ABSTRACT
Once the Portuguese began cultivating sugar in Brazil, African slaves became an important part of the trans-Atlantic trade with the New World. Between 1492 and 1870, approximately 10 million Africans came to the Americas as a result of the Atlantic Slave Trade, making them the largest immigrant group to the New World during that time. The merchant companies that conducted the trade lacked the manpower and resources to conquer and colonize West Africa. West Africans had the ability to produce iron and cloth for themselves, but for coastal peoples in the era of the Atlantic Slave Trade, it was cheaper to acquire such items from Europeans. When Europeans began dealing directly with sub-Saharan Africans, the slaves involved in this exchange encountered a type of slavery previously unknown in Africa. Paul Erdmann Isert was a German-born surgeon sent by the Baltic Guinea Company, a Danish slave-trading venture, to work at its West African post Christiansborg in 1783.
