c. 1501–1866 CE · voyage survey; resistance continued · Global · Trade
European and American traders forcibly transported more than twelve million captive Africans across the Atlantic; resistance by Africans and their descendants took many forms throughout slavery and abolition.
Atlas dossier · Early Modern WorldFree device narration · synchronized English captions · transcript available
Why it matters
The c. 1501–1866 frame follows the database’s transatlantic voyage series. SlaveVoyages compiles more than 36,000 documented voyages and estimates about 12.5 million captive people departed Africa. These are reconstructed estimates, not a complete manifest of every person or every illegal voyage.
SlaveVoyages: Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database ↗A voyage endpoint does not date the end of slavery or its consequences. Resistance included survival, preserving kinship and culture, shipboard and plantation revolt, flight, maroon communities, legal action and abolitionist organising. The dossier treats enslaved people as historical actors rather than only as cargo in commercial records.
UNESCO: Transatlantic slave trade resources ↗Silent pan-and-zoom motion derivative of the Atlantic slave trade and resistance reconstruction; not archival footage.
Enlarge and examine the picturePrimary Atlas editorial reconstruction for Atlantic slave trade and resistance.
World History in Pictures · Public site artwork. This record does not grant third-party republication rights.
How Atlas classifies this artwork →
Enlarge and examine the pictureSupporting Atlas reconstruction within the same Atlantic slave trade and resistance editorial package; not an independent archival record.
World History in Pictures · Same editorial artwork package
How Atlas classifies this artwork →
Enlarge and examine the pictureContext crop from the same Atlantic slave trade and resistance reconstruction; not an independent historical record.
World History in Pictures · Same editorial artwork package
How Atlas classifies this artwork →Interpretation note
This dossier distinguishes the event’s basic chronology from later arguments about meaning, responsibility and legacy. When comparing religious, national, Indigenous or scholarly interpretations, consult the primary and institutional sources above alongside peer-reviewed historical work.
Elsewhere in the world
1492–c. 1770 CE · selected colonial survey · AmericasEuropean voyages and conquest in the AmericasAtlantic voyages intensified connections among Europe, Africa and the Americas and were followed by Iberian and later European invasion, settlement, missionary systems and extraction.
1517–1648 CE · EuropeReformation and confessional conflictReform movements challenged church authority, doctrine and practice; Catholic renewal and state conflict produced new churches and devastating wars.
1526–1858 CE · dynastic survey · AsiaMughal IndiaMughal rulers governed much of South Asia through negotiated sovereignty, taxation and military power while court culture supported major architecture, painting and literature.