The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade took place across the Atlantic Ocean from the 16th through the 19th centuries AD. The majority of the people who were enslaved were also transported to the New World. They were on the Triangular trade route and its Middle Passage. Slaves were West African men, women, and children from the central and western parts of the continent sold to Western European slave traders, or by direct European capture to the Americas. There were so many slaves that those who came by the slave trade became the most numerous Old-World immigrants in both North and South America before the late 18th century. More slaves were taken to South America than to the north.The slaves worked on plantations in the south which supported the economy further into the industry. The South Atlantic economic system centered on producing crops and making goods and clothing to sell in Europe, and increasing the numbers of African slaves brought to the New World. This was crucial to those Western European countries which, in the late 17th and 18th centuries were creating overseas empires.

2. General nature of Early modern slavery