Which term describes the historical trade network that transported enslaved Africans to the Americas in exchange for crops?

• A. Great Migration
• B. Block Busting
• C. Apartheid
• D. Triangular Slave Trade

Answer: (D)

Triangular Trade refers to the three-part pattern of transatlantic commerce linking Europe, Africa, and the Americas. European goods were sent to Africa in exchange for enslaved people, who were then transported across the Atlantic to the Americas—the Middle Passage—to work on plantations producing crops such as sugar, tobacco, and cotton. The harvested crops were then shipped back to Europe, completing the triangle. This term specifically names the system that tied the slave labor in the Americas to European demand for crops, shaping global trade and the Atlantic world for centuries. Other terms describe different phenomena (internal migrations, housing practices, or apartheid) and don’t capture this transatlantic exchange.