Struggle & Resistance Achievement & Excellence

1600s

1600–1609

An Estimated 400,000 Africans Enslaved in Americas by 1600

By 1600 scholars estimate that approximately 400,000 enslaved Africans had been transported to the Americas, with the majority going to Portuguese Brazil and Spanish Caribbean colonies. The annual volume of the trade was increasing rapidly. Brazil alone would eventually receive over 4.8 million enslaved Africans — the largest destination of any country in the Americas. The Slave Voyages database, the most comprehensive scholarly record, documents the systematic scale of this commerce in human beings.

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Key events

c. 1600
An Estimated 400,000 Africans Enslaved in Americas by 1600
By 1600 scholars estimate that approximately 400,000 enslaved Africans had been transported to the Americas, with the majority going to Portuguese Brazil and Spanish Caribbean colonies. The annual volume of the trade was increasing rapidly. Brazil alone would eventually receive over 4.8 million enslaved Africans — the largest destination of any country in the Americas. The Slave Voyages database, the most comprehensive scholarly record, documents the systematic scale of this commerce in human beings.
1607
English Jamestown Settlement Creates Conditions for Chattel Slavery
The English settlement of Jamestown in 1607 established Virginia's labor-intensive tobacco economy. Early labor needs were initially met by white indentured servants, but the plantation model's insatiable demand for cheap, permanent labor created conditions that would lead directly to the establishment of racial chattel slavery. The arrival of the first documented Africans at Point Comfort in 1619 occurred within this economic context, which was actively reshaping English views on race, labor, and legal personhood.