Page 165 - مجلة دلمون العدد 25 يونيو 2019م

The Slavery

There are no confirmed statistics on the time into regular contact with sub-Saharan
number of export of slaves from Africa, Africa. This region has long been the source
but it is estimated that there are more than of slaves for the route through the Sahara to
17 million Africans were exported outside the Mediterranean.
their countries, between the 16th and By the 18th century the majority of the
19th centuries. That one in six dies before African trade- ships carrying out slaves
reaching the West Indies Islands - where the commerce, are British, and by the 1790s,
main slave markets on the American side of it has been estimated that 480,000 people
the ocean are located. were enslaved in the British Colonies.
Atlantic slaves trade: Only, in 1807, the British government passed
On the other side, a new and disastrous an Act of Parliament abolishing the slave
chapter in the story of slavery begins with trade throughout the British Empire.
the arrival of the Portuguese in West Africa At the end of the 18th century, people began
in the 15th century. to campaign against slavery. Figures such
The Portuguese expeditions of the 15th as Olaudah Equiano, Mary Prince, Thomas
century bring European ships for the first Clarkson, and William Wilberforce by adding

18