In the British West Indian islands (and also in the southern continental colonies that were to become states of the United States of America), the majority of enslaved blacks brought across the Atlantic came from West Africa (roughly between modern Senegal and Ghana). By contrast, very little of Bermuda's original black emigration came (directly or indirectly) from this area. The first blacks to arrive in Bermuda in any numbers were free blacks who came in the mid-seventeenth century from Spanish-speaking areas of the West Indies, and most of the remainder were recently enslaved Africans captured from the Spanish. Spain was little involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, instead purchasing enslaved Africans from the Portuguese and Arab slave traders. The Portuguese sourced most of their slaves from South-West Africa, through ports in modern-day Angola; and the Arabs' slave trading was centred in Zanzibar, in South-East Africa.
In the British West Indian islands (and also in the southern continental colonies that were to become states of the United States of America), the majority of enslaved blacks brought across the Atlantic came from West Africa (roughly between modern Senegal and Ghana). By contrast, very little of Bermuda's original black emigration came (directly or indirectly) from this area. The first blacks to arrive in Bermuda in any numbers were free blacks who came in the mid-seventeenth century from Spanish-speaking areas of the West Indies, and most of the remainder were recently enslaved Africans captured from the Spanish. Spain was little involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, instead purchasing ens.laved Africans from the Portuguese and Arab slave traders. The Portuguese sourced most of their slaves from South-West Africa, through ports in modern-day Angola; and the Arabs' slave trading was centred in Zanzibar, in South-East Africa