USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The major Atlantic slave-trading nations, in order of trade volume, were Portugal, Britain, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Several had established outposts on the African coast, where they purchased slaves from local African leaders.

Detailed explanation-2: -By the eighteenth century, when the trans-Atlantic slave trade reached its trafficking peak, the British (followed by the French and Portuguese) had become the largest carriers of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic.

Detailed explanation-3: -The English and French had started to trade in slaves well before 1660. The Navigation Act of 1651 disallowing foreign slavers to sell slaves in the English colonies proves that the early English slave trade was sufficient to provide the first sugar plantations in the Caribbean with slaves from Africa.

Detailed explanation-4: -By 1619, more than a century and a half after the Portuguese first traded slaves on the African coast, European ships had brought a million Africans to colonies and plantations in the Americas and force them to labor as slaves.

Detailed explanation-5: -The triangle, involving three continents, was complete. European capital, African labour and American land and resources combined to supply a European market. The colonists in the Americas also made direct slaving voyages to Africa, which did not follow the triangular route.