Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute was inspired by our post Slavery? We Were a Footnote to create an animated chart on his site, Carpe Diem. Mark’s animated chart is taken from the same database at SlaveVoyages.org that we discussed in our post. The animation traces the trans-Atlantic slave trade over time, and reflects the fact that statistically, the American colonies and, later, the U.S. played only a minor role:

It also should be kept in mind that the East African slave trade to the Arab countries was larger in numbers than the trans-Atlantic trade. Slavery was a great evil that existed from time immemorial on every continent except Antarctica, and was not seriously opposed, in principle, until the mid to late 18th century. The Republican Party was formed mostly to oppose slavery in the U.S., and ultimately succeeded in abolishing it. That is a heroic story. But the Left’s attempt to discredit all of American history with a unique taint of slavery is a gross distortion of reality.