1670s Expansion of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Name: 1670s Expansion of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Start: 1671
End: 1680

Type Event Region Africa Time 1671–1680

In the 1670s, slave trade between European colonial empires and African coastal powers grew steadily, reshaping populations on both sides of the Atla…

Timeline

1671–1674Elmina Castle · Gold CoastChartered merchants like Britain's Royal African Company consolidated forts and factor-trading systems on the Gold Coast, exchanging European manufactured goods for African gold and slaves; trading posts became key nodes in the transoceanic trafficking chain.
1675–1678Mid-Atlantic routes · Transoceanic routesFrom the mid-1670s, slave ship voyages and numbers carried to Caribbean and North American plantations rose sharply; overcrowded holds, disease, and high mortality created the notorious institutional suffering of the Middle Passage.
1678–1680Barbados · Lesser AntillesSugar and tobacco plantations continued to absorb enslaved African labor; Caribbean islands and southern North American colonies generated steady demand for West African population exports, with the slave trade and plantation economy mutually reinforcing each other.

Sources

Transatlantic slave trade https://www.britannica.com/topic/transatlantic-slave-trade
The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870 — Hugh Thomas (1997)