The Portuguese Gold Coast: Slavery Before the Atlantic

The Atlantic Slave Trade: Empire Built on Human Suffering — Fexingo History · Sep 21, 2026 · 8m · transcript

We often picture the transatlantic slave trade beginning with the ships bound for the Americas, but the machinery of human bondage was being assembled decades earlier on Africa’s west coast. This episode explores the establishment of the Feitoria de São Jorge da Mina in 1482, a fortified trading post that served as the primary hub for European commerce in West Africa for over a century. We examine how the Portuguese, initially focused on gold and ivory, gradually shifted their economic gravity toward human beings as demand grew in the Canary Islands and later the Iberian sugar plantations…