Of the following, which received the greatest number of slaves from the Atlantic slave trade?

Question

A) Brazil

B) British North America (<-- What's that?)

C) Spanish America & Spanish Caribbean

D) The Caribbean Islands of the Dutch, French, & British


* The answer is: D) the Caribbean Islands of Dutch, French, and British but WHY? I thought that Brazil was the country that received the greatest number of slaves from the Atlantic slave trade even though England was the one that dominated the Atlantic slave trade.

*Also what's Bristish North America?

Answer 1

There were about twice as many male slaves imported into the Caribbean as female slaves, whereas in other places there was a more equal rate of importing of the two sexes. This, coupled with the harsher conditions experienced in most of the Caribbean colonies, meant that there was a lower birth rate and higher mortality rate among Caribbean slaves than elsewhere. In other words, it was necessary to continually import more slaves into these colonies to replace the ones who died.

By contrast, the American colonies accounted for only about 5% of the slaves imported into the New World, but by 1850 about 33% of the Africans living in the New World lived in what by then had become the United States, mostly, of course, in the South. In 1860, on the eve of the Civil war, there were twelve million people living in the South, four million of whom were slaves.

The African slave trade had been abolished in the US in 1809, although trade between the states continued until the end of the Civil War, so the increase in slaves between 1809 and 1850 was almost exclusively due to children being born to slaves. There actually was an illegal African slave trade which continued after 1809, but it played a small role in the increase in slaves in the South between 1809 and the end of the Civil War.

Answer 2

British North America would be Canada and the original colonies stretching from Massachusetts to Georgia. The rate of attrition on the Caribbean islands was horrendous. It was cheaper to work slaves to death without feeding them than it was to buy new ones. On some islands all the vegetation was cut down to make room for the cultivation of sugar cane. Slaves had iron bits inserted in their mouths so they couldn't eat sugar cane while working with it. Also, rates of yellow fever and malaria were much higher than in the north.
Economic development in Brazil was slow. Even though the Portuguese wanted it, there weren't very many colonists from the mother country. For nearly a century the Portuguese were content to take valuable forest products from the coastline, and then they looked for and found gold. There were plenty of Indians to use for slaves. Consequently, Brazil had a different history of development.

Answer 3

British North America is what became the United States.

Answer 4

It's kind of ironic, but mostly just hypocritical, that you are whining about "Eurocentric history," when you're approaching the history of the Atlantic Slave Trade from the Afrocentric, anti-white, black supremacist angle. Don't talk to us about facts and misinformation when people like your are purveyors of it, spreading half truths about what happened. Edit: Iz, you are incredibly wrong. The Irish were enslaved by the English as well. The Atlantic Slave Trade had to do with who the imperialist powers could get away with enslaving for cheap labor, not race.

Answer 5

british north america = the Dominion of Canada, one of the commonwealth countries