Amazonia and North-East Brazil in the Atlantic slave trade: an assessment of the Brazilian slave trade North of Rio de Janeiro

Brazil was the most important destination for enslaved Africans forced into the Atlantic between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. While Rio de Janeiro became the country's leading slave port, the regions north of Rio were no small players in the business. This article uses the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database to analyze the evolution of the traffic to Amazonia and Northeast Brazil. It provides an assessment of its volume, orientation, and organization. Rio may have eventually dominated the traffic, but the participation of its northern neighbors laid down the foundations for this most notorious trade.