The slave trade was a big part of the British economy during 1700~1807. British ships would sail to Western Africa and trade fine goods for slaves which would then be traded in other parts of Southern and Northern America for items such as sugar, rum, tobacco and cotton. All these things brought a massive increase to the British economy. Many people benefited from the slave trade, many of these people would send items with vessels over to Africa, and then months later would receive many valuable items that came back with that same vessel. The main reason for this trading of slaves and other items was for money, the profit that came back from a vessel was very high and this cause many people to become ambitious to the slave trade.
The slave triangle was a triangle of three different components that made up the slave trade. 1st, port cities in Britain such as Manchester, Liverpool and Bristol would send vessels full of good such as guns, gun powder, iron bars and alcohol to Western Africa.
Slave transport in Africa, depicted in a 19th-cent...
English: Public domain image more than 100 years s...
English: Slaves in eastern Africa.The crew from these ships would make very good connections with powerful tribal kings that would trade slaves for the items listed above. Benin was an African kingdom, which benefited off the slave trade. Slave traders would walk thousands of African slaves across to port cities where they would be traded off for goods which were considered more important. Songhai was another kingdom which lost it's wealth due to the lack of encouragement the kingdom brought to the slave trade. Over time, as Benin became more and more powerful, the kingdom took over many other parts of African kingdoms, this way expanding its kingdom. When the British slave traders received the slaves from Western Africa, they loaded the slaves onto slave ships. Some ships...