Editing Atlantic slave trade (section)

==Background==
{{See also|History of slavery}}

===Atlantic travel===
{{Main|Age of Discovery|European colonization of the Americas|Population history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas}}
{{Further|British colonization of the Americas|Dutch colonization of the Americas|Danish colonization of the Americas|French colonization of the Americas|Portuguese colonization of the Americas|Spanish colonization of the Americas}}
{{Slavery}}
The Atlantic slave trade developed after trade contacts were established between the "[[Old World]]" ([[Afro-Eurasia]]) and the "[[New World]]" (the Americas). For centuries, [[tidal current]]s had made ocean travel particularly difficult and risky for the ships that were then available. Thus, there had been very little, if any, maritime contact between the peoples living in these continents.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|pp=15–17}} In the 15th century, new European developments in seafaring technologies, such as the invention of the [[caravel]], resulted in ships being better equipped to deal with the tidal currents, and could begin traversing the Atlantic Ocean. The Portuguese set up a [[Escola de Sagres|Navigator's School]], although there is much debate about whether it existed and if it did, just what it was. Between 1600 and 1800, approximately 300,000 sailors engaged in the slave trade visited West Africa.{{sfn|Christopher|2006|p=127}} In doing so, they came into contact with societies living along the west African coast and in the Americas which they had never previously encountered.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=13}} Historian [[Pierre Chaunu]] termed the consequences of European navigation "disenclavement", with it marking an end of isolation for some societies and an increase in inter-societal contact for most others.<ref>{{cite book |last=Chaunu |first=Pierre |author-link=Pierre Chaunu |date=1969 |title=Conquête et exploitation des nouveaux mondes (xvie siècles) |language=fr |trans-title=Conquest and exploitation of new worlds (16th centuries) |publisher=Presses Universitaires de France |pages=54–58}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Launching the Portuguese Slave Trade in Africa |url=https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/african_laborers_for_a_new_emp/launching_the_portuguese_slave |website=Lowcountry History Digital Initiative |publisher=Lowcountry Digital Library at the College of Charleston |access-date=18 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240518011824/http://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/african_laborers_for_a_new_emp/launching_the_portuguese_slave |archive-date=18 May 2024}}</ref>

Historian [[John Thornton (historian)|John Thornton]] noted, "A number of technical and geographical factors combined to make Europeans the most likely people to explore the Atlantic and develop its commerce".{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=24}} He identified these as being the drive to find new and profitable commercial opportunities outside Europe. Additionally, there was the desire to create an alternative trade network to that controlled by the Muslim [[Ottoman Empire]] of the Middle East, which was viewed as a commercial, political and religious threat to European Christendom. In particular, European traders wanted to trade for gold, which could be found in western Africa, and to find a maritime route to "the Indies" (India), where they could trade for luxury goods such as spices without having to obtain these items from Middle Eastern Islamic traders.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|pp=24–26}}

[[File:Caravela de armada of Joao Serrao.jpg|thumb|Portuguese mariners used [[caravel]] ships and traveled south along the West African coast and colonized [[Cape Verde]] in 1462.<ref>{{cite web |title=Caravel |url=https://www.worldhistory.org/Caravel/ |website=World History Encyclopedia |access-date=20 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240705055424/https://www.worldhistory.org/Caravel/ |archive-date=5 July 2024}}</ref>]]

During the [[first wave of European colonization]], although many of the initial Atlantic naval explorations were led by the [[Iberian Peninsula|Iberian]] ''[[conquistador]]s'', members of many European nationalities were involved, including sailors from [[Habsburg Spain|Spain]], [[Kingdom of Portugal|Portugal]], [[Kingdom of France|France]], [[Kingdom of England|England]], the [[Italian city-states|Italian states]], and the [[Dutch Republic|Netherlands]]. This diversity led Thornton to describe the initial "exploration of the Atlantic" as "a truly international exercise, even if many of the dramatic discoveries were made under the sponsorship of the Iberian monarchs". That leadership later gave rise to the myth that "the Iberians were the sole leaders of the exploration".{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=27}}

European overseas expansion led to the contact between the Old and New Worlds producing the [[Columbian exchange]], named after the Italian explorer [[Christopher Columbus]].<ref name="McNeill 2019">{{cite encyclopedia |last1=McNeill |first1=J. R. |author1-link=J. R. McNeill |last2=Sampaolo |first2=Marco |last3=Wallenfeldt |first3=Jeff |date=30 September 2019 |orig-date=28 September 2019 |title=Columbian Exchange |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Columbian-exchange |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |location=[[Edinburgh]] |publisher=[[Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200421055242/https://www.britannica.com/event/Columbian-exchange |archive-date=21 April 2020 |url-status=live |access-date=5 September 2021}}</ref> It started the [[global silver trade from the 16th to 18th centuries]] and led to direct European involvement in the [[Chinese export porcelain|Chinese porcelain trade]]. It involved the transfer of goods unique to one hemisphere to another. Europeans brought cattle, horses, and sheep to the New World, and from the New World Europeans received tobacco, potatoes, tomatoes, and maize. Other items and commodities becoming important in global trade were the tobacco, sugarcane, and cotton crops of the Americas, along with the gold and silver brought from the American continent not only to Europe but elsewhere in the Old World.<ref name="oxfordbibliographies1">{{cite web |last=Hahn |first=Barbara |date=31 July 2019 |orig-date=27 August 2018 |title=Tobacco - Atlantic History |url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0141.xml |website=oxfordbibliographies.com |location=[[Oxford]] |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |doi=10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0141 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201028093226/https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0141.xml |archive-date=28 October 2020 |access-date=4 September 2021}}</ref><ref name="Escudero 2014">{{cite book |last=Escudero |first=Antonio Gutiérrez |year=2014 |chapter=Hispaniola's Turn to Tobacco: Products from Santo Domingo in Atlantic Commerce |editor1-last=Aram |editor1-first=Bethany |editor2-last=Yun-Casalilla |editor2-first=Bartolomé |title=Global Goods and the Spanish Empire, 1492–1824: Circulation, Resistance, and Diversity |location=[[Basingstoke]] |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |pages=216–229 |doi=10.1057/9781137324054_12 |isbn=978-1-137-32405-4}}</ref><ref name="Knight 2010">{{cite book |last=Knight |first=Frederick C. |year=2010 |title=Working the Diaspora: The Impact of African Labor on the Anglo-American World, 1650–1850 |chapter=Cultivating Knowledge: African Tobacco and Cotton Workers in Colonial British America |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZqQUCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA65 |location=New York and London |publisher=[[New York University Press]] |pages=65–85 |doi=10.18574/nyu/9780814748183.003.0004 |isbn=978-0-8147-4818-3 |lccn=2009026860}}</ref><ref name="Nater 2006">{{cite book |last=Nater |first=Laura |year=2006 |chapter=Colonial Tobacco: Key Commodity of the Spanish Empire, 1500–1800 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mnvBYQqpJbQC&pg=PA93 |editor1-last=Topik |editor1-first=Steven |editor2-last=Marichal |editor2-first=Carlos |editor3-last=Frank |editor3-first=Zephyr |title=From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 1500–2000 |location=[[Durham, North Carolina]] |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |pages=93–117 |doi=10.1215/9780822388029-005 |isbn=978-0-8223-3753-9 |access-date=5 September 2021 |archive-date=26 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240726153759/https://books.google.com/books?id=mnvBYQqpJbQC&pg=PA93#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live}}</ref>

