By the year 1514, the Trans-Atlantic slave trade had been going on since the early 1500's. Few ships were only dedicated to slaves. Before this time, slaves would first be shipped to Europe, and then taken to South America. The first slave ship directly from Africa to the American countries did not sail until about 1526. Also in the year 1526, merchants Seiler and Heinrich were the first germans to participate in the slave trade. By 1560, almost half of all slave traffic was going to Brazil, this made up about 40% of the trade. Sugar was the main reason for all the traffic, and by 1630, Brazil supplied almost all sugar for Europe. Sugar production also spread to eastern Caribbean at the beginning of 1640, and sugar consumption steadily increased in Europe.
From 1595 to 1640, slave trade to the Spanish Americas mostly concentrated in three ports: Cartagena de Indies, Veracruz, and Buenos Aires. This was mostly due to the Crown decreeing that all Trans-Atlantic slave ships were to only go to Cartagena or Veracruz, and nowhere else. In 1594, the L'Espérance of La Rochelle was the first official French ship to participate in the Slave Trade.
By the end of the year 1640, Spain and Portugal were still the two leading countries participating in the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade, with a total of 807,105 slave being taken to South America. The British were following Spain and Portugal close, but would not catch up until the seventeenth century, when Sir John Hawkins won support from Queen Elizabeth I.
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| D.O. Dapper, Description de l'Afrique ... Traduite du Flamand (Amsterdam,1686; 1st ed., 1668), between pp. 284-85. |
A Brief Overview of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. (2009). Retrieved October 6, 2015.
Wheat, D. (2010). Iberian Roots of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1440–1640. Retrieved October 6, 2015.
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