When the Spaniards began to use slaves in their American colonies, the Dutch, French, and British were only too eager to provide the transportation.

Before long, they too had colonies and slaves of their own.
The triangular trade between Europe, Africa, and the New World, was one of the most lucrative aspects of the mercantile economy.

Mercantilism sought to keep each country economically self-sufficient.

Within this framework the role of the colony was to provide the mother country with raw materials which it could not produce for itself and to be a market for the consumption of many of the manufactured goods produced within the mother country.
This triangular trade began in Europe with the purchase of guns, gunpowder, cheap cotton, and trinkets of all kinds.

These were shipped to the coast of West Africa and unloaded at a trading station.