I was listening to an episode of Behind the Bastards about the slave labor used by Volkswagen in the 1970s and 1980s and this fact came up. Here’s the relevant Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Brazil
Excerpt:
Out of the 12 million Africans who were forcibly brought to the New World, approximately 5.5 million were brought to Brazil between 1540 and the 1860s.
I had no idea. I’m not even sure whether to call it a failure of us education system. We focus on our own country’s actions, which is probably appropriate, and there is mention of other countries, but we’re left with the impression the slave trade was predominantly us. Not to let our own history off the hook, but it would be better to understand the vast scale of slavery