slave trade

American  

noun

1. the business or process of capturing, transporting, and selling human beings into chattel slavery, especially Black Africans brought to the New World prior to the mid-19th century.

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slave trade British  

noun

1. the business of trading in slaves, esp the transportation of Black Africans to America from the 16th to 19th centuries

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slave trade Cultural  

1. The transportation of slaves from Africa to North and South America between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Congress banned the importing of slaves into the United States in 1808.

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Other Word Forms

• slave-trader
  noun
• slave-trading
  noun

Etymology

Origin of slave trade

First recorded in 1725–35

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

slave trade

Indeed, Britain’s encouragement of the slave trade was one of the offenses he cited in his first draft of the Declaration.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026

King Willem-Alexander formally apologised for his country's role in the slave trade in 2023, saying he felt "personally and intensely" affected.

From BBC ● Jun. 21, 2026

Thousands of people were trafficked from Africa to Dutch colonies in the Caribbean and South America - amounting to about 5% of the entire transatlantic slave trade - before the practice was banned in 1863.

From BBC ● Jun. 21, 2026

Once considered a hub of the transatlantic slave trade, Ghana is now "transitioning from being a crime scene to a sanctuary for healing and reparative justice", Ablakwa told hundreds of delegates.

From Barron's ● Jun. 18, 2026

By the time the Haitian plantation owners and overseers reached New Orleans, abolitionists were pressing to end the African slave trade.

From "Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science" by Marc Aronson