Leaders turned to cash crops like tobacco and sugar, produced by African slaves. The need for labor from Africa increased due to slave mortality and the expansion of colonies. The New World became like a furnace, consuming African slaves to satisfy the growing demand for sugar, coffee, rice, and tobacco. Today, we still rely on near-slave labor to produce goods that everyone uses and consumes. The terms may have changed, but the addiction to bondage remains.
The Atlantic Slave Trade mixes centuries of human bondage with violence, economics, commerce, geo-political competition, liberty, morality, injustice, revolution, tragedy and bloody reckonings. That sounds like a lot, yet this show merely scratches the surface of this enormous subject.