Slavery and the slave trade

African women were captured, transported, and enslaved in large numbers during the four centuries of legal slavery in the Atlantic world. Once in Europe or the Americas, they were offered up for sale and put to hard labor for the economic benefit of those who claimed them as property. Prior to the 1808 ban on the slave trade by the United States and Britain, slave owners' demand for labor fueled a steady stream of forced migrants to North America. European and American slavers traded all along the Western African coast and Southeastern Africa. Women entered the trans-Atlantic slave trade in significant numbers, made up an essential part of the workforce on American plantations, and constituted a major portion of all women in the Americas. Whether at the hands of slave master or the colonial state, violence was central to upholding slavery and was codified early in the colonial project.