===European slavery in Portugal and Spain===
{{See also|Slavery in medieval Europe|Slavery in Al-Andalus|Slavery in Portugal|Slavery in Spain|Saqaliba|Black Sea slave trade|Balkan slave trade}}
[[File:Amaro Pargo.jpg|thumb|The Spanish corsair [[Amaro Pargo]], a well-known privateer of the [[Golden Age of Piracy]], participated in the African slave trade in [[Hispanic America]].]]

By the 15th century, slavery had existed in the [[Iberian Peninsula]] (Portugal and Spain) of Western Europe throughout recorded history. The [[Roman Empire]] had established [[Roman slavery|its system of slavery]] in ancient times. Historian [[Benjamin Isaac]] suggests proto-racism existed in ancient times among [[Greco-Roman world|Greco-Roman people]]. Racial prejudices were based on dehumanizing the foreign peoples they conquered through warfare.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Isaac |first=Benjamin |title=Proto-Racism in Graeco-Roman Antiquity |journal=[[World Archaeology]] |date=2006 |volume=38 |issue=1 |pages=32, 42 |doi=10.1080/00438240500509819 |jstor=40023593?seq=11 |url=https://archive.org/details/569b-9a-1361d-9e-34093c-859718f-6ae-9f-4/mode/2up?q=proto-racism |access-date=16 August 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Isaac |first1=Benjamin |title=The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity |year=2013 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=9781400849567 |pages=26, 142, 175 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eem1AQAAQBAJ&q=racism}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Isaac |first1=Benjamin |title=The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity |year=2013 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=9781400849567 |pages=55–60 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/267/monograph/chapter/1205947/pdf}}</ref> Since the [[fall of the Western Roman Empire]], various systems of [[Slavery in medieval Europe|slavery continued]] in the successor Islamic and Christian kingdoms of the peninsula through the early modern era of the Atlantic slave trade.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Phillips |first1=William |title=Slavery in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia |date=2014 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated |isbn=9780812244915 |pages=9, 18, 32, 57, 150 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KbboAQAAQBAJ&q=racism}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=18 October 2012 |title=Iberian Roots of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1440–1640 |url=https://www.gilderlehrman.org/node/324 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160810140644/http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/origins-slavery/essays/iberian-roots-transatlantic-slave-trade-1440%E2%80%931640 |archive-date=10 August 2016 |access-date=3 September 2020 |website=The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |language=en}}</ref> In 1441–1444, Portuguese traders first captured Africans on the Atlantic coast of Africa, in what is today [[Mauritania]], taking their captives to [[Slavery in Portugal|slavery in Europe]], and established a fort for the slave trade at the [[Bay of Arguin]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Caldeira |first=Arlindo |title=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History |year=2024 |chapter=The Portuguese Slave Trade |chapter-url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-903 |access-date=20 May 2024 |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.903 |series=Oxford Reference |isbn=978-0-19-027773-4 |archive-date=11 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240511002522/https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-903 |url-status=live}}</ref>
[[File:Iberian Union Empires.png|thumb|right|A map of the [[Spanish Empire]] (red) and [[Portuguese Empire]]s (blue) in the period of their personal union (1581–1640)]]

In the [[Middle Ages]], religion and not race was a determining factor for who was considered to be a legitimate target of slavery. While Christians did not enslave Christians and Muslims did not enslave Muslims, both allowed the enslavement of people they regarded to be heretics or insufficiently correct in their religion. This allowed Catholic Christians to enslave Orthodox Christians, and Sunni Muslims to enslave Shia Muslims.<ref name="Korpela,&nbsp;J. 2018">Korpela,&nbsp;J.&nbsp;(2018).&nbsp;Slaves from the North: Finns and Karelians in the East European Slave Trade, 900–1600.&nbsp;Nederländerna:&nbsp;Brill. 242</ref> Both Christians and Muslims approved of enslaving [[Paganism|pagans]], who came to be a preferred and comparatively profitable target of the slave trade in the Middle Ages:<ref name="Korpela,&nbsp;J. 2018"/> Spain and Portugal were provided with non-Catholic slaves from Eastern Europe via the [[Balkan slave trade]] and the [[Black Sea slave trade]].<ref name="Roşu, Felicia 2021 p. 35-36">{{cite book |last=Roşu |first=Felicia |year=2021 |title=Slavery in the Black Sea Region, c.900–1900 – Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection Between Christianity and Islam |series=Studies in Global Slavery |volume=11 |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]] |pages=35–36}}</ref>

