Triangular trade

Triangular trade was a system of trading between three continents. The three continents were Europe, Africa and the Americas.

In this system, Europe sent things like cloth, iron, horses and guns to Africa. Africa then sent people that they had captured to work in the Americas as slaves. The Americas sent things like cotton, sugar, tobacco and rum back to Europe.

This system was a lot of people trading a lot of different things in three different continents. It was like a big wheel – the different things moved from one continent to the other like spokes on a wheel and it kept going round and round.