Some points that both sources agree on is that the history of the Atlantic Slave Trade with Africa goes back 50 years prior to Columbus' initial voyage to the America. The Portuguese were searching for gold in Africa, and decades after that, Portuguese sailors gained permission from a local African leader to build a trading outpost and storehouse on Africa's Guinea coast. Africans were either captured in warring raids or kidnapped and taken to the port by African slave traders. There they were exchanged for iron, guns, gunpowder, mirrors, knives, cloth, and beads brought by boat from Europe. A slave's journey first starts in the interior of Africa with his or her capture as a prisoner of war or by outright kidnapping by local traders. European