In the 15th century, when the Balkan slave trade was taken over by the [[Ottoman Empire]]<ref>The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2, AD 500–AD 1420. (2021). (n.p.): Cambridge University Press. 117-120</ref> and the Black Sea slave trade was supplanted by the [[Crimean slave trade]] and closed off from Europe, Spain and Portugal replaced this source of slaves by importing slaves first from the conquered [[Canary Islands]] and then from mainland Africa. This was initially from Arab slave traders, via the [[Trans-Saharan slave trade]] from [[Slavery in Libya|Libya]], and then directly from the African West coast through Portuguese outposts, which developed into the Atlantic slave trade<ref>Roşu, Felicia (2021). Slavery in the Black Sea Region, c.900–1900 – Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection Between Christianity and Islam. Studies in Global Slavery, Volume: 11. Brill, p. 29-31</ref> and expanded significantly after the establishment of the colonies in the Americas in 1492.<ref>The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2, AD 500–AD 1420.&nbsp;(2021).&nbsp;(n.p.):&nbsp;Cambridge University Press. 48-49</ref>

In the 15th century, Spain enacted a racially discriminatory law named ''[[limpieza de sangre]],'' which translates as "blood purity" or "cleanliness of blood", a proto-racial law. It prevented people with Jewish and Muslim ancestry from settling in the New World. Limpieza de sangre did not guarantee rights for Jews or Muslims who converted to [[Catholic Church|Catholicism]]. Jews and Muslims who [[Old Christian|converted]] to Catholicism were respectively called [[converso]]s and [[morisco]]s. Some Jews and Muslims converted to Christianity hoping it would grant them rights under Spanish laws. After the discovery of new lands across the Atlantic, Spain did not want Jews and Muslims immigrating to the [[Americas]] because the Spanish Crown worried Muslims and non-Christians might introduce Islam and other religions to Native Americans.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Early Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: Emperor Charles V |url=https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/african_laborers_for_a_new_emp/emperor_charles_v |website=Lowcountry Digital History Initiative |publisher=[[College of Charleston]] |access-date=1 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240726153802/https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/african_laborers_for_a_new_emp/emperor_charles_v |archive-date=26 July 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref> The law also led to the enslavement of Jews and Muslims, prevented Jews from entering Spain, and from joining the military, universities and other civil services.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Maria |first1=Martinez |title=Genealogical Fictions Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico |year=2008 |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]] |isbn=9780804756488 |pages=1–10, 11–20, 21–30, 31–40, 41–50 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4cUo8JqYztoC&q=limpieza+de+sangre}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Dunbar-Ortiz |first1=Roxanne |title=An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States |year=2019 |publisher=Beacon Press |isbn=9780807049402 |pages=36–38 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=btpmDwAAQBAJ&q=limpieza%20de%20sangra}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Blood Cleansing Statutes |url=https://pachami.com/Inquisicion/LimpiezaSangre.html |website=Pachami.com |publisher=Center for Research and Dissemination of Sephardic Culture |access-date=23 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240123142530/https://pachami.com/Inquisicion/LimpiezaSangre.html |archive-date=23 January 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Mayeaux |first1=Stephen |title=Limpieza de Sangre: Legal Applications of the Spanish Doctrine of "Blood Purity" |url=https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2021/09/limpieza-de-sangre-legal-applications-of-the-spanish-doctrine-of-blood-purity/ |website=Library of Congress Blogs |date=10 September 2021 |publisher=Library of Congress |access-date=23 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240601050537/https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2021/09/limpieza-de-sangre-legal-applications-of-the-spanish-doctrine-of-blood-purity/ |archive-date=1 June 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Spain and the Human Diaspora in 1492 |url=https://www.brown.edu/Facilities/John_Carter_Brown_Library/exhibitions/islamic/pages/spain.html |website=[[John Carter Brown Library]] |publisher=[[Brown University]] |access-date=23 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240713195143/https://www.brown.edu/Facilities/John_Carter_Brown_Library/exhibitions/islamic/pages/spain.html |archive-date=13 July 2024}}</ref> 

Although Jewish conversos and Muslims experienced religious and racial discrimination, some also participated in the slave trade of Africans. In [[Lisbon]] during the 16th and 17th centuries, Muslims financed by Jewish conversos traded Africans across the [[Sahara|Sahara Desert]] and enslaved Africans before and during the Atlantic slave trade in Europe and Africa.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Thomas |first1=Hugh |title=The Slave Trade The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870 |year=2013 |publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] |isbn=9781476737454 |pages=12–13 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lzuEzmO81GwC&q=conversos%20Jews |access-date=1 February 2024 |archive-date=26 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240726155144/https://books.google.com/books?id=lzuEzmO81GwC&q=conversos%20Jews#v=snippet&q=conversos%20Jews&f=false |url-status=live}}</ref> In [[New Spain]], Spaniards applied {{lang|es|limpieza de sangre}} to Africans and Native Americans and created a racial caste system, believing them to be impure because they were not Christian.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Martinez |first1=Maria |title=The Black Blood of New Spain: Limpieza de Sangre, Racial Violence, and Gendered Power in Early Colonial Mexico |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |date=2004 |volume=61 |issue=3 |pages=479–520 |doi=10.2307/3491806 |jstor=3491806 |url=https://userpages.umbc.edu/~kars/history%20200/martinez.htm |access-date=23 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240123145808/https://userpages.umbc.edu/~kars/history%20200/martinez.htm |archive-date=23 January 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sweet |first1=James H. |title=The Iberian Roots of American Racist Thought |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |date=1997 |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=143–166 |doi=10.2307/2953315 |jstor=2953315 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2953315 |access-date=24 January 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Simms |first1=Ellen Yvonne |title=Miscegenation and Racism: Afro-Mexicans in Colonial New Spain |journal=[[The Journal of Pan African Studies]] |date=2008 |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=228–254 |url=https://jpanafrican.org/docs/vol2no3/MiscegenationandRacism.pdf |access-date=27 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240227194333/https://jpanafrican.org/docs/vol2no3/MiscegenationandRacism.pdf |archive-date=27 February 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Europeans enslaved Muslims and people practicing other religions as a justification to Christianize them. In 1452, [[Pope Nicholas V#slavery|Pope Nicholas V]] issued [[papal bull]] ''[[Dum Diversas]]'' which gave the King of Portugal the right to enslave non-Christians to perpetual slavery. The clause included Muslims in West Africa and legitimized the slave trade under the Catholic church. In 1454, Pope Nicholas issued ''[[Romanus Pontifex]].'' "Written as a logical sequel to Dum Diversas, Romanus Pontifex allowed the European Catholic nations to expand their dominion over 'discovered' land. Possession of non-Christian lands would be justified along with the enslavement of native, non-Christian 'pagans' in Africa and the 'New World.'"<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mark |first1=Charles |last2=Rah |first2=Soon-Chan |title=Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery |date=2019 |publisher=Intervarsity Press |isbn=9780830887590 |page=16 |url=https://globalhealth.emory.edu/_includes/documents/unsettling-truths_chapter-1.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240715213110/https://globalhealth.emory.edu/_includes/documents/unsettling-truths_chapter-1.pdf |archive-date=15 July 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Thomas |first1=Hugh |title=The Slave Trade The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870 |year=2013 |publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] |isbn=9781476737454 |page=65 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lzuEzmO81GwC&q=dum%20diversas}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Colonization, Captivity, and Catholic Authority |url=https://www.searchablemuseum.com/1400s-papal-bulls |website=National Museum of African American History and Culture |access-date=20 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230801140128/https://www.searchablemuseum.com/1400s-papal-bulls/ |archive-date=1 August 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> Dum Diversas and Romanus Pontifex may have had an influence with the creation of doctrines supportive of empire building.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lind |title=Doctrines of Discovery |journal=Wash. U. Jue. Rev |date=2020 |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=15–25 |url=https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1223&context=law_jurisprudence |access-date=19 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240630221307/https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1223&context=law_jurisprudence |archive-date=30 June 2024}}</ref>

