1620–1835: The Río de la Plata region served as an early and persistent destination for the transatlantic slave trade, with merchants in Buenos Aires seeking…

1620–1835: The Río de la Plata region served as an early and persistent destination for the transatlantic slave trade, with merchants in Buenos Aires seeking captives from Angola as early as 1585. Most individuals landing in this region faced an arduous overland journey to the high-altitude silver mines located in modern-day Bolivia and Peru. In the eighteenth century, the Portuguese outpost at Colônia do Sacramento further facilitated a clandestine intra-American traffic with the neighboring Brazilian colony. African arrivals continued into the mid-1830s, eventually supplying labor to the emerging nation of Uruguay.