Early European Exploration of Africa
Overview
Early European Exploration of Africa
In the mid-15th century the Portuguese opened up sub-Saharan Africa to European trade.
Learning Objectives
- Assess how Trans-Atlantic trade affected the social and political development in Africa and the Americas.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
São Tomé: island off the coast of West Africa colonized by the Portuguese in 1486, which became the center of the early African slave trade
Elmina: a fortified trading settlement founded by the Portuguese along the West African coast (modern Ghana) in 1482
Early European Exploration and Expansion into Africa
With the arrival of Portuguese explorers and merchants along the African coasts, beginning in the 15th century, trade from Sub-Saharan Africa largely shifted away from the Muslim Arab states of North Africa and the trans-Saharan trade to the coasts of West and East Africa, where European merchants established trading posts. European merchants were at first interested in the ivory and gold trade, but in the 17th century, African slaves became the primary export from Sub-Saharan Africa as the volume of trade along the Atlantic coast exceeded the trans-Saharan trade. The demand for labor in the European controlled territories in the Western Hemisphere fueled the expansion of this notorious transatlantic slave trade through the 19th century.
The Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire was established from the 15th century and eventually stretched from the Americas to Japan. These were often a string of coastal trading centers with defensive fortifications, but there were also larger territorial colonies like Brazil, Angola, and Mozambique. White Europeans dominated trade, politics, and society, but there was also a significant mixing of races, and in many places, people of mixed ancestry rose to positions of wealth and power in the colonies.
The Portuguese began their empire as a search for access to the gold of West Africa and then the eastern spice trade. In addition, it was hoped that there might well be Christian states in Asia that could become useful allies in Christianity’s ongoing battles with the Islamic caliphates. New lands for agriculture, riches and glory for colonial adventurers, and the ambitions of missionary work were other motivations in the building of an empire.
Carrack ships created a maritime network that connected Lisbon with all of its colonies in the west and the Estado da India (‘State of India’), as the empire was known east of the Cape of Good Hope. Goods like gold, ivory, silk, Ming porcelain, and spices were carried and traded around the world. Another major trade was in slaves, taken from West and southern Africa and used as labor on plantations in the North Atlantic islands and the Americas.
The North Atlantic Islands
The Portuguese were intrepid mariners and so it is entirely appropriate that their first colonies should be relatively remote islands. Searching for new resources and land which might solve Portugal’s deficit in wheat requirements, mariners sailed towards the unknown mid-Atlantic Ocean. The Portuguese navigators were able to mount these expeditions thanks to such rich and powerful backers as Prince Henry the Navigator (aka Infante Dom Henrique, 1394 – 1460). Another immeasurable advantage was innovative ship design and the use of the lateen triangular sail.
The first group of islands to be colonized was the volcanic and uninhabited Madeira archipelago. With rich volcanic soil, mild climate, and sufficient rainfall, the islands were used to grow wheat, vines, and sugar cane. In many ways, the Portuguese colonization of Madeira would set the template that all other colonies copied. The Portuguese Crown partitioned the islands and gave out ‘captaincies’ (donatarias) as part of a feudal system designed to encourage nobles to fund agricultural and trade development. The Crown retained overall ownership. However, each captain (donatario) was given certain financial and judicial privileges, and they, in turn, gave out smaller parcels of their land (semarias) for development by their tenants who had to clear and begin cultivation within a certain number of years. These captaincies became hereditary offices in many cases. Settlers were attracted by the hope of a better life, but there were, as there would be in all future colonies, less desirable immigrants, as well. These were the undesirables (degregados); people unwanted by the authorities in Portugal who were forcibly transported to colonies, such as convicts, beggars, reformed prostitutes, orphans, Jews, and religious dissidents.
Another way in which Madeira became a colonial model was sugar cane plantations, which were created as early as 1455. The success of this crop and its large labor requirement led to slaves being imported from West Africa. The slave-worked plantation system became an important part of the economy in the New World that led to the terrible traffic in humanity that was the Atlantic slave trade.
After Madeira, and following the same pattern, there followed the Portuguese colonization of the Azores and the Cape Verde group. These colonies all became invaluable ports of call for ships sailing from India and the Americas. The Portuguese were not without rivals for these colonies. Portugal and Spain squabbled over possession of the Canary Islands, but the 1479-80 Treaty of Alcáçovas-Toledo and the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas set out two spheres of influence, which audaciously encompassed the globe. The vagueness of these agreements caused trouble later, such as Portugal’s right to future discoveries in Africa and Spain’s to islands beyond the Canaries, interests which were eventually identified as the Caribbean and even the Americas.
