which country received the most slaves from africa

Brazil received the largest number of enslaved Africans during the transatlantic slave trade, far more than any other country in the Americas. Historians estimate that roughly 38–40% of all Africans forcibly transported across the Atlantic were sent to territories that became modern Brazil.

Key numbers

• An estimated total of about 10–12 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic alive over several centuries.

• Of these, around 5 million were carried by Portuguese and Brazilian ships, with Brazil as the main destination.

• The territory of the later United States directly received a much smaller share, roughly 250,000–300,000 Africans, compared with Brazil’s millions.

Why Brazil received the most

• Brazil’s plantation economy (especially sugar, later coffee) depended heavily on coerced labor, creating a continuous demand for enslaved Africans.

• Portugal controlled key slaving routes and coastal forts in West Central Africa (notably in areas corresponding to today’s Angola and Congo), funneling captives primarily to Brazil.

• Harsh working conditions and high mortality on Brazilian plantations meant enslavers kept importing new captives instead of relying on natural population growth.

Other major destinations

• Caribbean colonies (under Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands) also received millions of enslaved Africans, especially islands like Jamaica, Saint-Domingue/Haiti, and others.

• Spanish American territories (such as parts of today’s Cuba and Uruguay) were significant but still smaller than Brazil in total numbers.

• Overall, the pattern shows that most enslaved Africans were taken to Latin America and the Caribbean, not to what became the United States.

Context and harm

• The transatlantic slave trade was a system of racialized, hereditary slavery that inflicted immense physical, psychological, and cultural violence on millions of people and their descendants.

• Its legacies—structural racism, economic inequality, and social exclusion—are still deeply felt in Brazil, across the Americas, and in Africa today.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.