The use of African people as slaves increased in the Americas during the 1500s due to several factors. One major reason was the high demand for labor in the growing colonies, especially in industries such as mining, agriculture, and sugar production. European colonizers found African slaves to be a cheap and easily accessible source of labor, as they were already being traded and captured by Arab and African slave traders. Additionally, Europeans believed that Africans were better suited to manual labor in the tropical climates of the Americas, as they were believed to be more resistant to diseases such as malaria and yellow fever than Native American or European laborers. Lastly, the transatlantic slave trade became an organized and profitable enterprise during this time, with European powers and African rulers collaborating to capture and transport slaves to the Americas in large numbers.
