The Transatlantic (also referred to as Atlantic) slave trade was the transportation of enslaved Africans to North and South Americas and the Caribbean spanning between the 16th and the 19th century. The estimated 12.8 million West and Central Africans left their homeland, and about 10 million arrived at their destination.
The majority of Africans were sent to South America and the Caribbean, whose economies became increasingly dependent on slave labor for growing sugarcane and producing other commodities. Only one in ten slaves were transported to British North America. The transatlantic route, the Middle Passage, was rough and torturous for the enslaved. On the ships, Africans were separated by sex, kept naked, and in chains, which is why only 80% of them survived the voyage.