11. The Americans joined in the slave trade while still British colonies
By the mid-18th century, the British Colonies in North America boasted a substantial merchant fleet. New England merchants traded salted fish, manufactured goods, and produce with its southern neighbors and other British colonies, under license from the Mother Country. Another trade triangle developed, from Northeast coast to the Caribbean colonies, the Southern ports, and back home. Before the American Revolution American ships sailed to Britain with goods, returning by way of Africa and carrying slaves to British ports in the Caribbean, as well as in the American South. From there they usually returned home with small cargoes, in ballast. Ships involved in the slave trade required deep cleaning and fumigation before taking on additional cargoes, such as grains, flour, and other produce. New England seaports thrived, as did those in Philadelphia and Charleston.
American slave traders prior to independence operated under more or less the same lines as their British counterparts. After all, they sailed under British flags and considered themselves under British law. Yet many were not above smuggling. Yankee captains smuggled slaves from French and British colonies and from Africa itself, a practice which continued up until the American Civil War. Both the Americans and the British outlawed the importation of African slaves in the early 19th century, but smuggling occurred with such frequency that both nations had antislavery patrols along Africa’s coast for decades. Both also patrolled the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico for slave smugglers who continued to flaunt the law into the age of steam.