The Slave Trade out of Africa There is a lot that can be discussed on the topic of the slave trade. many dates, locations, and the exact number of slaves have been disputed over many years. This discussion will begin in 1501. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade as a critical factor in the growth of the American colonies Labor was the single most scarce factor of production in the new work, and labor was for three centu ries the principle commodity exported by much of Africa. The slave trade was the mechanism by which one of history's greatest mass population transfers was effected a transfer that had large impact on subsequent economic history. In order to make this document more of a fact giver instead of a book on the slave trade, important questions will be raised and answered. A bibliography will be provided for further knowl edge. Why slaves? Colonialism led for the need of increased labor in new founded territories. Elementary economic theory states that a production of an commodity is normally concieve by economists as requiring three classes of inputs-land, labor, and capital. In a situation such as in the newly discovered Americas were land was so plentiful as to be effectively a free good, labor would be the only scarce facto and thus would receive the value of the entire product. a competitive labor market would produce a wage rate equal of the vale of the marginal product of labor. In America the abudance of land put the maximizing land owner at the intensive margin for labor. Why Africans? At various times, labor in the Caribbean has been made up of slave, indentured, and, free labor originating in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. At any given time the type of labor was the decison of the Planter. Spain was the first to introduce African slaves into the America. The first shipment of blacks arrived in Hispaniola in 1502, the following year. The institution of slavey eventually spread to other areas of the Americas. By time the slave trade ended in the nineteenth century, about 10 million Africans had endured and durvived the Atlantic passage. The Spanish were not the only group to enslave, the British, Dutch, English, Franch, Portuguese, Dutch, and danes have participated in the slave trade. but by the turn of the eighteenth century, the English had established their supremacy. Follow this link for some maps which illustrate the growth of the slave trade.