Anti-Slavery International

Key locations in Spain and Portugal
In the autumn of 2003, the Lifeline Expedition took place in Spain and Portugal. Those nations, the closest to Africa, were the first to capture and enslave Africans to work in the Iberian peninsula and later to work in the Americas. Through the research prior to the expedition and all that we learned during the expedition itself, we gained some fresh insights into the origins of the Atlantic slave trade, which have implications for the relationship between Europe and Africa today

Lagos
Lagos was an important port in the fifteenth century and became Europe?s first slave market on 8th August 1444 after several African villages were attacked and more than 235 captives seized. Prince Henry was present at the slave-market and endorsed it, and it was clear in so many ways that a strong religious motivation lay behind the endeavours of Henry the Navigator and many of his fellow countrymen.

Lagos is obviously a very significant place to confess the sins of Europe towards Africa. From the beginning, Europeans rationalized slave trading in a variety of ways, but here there is a recognition that it has no justification.

Lisbon
Lisbon was certainly involved in the Atlantic slave trade very early, at least by 1512 and indeed it was frequently Portuguese traders who supplied enslaved Africans for the Spanish colonists. The Portuguese established the first trading fort in West Africa at Elmina in present day Ghana and were taking Africans to work in the plantations in Madeira and Sao Tome. Over the centuries, ships from Lisbon carried more slaves to the Americas than any other European port, possibly as much as four million.

Palos de la Frontera
Palos is close to the city of Huelva in the south west corner of Spain. It is famous because it was from this place that Christopher Columbus set sail in 1492.

Seville
Seville is significant as it was the first place from which Africans were taken across the Atlantic to the Americas as slaves. This might initially seem surprising as we might suppose they would have been captured in Africa and transported directly. After the discovery of the New World the constant demand for a source of cheap labour to work the mines and plantations of America increased the flow of Africans into Seville during the sixteenth century. The city soon became one of the most important slave centres in Western Europe, second only to Lisbon.

Conclusion
The inescapable conclusion from our visit to these root places is that the Crusader spirit was very much alive and well at the time of the origins of the Atlantic slave trade. It is vital that white Europeans fully acknowledge and confess the realities of this great offence. It is striking to realise that triumphing in that combination of Christian faith and force of arms is not merely a thing of the past.

Accompanying the Crusader spirit, we also noted in particular greed, arrogance and superiority. If we are to heal the historic wounds of injustice, it must be with a determination to counter the greed and in a spirit of deep humility.

David Pott June 2004