In 1493, the [[Discovery doctrine#Historical background|Doctrine of Discovery]] issued by [[Pope Alexander VI]], was used as a justification by Spain to take lands from non-Christians West of the [[Azores]]. The Doctrine of Discovery stated that non-Christian lands should be taken and ruled by Christian nations, and Indigenous people (Africans and [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]]) living on their lands should convert to Christianity.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Doctrine of Discovery, 1493 |url=https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/doctrine-discovery-1493?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIz86r6e7pgwMVGWlHAR3vlgo9EAAYASAAEgL66PD_BwE |website=The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |access-date=19 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240119170040/https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/doctrine-discovery-1493?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIz86r6e7pgwMVGWlHAR3vlgo9EAAYASAAEgL66PD_BwE |archive-date=19 January 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Mark |first1=Joshua |title=Doctrine of Discovery |url=https://www.worldhistory.org/Doctrine_of_Discovery/ |website=World History Encyclopedia |access-date=19 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240705054414/https://www.worldhistory.org/Doctrine_of_Discovery/ |archive-date=5 July 2024}}</ref> In 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued a papal bull called ''[[Inter caetera|Inter Caetera]]'' which gave Spain and Portugal rights to claim and colonize all non-Christian lands in the [[Americas]] and enslave Native Americans and Africans.<ref>{{cite web |title=AD 1493: The Pope asserts rights to colonize, convert, and enslave |url=https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/171.html |website=National Library of Medicine |access-date=20 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231228150254/https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/171.html |archive-date=28 December 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> Inter Caetera also settled a dispute between Portugal and Spain over those lands. The declaration included a north–south divide 100 leagues West of the Cape Verde Islands and gave the Spanish Crown exclusive rights to travel and trade west of that line.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Modrow |last2=Smith |title=The Papal Bull Inter Caetera of May 4, 1493 |url=https://doctrineofdiscovery.org/assets/pdfs/Inter_Caetera_Modrow&Smith.pdf |website=Doctrineofdiscovery.org |access-date=20 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240326213351/https://doctrineofdiscovery.org/assets/pdfs/Inter_Caetera_Modrow&Smith.pdf |archive-date=26 March 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://digitarq.arquivos.pt/details?id=3907968 |title=The bull of Julius II in Portuguese archives |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730145139/https://digitarq.arquivos.pt/details?id=3907968 |archive-date=30 July 2022}}</ref>

[[File:Noah-Curses-Ham.jpg|thumb|right|[[Noah]] curses [[Ham (Bible)|Ham]] by [[Gustave Dore|Gustave Doré]] – the [[curse of Ham]] was used as a justification to enslave Africans.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sweet |first1=James H. |title=The Iberian Roots of American Racist Thought |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |date=1997 |volume=54 |issue=1 |page=149 |doi=10.2307/2953315 |jstor=2953315 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2953315 |access-date=24 January 2024}}</ref>]]

In Portugal and Spain people had been enslaved because of their religious identity, race had not been a developed factor for enslaving people; nonetheless, by the 15th century, Europeans used both race and religion as a justification to enslave [[sub-Saharan]] Africans. An increase of enslaved African people from [[Senegal]] occurred in the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century. As the number of Senegalese slaves grew larger Europeans developed new terminologies that associated slavery with skin color. The Spanish city of [[Seville]] had the largest [[Afro-Spaniards|African population]]. "The [[Treaty of Alcáçovas|Treaty of Alcacuvas]] in 1479 provided traders the right to supply Spaniards with Africans."<ref>{{cite web |title=Africans in Spanish America |url=https://www.nps.gov/ethnography/aah/aaheritage/SpanishAmA.htm |website=African American Heritage and Ethnography |publisher=[[National Park Service]] |access-date=16 August 2024 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20240831185137/https://www.nps.gov/ethnography/aah/aaheritage/SpanishAmA.htm |archive-date=31 August 2024}}</ref>

