The British were among the most prominent slave traders in the world, but the vast majority of British-trafficked Africans did not end up in England. (British Africans were servants, England deemed by a court to have “too pure Air for Slaves to breathe in.”) Instead, British slave ships left from ports like Bristol and Liverpool full of British goods to buy African slaves. Crammed with men and women, the ship would then travel to the Americas, and swap the human cargo for sugar, tobacco, rum, and other New World goods to bring to Europe. By some estimates, the British carried 3.1 million
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