Senegal was an important early region in the Atlantic slave trade and part of the broader region known as Senegambia. However, during the transatlantic slave trade, it exported fewer enslaved individuals than regions farther east along the West African coast, which exported larger numbers.

Present-day Senegal was part of the broader Senegambia / Upper Guinea Coast region, which included the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and nearby Upper Guinea coastal networks. European traders — especially the Portuguese, French, and British — used ports and river systems in this area to transport enslaved Africans across the Atlantic.

The island of Gorée is one of the most famous sites, long linked with the memory of the slave trade, although historians debate how significant its actual export volume was compared to its symbolic meaning.

The Senegambia region was especially active in the 16th and 17th centuries, linked to earlier Portuguese and French Atlantic trade networks. However, by the 18th century, the largest slave-exporting regions had shifted farther east, especially the Bight of Benin (modern Benin), the Bight of Biafra (modern southeastern Nigeria), and the Gold Coast (modern Ghana). These later regions exported substantially larger numbers of enslaved people.

Senegal is home to one of the most famous sites associated with the “Door of No Return”: the House of Slaves on Gorée Island.