In addition, in the 15th century, [[Dominican Order|Dominican]] friar [[Annio da Viterbo|Annius of Viterbo]] invoked the [[Curse of Ham#Racism and slavery|curse of Ham]], from the [[Curse of Ham|biblical story]] of enslavement, to explain the differences between Europeans and Africans in his writings. Annius, who frequently wrote of the "superiority of Christians over the [[Saracens]]", claimed that due to the curse imposed upon [[Black people]], they would inevitably remain permanently subjugated by [[Arabs]] and other [[Muslims]]. He wrote that the fact that so many Africans had been [[Arab slave trade|enslaved even by the heretical Muslims]] was supposed proof of their inferiority. Through these and other writings, European writers established a hitherto unheard of connection between a cursed people, Africa and slavery, which laid the ideological groundwork for justifying the transatlantic slave trade.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Onyemechi Adiele |first1=Pius |title=The Popes, the Catholic Church and the Transatlantic Enslavement of Black Africans 1418-1839 |year=2017 |publisher=Georg Olms Verlag |isbn=9783487312026 |pages=185–188 |url=https://archive.org/details/the-popes-the-catholic-church-and-the-transatlantic-enslavement-of-black-africa/mode/2up?q=curse+of+ham}}</ref><ref name="Whitford 105">{{Cite book |last=Whitford |first=David M. |year=2017 |title=The Curse of Ham in the Early Modern Era |pages=105ff |publisher=[[Routledge]] |doi=10.4324/9781315240367 |isbn=9781315240367}}</ref> The term "race" was used by the English beginning in the 16th century and referred to family, lineage, and breed. The idea of race continued to develop further through the centuries and was used as a justification for the continuation of the slave trade and racial discrimination.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Historical Origins and Development of Racism |url=https://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-02-01.htm |website=[[PBS]] |access-date=16 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240214145648/https://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-02-01.htm |archive-date=14 February 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Thomas |first1=Hugh |title=The Slave Trade The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870 |date=2013 |publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] |isbn=9781476737454 |pages=35–40 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lzuEzmO81GwC&q=christian%20slaves |access-date=23 January 2024 |archive-date=26 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240726155146/https://books.google.com/books?id=lzuEzmO81GwC&q=christian%20slaves#v=snippet&q=christian%20slaves&f=false |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Rattansi |first1=Ali |title=Racism: A Very Short Introduction (2nd edn) |date=2020 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=9780198834793 |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/28433/chapter-abstract/228912770?redirectedFrom=fulltext |access-date=16 January 2024 |archive-date=16 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240116155602/https://academic.oup.com/book/28433/chapter-abstract/228912770?redirectedFrom=fulltext |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Barksdale |first1=Dante |last2=Hutton |first2=Shennan |title=Was Slavery Always Racial? |url=https://ucdavis.app.box.com/s/ojtyhrs56f1fqruhe701oo4drhv8r96z |website=[[University of California, Davis Campus]] |publisher=California Historical Society & California History-Social Science Project |access-date=16 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240116162459/https://ucdavis.app.box.com/s/ojtyhrs56f1fqruhe701oo4drhv8r96z |archive-date=16 January 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The Spanish privateer and merchant [[Amaro Pargo]] (1678-1747) managed to transport slaves to the [[Caribbean]], although, it is estimated, to a lesser extent than other captains and figures of the time dedicated to this activity.<ref name="amaropargoesclavitud_1">{{Cite web|url=https://diariodeavisos.elespanol.com/2023/12/amaro-pargo-esclavitud/|title=Los destellos humanistas de Amaro Pargo contra la esclavitud|website=diariodeavisos.elespanol.com|date=17 December 2023 }}</ref> In 1710, the privateer was involved in a complaint by the priest Alonso García Ximénez, who accused him of freeing an African slave named Sebastián, who was transported to [[Venezuela]] on one of Amaro's ships. The aforementioned Alonso García granted a power of attorney on July 18, 1715 to Teodoro Garcés de Salazar so that he could demand his return in [[Caracas]]. Despite this fact, Amaro Pargo himself also owned slaves in his domestic service.<ref name="amaropargoesclavitud_1"/>

===African slavery===
{{Main|Slavery in Africa}}
{{See also|History of slavery in the Muslim world|Trans-Saharan slave trade|Red Sea slave trade|Indian Ocean slave trade|Zanzibar slave trade}}
[[File:Arabslavers.jpg|thumb|A depiction of enslaved people transported across the [[Sahara|Sahara Desert]]]]

Slavery was prevalent in many parts of Africa for many centuries before the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade.<ref name="Britannica">{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24157 |title=Historical survey, Slave societies |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006131931/https://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24157 |archive-date=6 October 2014}}</ref> Slavery was an important part of the economic structure of Africa although its relative importance and the role and treatment of enslaved people varied considerably by society.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lovejoy |first=Paul E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dXVFnHqhLvcC |title=Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa |date=2011-10-10 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-50277-1 |language=en}}</ref>

Millions of enslaved Africans were transported to other parts of Africa, or exported to Europe and Asia prior to the Atlantic slave trade and the [[European colonization of the Americas]].<ref name="Clarence-Smith2006">{{cite book |first=William Gervase |last=Clarence-Smith |date=2006 |title=Islam and the Abolition of Slavery |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |pages=11–12 |isbn=978-0-19-522151-0 |oclc=1045855145 |quote=Ralph Austen originally proposed that 17,000,000 Black slaves crossed the Sahara, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean [...] Paul Lovejoy reworked the data to indicate that over 6,000,000 left between 650 and 1500}}</ref><ref name="Ferro221">{{Cite book |last=Ferro |first=Mark |date=1997 |title=Colonization: A Global History |publisher=[[Routledge]] |page=221 |isbn=978-0-415-14007-2}}</ref> The [[Trans-Saharan slave trade]] across the Sahara had functioned since antiquity, and continued to do so up until the 20th-century; in 652, the [[Rashidun Caliphate]] in Egypt enforced an annual tribute of 400 slaves from the Christian Kingdom of [[Makuria]] by the [[Baqt]] treaty, which was to be in effect for centuries.<ref>{{cite book |last=Manning |first=P. |date=1990 |title=Slavery and African life: occidental, oriental, and African slave trades |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |pages=28–29}}</ref> It supplied Africans for [[slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate]] (632–661), [[slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate|the Umayyad Caliphate]] (661–750), the [[slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate|Abbasid Caliphate]] (750–1258) and the [[slavery in the Mamluk Sultanate|Mamluk Sultanate]] (1258–1517).

