The Atlantic slave trade was one of the most complex economic enterprises known to the preindustrial world. It was the largest transoceanic migration in history up to that time; it promoted the transportation of people and goods among three different continents; it involved an annual fleet of several hundred ships; and it absorbed a large amount of European capital invested in international commerce. The trade was closely associated with the development of commercial export agriculture in America, and Asian trading with Europe. It involved complex capital and credit arrangements in Europe, Africa, and America and was carried on by a very large number of competing merchants in an unusually free market. Finally, it was the largest movement of workers to the Americas before the mid-nineteenth century.

How did this extraordinary trade develop in Europe? What mechanisms were used to get this system into operation and what were the relative roles of the state and of private capital? How was the trade financed and what were the goods used to purchase the slaves? What types of ships and crews were involved in the transport of these slaves and how were they purchased in Africa and how were they sold in America? What were the profits generated by the trade and what was their relative importance within the expanding European economy? These are some of the issues I will deal with in this and the following chapter on the African part of the trade.