Throughout the history of the transatlantic slave trade, approximately 5.7 million of the 12.5 million African slaves who embarked on slave ships did so in ports along the region of West Central Africa and St. Helena. Today, these regions are in the countries of Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo. The majority of the rest were taken from West Africa, embarking in ports between the present-day countries of Senegal and Gabon, while a smaller number of slaves were captured in the southeast of Africa. Senegambia and off-shore Atlantic islands had the highest number of captives taken from that region in the 16th century, however West Central Africa and St. Helena was the region where most slaves embarked on their journey across the Atlantic in the following centuries. As Portuguese traders were responsible for transporting the largest volume of slaves to the Americas, it is unsurprising that many of the busiest ports in the transatlantic slave trade were in Portuguese-controlled enclaves along the African coast.