The majority of enslaved Africans in early English North American colonies came from which general region?

• A. East Africa
• B. West Africa
• C. Central Africa
• D. Southern Africa

Answer: (B)

The main idea here is that the labor force in the early English North American colonies came mainly from West Africa, along the Atlantic coast. That region supplied enslaved people through well-established European–West African trade networks. Enslaved individuals were captured or sold by local groups in areas like the Senegambia, the Windward and Gold Coasts, and the Bights of Benin and Biafra, then brought to forts and coastal ports such as Elmina and Cape Coast. From those ports, ships carried them across the Atlantic to the American colonies. The proximity, existing trade routes, and the organization of the slave trade made West Africa the primary source for enslaved labor in the early colonial period. While other regions contributed later, West Africa accounts for the largest share of the enslaved population in the colonists’ early years.