First Portuguese Slave Raid in West Africa
In 1441 a Portuguese captain named Antão Gonçalves seized a small number of Africans near the Rio de Oro on the Mauritanian coast—the first recorded Portuguese capture of sub-Saharan Africans for enslavement. Henry the Navigator reportedly presented some of these captives to Pope Eugenius IV, who issued a bull authorising Portuguese slaving. The raid initiated a pattern of systematic coastal raiding that would, within three years, produce the first large-scale slave auction at Lagos in Portugal and set in motion the Atlantic slave trade.
- Year: 1441 CE
- Category: Social
