Articles relating to the Atlantic slave trade, its history, and its depictions. It involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage. Although the European slave trade with Africa began in the 15th century, trade with the Americas did not begin until the 16th century, and lasted till the 19th century. The vast majority of those who were transported in the transatlantic slave trade were from Central Africa and West Africa and had been sold by West African slave traders to European slave traders, while others had been captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids.