Portugal began the first wave of the Atlantic slave trade when they began to to take slaves from Africa to Brazil to work on plantations. The first wave did not last very long at all before the second wave began.
The second wave of the slave trade began when other countries began to take slaves from Africa to the new world. Britain became the largest trader of slaves, bringing them to the colonies to work. The difference between slaves in Africa and the new world is the fact that in Africa, only people who were prisoners of war, while in America, almost any “black†person could be enslaved, which was simply unfair to the Africans.
Traders would follow a particular route to pick up slaves, going south from Europe down the coast of Africa. There, they would pick up their “cargo†and sail west to the new world, either north to the 13 colonies or south to Brazil. Then, they would return directly to Europe.