 In 1870, Portugal ended the last trade route with the Americas, where the last country to import slaves was Brazil.In Brazil, however, slavery itself was not ended until 1888, making it the last country in the Americas to end involuntary servitude.The historian Walter Rodney contends that it was a decline in the profitability of the triangular trades that made it possible for certain basic human sentiments to be asserted at the decision-making level in a number of European countries—Britain being the most crucial because it was the greatest carrier of African captives across the Atlantic.