The transatlantic slave trade (also given as the Atlantic slave trade, circa 1492 to 1860) was the practice of enslaving the citizens of African states and transporting them across the Atlantic Ocean to the "New World" of the Americas. Although the Portuguese were the first to initiate the slave trade between Africa and Europe in the 15th century, Christopher Columbus, sailing for Spain, was the first to export natives from the Americas across the Atlantic to Europe, and so is generally considered to have established the transatlantic slave trade – as that term is usually understood – in 1492.

The Doctrine of Discovery, issued by Pope Alexander VI in 1493, proclaimed the right of any Christian nation to take the land of non-Christians in the interests of saving their souls. That same year, the pope declared that non-Christian inhabitants of those lands could be enslaved for the same purpose. Slavery had long been established in Africa, prior to the arrival of Europeans, and so the apparatus for capturing and transporting human cargo was already in place.

Portugal began exporting slaves from Africa to Europe in 1440, and, by 1530, other European nations had become involved. In time, this practice included the 'triangular trade' (triangle trade) between Europe, Africa, and the Americas, with ships leaving European ports with goods, trading them in Africa for slaves, selling the slaves in the Americas, and returning to their home ports with American goods and raw materials.

Slavery was first institutionalized in the Thirteen Colonies that would become the United States in 1640 (at Jamestown Colony of Virginia) and, afterwards, benefited significantly from the Transatlantic slave trade until it was abolished in 1808 (although the practice continued for decades afterwards). The dates countries abolished the transatlantic slave trade are:

Abolition did not mean the end of the practice, however, as slave-traders continued to illegally smuggle human cargo across the Atlantic Ocean. The last slave ship to transport kidnapped Africans to the United States was the Clotilda in 1860. Domestic traffic in slaves continued in the United States, briefly interrupted by the American Civil War, until slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Evidence suggests, however, that the transatlantic slave trade may have continued, illegally, through 1873.

It is estimated that between 12 million and 18 million Africans of diverse nations were turned into cargo by the transatlantic slave trade between the 15th and 19th centuries, many dying on the Middle Passage, the journey from Africa to the Americas.

As noted, slavery had long been practiced by African nations. Scholar Oscar Reiss comments:

Slavery existed in Africa long before European penetration and so the structure for gathering and moving slaves was already present. Individuals were sentenced to slavery for adultery, thievery…and debt. During periods of famine, individuals could sell themselves, as well as part of or all of their families into slavery. Gambling sometimes led to slavery and a person could gamble himself into bondage. Some were kidnapped. A significant source of slaves was prisoners of war. Following European intervention, "wars" represented the major source of bondsmen…Total numbers removed from Africa reached 18 million.

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Slavery in Africa was not informed by race or religion. An enslaved individual had either been convicted of a crime, sold themselves or others for profit or to relieve a debt, had engaged in some activity leading to enslavement (gambling, defacing religious shrines), or had been taken prisoner in conflicts, whether wars or raids on villages. European slavery was informed by both race and religion, as it was believed that White people were superior to Blacks and Christianity to all other religions. The regions most adversely affected by the transatlantic slave trade were:

All these regions were destabilized by the transatlantic slave trade which contributed to colonization, imperialist and racialized policies, and irreparable damage to the people, their culture, and their religious beliefs and practices.

Muslim Arab traders had been transporting slaves through the sub-Saharan slave trade for centuries by the time the transatlantic slave trade began in the 15th century, but, after European intervention, trade in slaves boomed, and village chiefs were eager to supply European traders with slaves in exchange for goods, primarily firearms and other weapons, which would give them an advantage in warfare.

Christopher Columbus began the transatlantic slave trade by bringing back Native Americans from the Caribbean to Spain in 1492. Between 1493 and 1496, he established the encomienda system in the regions of the New World claimed by Spain, which institutionalized slavery in the West Indies, South, and Central America. French, Dutch, and Danish traders who had made inroads into North America enslaved the natives there as well, and, finally, the British joined in the practice, enslaving Native Americans at Jamestown as early as 1610.

