The slave craft in the Americas was a more than three - century - long creation that fundamentally shape how countries like the United States formed . The U.S. is stillreckoningwithits legacy , and Americans unsurprisingly incline to focalize on North America ’s role in the triangular trade . But Brazil was also a immense destination for slave ship , especially during the posterior years of the slave trade , as a new infographic reminds us .
Slate , which is currently tackling the account of American slavery in a nine - episodepodcast , make an interactive animation that tracks slave loading across the Atlantic from the 16th through the 19th hundred , tracking where specific striver ships originate and landed over the course of that period . Each ship carrying human payload doom for slave marketplace in the Western Hemisphere is map as a battery-acid , with the size of the Zen check to the size of the group of captured people on board . If you hesitate the animation and penetrate on one of the dots , information about the specific ship and its origins , when useable , and the number of people it ultimately behave into bondage will appear .
Compare the map above , showing slave ship in 1818 , with the one showing ships in 1787 duringthe heightof the trans - Atlantic striver trade . During the intervening decades , the major striver ports in the Americas shifted from the West Indies to Brazil .
Slate report that over the 315 years of slavery documented in the infographic , some 10 million kidnap Africans were enrapture to the Western Hemisphere to serve as slaves , while an count on 2 million did n’t outlive the trans - Atlantic journeying . Less than four percent of that total ( less than 400,000 ) come to North America , while 4 million masses were embark to the Caribbean , 4.8 million to Brazil , and 1.3 million to Central America .
While slave trading remained sound for decennium later on , the U.S. censor importing new slavesin 1808 , around the same fourth dimension that Britain and other European powers did the same . Brazil was the last American res publica to ostracize thraldom instantly , contain outuntil 1888 .
It ’s well deserving go over out the interactional , animated translation overon Slate .
Know of something you mean we should cover ? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com .
