Transatlantic slave trade
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The transatlantic slave trade affected man countries. The importation and exportation of slaves were one of the most profitable businesses around 1440- 1640 but at a horrible cause. Puerto Rico was affected by this in the same ways as the rest of the Caribbean. Puerto Rico was taken over by Spaniards from the Tainos who were living there. The Spaniards populated Puerto Rico 15 years after claiming it. Since then until the end of the nineteenth century, Puerto Rico was prohibited from trading with other countries. The opportunity for Puerto Rican Natives to gain a strong economy was essentially impossible because of this (Bowman 2). This shows the effect that the Spaniards had on Puerto Rico, they made it hard for Puerto Ricans to develop an economy. Spaniards have also taken Puerto Ricans as slaves too. Columbus took Tainos as slaves and also bought African slaves to Puerto Rico. His men killed hundreds of thousands of Tainos and used the enslaved Tainos to dig for gold all around the Caribbean. This shows how bad slavery was in the Caribbean during this time. Because of Columbus discovering the Americas, it leads to many countries in the Caribbean to have a bad economy and a future of slavery with a huge loss of the Taino population.
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