When did the slave trade start?
There is evidence it started in pre-historic times. As in, before they had calendars. Beginning at least as early as 1502, European slave traders shipped approximately 11 to 16 million slaves to the Americas, including 500,000 to what is now the United States. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, slaves could be found in every area colonized by Europeans. Initially, English colonists relied on indentured white servants, but by the late seventeenth century, faced with a shortage of servants, they increasingly resorted to enslaved Africans. Three distinctive systems of slavery emerged in the American colonies. In Maryland and Virginia, slavery was widely used in raising tobacco and corn and worked under the “gang” system. In the South Carolina and Georgia low country, slaves raised rice and indigo, worked under the “task” system, and were able to reconstitute African social patterns and maintain a separate Gullah dialect. In the North, slavery was concentrated on Long Island and i
