USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The Atlantic slave trade began in 1444, when Portuguese traders brought the first large number of slaves from Africa to Europe. In 1526, Portuguese mariners carried the first shipload of African slaves to Brazil in the Americas, establishing the Atlantic slave trade.

Detailed explanation-2: -The main Portuguese goal was trade, not colonization or conquest. Soon its ships were bringing into the European market highly valued gold, ivory, pepper, cotton, sugar, and slaves. The slave trade, for example, was conducted by a few dozen merchants in Lisbon.

Detailed explanation-3: -Access to commodities such as fabrics, spices, and gold motivated a European quest for a faster means to reach South Asia. It was this search that led the Portuguese down the coast of West Africa to Sierra Leone in 1460.

Detailed explanation-4: -The transatlantic slave trade began during the 15th century when Portugal, and subsequently other European kingdoms, were finally able to expand overseas and reach Africa. The Portuguese first began to kidnap people from the west coast of Africa and to take those they enslaved back to Europe.

Detailed explanation-5: -While Indigenous people provided a steady stream of slave labor to early colonists, most notably in the Jesuit aldeias, by the mid-sixteenth century the Portuguese were importing enslaved Africans in substantial numbers to work in new, permanent sugar colonies.