Atlantic Slave Trade Volume Reaches Hundreds Per Year by 1480s

By the 1480s Portuguese traders were transporting an estimated 500 to 1,000 Africans annually to work in sugar plantations on Atlantic islands (Madeira, São Tomé, Cape Verde) and in Portugal itself. The Slave Voyages database documents the systematic nature of this early trade. São Tomé island became a major transit and sugar-producing node, establishing the plantation slavery model that would be transplanted to the Americas.