The Atlantic slave trade was not the only slave trade from Africa; as Elikia M'bokolo wrote in ''[[Le Monde diplomatique]]'':

{{blockquote|The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the [[Muslim world|Muslim countries]] (from the ninth to the nineteenth) ... Four million enslaved people [[Red Sea slave trade|exported via the Red Sea]], another four million<ref name="afbis"/> through the [[Swahili people|Swahili]] ports [[Indian Ocean slave trade|of the Indian Ocean]], perhaps as many as nine million along the [[Trans-Saharan trade|trans-Saharan]] caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean.<ref>{{cite news |first=Elikia |last=M'bokolo |title=The impact of the slave trade on Africa |work=[[Le Monde diplomatique]] |url=http://mondediplo.com/1998/04/02africa |date=2 April 1998 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240517074917/https://mondediplo.com/1998/04/02africa |archive-date=17 May 2024}}</ref>}}

[[File:Slaves ruvuma.jpg|thumb|Enslaved Africans in chains marched to the East coast of Africa by Arab slavers]]

Slaves were marched in shackles to the coasts of Sudan, Ethiopia and Somali, placed upon [[dhow]]s and trafficked [[Indian Ocean slave trade|across the Indian Ocean]] to the [[Gulf of Aden]]. Others were carried [[Red Sea slave trade|across the Red Sea]] to Arabia and [[Aden]], with sick slaves being thrown overboard, or they were marched across the Sahara desert via the [[Trans-Saharan slave trade]] route to the [[Nile]], many of them dying from exposure or swollen feet along the way.<ref>{{cite book |last=Miers |first=S. |date=2003 |title=Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem |location=UK |publisher=AltaMira Press |page=16}}</ref>

Estimates are imprecise, which can affect comparison between different slave trades. Two rough estimates by scholars of the numbers African slaves held over twelve centuries in the Muslim world are 11.5 million<ref>{{harvnb|Lovejoy|1983|pp=}}: "Total of black slave trade in the Muslim world from Sahara, Red Sea and Indian Ocean routes through the 19th century comes to an estimated 11,500,000, "a figure not far short of the 11,863,000 estimated to have been loaded onto ships during the four centuries of the Atlantic slave trade.""</ref>{{page needed|date=July 2024}} and 14 million,<ref>Raymond Mauny estimates a total of 14 million black slaves were traded in Islam through the 20th century, including 300,000 for part of the 20th century. (p.57, source: "Les Siecles obscurs de l'Afrique Noire (Paris: Fayard, 1970)]</ref><ref name="nyt-2015">{{cite news |last1=Hochschild |first1=Adam |date=4 March 2001 |title=Human Cargo |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/01/03/04/reviews/010304.04hochsct.html |url-status=live |access-date=1 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171219112928/http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/03/04/reviews/010304.04hochsct.html |archive-date=19 December 2017 |quote=Early on in ''Islam's Black Slaves,'' his history of slavery in the Muslim world, Ronald Segal cites some estimates. One scholar puts the rough total at 11.5 million slaves during more than a dozen centuries, and another at 14 million.}}</ref> while other estimates indicate a number between 12 and 15 million African slaves prior to the 20th century.<ref name="Beigbeder2006">{{cite book |last=Beigbeder |first=Yves |title=Judging War Crimes and Torture: French Justice and International Criminal Tribunals and Commissions (1940–2005) |date=2006 |publisher=[[Martinus Nijhoff Publishers]] |isbn=978-90-04-15329-5 |location=[[Leiden]] |page=42 |quote=Historian Roger Botte estimates that Arab slave trade of Africans until the 20th century has involved from 12 to 15 million persons, with the active participation of African leaders.}}</ref>

According to [[John K. Thornton]], Europeans usually bought enslaved people who had been captured in [[endemic warfare]] between African states.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=112}} Some Africans had made a business out of capturing war captives or members of neighboring ethnic groups and selling them.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=310}} A reminder of this practice is documented in debates over the trade in the British Parliament in 1806: "All the old writers ... concur in stating not only that wars are entered into for the sole purpose of making slaves, but that they are fomented by Europeans, with a view to that object."<ref>{{cite book |title=Slave Trade Debates 1806 |series=Colonial History |publisher=Dawsons of Pall Mall |location=London |date=1968 |pages=203–204}}</ref> People living around the [[Niger River]] would be transported from these markets to the coast and sold in European trading ports, in exchange for [[musket]]s and manufactured goods such as cloth or alcohol.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=45}} The European demand for slaves provided a new and larger market for the already existing trade.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=94}} While those held as slaves in their own region of Africa could hope to escape, those shipped away had little chance of returning to their homeland.<ref>{{cite web |title=Slavery before the Trans-Atlantic Trade |url=https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/africanpassageslowcountryadapt/introductionatlanticworld/slaverybeforetrade |website=Lowcountry History Digital Initiative |publisher=Lowcountry Digital Library at the College of Charleston |access-date=16 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240331202010/https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/africanpassageslowcountryadapt/introductionatlanticworld/slaverybeforetrade |archive-date=31 March 2024}}</ref>

===European colonization and slavery in West-Central Africa===
[[File:ElMina AtlasBlaeuvanderHem.jpg|thumb|[[Elmina Castle]] in the [[Guinea (region)|Guinea coast]], present-day [[Ghana]], was built in 1482 by Portuguese traders and was the first European-slave trading post in Sub-Saharan Africa.<ref>{{cite web |title=Elmina Castle |url=https://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi3/elmina.htm#:~:text=Located%20on%20the%20western%20coast,British%20ownership%20in%20the%201800s. |website=[[PBS]] |access-date=18 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240118160445/https://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi3/elmina.htm#:~:text=Located%20on%20the%20western%20coast,British%20ownership%20in%20the%201800s. |archive-date=18 January 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Womber |first1=Peter Kwame |title=From Anomansa to Elmina: The Establishment and the Use of the Elmina Castle – From the Portuguese to the British |journal=[[Athens Journal of History]] |date=2020 |volume=6 |issue=4 |pages=349–372 |doi=10.30958/ajhis.6-4-4 |url=https://www.athensjournals.gr/history/2020-6-4-4-Womber.pdf |access-date=18 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240118160446/https://www.athensjournals.gr/history/2020-6-4-4-Womber.pdf |archive-date=18 January 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref>]]

