Captured Africans were taken to the forts and held until there were enough Africans to fill up a ship.
The captives were loaded onto slave ships for the trip across the Atlantic Ocean. Most were taken to the West Indies or South America, but about half a million were brought directly to North America.
Slaves were routinely branded with a hot iron to designate which company acquired them. Today, on Goree Island near Senegal, a ruin of a slave-trading fort still stands.
