17th-Century Slave Transport Ships

Timeline

1. c. 1620–1640Ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam · NetherlandsThe Dutch West India Company and private shipowners converted merchant vessels or built ships specifically as slave ships, fitted with tiered lower-deck bays, armed decks, and supply holds, establishing a standardized voyage system between the Gulf of Guinea and the Caribbean.
2. c. 1641–1650Gulf of Guinea to Caribbean route · CaribbeanIn the 1640s the British, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese slave fleets continued to expand; a single ship often carried three to five hundred captured Africans across the Atlantic, with sugar, tobacco, and manufactured goods as return cargo, as the triangular trade network matured.
3. c. 1660–1700Discharge ports of Barbados and Jamaica · BarbadosDemand from British Caribbean sugar plantations drove increases in slave ship tonnage and voyage frequency; shipowners competed to shorten voyages and raise loading rates, making slave transport ships one of the most profit-driven ship types in Atlantic shipping in the later 17th century.