 The vast majority of those who were enslaved and transported in the transatlantic slave trade were people from Central and West Africa, who had been sold by other West Africans, or by half European 'merchant princes'  to Western European slave traders (with a small number being captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids), who brought them to the Americas.Except for the Portuguese, European slave traders generally did not participate in the raids because life expectancy for Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa was less than one year during the period of the slave trade (which was prior to the development of quinine as a treatment for malaria).The South Atlantic and Caribbean economies were particularly dependent on labour for the production of sugarcane and other commodities.