Introduction |
Questions to Consider |
Source
Fifteenth-Century Slave Trade:
The Portuguese in West Africa
(1455-1456)
Alvise da Cadamosto
Introduction
Many factors, including economic depression and innovations in
seafaring technology, inspired the Portuguese to take the lead in the
exploration of West Africa by Europeans during the early fifteenth
century. Under the guidance and sponsorship of Prince Henry the
Navigator (1394-1460), Portuguese sailors pushed south along
the African coast, collecting information about the weather,
topography, and people they encountered. As Portugal sent out
expeditions searching for a direct route to Asian markets, Prince
Henry made good use of the data accumulated by his explorers,
establishing large sugar concerns on various islands off the West
African coast. Purchasing African natives to work these new
plantations began another lucrative financial venture for the
Portuguese: the slave trade. Venetian explorer Alvise da Cadamosto
helped the Portuguese considerably by charting coastal Senegal and
Gambia for them in two voyages. His account of these trips
demonstrates the developing social and economic relationships between
Europeans, Arabs, and sub-Saharan Africans at the dawn of the age of
European expansion.
Questions to Consider
-
How does the author explain the entrance of Portugal into the
African slave trade?
-
The author describes the Muslim Arabs as "very hostile to
Christians" but then goes on to detail the close commercial
relationship between the Arabs and the Portuguese. How do you
explain this contradiction?
-
This document comes to us from a Venetian sailing for Portugal
in the 1450s. By the end of the century many Italians (including
Columbus) would sail not for their native states, but for Portugal
or Spain. What political and economic circumstances account for
this?
Source
You should also know that behind this Cauo Bianco on the land, is
a place called Hoden,
1 which is about six days inland by
camel. This place is not walled, but is frequented by Arabs, and is a
market where the caravans arrive from Tanbutu [Timbuktu], and from
other places in the land of the Blacks, on their way to our nearer
Barbary. The food of the peoples of this place is dates, and barley,
of which there is sufficient, for they grow in some of these places,
but not abundantly. They drink the milk of camels and other animals,
for they have no wine. They also have cows and goats, but not many,
for the land is dry. Their oxen and cows, compared with ours, are
small.
They are Muhammadans, and very hostile to Christians. They never
remain settled, but are always wandering over these deserts. These
are the men who go to the land of the Blacks, and also to our nearer
Barbary. They are very numerous, and have many camels on which they
carry brass and silver from Barbary and other things to Tanbuto and
to the land of the Blacks. Thence they carry away gold and pepper,
which they bring hither. They are brown complexioned, and wear white
cloaks edged with a red stripe: their women also dress thus, without
shifts. On their heads the men wear turbans in the Moorish fashion,
and they always go barefooted. In these sandy districts there are
many lions, leopards, and ostriches, the eggs of which I have often
eaten and found good.
You should know that the said Lord Infante of Portugal [the crown
prince, Henry the Navigator] has leased this island of Argin to
Christians [for ten years], so that no one can enter the bay to trade
with the Arabs save those who hold the license. These have dwellings
on the island and factories where they buy and sell with the said
Arabs who come to the coast to trade for merchandise of various
kinds, such as woollen cloths, cotton, silver, and "alchezeli," that
is, cloaks, carpets, and similar articles and above all, corn, for
they are always short of food. They give in exchange slaves whom the
Arabs bring from the land of the Blacks, and gold tiber. The Lord
Infante therefore caused a castle to be built on the island to
protect this trade for ever. For this reason, Portuguese caravels are
coming and going all the year to this island.
These Arabs also have many Berber horses, which they trade, and
take to the Land of the Blacks, exchanging them with the rulers for
slaves. Ten or fifteen slaves are given for one of these horses,
according to their quality. The Arabs likewise take articles of
Moorish silk, made in Granata and in Tunis of Barbary, silver, and
other goods, obtaining in exchange any number of these slaves, and
some gold. These slaves are brought to the market and town of Hoden;
there they are divided: some go to the mountains of Barcha, and
thence to Sicily, [others to the said town of Tunis and to all the
coasts of Barbary], and others again are taken to this place, Argin,
and sold to the Portuguese leaseholders. As a result every year the
Portuguese carry away from Argin a thousand slaves. Note that before
this traffic was organized, the Portuguese caravels, sometimes four,
sometimes more, were wont to come armed to the Golfo d'Argin, and
descending on the land by night, would assail the fisher villages,
and so ravage the land. Thus they took of these Arabs both men and
women, and carried them to Portugal for sale: behaving in a like
manner along all the rest of the coast, which stretches from Cauo
Bianco to the Rio di Senega and even beyond.
1Wadan, an important desert market about 350 miles east
of Arguim. Later, in 1487, when the Portuguese were endeavouring to
penetrate the interior they attempted to establish a trading factory
at Wadan which acted as a feeder to Arguim, tapping the north-bound
caravan traffic and diverting some of it to the west coast.
Source: Alvise da Cadamosto, "Description of
Capo Bianco and the Islands Nearest to It," in J. H. Parry, European
Reconnaissance: Selected Documents (New York: Walker, 1968),
59-61.
