1776–1860: The American Revolution significantly curtailed the arrival of enslaved Africans in mainland North America as political and legal landscapes shifted.

1776–1860: The American Revolution significantly curtailed the arrival of enslaved Africans in mainland North America as political and legal landscapes shifted. Among the new states, only Georgia and South Carolina briefly reopened their borders to the direct African slave trade between 1783 and 1807 to support emerging cotton and rice cultivation. Arrivals through Florida and Louisiana also decreased after 1775 while those territories were under Spanish and French control. Despite the federal prohibition of the trade in 1808, a small number of vessels continued to bring captives directly from Africa to the United States illegally until as late as 1860.