“S” is for Slave Trade

“S” is for Slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade was one of the most important demographic, social, and economic events of the modern era. It extended across four centuries and fostered the involuntary migration of millions of African peoples from their homelands to forced labor in the Americas and elsewhere. The major stream of African labor went to sugar-producing regions in the West Indies or Latin America. Over the course of the trade’s existence, Britain's North American colonies absorbed no more than five percent of Africans brought into the New World. South Carolina was the continent’s leading importer of slaves, importing approximately 100,000 Africans. Sullivan's Island has been styled the Black man's Ellis Island because large numbers, perhaps even the majority, of enslaved Africans who came to the American South passed through the island’s quarantine station.