Editing Atlantic slave trade (section)

===Atlantic travel===
{{Main|Age of Discovery|European colonization of the Americas|Population history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas}}
{{Further|British colonization of the Americas|Dutch colonization of the Americas|Danish colonization of the Americas|French colonization of the Americas|Portuguese colonization of the Americas|Spanish colonization of the Americas}}
{{Slavery}}
The Atlantic slave trade developed after trade contacts were established between the "[[Old World]]" ([[Afro-Eurasia]]) and the "[[New World]]" (the Americas). For centuries, [[tidal current]]s had made ocean travel particularly difficult and risky for the ships that were then available. Thus, there had been very little, if any, maritime contact between the peoples living in these continents.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|pp=15–17}} In the 15th century, new European developments in seafaring technologies, such as the invention of the [[caravel]], resulted in ships being better equipped to deal with the tidal currents, and could begin traversing the Atlantic Ocean. The Portuguese set up a [[Escola de Sagres|Navigator's School]], although there is much debate about whether it existed and if it did, just what it was. Between 1600 and 1800, approximately 300,000 sailors engaged in the slave trade visited West Africa.{{sfn|Christopher|2006|p=127}} In doing so, they came into contact with societies living along the west African coast and in the Americas which they had never previously encountered.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=13}} Historian [[Pierre Chaunu]] termed the consequences of European navigation "disenclavement", with it marking an end of isolation for some societies and an increase in inter-societal contact for most others.<ref>{{cite book |last=Chaunu |first=Pierre |author-link=Pierre Chaunu |date=1969 |title=Conquête et exploitation des nouveaux mondes (xvie siècles) |language=fr |trans-title=Conquest and exploitation of new worlds (16th centuries) |publisher=Presses Universitaires de France |pages=54–58}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Launching the Portuguese Slave Trade in Africa |url=https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/african_laborers_for_a_new_emp/launching_the_portuguese_slave |website=Lowcountry History Digital Initiative |publisher=Lowcountry Digital Library at the College of Charleston |access-date=18 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240518011824/http://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/african_laborers_for_a_new_emp/launching_the_portuguese_slave |archive-date=18 May 2024}}</ref>

Historian [[John Thornton (historian)|John Thornton]] noted, "A number of technical and geographical factors combined to make Europeans the most likely people to explore the Atlantic and develop its commerce".{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=24}} He identified these as being the drive to find new and profitable commercial opportunities outside Europe. Additionally, there was the desire to create an alternative trade network to that controlled by the Muslim [[Ottoman Empire]] of the Middle East, which was viewed as a commercial, political and religious threat to European Christendom. In particular, European traders wanted to trade for gold, which could be found in western Africa, and to find a maritime route to "the Indies" (India), where they could trade for luxury goods such as spices without having to obtain these items from Middle Eastern Islamic traders.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|pp=24–26}}

[[File:Caravela de armada of Joao Serrao.jpg|thumb|Portuguese mariners used [[caravel]] ships and traveled south along the West African coast and colonized [[Cape Verde]] in 1462.<ref>{{cite web |title=Caravel |url=https://www.worldhistory.org/Caravel/ |website=World History Encyclopedia |access-date=20 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240705055424/https://www.worldhistory.org/Caravel/ |archive-date=5 July 2024}}</ref>]]

During the [[first wave of European colonization]], although many of the initial Atlantic naval explorations were led by the [[Iberian Peninsula|Iberian]] ''[[conquistador]]s'', members of many European nationalities were involved, including sailors from [[Habsburg Spain|Spain]], [[Kingdom of Portugal|Portugal]], [[Kingdom of France|France]], [[Kingdom of England|England]], the [[Italian city-states|Italian states]], and the [[Dutch Republic|Netherlands]]. This diversity led Thornton to describe the initial "exploration of the Atlantic" as "a truly international exercise, even if many of the dramatic discoveries were made under the sponsorship of the Iberian monarchs". That leadership later gave rise to the myth that "the Iberians were the sole leaders of the exploration".{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=27}}

European overseas expansion led to the contact between the Old and New Worlds producing the [[Columbian exchange]], named after the Italian explorer [[Christopher Columbus]].<ref name="McNeill 2019">{{cite encyclopedia |last1=McNeill |first1=J. R. |author1-link=J. R. McNeill |last2=Sampaolo |first2=Marco |last3=Wallenfeldt |first3=Jeff |date=30 September 2019 |orig-date=28 September 2019 |title=Columbian Exchange |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Columbian-exchange |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |location=[[Edinburgh]] |publisher=[[Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200421055242/https://www.britannica.com/event/Columbian-exchange |archive-date=21 April 2020 |url-status=live |access-date=5 September 2021}}</ref> It started the [[global silver trade from the 16th to 18th centuries]] and led to direct European involvement in the [[Chinese export porcelain|Chinese porcelain trade]]. It involved the transfer of goods unique to one hemisphere to another. Europeans brought cattle, horses, and sheep to the New World, and from the New World Europeans received tobacco, potatoes, tomatoes, and maize. Other items and commodities becoming important in global trade were the tobacco, sugarcane, and cotton crops of the Americas, along with the gold and silver brought from the American continent not only to Europe but elsewhere in the Old World.<ref name="oxfordbibliographies1">{{cite web |last=Hahn |first=Barbara |date=31 July 2019 |orig-date=27 August 2018 |title=Tobacco - Atlantic History |url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0141.xml |website=oxfordbibliographies.com |location=[[Oxford]] |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |doi=10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0141 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201028093226/https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0141.xml |archive-date=28 October 2020 |access-date=4 September 2021}}</ref><ref name="Escudero 2014">{{cite book |last=Escudero |first=Antonio Gutiérrez |year=2014 |chapter=Hispaniola's Turn to Tobacco: Products from Santo Domingo in Atlantic Commerce |editor1-last=Aram |editor1-first=Bethany |editor2-last=Yun-Casalilla |editor2-first=Bartolomé |title=Global Goods and the Spanish Empire, 1492–1824: Circulation, Resistance, and Diversity |location=[[Basingstoke]] |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |pages=216–229 |doi=10.1057/9781137324054_12 |isbn=978-1-137-32405-4}}</ref><ref name="Knight 2010">{{cite book |last=Knight |first=Frederick C. |year=2010 |title=Working the Diaspora: The Impact of African Labor on the Anglo-American World, 1650–1850 |chapter=Cultivating Knowledge: African Tobacco and Cotton Workers in Colonial British America |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZqQUCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA65 |location=New York and London |publisher=[[New York University Press]] |pages=65–85 |doi=10.18574/nyu/9780814748183.003.0004 |isbn=978-0-8147-4818-3 |lccn=2009026860}}</ref><ref name="Nater 2006">{{cite book |last=Nater |first=Laura |year=2006 |chapter=Colonial Tobacco: Key Commodity of the Spanish Empire, 1500–1800 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mnvBYQqpJbQC&pg=PA93 |editor1-last=Topik |editor1-first=Steven |editor2-last=Marichal |editor2-first=Carlos |editor3-last=Frank |editor3-first=Zephyr |title=From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 1500–2000 |location=[[Durham, North Carolina]] |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |pages=93–117 |doi=10.1215/9780822388029-005 |isbn=978-0-8223-3753-9 |access-date=5 September 2021 |archive-date=26 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240726153759/https://books.google.com/books?id=mnvBYQqpJbQC&pg=PA93#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live}}</ref>