The history of the global economy cannot be told without telling the story of the slave trade. And while many people believe that the trans-Atlantic slave trade began in 1619 when the privateer The White Lion brought 20 enslaved African ashore in the British colony of Jamestown in the American state of Virginia, it had in fact started more than a century before. The Portuguese began trading with African slaves from as far back as the 1440s.

During this time, Africans were enslaved on Portuguese islands like Madeira, where they were forced to work in agriculture. Americans borrowed the slavery blueprint from Europeans and perfected it. By the time the trans-Atlantic slave trade was at its height, most African slaves were being transported to the Caribbean and the Americas – with many being made to work in the plantations of South America...