What group of people was taken and sold as slaves?

Between the early 1600s and 1808, approximately 12.5 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic, with about 400,000 brought to what became the United States. The institution of chattel slavery—where enslaved people and their children were legally owned for life—was protected by law until the Thirteenth Amendment abolished it in 1865. This forced migration and enslavement had devastating and lasting effects on African communities and shaped American society profoundly.