 2007. Hereditary bondage there has proved difficult to end in practice. ## c. 1999 — Scholars measure the scale of the trade The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, drawing on tens of thousands of voyage records, estimates about 12.5 million people were embarked and roughly 10.7 million survived to reach the Americas. It is the most detailed accounting of the trade's human cost. ## 2021 — Modern slavery persists International estimates put around 50 million people in forced labour, forced marriage and other forms of modern slavery. Human trafficking and bonded labour show that the practice never fully ended.