1642-1807: Although considered minor slave traders relative to the major powers, merchants in Scandinavia and the Hanse towns of northern Germany carried off…

1642-1807: Although considered minor slave traders relative to the major powers, merchants in Scandinavia and the Hanse towns of northern Germany carried off more than 100,000 captives from Africa. This trade reached its greatest relative importance in the late seventeenth century and saw another period of growth in the 1790s when Spain opened free ports that allowed duty-free slave imports. More than half of these Baltic-organized voyages departed from Copenhagen, with most captives passing through Danish forts on the Gold Coast. The vast majority of these individuals spent the remainder of their lives on plantations in the Danish West Indies.