The transatlantic slave trade is unique within the universal history of slavery for three main reasons:
-its duration, about four centuries
-those vicitimized: black African men, women
and children
-the intellectual legitimization attempted on its behalf - the development of an anti-black ideology and its legal organization, the notorious Code noir.
As a commercial and economic enterprise, the slave trade provides a dramatic example of the consequences resulting from particular intersections of history and geography. It involved several regions and continents: Africa, America, the Caribbean, Europe and the Indian Ocean. The transatlantic slave trade is often regarded as the first system of globalization. According to French historian Jean-Michel Deveau the slave trade and consequently slavery, which lasted from the 16th to the 19th century, constitute one of "the greatest tragedies in the history of humanity in terms of scale and duration". The transatlantic slave trade was the biggest deportation in history and a determining factor in the world economy of the 18th century. Millions of Africans were torn from their homes, deported to the American continent and sold as slaves.