The North Atlantic islands permitted the Portuguese Crown to gain direct access to the gold of West Africa, avoiding the Islamic states in North Africa. A significant obstacle had been Cape Bojador which seemed to block sailing ships from going south and then returning home to Europe. A solution to this issue was provided by the Atlantic islands and setting a bold course out away from the African coastline to best use winds, currents, and high-pressure areas. Portuguese mariners could then sail south with confidence, and the ultimate result was the opening up of Asia to European ships.
West Africa & Slavery
The Portuguese, keen to access the West African gold and salt trade, set up several fortified trading settlements along the southern coast (modern Ghana), such as at Elmina in 1482. However, tropical diseases, a lack of manpower, and a reluctance by local rulers to allow male slaves to be exported meant that, at least initially, the profits were limited along the southern coast. African chiefs were keen to trade for firearms, but the Portuguese were not interested in giving them such power. A more successful strategy focused on the uninhabited islands of Sao Tome and Principe, located off the southern coast of West Africa, which were colonized beginning in 1486. The two islands became heavily involved in the slave trade, and, as in the North Atlantic, the captaincy model for development was used.
Settlers on the islands were permitted to trade with communities in West Africa, and those trades proved more successful than the attempts made a few decades before. Portuguese trade settlements were established on the continent as far south as Luanda (in modern Angola) to take advantage of the well-organized African trade that saw goods travel from the interior along the major rivers (e.g. Gambia and Senegal) to the coast. Goods acquired included gold, ivory, pepper, beeswax, gum, and dyewoods. Slaves (men and women) were acquired from the Kingdom of Kongo and Kingdom of Benin, the rulers of which were eager for European trade goods like cotton cloth, mirrors, knives, and glass beads. The islands acted as a gathering point for slaves and as a place to take onboard provisions for the ships that would carry the human cargo. One in five slaves died on these ships, but as many as one in two slaves died between initial capture and arrival at their final destination.
There was little attempt at territorial conquest in West Africa as trade was thriving and the Europeans did not possess the military resources for such a policy. Some settlements were fortified, but this was usually done with permission from the local African tribal chief. Europeans and resettled Africans had intermarried on islands— such as the Cape Verde group—creating an Afro-Portuguese culture, which had a strong African religious and artistic influence. It was very often these free mixed-race Cape Verdeans (mulattoes) who settled in the trading posts on the coast of Africa.
There were moves to cut out African chiefs and directly acquire slaves from the interior, but this policy soured relations with Kongo. The situation further deteriorated following a reaction against Christian missionaries as traditional cultural activities and tribal loyalties broke down. The Europeans were obliged to move further down the coast to the Ndongo region, where their interference led to a series of wars in a region that soon after became Portuguese Angola.
East Africa
In 1498 the explorer Vasco da Gama (c. 1469 – 1524) sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and into the Indian Ocean, and the Portuguese suddenly gained access to a whole new trade network involving Africans, Indians, and Arabs. The trade network had existed for centuries, but when the Portuguese arrived commerce became violent. Using superior ships and cannons, the Portuguese blasted rival ships out of the water. Their crews were arrested or killed and their cargoes confiscated. The fact that most traders were Muslim was an added motivation for the Europeans who were still beset with a crusader mentality.
Portuguese attacks on the independent trading cities of the Swahili Coast and on the inland Kingdom of Mutapa in the south (Zimbabwe/Zambia) did not bring any tangible benefits as traders simply moved to the north or avoided them. When the Portuguese had taken over and fortified the likes of Malindi, Mombasa, Pemba, Sofala, and Kilwa, they found they had already lost the trading partners of these city-states. Then the Omani Arabs of the Persian Gulf arrived. Keen to keep hold of their Red Sea trade routes and re-establish the age-old trade networks, the Omani moved in on the Swahili Coast and captured many cities, including Portuguese Mombasa in 1698. The lack of success in East Africa eventually drove the Portuguese south to Mozambique, but they were already wholly distracted by the potential of a newly discovered area of the world: India.
By the mid-17th century, however, the Portuguese no longer possessed a monopoly on African trade, which they had previously enjoyed at the beginning of the 16th century. English, French, Dutch, Swede, and Danish merchants were all competing with one another for access to this market and its most valuable export: slaves.
Attributions
Title Image
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ghana,_het_fort_Sint_George_d%27Elmina_(3381211949).jpg
Elmina, Ghana - Nationaal Archief, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Adapted from:
Cartwright, Mark. "Portuguese Empire." World History Encyclopedia. Last modified July 19, 2021. https://www.worldhistory.org/Portuguese_Empire/.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/deed.en