The Trade Between Portugal And West African Kingdoms

Decent Essays
The trade between Portugal and West African Kingdoms became exploitative in the 16th century. The Portuguese used the Congo as a key location for slave trade. The Portuguese initially worked with King Affonso, he allowed Portugal to take the lower-class citizens and prisoners of war. King Affonso noticed that Portugal was kidnaping noblemen and the sons of noblemen, they were even taking family members. King Affonso responded to this by writing a letter to the King of Portugal. King Affonso initially though trading slaves with Portugal was a good idea, he was getting paid for Portugal to get rid of the lower-class. But he soon realized he could not trust Portugal because the trade was unregulated and Portugal was taking people from all classes.

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Not too long ago, Africa was a country of wealth, attracting many European countries. However, the wealth did not come without a cost. Europeans had little knowledge of Africa because of the dangers of disease such as malaria. Europeans did not explore Africa either because they only needed Africa for slaves. After slavery was outlawed, Europeans decided to explore more of Africa.…

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dbq Slave Trade Analysis

    • 564 Words
    • 3 Pages

    There are many theories as to the start of slave trade and its effects on the people and countries/colonies involved. The Native American population had decreased due to disease and war and did not have enough labor. However, the Europeans had access to another cheap labor market that already existed, the African Slave Trade. While the use of slaves has existed in societies already, it was not until the mid-fifteenth century that Europeans began trading and capturing slaves from Africa. Between 1450 and 1870 over ten million people were taken from Africa for slavery.…

    • 564 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Debt Slavery, enslavement of war captives, military slavery, and criminal slavery were all practiced in various parts of Africa. Prior to European contact, the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai Empires all condoned the slave trade. The first European to purchase African slaves was the Portuguese explorer Antao Goncalves in 1411, who used slaves to cultivate sugar fields on the volcanic island of Sao Tome. African slaves did not arrive in the “New World” until 1501, when the Spanish transported them to Hispaniola. The slave trade would not have been as popular had it not been for African slave traders who willingly sold fellow Africans to…

    • 861 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Adam Hochschild brings this largely untold story alive with the wit and skill of a Barbara Tuchman. Like her, he knows that history often provides a far richer cast of characters than any novelist could invent. Chief among them is Edmund Morel, a young British shipping agent who went on to lead the international crusade against Leopold. Another hero of this tale, the Irish patriot Roger Casement, ended his life on a London gallows. Two courageous black Americans, George Washington Williams and William Sheppard, risked much to bring evidence of the Congo atrocities to the outside world.…

    • 1868 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Effect of European Control The large continent of Africa is the home to many African tribes. Africa has many resources that other countries desire to have for themselves. During 1884, these European countries met at what was called the Berlin Conference, where they discussed how they were going to divide the continent up between themselves. They gave no say to the people living in Africa.…

    • 875 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Imperialism Dbq Essay

    • 1553 Words
    • 7 Pages

    During the 1700s and 1800s, the Europeans lost a significant amount of American colonies. Thus, various European countries such as France, Britain, Portugal, Spain, and Germany fought to imperialize African territory to replace their lost American work force and source of raw materials. One of the many areas that had been imperialized during this time was the Congo. Here, African citizens were…

    • 1553 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Additionally, It was easier to use Africans because slavery already existed in their nations. The slave trade, also known as the triangular trade induced Europe, West Africa, and the Americas. This trade lasted about 300 years, from 1450 to 1750. Europe sent guns, cloth, iron, and beer to Africa.…

    • 409 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Maritime Exploration in the 1400s 1000 CE the vikings made the risky journey to Greenland and North America from Scandinavia and only until they made technological advance did they feel comfortable dominating the land. Muslims traders made early connections with Southern and Eastern Asia and Marco Polo’s experience even preceded theirs’. The spice lands were known for their international contributions and China, India and Africa were known for giving Europe most of their luxury items.…

