England entered the slave trade in the latter half of the 16th century, contesting the right to supply the Spanish colonies held until then by Portugal. France, Holland, Denmark, and the American colonies themselves subsequently entered the trade as competitors. In 1713 the exclusive right to supply the Spanish colonies was granted to the British South Sea Company.

    The Dutch, English and French fell into the slave trade in an almost sinfully easy way. Navigation was crude at that time. Accurate chronometers, a vital necessity for accurate navigation at sea, were several hundred years in the future. To navigate accurately in those days meant that ships would sail due north or south until a known latitude was reached. Once there, the ships would turn east or west and make the ocean crossing, following the sun and the moon until they reached their destination.

    For the Dutch this meant sailing west to England and then south down the West coast of Africa, stopping occasionally on the way for supplies and fresh water. How far south they sailed depended on the weather and their final destination. Generally in winter they sailed south until they were at the same latitude as the Dutch West Indies. Once there they would sail due west, stopping at Brazil, with its wealth of sugar and dyewood, or salt-rich Curacao, afterwards threading their way through the coral reefs of the West Indies and the Bahamas and then up the east coast of North America, stopping briefly in Virginia before finally arriving at New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. The average voyage lasted six to ten weeks, but could take as long as four months depending on the weather.

    Slavery had been common for centuries in African tribes, a custom outdating even the Pyramids of Egypt. Slaves were usually captives taken in raids or wars. They enhanced the power and wealth of tribal chiefs. When European slave ships first appeared along the African coast, chiefs met them at the shore to barter human wealth for merchandise such as weapons, ammunition, metal, liquor, trinkets, and cloth. The slavers bought only the finest physical specimens, partly because they would be worth more at their destinations and partly because only the youngest and healthiest had a good chance of reaching their destinations alive. Conditions aboard ship were dreadful. The maximum number of slaves were jammed into the hull, chained to prevent revolts or suicide by drowning. Food, ventilation, light and sanitation were the minimum necessary to keep the cargo alive and often not enough to do that. Mortality ran as high as 20 percent. When an outbreak of smallpox or dysentery occurred, the stricken were cast overboard.

    For a powerful description of how slaves were treated on a voyage in 1788 read this entry provided by Alexander Falconbridge on the African slave trade

    As the plantation system grew in the Southern colonies, the economic advantages of slavery became more and more obvious to planters. Demand increased for slaves to cultivate crops of tobacco and, farther south, rice and sugarcane. As this demand grew so did the traffic in slaves, and eventually this became the linchpin in what came to be called the Triangle Trade. The African slave was a source of wealth to tribal chiefs, to the shipping business, to plantation owners in the South, and to merchants and shipbuilders in the North.

    The Triangle Trade worked like this:

    Ships leaving the Netherlands with trade goods touched first at the West, or Gold Coast of Africa and sold their merchandise for African blacks.

    After the notorious "Middle Passage" from Africa, the next stop was either the West Indies, where slaves were in demand on plantations, or the English colonies. At this stop the slaves were exchanged for such agricultural products as sugar or dyewood or a valuable commodity like salt. The return voyage home with an even more valuable cargo completed the triangle.

    As the trade developed, New Amsterdam and New England became a regular stop-over before the homeward crossing. There sugar and molasses acquired at earlier stops were in demand for the manufacture of rum. The rum was sold in Europe and the proceeds used to buy more trade goods for the purchase of slaves.

    A trade profitable to so many was bound to grow. In 1681 there were about 2,000 slaves in Virginia, but by the mid-19th century, the slave population in America had risen to more than 4,000,000.

    In 1787, Rhode Island led the industry in slave traffic. Sometime later New York City jumped ahead of Rhode Island and later Philadelphia took the lead, racking up huge profits in the bargain. Africans and black Americans were openly bought and sold throughout the colonies along with other imported items.

    By 1800 the population of the United States included 893,602 slaves, of which only 36,505 were in the northern states. Vermont, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey provided for the emancipation of their slaves before 1804, most of them by gradual measures. The 3,953,760 slaves at the census of 1860 were in the southern states.

    The American Civil War of 1861-1865 put an end to organized slavery in the United States, although in other parts of the world slavery continues even today. North America's affair with slavery lasted almost 250 years and brought pain and suffering to countless souls. Hopefully we'll do better in the next 250 years.