Between 1450 and 1850, Europeans had abducted millions of people from West Africa and West Central Africa and enslaved them in the Americas. Portugal was the first, followed by Spain, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. Some of the countries that lost citizens to slavery were Angola, Benin, Gambia, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria and Senegal. In the Americas, slave plantations were established in the Lesser Antilles (including Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago), the Greater Antilles (including Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Jamaica), Brazil and the USA.
Evidence suggests that the first Africans in Jamaica came from the Bakongo people of Angola. The Spanish bought about 4,000 Africans from the Portuguese between 1513 and 1521 and took them to the Greater Antilles - 300 were taken to Jamaica. The Portuguese importation of Africans from Central West Africa into Central America was well established at that time. Cotton and livestock were the main produce in Jamaica. King Ferdinand of Spain initially intended for the Africans to be used as house servants and the Tainos remain as the field hands, partly to prevent conflict between the two groups. The rapid multiplication of livestock, mainly cattle, horses and pigs, dictated that the faster growing number of Africans be used in the field.
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