    • 1010 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Europeans were able to conquer the Americas easily but that was not the case in Africa. It took the Europeans until the end of the nineteenth century to conquer Africa. Due to the steep rivers, diseases, and military defenses made it impossible for the Europeans to conquer Africa. During The first half of the nineteenth century, European had to be satisfied with their alliance with African kingdoms and rulers. The Portuguese led the way in European exploration and expansion in Africa.…

    • 1074 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    King Affonso Of Congo

    • 579 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “Letters on the Slave trade” by King Affonso of Congo In the “Letters on the Slave Trade” written by king Nzinga Mbemba Affonso of Congo to the king of Portugal in 1526, Affonso explains his complains and worries about the human trade that has been taking place in his country over the years. In the first letter, king Affonso mentions with concern how vassals from his own kingdom are not complying to his orders because they are receiving goods from white men in greater abundance than what his kingdom has to offer. In addition, Affonso feels threatened by this practice because as he states in his letter, “[I]t is doing a great harm not only to the service of God, but the security and peace of our Kingdoms and State as well”, leaving him without the loyalty of those who should be by his side. Nevertheless, Affonso treats with a great deal of respect the king of Portugal, since he never showed any kind of insolence towards him in his letters, although his kingdom was suffering due to the actions of the Portuguese.…

    • 579 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    What was the main cause of the European Imperialism in Africa? The European imperialism lasted over 300 years from 1500’s to the 1800’s. It started to change in the 1800’s because as European explorers took over and pushed their way to the interior and central Africa. By the 1880’s Africa was taken by the European settlers. Some reasons the Europeans wanted Africa because they have a lot of good natural resources.…

    • 625 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To the Europeans slaves were a form of cheap labor that allowed them to run plantations and work in America. The number of African slaves traded was approximately 1000 from 1451 to 1475 when the Portuguese started to trade for slaves and led to an overall amount of 10 million slaves traded from Africa to the Western hemisphere. African rulers tried to limit the amount of slaves traded, but the pursuit of profit drove both African and European traders. The African slaves extremely benefited the European economic and help expands colonies in the New World and the introduction of corn, manioc, and cassava led to population growth and important crops. On the other hand, slavery was extremely detrimental to Africa because of the lack of progress and development due to the significant loss of…

    • 1889 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Europeans Over Africa Dbq

    • 151 Words
    • 1 Pages

    One of the main reasons the Europeans took over the land was for the good trading and resources in Africa. There were many important resources in Africa that would be useful to the Europeans, like cotton, gold, rubber, sisal, coal, zinc, copper, ivory, etc. Europeans wanted to take over the land so they could use the resources in Africa to make useful things like fabrics, fuel, food products, rope, coins, and other useful items (Doc D). If Europeans took over Africa, they'd be able to trade with a larger variety of people and countries, which meant getting a larger variety of resources (Doc A). After the Europeans took over Africa, they used the resources there to their best advantage; the Europeans sold and traded lots of the resources in…

    • 151 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Throughout the time period starting in the 16th century until the late 19th century European contact with Africa stimulated by various motives resulted in a variety of response to the formed relations between the two. An increased amount of trade between Europe and Africa provided an economic motive for Europeans to further their contact with Africa, as shown in Documents 3 and 6. Documents 1 and 4 demonstrate how African Kings and their Kingdoms would undergo cultural changes as a response to this European influence. The desire to expand European power and colonialize Africa emerged as a result of this contact as depicted in Documents 7, 8 and 9. However European presence in Africa was also largely detrimental to native Africans leading to…

    • 1825 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Portugal impacted the Indian Ocean trade in multiple ways throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. For example, they took control of Malacca. As well as a fortress at the mouth of the Red Sea for better control of trade. Lastly, they were the only ones with working cannons on their ships which made them a powerhouse of ocean trade. Portugal had a fortress at the mouth of the Red Sea to impact the Indian Ocean.…

    • 431 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays