The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people to the Americas. The slave trade used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, existed from the 16th to the 19th centuries; the vast majority of those who were enslaved and transported in the transatlantic slave trade were people from Central and West Africa, sold by other West Africans to Western European slave traders, who brought them to the Americas. The South Atlantic and Caribbean economies were dependent on labour for the production of sugarcane and other commodities; this was viewed as crucial by those Western European states which, in the late 17th and 18th centuries, were vying with each other to create overseas empires. The Portuguese, in the 16th century, were the first to engage in the Atlantic slave trade. In 1526, they completed the first transatlantic slave voyage to Brazil, other Europeans soon followed. Shipowners regarded the slaves as cargo to be transported to the Americas as and cheaply as possible, there to be sold to work on coffee, cocoa and cotton plantations and silver mines, rice fields, the construction industry, cutting timber for ships, in skilled labour, as domestic servants.

While the first Africans kidnapped to the English colonies were classified as indentured servants, with a similar legal standing as contract-based workers coming from Britain and Ireland, by the middle of the 17th century, slavery had hardened as a racial caste, with African slaves and their offspring being the property of their owners, children born to slave mothers were slaves. As property, the people were considered merchandise or units of labour, were sold at markets with other goods and services; the major Atlantic slave trading nations, ordered by trade volume, were the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch Empires, the Danish, along with an occasional Norwegian. Several had established outposts on the African coast where they purchased slaves from local African leaders; these slaves were managed by a factor, established on or near the coast to expedite the shipping of slaves to the New World. Slaves were imprisoned in a factory while awaiting shipment. Current estimates are that about 12 million to 12.8 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic over a span of 400 years, although the number purchased by the traders was higher, as the passage had a high death rate with 1.2–2.4 million dying during the voyage and millions more died in seasoning camps in the Caribbean after arrival to the New World.

Millions of slaves died as a result of slave raids and during transport to the coast for sale to European slave traders. Near the beginning of the 19th century, various governments acted to ban the trade, although illegal smuggling still occurred. In the early 21st century, several governments issued apologies for the transatlantic slave trade; the Atlantic slave trade developed after trade contacts were established between the "Old World" and the "New World". For centuries, tidal currents had made ocean travel difficult and risky for the ships that were available, as such there had been little, if any, maritime contact between the peoples living in these continents. In the 15th century, new European developments in seafaring technologies resulted in ships being better equipped to deal with the tidal currents, could begin traversing the Atlantic Ocean. Between 1600 and 1800 300,000 sailors engaged in the slave trade visited West Africa. In doing so, they came into contact with societies living along the west African coast and in the Americas which they had never encountered.

Historian Pierre Chaunu termed the consequences of European navigation "disenclavement", with it marking an end of isolation for some societies and an increase in inter-societal contact for most others. Historian John Thornton noted, "A number of technical and geographical factors combined to make Europeans the most people to explore the Atlantic and develop its commerce", he identified these as being the drive to find new and profitable commercial opportunities outside Europe as well as the desire to create an alternative trade network to that controlled by the Muslim Ottoman Empire of the Middle East, viewed as a commercial and religious threat to European Christendom. In particular, European traders wanted to trade for gold, which could be found in western Africa, to find a maritime route to "the Indies", where they could trade for luxury goods such as spices without having to obtain these items from Middle Eastern Islamic traders. Although many of the initial Atlantic naval explorations were led by Iberians, members of many European nationalities were involved, including sailors from Portugal, the Italian kingdoms, England and the Netherlands.

This diversity led Thornton to describe the initial "exploration of the Atlantic" as "a international exercise if many of the dramatic discoveries were made under the sponsorship of the Iberian monarchs". That leadership gave rise to the myth that "the Iberians were the sole leaders of the exploration". Slavery was prevalent in many parts of Africa for many centuries before the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade. There is evidence that enslaved people from some parts of Africa were exported to states in Africa and Asia prior to the Europ

Thomas Partridge "Tom" Reynolds, was an Australian rules footballer who played with Essendon in the VFL. The son of William Meader Reynolds and Mary James Reynolds, née Thompson, one of seven children, Thomas Partridge Reynolds was born on 21 November 1916, he died on 8 November 2002. He was the brother of three times Brownlow Medal winner Dick Reynolds and the cousin of Richmond champion player and coach Max Oppy. Reynolds was a forward and kicked more that 50 goals in a season on 4 occasions — Essendon's leading goalkicker each time — with his 71 goals in 1939 including 10 goals in the round 10 high scoring match against Hawthorn, at Windy Hill, his end of season tally was a club record. Having transferred from Essendon to St Kilda, Reynolds played four matches and kicked 8 goals for St Kilda, before transferring to Sandringham in June 1945. Although interested in playing with Brunswick, he transferred to Sandringham in June 1945, playing his first game on 30 June 1945, where he kicked two goals and was one of Sandringham's best players.

He played for Sandringham in the 1945 season. Given a clearance from Sandringham, Reynolds was appointed captain-coach of Cranbourne, in the Dandenong District Football Association in 1946, he retired at the end of the 1947 season. Maplestone, M. Flying Higher: History of the Essendon Football Club 1872–1996, Essendon Football Club, 1996. ISBN 0-9591740-2-8 Tom Reynolds's playing statistics from AFL Tables Boyles Football Photos: Tom Reynolds

Guaraciama is a Brazilian municipality located in the north of the state of Minas Gerais. Its population as of 2007 was 4,554 people living in a total area of 392 km²; the city belongs to the microregion of Bocaiúva. It became a municipality in 1997. Guaraciama is located at an elevation of 795 meters in the valley of the Rio Verde Grande, a tributary of the São Francisco River, it is southwest of the regional center Montes Claros. The distance to Bocaiúva is 18 km, it is surrounded by the municipality of Bocaiúva on three sides. Neighboring municipalities are: Montes Claros; the main economic activities are cattle raising and agriculture. The GDP in 2005 was R$13 million, with 8 million from services, 1 million from industry, 3 million from agriculture. There were 330 rural producers on 7,300 hectares of land. Only 08 farms had tractors; the main crops were mangoes, sugarcane and corn. There were 7,000 head of cattle. Guaraciama suffers from periodic drought and poor highway communications, its social indicators rank it in the bottom tier of municipalities in the state.

Municipal Human Development Index: 0.689 State ranking: 595 out of 853 municipalities as of 2000 National ranking: 3,172 out of 5,138 municipalities as of 2000 Literacy rate: 77% Life expectancy: 69 The highest ranking municipality in Minas Gerais in 2000 was Poços de Caldas with 0.841, while the lowest was Setubinha with 0.568. Nationally the highest was São Caetano do Sul in São Paulo with 0.919, while the lowest was Setubinha. In more recent statistics Manari in the state of Pernambuco has the lowest rating in the country—0,467—putting it in last place. List of municipalities in Minas Gerais