Definition

Noun: - The commercial buying and selling of human beings as enslaved persons: This refers specifically to the historical business of capturing, transporting, and trading people as property. - A historical system of forced human commerce: Often refers to the transatlantic system where people, primarily from Africa, were forcibly transported to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th centuries.

Usage Examples

• Noun:
  • The abolitionist movement fought to end the slave trade.
  • The economic foundations of some colonies were built on the slave trade.
  • Historians study the devastating impact of the transatlantic slave trade.

Advanced Usage

• "to be complicit in the slave trade": To be involved in or responsible for supporting the system of trading slaves.
  • Several European nations were complicit in the Atlantic slave trade.
• "the abolition of the slave trade": The official act of making the trading of slaves illegal.
  • The British Slave Trade Act of 1807 marked the abolition of the trade in the British Empire.

Variants and Related Words

• Slave trader (n): A person who buys and sells slaves.
  • The slave trader profited from human misery.
• Slave trading (n): The activity or practice of trading slaves.
  • The port city was a center for slave trading.

Synonyms

• Human trafficking (in a historical context): The illegal trade of people for exploitation. (Note: In modern legal contexts, "human trafficking" and the historical "slave trade" are distinct but related concepts.)
• Enslavement trade: A more descriptive term for the commerce in enslaved people.

Related Phrases

• Middle Passage: Refers specifically to the stage of the transatlantic slave trade where enslaved Africans were transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas.
  • Conditions on ships during the Middle Passage of the slave trade were horrific.
• Triangular Trade: Refers to the three-legged trade route between Europe, Africa, and the Americas that included the transport of slaves.
  • The slave trade was a central component of the Triangular Trade system.

Noun

1. traffic in slaves; especially in Black Africans transported to America in the 16th to 19th centuries