Native American slaves were found to be less desirable than African slaves, and so attention turned toward Africa, and the first large-scale transport of African slaves to Portuguese colonies in Brazil is dated to 1526. European slave traders worked directly with African chiefs to procure slaves, as explained by Reiss:

White traders carried French brandy, rum, iron bars, linen, brass kettles, glass buttons, beads, brass rings, bracelets, medals, bangles, gunpowder, musket balls, muskets, clothing, knives, red calico, and silk. The arms were the most important items because they could be used in war to procure slaves from tribes not yet introduced to gunpowder. The trader approached an African chief with gifts, in return for which he would give the European permission to trade in his domain. The chief appointed men of his entourage to assist the trader…Prices were agreed upon in advance with the chief. The price varied with age, sex, location of the trading post, and the time at which the trade occurred. In the mid-eighteenth century, a healthy male might cost 20 pounds or 110 gallons of rum or one-half hogshead of brandy or 12 to 14 iron bars.

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People were sometimes kidnapped individually while they were out hunting, fishing, or working their land. Whole villages might also be enslaved in a single raid in which homes were set on fire and people caught while fleeing the flames. Once taken as a slave, individuals were transported in a coffle (a line of manacled people joined by a chain) to a slave market on the coast where they would be inspected, divided into groups based on age, sex, and health, and loaded on board ships for sale in the Americas. Those who were considered too old or infirm were killed to eliminate the cost of returning them to their village; though why they could not simply be released to find their own way is unclear.

An African chief who engaged with the European traders could sometimes be taken himself, as Reiss notes:

The slavers were not above "picking up a bonus." One tribal chief brought a coffle of slaves taken in war. After concluding his business, he was invited on board ship for dinner. He was drugged and awakened at sea – now a member of the coffle. (33)

Slaves were sometimes told by fellow enslaved that they were being fattened to be eaten by the Europeans, as rumors circulated that White people were cannibals. Some tried (and many succeeded) in killing themselves, while others fought back to prevent being taken aboard a ship. The former slave and later abolitionist Olaudah Equiano (circa 1745 to 1797) describes this in his 1789 work, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself.

European traders tried to suppress these rumors as they led to financial loss in suicides or rebellious slaves who had to be killed, but the rumors persisted. Equiano's 1789 account details events from circa 1755, but the fear among Africans of being taken by Whites as a food source was still prevalent in the 19th century.

Once on board, the slaves were led into the hold. Reiss comments:

An English ship's surgeon left a description of conditions on board a slaver. Men slaves, upon boarding the ship, were fastened two-by-two with handcuffs on their wrists and cuffs riveted on their legs. They were sent to a compartment, separate from the women, who were not cuffed. Boys were kept in a third compartment. They were all below deck. The slaves were placed on their sides. The height between layers prevented an upright position…Platforms were built between decks to stow more slaves. In each compartment were three or four conical buckets for the "cargo" to relieve itself. Some were unable to reach the bucket and relieved themselves where they lay. The buckets were too small for the purpose they served and overflowed before they could be emptied daily.

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In Chapter II of his 1789 work, Olaudah Equiano gives a firsthand account of the conditions of his circa 1755 enslavement and passage aboard a slave ship:

…The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome that it was dangerous to remain there for any time, and some of us had been permitted to stay on the deck for the fresh air; but now that the whole ship's cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us.

This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole scene of horror almost inconceivable.

The journey from the African coast to the Americas was known as the Middle Passage. The First Passage was the coffle-march from where the people were enslaved to the trading posts on the coast, and the Final Passage was a slave's transport from the slave market in the Americas to the plantation of their new master. The Middle Passage could take up to six months, depending on weather, winds, and other factors, or less than two, but no matter how quickly the ship sailed, slaves were subjected to these conditions for at least seven weeks. Death rates on board were high, and it is estimated that approximately four million Africans died on the Middle Passage between circa 1526 and 1860.

Slaves also died en masse in the "seasoning camps" which were an aspect of the Final Passage. Once disembarked in the Americas, prior to sale and transport to their new master's home or plantation, slaves went through an adjustment and "education" period known as "seasoning," during which they were stripped of their former identity and name and made "fit" for slavery. The "seasoning camps" were often in Barbados. Reiss writes:

During this period of two to three years, the Black was introduced to clothing, the requirements of plantation agriculture, and fear and respect for the White man. The mortality rate during seasoning might approach 30 percent.

