Triangular trade

Triangular trade or triangle trade is a historical term indicating trade among three ports or regions. Triangular trade usually evolves when a region has export commodities that are not required in the region from which its major imports come. Triangular trade thus provides a method for rectifying trade imbalances between the above regions.

From the 16th to 19th centuries, the Atlantic slave trade was a system of triangular trade between Europe, Africa, and the Americas that involved European manufactured goods, West African slaves, and Caribbean molasses.

The colonial molasses trade, which also involved slaves and molasses, made trade stops in the colonies of British North America in the 17th and 18th centuries.^[1][2] The sea lane west from Africa to the West Indies (and later, also to Brazil) was known as the Middle Passage; its cargo consisted of abducted or recently purchased African people. The countries that controlled the transatlantic slave market until the 18th century in terms of the number of enslaved people shipped were the United Kingdom, Portugal, and France.

During the Age of Sail, the particular routes were also shaped by the powerful influence of winds and currents. For example, from the main trading nations of Western Europe, it was much easier to sail westwards after first going south of 30° N latitude and reaching the so-called "trade winds", thus arriving in the Caribbean rather than going straight west to the North American mainland. Returning from North America, it was easiest to follow the Gulf Stream in a northeasterly direction using the westerlies. (Even before the voyages of Christopher Columbus, the Portuguese had been using a similar triangle to sail to the Canary Islands and the Azores, and it was then expanded outwards.)