First Direct Atlantic Slave Voyage (Congo to Caribbean)
The first documented slaving voyage sailing directly from Africa to the Americas left São Tomé for Puerto Rico in 1526. Enslaved Africans had been carried to the Caribbean since about 1501, but by way of Seville — brought to Spain first, baptised, and shipped on as licensed cargo. That routing was slow and expensive, and it kept the numbers small. The change was administrative. The crown began issuing asientos, contracts granting the right to deliver a set number of people directly to a colony, and the first were issued for a route running from the Portuguese slaving stations in the Gulf of Guinea straight across the Atlantic. The reason was that the indigenous population was disappearing. The Taíno of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico had been reduced to almost nothing within a generation by disease and forced labour, and the sugar mills being built had no workers. The same year produced the first recorded revolt of enslaved Africans in what is now the United States. A Spanish expedition under Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón founded San Miguel de Gualdape, probably on the Georgia coast, with about 600 settlers and an unknown number of Africans; the settlement collapsed within three months amid disease, hunger and a rising by the Africans, and around 150 survivors returned to Hispaniola. The direct route became the trade. Roughly 12.5 million people were embarked over the following three and a half centuries, of whom about 10.7 million survived the crossing. Nearly half went to Brazil. The trade was abolished by Britain and the United States in 1807 and 1808 and continued illegally to Cuba and Brazil for decades.
- Year: 1526 CE
- Category: Social