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Slaves often died from malnutrition during "seasoning" as the slavers forced them to adjust to the kind of food, and quantity, they would be given on a plantation in the Americas – mostly corn, bread, and rice or mashed beans – in small portions. Many also died of disease, exhaustion, through beatings or other punishments, or by suicide.

Kidnapped Africans did not go quietly or docilely to the trading posts, the ships, or the camps, and many resisted or openly rebelled. Suicide was understood as a form of resistance and also as a liberation, as one's soul would then be free of all forms of earthly bondage. Hunger strikes were a popular form of resistance in "seasoning camps" as was fighting back and trying to escape. Escapes were never successful as the slave was confined either in Barbados, the British West Indies, or elsewhere in the Americas and had no means to return to Africa, even if they could evade their enslavers.

It is estimated there were at least 485 revolts aboard slave ships and, most likely, more that were never reported for fear of damaging the reputation of the captain and crew. Crews aboard slave ships were keenly aware of the possibility of revolt and took measures to prevent it.

One of the reasons for keeping the slaves below deck – except for short forays up top once a day for fresh air – was to prevent them from observing how the ship was sailed so that, even if they did successfully revolt, they would not know how to navigate their way back home. Tools and other objects were carefully secured so they could not be taken and used as weapons. The crew was also heavily armed, the male slaves kept manacled, and the ships were designed so that the crew could fire easily upon slaves emerging from the hold. Slave revolts aboard ships were routinely put down, and the leaders were executed.

Even so, there were some successful slave ship revolts, notably the Clare, a slave ship that departed Guinea, heading for North America, on 2 August 1729. Shortly after leaving the African coast, the slaves took the ship, the captain and crew escaped in longboats, and the slaves then turned the Clare around, ran it back into shore, and escaped.

The Clare is the most famous slave ship revolt of the transatlantic slave trade. Two others, the Amistad Seizure (1839) and the Creole Mutiny/Creole Rebellion (1841), though associated with the transatlantic slave trade, actually happened after it was abolished, during the time when the domestic slave trade in the Americas was still flourishing.

The people held aboard the Amistad had been taken illegally from Sierra Leone, brought to Havana, Cuba, and sold to traders who were taking them to Puerto Principe, Cuba, for further sale. One of the enslaved, Sengbe Pieh (better known as Joseph Cinque), slipped his chains and led the others in successfully taking the ship. They wanted it returned to Sierra Leone, but the two owners secretly navigated toward the United States. The ship was seized, and the resulting court case of United States v. The Amistad became international news. Eventually, Pieh and the others were freed, returning home in 1842.

The Creole was a domestic slave ship traveling from Virginia to New Orleans with a "cargo" of 135 slaves when one of them, Madison Washington, led 18 others in what has been called the most successful slave revolt in US history. Washington had the ship sail to the Bahamas – British territory where slavery had been abolished – freeing 128 of the initial 135 held on board.

Just because the transatlantic slave trade had been abolished in Great Britain in 1807 and the United States in 1808, did not mean slavers stopped engaging in it. As Reiss notes:

All the laws were on the books but they could not be enforced. The navy was small, and the coastline was large. US Navy officers, frequently Southerners, were not anxious to chase the slavers and the courts did not enforce the laws too vigorously when criminals were apprehended.

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Slave ships continued to cross the Atlantic Ocean with the same "cargo" as before and evaded boarding by carrying flags of various nations they could run up the mast whenever another ship was spotted, such as an American flag if approached by an American ship. They also had forged papers to present, if boarded by authorities, claiming anything other than slaves as their cargo. The transatlantic slave trade, then, continued for years after its abolition, and, as noted, the last slave ship to dock in the United States was the Clotilda in 1860.

It was not until the 21st century that the governments of many, though not all, of the nations that benefited from the transatlantic slave trade issued formal apologies for the part they played in the enslavement and death of millions of people taken from their homes in Africa. Today, those millions are honored annually on 23 August through the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition.