slave trade

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.

slave trade

noun

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

slave trade

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.

Other Word Forms

• slave-trading noun
• slave-trader noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of slave trade¹

First recorded in 1725–35