Switzerland and Slavery

A human tragedy throughout history and on all continents, slavery became the object of large-scale intercontinental trafficking in the 17th century. From the 16th to the 19th century, more than 12 million Africans, captured and reduced to slavery on their continent, were bartered like commodities for goods manufactured in Europe – arms, metals and above all the colourful cottons called «indiennes», before being deported to the American colonies as a servile workforce on sugar, coffee and cotton plantations. Massively distributed from the 18th century on in Europe, the products from these plantations would significantly modify consumer habits in Switzerland and contribute to the rapid development of its cotton industries. Switzerland’s participation in trafficking, both active (owners of vessels known as «slave ships», planters using slave labour) and indirect (shareholders in shipping companies), is estimated to represent about 1 to 2% of all Africans displaced to the Americas.