The trans-Atlantic slave trade in a two minute animation

[Recursion]

This is haunting but people need to see it.

(Sorry, I can't seem to embed the animation... seriously, watch it.)

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_history_of_american_slavery/2015/06/animated_interactive_of_the_history_of_the_atlantic_slave_trade.html

[Warpy]

1. Excellent representataion

Most went to the Caribbean and Brazil, lesser amounts to colonies on the northeast coast of South America and relatively little to the southern US colonies/early southern states. I'd known all this but it was great to see it in animation.

[Recursion]

3. Yeah, that was what struck me first

The Southern orientation of the Triangular trade was not clear to me before this.

[SummerSnow]

2. Wow, I'm speechless

[Recursion]

5. Yeah. The impact of 1808 was especially impressive (nt)

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. Every time some idiot thinks that slavery just wasn't that bad,

or that slaves had a better life here than they had in Africa, I start wondering what this country would be like today if instead of bringing Africans here as slaves, they'd immigrated voluntarily, as Europeans did. Well, more or less voluntarily since often Europeans were reluctantly leaving because of war or economic conditions or some such.

But I wish someone much smarter than I am would write an alternate history in which the slave trade never happened.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

9. There was an earlier period of Native American and white slavery from England...

... in their early colonization of North America.

It didn't work out as well for the exploiters.

The natives were more prone to illness and escape, and white slaves (who were often considered "undesirables" from England) could more easily blend in with other whites.

What a sick period in history, and we're still experiencing some negative after-effects from it.

[Recursion]

10. Wow I'd love to read that alternate history

Do you want to write that?

If not, do you mind if I give it a shot?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

12. I would never be able to write that.

Oh, maybe I could dash off a short story which wouldn't require too much research, but the novel I'd love to read, better yet the series, would involve lots and lots of research that I wouldn't be willing to do.

Please try it yourself!

[Buckeye_Democrat]

8. Thank you for sharing that!

[GeoWilliam750]

11. Thank you for posting

[aikoaiko]

13. Anyone know if there was slave trading within the western hemisphere after crossing the Atlantic?

It almost seems impossible for the Caribbean to absorb all those slaves. Were they traded/sold to South American and the US after that?

Or is my impression incorrect?

[Warpy]

14. Caribbean slaves had to be replaced frequently

due to the ravages of starvation and tropical diseases they had no resistance to, not to mention horrific injuries sustained harvesting sugar cane.

Most of the onshore trading was done from port cities like Charleston SC and Savannah GA in the US and ports in Bahia province in Brazil.

If you ever get a chance, visit the old slave market in Charleston SC. That place has haunted me since I was ten. The entries about each auctioned person as to physique and temperament in ornate copperplate script are chilling.

[Recursion]

15. I think they mostly died within a few years. (nt)