One of the most spectacular population movements, which still affects the modern world, was the transatlantic slave trade from the mid- sixteenth century to the 1820s. The forced and violent transfer of millions of Africans has had an important impact on the composition of the American population. Towards 1818 almost half the Brazilian population (4 million inhabitants) was composed of slaves. Today it is estimated that some 40 million people in the Americas and the Caribbean are descended from African slaves (Stalker 2007). Europe has traditionally been a source of overseas migrants, with over 60 million people leaving the continent from 1820 to 1914. 2 The last two centuries experienced two main waves of European migration. The first.
