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The Triangular Trade
At the heart of the institution of
slavery was the TRIANGULAR TRADE. This trade started with ships
being loaded in Bristol or Liverpool with goods such as salt,
cloth, weapons, hardware, beads and rum. These ships, known as
slavers, would then sail south to the west coast of Africa, to
modern day Sierra Leone, Senegal and Nigeria. When they landed
in Africa, the captains traded these goods with African chiefs
who gave the slavers able bodied men and women in return.
The slaves were loaded into the holds of the ships and transported across the Atlantic to America. This part of the trade was known as the middle passage and about 25% of the slaves died during the voyage. They were crammed together in the hold with no room to move, no sanitation and they were kept in chains. those who died were hastily thrown over the side into the sea. The voyage ended in the slaves being sold to the plantation owners of the West Indies, and the southern states of the USA.
When the slavers had emptied their holds of slaves were then filled with sugar, molasses, tobacco, rum and cotton. The ships now sailed back to Bristol and Liverpool where the whole process began again. Many fortunes were made in Bristol and Liverpool and at least one Prime Minister's family fortune was built on the triangular trade.
It has been estimated that perhaps as many as 10 million Africans were supplied to America from Africa over period of 400 years.
Questions
1. What goods were transported to Africa
from Europe?
2. Who organised the slave trade in Africa?
3. Why did many slaves not reach the plantations alive?
4. What goods were taken back to Liverpool and Bristol?
5. How important was this trade for these towns?
6. How many Africans were transferred to America as a result of the triangular trade?