From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century around 10 to 12 million slaves were taken from Africa into slavery on the other side of the Atlantic. The region which received the most slaves was the Caribbean.
The Caribbean received about 48% of the slaves took from Africa, while Brazil received 41% and the U.S. 5%. They worked mainly in plantations of sugar, cotton, and coffee.
African societies previous to contacts with Europeans already had slave labor. Notwithstanding, European slave traffic was hugely different: it was a big scale economic activity that connected various continents and sustained a few countries’ economies. The impact of this commerce with Europeans was that African domestic slavery ceased to result from wars and became an economic activity in itself.
