The Transatlantic Slave Trade stands apart from both past and present forms of slavery in terms of its scale and brutality; the legal framework that supported it; and the long term repercussions it would have on three continents.
The human cost of the trade is difficult to quantify, but it is estimated that out of approximately 24 million people who were enslaved in Africa only some 10 million managed to survive long enough to reach the Americas and the Caribbean. Those that did had to endure conditions so hard that, in the Caribbean, approximately one in every three Africans died within three years of arriving.
On 25 March 1807, the slave trade was abolished in the British colonies. This was not the end of slavery, people could still own other human beings, but it ended the trade from Africa to the British colonies and marked an important step on the path to the total abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the liberation of those who had been enslaved. Read about this historic anniversary, modern day slavery, and how you can do something to stop it now.