Why did the Atlantic become the preeminent trade route in the eighteenth century?

Question

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Answer 1

Answers will vary. Trade from Asia and the Indies still continued to be a significant component of the European economy, but it was dominated by trade from the Atlantic regions during the eighteenth century, to the benefit of England primarily. The simplest explanation for this shift is the dependence on the African slave trade. Although all the European nation-states depended on trade based on slave labor, the products that flooded eighteenth-century Europe from the Atlantic trade depended on the triangle-trade pattern: ships departed from Europe for Africa with empty holds; slaves were taken from Africa across the Atlantic, where they were sold; and empty cargo ships then took New World goods back across the Atlantic for sale in the European market. The goods brought back to Europe were produced by the labor of African slaves, predominantly cotton from the southern American colonies, but also sugar. Raw goods could then be manufactured into finished goods, such as shoes and clothing required for slaves, and household goods and luxury items for colonists.