By 1710 there were 44,866 Africans in the thirteen colonies, the overwhelming majority of whom were slaves. The largest number of Africans continued to be in Virginia, which contained 23, 118. As slavery became more firmly entrenched in colonial America, it-and the Africans who were a part of it-be­ came the foundation of a very lucrative trade that included the English colonies in North America and the Caribbean, England, and West Africa.



This trade across the Atlantic became known as the "triangle of trade," or "triangular trade." Although it was not always a perfect triangle, the trade operated as follows: (1) manufactured goods such as guns were shipped from England to West Africa where they were traded for slaves; (2) the slaves were. then traded. to the British Caribbean where they were used on sugar plantations and seasoned (trained) before being sold to the English colonies in North America along with sugar cane and molasses in exchange for rice, indigo, tobacco, fish, and hardtack; and (3) raw materials such as sugar cane from the Caribbean and rice, índigo, tobacco, and fish from the thirteen colonies were then traded to England for (after 1750) manufactured goods, beginning the process once again.

ln this triangle, slaves were not only the main commodity traded; they also produced the cash crops and other products that were traded, thus sustaining the tri- angle of trade with their forced labor.