The Atlantic slave trading of Africans began in 1441 with two Portuguese explorers, [[Nuno Tristão]] and António Gonçalves. Tristão and Gonçalves sailed to [[Mauritania]] in [[West Africa]] and kidnapped twelve Africans and returned to Portugal and presented the captive Africans as gifts to [[Prince Henry the Navigator]]. By 1460, seven hundred to eight hundred African people were taken annually and imported into Portugal. In Portugal, the Africans taken were used as domestic servants. From 1460 to 1500, the removal of Africans increased as Portugal and Spain built [[slave fort|forts]] along the coast of West Africa. By 1500, Portugal and Spain had taken about 50,000 thousand West Africans. The Africans worked as domestic servants, artisans, and farmers. Other Africans were taken to work the [[History of sugar|sugar plantations]] on the [[Azores]], [[Madeira]],<ref name="Butel2002">{{cite book |last1=Butel |first1=Paul |title=The Atlantic |year=2002 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-134-84305-3 |page=38 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sLGIAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA38 |quote=For labour in the plantations and the 80 engeñhos (sugar mills), the Portuguese began to bring slaves from the Canaries and Africa, reaching almost 2,000 in number by the end of the fifteenth century. |access-date=13 July 2024 |archive-date=13 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240713165411/https://books.google.com/books?id=sLGIAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA38 |url-status=live}}</ref> Canary, and [[Cape Verde|Cape Verde islands]]. Europeans participated in African enslavement because of their need for labor, profit, and religious motives.<ref>{{cite web |title=Africa, Europe, and the Rise of Afro-America, 1441-1619 |url=https://www.njstatelib.org/research_library/new_jersey_resources/highlights/african_american_history_curriculum/unit_2_rise_of_afro-americans/#:~:text=In%201441%20two%20Portuguese%20explorers,taken%20annually%20into%20Portugal%2C%20for |website=[[New Jersey State Library]] |access-date=16 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240620204329/https://www.njstatelib.org/research_library/new_jersey_resources/highlights/african_american_history_curriculum/unit_2_rise_of_afro-americans/ |archive-date=20 June 2024}}</ref><ref name="The Transatlantic Slave Trade">{{cite web |title=The Transatlantic Slave Trade |url=https://www.nps.gov/ethnography/aah/aaheritage/histcontextsc.htm |website=African American History and Ethnography |publisher=[[National Park Service]] |access-date=16 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240503083908/https://www.nps.gov/ethnography/aah/aaheritage/histcontextsc.htm |archive-date=3 May 2024}}</ref>

Upon discovering new lands through their naval explorations, European colonisers soon began to migrate to and settle in lands outside their native continent. Off the coast of Africa, European migrants, under the directions of the [[Kingdom of Castile]], [[Conquest of the Canary Islands|invaded and colonised]] the [[Canary Islands]] during the 15th century, where they converted much of the land to the production of wine and sugar. Along with this, they also captured native Canary Islanders, the [[Guanches]], to use as slaves both on the Islands and across the Christian Mediterranean.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|pp=28–29}}

[[File:Cannons at Cape Coast Castle.JPG|thumb|Established in [[Ghana]] by the [[Swedish Africa Company|Swedish African Company]], [[Cape Coast Castle]] was built in 1653 as a trading post that later expanded to other European nations. With the arrival of British colonization, Cape Coast Castle became the headquarters of British colonial administration. "Throughout the 18th century, the Castle served as a 'grand emporium' of the [[Bristol slave trade|British slave trade]]."<ref>{{cite web |title=Cape Coast Castle, Cape Coast (1653) |url=https://www.ghanamuseums.org/forts/cape-coast-castle.php#:~:text=Cape%20Coast%20Castle%2C%20Cape%20Coast%20(1653)&text=The%20Swedes%2C%20led%20by%20Krusenstjerna,King%20Charles%20X%20of%20Sweden. |website=Ghana Museums and Monuments Boards |access-date=18 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240709053738/https://www.ghanamuseums.org/forts/cape-coast-castle.php |archive-date=9 July 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Roth |first1=Catherine |title=Cape Coast Castle (1652- ) |url=https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/cape-coast-castle/ |website=Blackpast.org |date=2 December 2009 |access-date=18 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231211111323/https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/cape-coast-castle/ |archive-date=11 December 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Cape Coast Castle History |url=https://www.everycastle.com/Cape-Coast-Castle.html |website=Castles and Places of the World |access-date=18 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240711042755/https://everycastle.com/cape-coast-castle/ |archive-date=11 July 2024}}</ref>]]

After the success of Portugal and Spain in the slave trade other European nations followed. In 1530, an English merchant from Plymouth, [[William Hawkins (died c. 1554)|William Hawkins]], visited the [[Guinea (region)|Guinea Coast]] and left with a few slaves. In 1564, Hawkin's son [[John Hawkins (naval commander)|John Hawkins]], sailed to the Guinea Coast and his voyage was supported by [[Elizabeth I|Queen Elizabeth I]]. John later turned to piracy and stole 300 Africans from a Spanish slave ship after failures in Guinea trying to capture Africans as most of his men died after fights with the local Africans.<ref name="The Transatlantic Slave Trade"/>

As historian John Thornton remarked, "the actual motivation for European expansion and for navigational breakthroughs was little more than to exploit the opportunity for immediate profits made by raiding and the seizure or purchase of trade commodities".{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=31}} Using the Canary Islands as a naval base, Europeans, at the time primarily Portuguese traders, began to move their activities down the western coast of Africa, performing raids in which slaves would be captured to be later sold in the Mediterranean.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|pp=29–31}} Although initially successful in this venture, "it was not long before African naval forces were alerted to the new dangers, and the Portuguese [raiding] ships began to meet strong and effective resistance", with the crews of several of them being killed by African sailors, whose boats were better equipped at traversing the [[Central Africa|west-central African]] coasts and river systems.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=37}}

[[File:Ann Zingha.jpg|thumb|[[Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba]] fought against the expansion of the Portuguese Empire and their slave trade in a thirty-year war in present-day Angola.]]

