Exclusive:
As the world ignores the ignominious 500th anniversary of the buying
and selling of slaves between Africa and the Americas, historians
uncover its first horrific voyages
Almost
completely ignored by the modern world, this
month marks the 500th anniversary of one of history’s most tragic and significant events – the birth of the Africa to America transatlantic slave trade. New discoveries are now revealing the details of the trade’s first horrific voyages.
month marks the 500th anniversary of one of history’s most tragic and significant events – the birth of the Africa to America transatlantic slave trade. New discoveries are now revealing the details of the trade’s first horrific voyages.
Exactly
five centuries ago – on 18 August 1518 (28 August 1518, if they had
been using our modern Gregorian calendar) – the King of Spain, Charles
I, issued a charter authorising the transportation of slaves direct from
Africa to the Americas. Up until that point (since at least 1510),
African slaves had usually been transported to Spain or Portugal and had
then been transhipped to the Caribbean.
Charles’s
decision to create a direct, more economically viable Africa to America
slave trade fundamentally changed the nature and scale of this terrible
human trafficking industry. Over the subsequent 350 years, at least
10.7 million black Africans were transported...
Read the full story here:
https://lnkd.in/dr2YVJV
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