ABSTRACT
In terms of the Atlantic slave trade, there is the geographical distinction between the labor flows from Europe and those from Africa. The emphasis on slaves reflected labor needs, especially the demands of sugar production which ensured that Brazil came rapidly to play a key role in the transatlantic slave trade. Initially, part of the labor needs were supplied instead by Moors captured in the conflict with Portugal and Spain, which was frequent in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in southern Spain, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. Rather than providing a marginal part of the labor force for Spanish America, Africa became steadily more important as a source of slaves, not least because it was believed that Africans were physically stronger than natives. The supply to Portuguese and Spanish America of African slaves, who had to be purchased in Africa and brought across the Atlantic, was, however, initially more expensive than that of native slaves.