By 1494, the Portuguese king had entered agreements with the rulers of several West African states that would allow trade between their respective peoples, enabling the Portuguese to "tap into" the "well-developed commercial economy in Africa ... without engaging in hostilities".{{sfn|Thornton|1998|pp=38}} "Peaceful trade became the rule all along the African coast", although there were some rare exceptions when acts of aggression led to violence. For instance, Portuguese traders attempted to conquer the [[Bissagos Islands]] in 1535.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=39}} 

In 1571, Portugal, supported by the [[Kingdom of Kongo]], took control of the south-western region of [[Portuguese Angola|Angola]] in order to secure its threatened economic interest in the area. Although Kongo later joined a coalition in 1591 to force the Portuguese out, Portugal had secured a foothold on the continent that it continued to occupy until the 20th century.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=40}} Despite these incidents of occasional violence between African and European forces, many African states ensured that any trade went on in their own terms, for instance, imposing custom duties on foreign ships. In 1525, the Kongolese King [[Afonso I of Kongo|Afonso I]] seized a French vessel and its crew for illegally trading on his coast. In addition, Afonso complained to the king of Portugal that Portuguese slave traders continued to kidnap his people, which was causing depopulation in his kingdom.<ref>{{cite web |title=Africa and the Transatlantic Slave Trade |url=https://www.slps.org/cms/lib/MO01001157/Centricity/Domain/9446/BBC%20-%20History%20-%20British%20History%20in%20depth_%20Africa%20and%20the%20Transatlantic%20Slave%20Trade.pdf |website=St. Louis Public Schools |access-date=20 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240330215334/https://www.slps.org/cms/lib/MO01001157/Centricity/Domain/9446/BBC%20-%20History%20-%20British%20History%20in%20depth_%20Africa%20and%20the%20Transatlantic%20Slave%20Trade.pdf |archive-date=30 March 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=39}}

[[Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba]], who ruled as queen of the [[Ambundu]] Kingdoms of [[Kingdom of Ndongo|Ndongo]] (1624–1663) and [[Kingdom of Matamba|Matamba]] (1631–1663) in present-day Angola, fought a long war against the Portuguese Empire's expansion. Initially, Nzinga accommodated the Portuguese. She converted to Christianity and repositioned the Ndongo Kingdom as an intermediary in the slave trade instead of as a source for slaves. This also provided her with a valuable ally against hostile neighbouring African Kingdoms, however the Portuguese continued to encroach on her Kingdom to expand the slave trade and establish settlements.<ref>{{cite web |title=Queen Nzinga managed to call a halt to Portuguese slave raids in her kingdom through clever tactics |url=https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/world-changing-women-queen-nzinga |website=The Open University, History and Arts |publisher=[[The Open University]] |access-date=18 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240604172701/https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/world-changing-women-queen-nzinga |archive-date=4 June 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Queen Nzinga(1583-1663) |url=https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/queen-nzinga-1583-1663/ |website=Black Past |date=16 June 2009 |access-date=18 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231203143926/https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/queen-nzinga-1583-1663/ |archive-date=3 December 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Women Leaders in African History: Ana Nzinga, Queen of Ndongo |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pwmn_2/hd_pwmn_2.htm |website=[[Metropolitan Museum of Art]] |access-date=18 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240702032528/https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pwmn_2/hd_pwmn_2.htm |archive-date=2 July 2024}}</ref>

Nzinga called for the end to the raids, however the Portuguese declared war on Ndongo in 1626. Nzinga allowed sanctuary to runaway slaves from Portuguese controlled territory and organized a military called ''kilombo'' against the Portuguese. Within two years, Nzinga's army was defeated and she went into exile. She later conquered the Kingdom of Matamba and entered into an alliance with the [[Dutch West India Company]] and former rival African states. With their help, Nzinga was able to reclaim large parts of Ndongo between 1641 and 1647. Nzinga continued to fight the Portuguese until a peace treaty was signed in 1656.<ref>{{cite web |title=Queen Nzinga managed to call a halt to Portuguese slave raids in her kingdom through clever tactics |url=https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/world-changing-women-queen-nzinga |website=The Open University, History and Arts |publisher=[[The Open University]] |access-date=18 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240604172701/https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/world-changing-women-queen-nzinga |archive-date=4 June 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Queen Nzinga(1583-1663) |url=https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/queen-nzinga-1583-1663/ |website=Black Past |date=16 June 2009 |access-date=18 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231203143926/https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/queen-nzinga-1583-1663/ |archive-date=3 December 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Women Leaders in African History: Ana Nzinga, Queen of Ndongo |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pwmn_2/hd_pwmn_2.htm |website=[[Metropolitan Museum of Art]] |access-date=18 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240702032528/https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pwmn_2/hd_pwmn_2.htm |archive-date=2 July 2024}}</ref>

Historians have widely debated the nature of the relationship between these African kingdoms and the European traders. The Guyanese historian [[Walter Rodney]] (1972) has argued that it was an unequal relationship, with Africans being forced into a "colonial" trade with the more economically developed Europeans, exchanging raw materials and human resources (i.e. slaves) for manufactured goods. He argued that it was this economic trade agreement dating back to the 16th century that led to Africa being underdeveloped in his own time.{{sfn|Rodney|1972|pp=95–113}} These ideas were supported by other historians, including Ralph Austen (1987).{{sfn|Austen|1987|pp=81–108}} This idea of an unequal relationship was contested by John Thornton (1998), who argued that "the Atlantic slave trade was not nearly as critical to the African economy as these scholars believed" and that "African manufacturing [at this period] was more than capable of handling competition from preindustrial Europe".{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=44}} However, Anne Bailey, commenting on Thornton's suggestion that Africans and Europeans were equal partners in the Atlantic slave trade, wrote:

{{blockquote|[T]o see Africans as partners implies equal terms and equal influence on the global and intercontinental processes of the trade. Africans had great influence on the continent itself, but they had no direct influence on the engines behind the trade in the capital firms, the shipping and insurance companies of Europe and America, or the plantation systems in Americas. They did not wield any influence on the building manufacturing centres of the West.<ref>{{cite book |first=Anne C. |last=Bailey |url=https://archive.org/details/africanvoicesofa00bail |title=African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Beyond the Silence and the Shame |publisher=[[Beacon Press]] |date=2005 |page=62 |isbn=978-0-8070-5512-0 |quote=Africans were equal partners.}}</ref>}}