Transatlantic slave trade

Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade connected British merchants and consumers with plantations in the Americas and Caribbean. European goods were exchanged for enslaved Africans, who were forcibly transported across the Atlantic during the Middle Passage. Survivors were sold to plantation owners and forced to produce goods such as sugar, cotton and tobacco for overseas markets.

As plantations expanded, planters purchased more enslaved Africans, increasing the colony's dependence on the transatlantic slave trade.

The transatlantic slave trade forcibly transported captive Africans to the Americas. It created an African diaspora in Britain’s colonies, from which some people later reached Britain. The main forced movement was therefore across the Atlantic to the colonies, not directly to Britain.

Sugar and tobacco produced in the Americas were sold in Europe for large profits. These profits were closely connected with exploitation: Britain participated in the transatlantic slave trade, through which African people were forcibly transported to the Americas and made to work on plantations.