USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -During the 16th and 17th centuries, St. Augustine was the hub of the trade in enslaved people in Spanish Florida and the first permanent settlement in what would become the continental United States to include enslaved Africans.

Detailed explanation-2: -Throughout colonial and antebellum history, U.S. slaves lived primarily in the South. Slaves comprised less than a tenth of the total Southern population in 1680 but grew to a third by 1790. At that date, 293, 000 slaves lived in Virginia alone, making up 42 percent of all slaves in the U.S. at the time.

Detailed explanation-3: -However, many consider a significant starting point to slavery in America to be 1619, when the privateer The White Lion brought 20 enslaved African ashore in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia. The crew had seized the Africans from the Portuguese slave ship Sao Jao Bautista.

Detailed explanation-4: -On reaching the Americas the crew of slave ships prepared the Africans for sale. They washed, shaved and rubbed them with palm oil to disguise sores and wounds caused by conditions on board. The captains usually sold their captives directly to planters or specialised wholesalers by auction.

Detailed explanation-5: -The destinations of slaves taken to the Americas were equally diverse. Slavers carried most of the Africans caught up in the trade to Brazil (approximately five million), with another 2.25 million sent to the British Caribbean, and about 1.75 million to the French Caribbean. Most of the rest landed in Spanish America.