USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -In the fifteenth century, Portugal became the first European nation to take significant part in African slave trading. The Portuguese primarily acquired slaves for labor on Atlantic African island plantations, and later for plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean, though they also sent a small number to Europe.

Detailed explanation-2: -Prince Infante D. Henrique began selling African slaves in Lagos in 1444. In 1455, Pope Nicholas V gave Portugal the rights to continue the slave trade in West Africa, under the provision that they convert all people who are enslaved. The Portuguese soon expanded their trade along the whole west coast of Africa.

Detailed explanation-3: -Spain began to trade slaves in the 15th century and this trade reached its peak in the 16th century. The history of Spanish enslavement of Africans began with Portuguese captains Antão Gonçalves and Nuno Tristão in 1441.

Detailed explanation-4: -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-5: -Britain and Portugal dominated the slave trade. Before 1650, the Portuguese transported more than 95 percent of what appear by later standards to be a small flow of people.