How did the Atlantic slave trade contribute to the history of slavery? (Paragraphs 2-3)
The buying and selling of slaves has a long history. Ancient Egypt and the Roman world rested upon a foundation of slavery. From the 10th through the 16th centuries, slave markets in areas bordering the Mediterranean Sea featured Christian Slavs from the Eastern Adriatic and the Black Sea, as well as those from Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. The Islamic world in North Africa and the Middle East drew millions of slaves through trade with sub-Saharan Africa. Eventually, Christian societies forbade the owning of slaves who practiced Christianity. Muslim societies did the same, banning the owning of slaves who were Muslim. That ban, however, did not apply to anyone who followed other beliefs. In addition, through the millennia, prisoners captured in war might find themselves enslaved and transported long distances to provide labor for their captors.

If slave ownership and the trade in slaves had a long history, the Atlantic slave trade that began in the middle of the 15th century represented a new stage. It was, as British historian Hugh Thomas wrote, a “commercial undertaking involving the carriage of millions of people, stretching over several hundred years, involving every maritime European nation, every Atlantic-facing African people (and some others), and every country of the Americas.” Indeed, it laid the basis for our modern world.
A. It made it so only Africans in America could be legally enslaved.

B.

It commercialized the slave trade and made it wide-spread.

C.

It hurt the slave trade by losing potential slaves at sea.

D.

It limited the slave trade to only European countries.