Who started the slave trade?

Question

Was it England? Or did they stop it? Or was it an American from the southeast who just didn't like black folk?

Answer 1

Portugueses.
For two hundred years, 1440-1640, Portugal had a monopoly on the export of slaves from Africa. It is notable that they were also the last European country to abolish the institution.
It is estimated that during the 4 1/2 centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Portugal was responsible for transporting over 4.5 million Africans (roughly 40% of the total).
As a result of the slave trade, five times as many Africans arrived in the Americas than Europeans. Slaves were needed on plantations and for mines and the majority was shipped to Brazil, the Caribbean, and the Spanish Empire. Less than 5% travelled to the Northern American States formally held by the British.

Answer 2

Just ask a person who was born and raised in Africa (Congo formerly Zaire). The African people themselves started the slave trade! Even today it is still a common thing to sell, trade or give a child away to another person to be a slave used as a maid, houseboy, or whatever the new "owner" wishes. Parents have the right to do what they wish with their children, and poor parents often use their children as a commodity if the necessity arises, to make money to feed the other children. Sometimes parents believe that their child is possessed by an evil spirit or cursed by voodoo, so they sell the child to get rid of the curse.
For Westerners this is hard to believe, but sadly it's true.

Answer 3

Asking who started slavery is almost like trying to discover who invented marriage...or fire. Most ancient cultures had slaves.

As for the slave trade of West Africans to other parts of the world, it mainly began with Arab traders in the middle ages. It wasn't so much based on race as it was on the fact that many African tribes were seen as "infidels" and pagans.

Later in the early 1400s, Europeans from the Mediterranean, and Portuguese started buying slaves from Arab traders to work on plantations in the Atlantic islands. By the late 1400s, these Europeans began going more directly to West Africa. They usually traded with Africans who had captured their rivals.

At this point, racism wasn't really a factor, as whites were enslaved too. It was later, in the Americas, where slavery gradually became associated with being black and African.

The English were late to enter the slave trade, mostly in the early 1600s. They British also were among the first to halt slavery in the 1830s.

Answer 4

Slavery has been around since the beginning of time. I really wish that people would actually do a little research and realize that black people were not the only people enslaved, not the only race that had forced relocations, denied basic human rights and seperated from family because of slavery. Why is it that no one seems to care about other races who were done wrong, I never hear about the Native Americans and what was done too them which was just as bad but never talked about. Do some real research man, slavery was not started by whites who didn't like black folks.

Answer 5

The practice of taking slaves ran rampant in many cultures and on all the continents.
Organizing it into a business where slaves were not only taken into service but also bred and sold like cattle seems to co-incide with sea-faring.
For this, the Portuguese were pretty famous and, according to one of the other answers, the first to introduce slave trading as a 'business' rather than a way to get cheap labor to help out on the ranch or in the kingdom.
Long before Africans became a prime 'stock' slave in America, people of all races had been enslaved.
You can read references in the Bible about masters treating slaves fairly and slaves respecting their masters, and these were not all Africans.
None of this slavery business was based on 'not liking' any particular race: it was based on greed, arrogance and ignorance as well as the abuse of so-called 'superior education and resources'.
Therefore, whenever superior education, superior social status, or superior access to power is abused in mistreating any other human, it is as despicable as the slavery.

Answer 6

it started in Atlantis ,36.000 years ago
there were slaves in Semuria and Ur ,
as well as babylon 6000 years ago
there have been slave all through history and with all ancient civilizations
in China ,India ,Africa Asia
the Celts had slaves
so did the Vikings

the Aztecs ,Olmecs etc had slaves
and Arabs were raiding Africa for slaves a thousand years ago or more
the brittish and the Americans were just about the last
although servants at low wages is not all that much different
and many people regard believers of organized religion .,slaves that are unaware that they are slaves of another kind.

Answer 7

Well it began in Egypt then Romans the Africans,Portugal,England and last but not so nice Spain because they refused to stop when every else did. Remember Africans where consider less then human. A pig had more rights. But like aways we are the only species who kill our own kind.

Answer 8

"the slave trade"?
you seem to think slavery began with europeans enslaving africans a few centuries ago

but even if you're only interested in african slavery after the fall of ancient kingdoms, muslims from the east were enslaving africans for a full thousand years before the europeans got in on the act. and of course they didn't go deep into africa to get slaves but relied on africans to help them.

Answer 9

Ancient Egypt

Answer 10

Slaves have been around probably since before history. Even ants make slaves of other ants. How far back do you think that was for us?