The population of great regions of the Americas
was transformed by the arrival of African peoples across the
hemisphere, and until the 1820's Africans formed the great majority
of people crossing the Atlantic to the Americas. Between 1650-1800,
the wealthy Caribbean islands became known as the 'best of the
West', because of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Throughout
what became known as 'Plantation America', which included the
southern parts of the United States, the slave trade provided
labour for large-scale agricultural production. At the same
time, the Brazilian colonial economy, which was based first
on sugar plantations but later on gold mining and coffee, was
only made possible and profitable because of the slave trade.
Without the institution of slavery and the transatlantic slavery
that fed it, the rapid expansion and development of the economies
of Americas and Europe would not have been possible. Today in
South America and the Caribbean, in areas exploited and abandoned
by the nations which profited from the Transatlantic Slave Trade,
economies remain underdeveloped and stagnant, people occupy
shanty-town dwellings and there is inadequate provision for
the educational and health needs of children. Across the USA,
the descendants of Africans struggle to survive violent attacks,
systematic racial hostility, and the continued vilification
of Africans and 'blackness' - patterns that can be traced directly
back to the slave trade and slavery.
