The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

“Solving” the Labor Shortage: Slavery 59

In 2009, President Barack Obama visited the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, a fortress that held Africans before they were shipped to the Americas.
“It is here,” Obama declared, “where the journey of much of the African American experience began.”

PACIFIC

OCEAN

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

Gulf of

Mexico

Me

dite

rrane

anSea

SOUTH

AMERICA

EUROPE

AFRICA

West

Central

Africa

BRAZIL

NORTH

AMERICA

We

stInd

ies

Spanish

Possessions

African Group Supplying Slaves

Slave Castle

Susu

Danish

Caribbea

n (^28) , (^000)
French
Caribbea
n (^1) , (^600) , (^00)
Dutch 0
Caribbe
an (^500)
SpanishAmericas 1 , (^552) , 0
(^00)
PortugueseBrazil (^3) , (^64)
(^6) , (^00)
0
Benin
Walo
Cayor
Baol
Manding
Fula
Susu
Fante
Teke
Loango
Annamabu
BritishCaribbean
(^1) , (^66)
(^5) , (^000)
Briti
shN
orth
Amer
ica (^399)
, (^000)
Cape CoastElmina
Castle
Bri
tai
n
50 ,
00
0
Atlantic Slave Trade, 1451–1870From 1619, when a Dutch frigate sold several dozen slaves to English colonists at Jamestown, until 1808,
when Congress abolished the African slave trade, nearly 400,000 Africans were brought against their will to what is now the United States.
Approximately 8 million more were taken to the sugar or coffee plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean and to the mines and farms of Spanish
America. Although most of the slaves came from western Africa and central Africa, some (not shown on this map) came from Africa’s eastern
coast as well.