Atlantic African, American, and European Backgrounds to Contact, Commerce, and Enslavement 3that it would later be adopted by the Spanish, French,
Dutch, and British in other Atlantic locales.
Th e Portuguese continued to establish trading posts
not only along the western coast of Africa, but also in India
and Indonesia. Notably, the establishment of the plantation
system made clear to European powers that even with-
out identifying an eastern route to Asia, the trade in cash
crops, especially sugar, could be profi table. By the turn of
the 16th century, thousands of Africans were being taken
captive in order to labor on ever-expanding sugar planta-
tions throughout the Atlantic.^13 Due to its prohibitive costs,
the consumption of sugar in Europe had initially been
restricted to the very wealthy, but within relatively short
order, increased production caused a reduction in the price
of sugar and resulted, in turn, in an explosive upsurge in
demand, especially among men and women of middling
status who were increasingly able to aff ord what had been
formerly a luxury product. Increased consumption in Eu-
rope required higher production, which meant that more
captives would have to be secured to labor on sugar planta-
tions. Th ese developments caused a signifi cant shift in the
relations between European merchants and African com-
mercial and political agents.
Illustrative of this shift are the negotiations that oc-
curred between Portuguese trader Diogo Gomes and Mand-
ingo lord Nomimansa. In 1458, Prince Henry dispatched
Gomes to negotiate treaties with African rulers. Henry in-
structed Gomes not to steal slaves or any other commodi-
ties, but rather to barter for all that he took. Gomes, however,
upon arriving in West Africa saw the riches in ivory, gold,
and slaves that might be taken from coastal kingdoms, and
disobeyed his orders. Gomes recalled, “I took all by my-
self twenty-two people who were sleeping, I herded them
as if they had been cattle toward the boats, and each of us
did the same, and we captured that day... 650 people, and
we went back to Portugal... where the Prince [Henry] was
and he rejoiced with us.”^14 Indeed, Prince Henry likely over-
saw the importation of an estimated 15,000–20,000 African
captives who served in Portugal as domestic slaves.^15
Meanwhile, rulers of rival Spain, not to be outdone by
their Iberian neighbors, engaged in a program of imperial
expansion. By 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of
Spain united in an eff ort to end the 600-year presence of
North African Moors in the country. Th is development gal-
vanized a new politico-religious movement bent on the ex-
tension of the power and scope of Christianity while seekingsion required technologies and expertise from a diverse
group of people of various nationalities and faiths. Indeed,
the Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula contributed
much to Portuguese overseas designs. Muslims developed
several devices, including the astrolabe, the compass box,
and cartographic instruments that paved the way for Portu-
guese navigators. Moreover, the small, mobile ships capable
of sailing into headwinds, known as caravels, which were so
central to Portuguese expansion, were based on Arab ship-
building technology.^10
In 1418, Prince Henry ordered the occupation of the
Madeira Islands, one of several sets of island chains that lay
just to the northwest of the western African coast. He later
ordered the seizure of other Atlantic islands including the
Azores and Canary islands in 1424 and 1427, respectively.
Initially, Portuguese forces on these islands were rather
modest. Th ey cultivated indigenous plants and introduced
other crops including cereals and grapevines. In addition,
Portuguese forces established raiding parties on the African
continent to secure African labor to work as slaves on these
islands.^11
Th e rather modest agricultural production taking place
on these Atlantic islands shift ed drastically during the
1450s when the Portuguese began cultivating sugar on
the Madeiras.^12 In great contrast to earlier Portuguese ag-
ricultural development on the island, sugar was labor in-
tensive and required a large number of workers. Moreover,
sugar production was much more complicated than the
harvesting of indigenous plants and required the develop-
ment of a more intricate system of production. Portuguese
offi cials developed the plantation system on these Atlantic
islands that organized and coordinated large-scale cash crop
production based on forced labor captured on the African
coast. Th e plantation system integrated large-scale colonial
production and global demand, thus fostering Western Eu-
ropean notions of mercantilism—a theory of political econ-
omy based on the establishment of foreign colonies whose
principal function, generally achieved through agricultural
production or mining, consists of providing the raw mate-
rials necessary for the support and encouragement of in-
dustrial production in the mother country. Th e plantation
system was replicated on other Atlantic islands including
São Tomé and the Cape Verde islands in the southern At-
lantic. Increased sugar production on these islands led to
a decrease in the price of the crop, which in turn, spurred
demand. Indeed, the plantation system proved so profi table