How slaves were captured, sold and transported from West Africa.

Slaves were marched down to the coast in chains, because slave traders did not capture the slaves themselves, and many of them died on the journey to the coast. This included slaves that were prisoners of war, and ordinary people that worked in fields. Once they were at the coast, they were sold to European slave traders in exchange for guns, iron and cloth. The trading of slaves for guns resulted in wars being more violant than they used to be  (Bottaro, et al. 2013).  

Many European slave traders built forts that were left along the coast of Africa, for the slaves to be locked in while they wait for the slave ships to come pick them up . The conditions within these forts were horrible, and therefore many slaves died before the ship could arrive. (Bottaro, et al. 2013). 

On the slave ships the so-called living conditions were even worse, and the journey across the Atlantic Ocean took about two months.  The slaves were forced into any corner they could find. They were chained together and shoved into narrow spaces, where it was hard to even move. Many of the slaves fell ill, and about a quarter of the slaves on each ship died because they were not fed properly. When the slaves died, their bodies were thrown overboard into the sea.  The ships were overcrowded as the Europeans wanted to make as much money as they could (Bottaro, et al. 2013).