Who funded the African American slave trade?

For well over 300 years, European countries forced Africans onto slave ships and transported them across the Atlantic Ocean. 

The first European nation to engage in the Transatlantic Slave Trade was Portugal in the mid to late 1400's. Captain John Hawkins made the first known English slaving voyage to Africa, in 1562, in the reign of Elizabeth 1. Hawkins made three such journeys over a period of six years. He captured over 1200 Africans and sold them as goods in the Spanish colonies in the Americas.  But there is more to this complex story join us as we dialogue on this subject and much more