122 Françoise Latour da Veiga Pinto,
A. Carreiraof coast a year, working southward from Sierra Leone. The Arguin trade and
that of the coastal belt, which had been granted to the inhabitants of Cape
Verde, were excluded from the contract. Fernäo Gomes was successful in his
enterprise, and thanks to his initiative the islands of Sao Tomé and Principe
were dicovered between 1470 and 1472. Thus the contract system, which was
to operate throughout the duration of the Atlantic trade, came into being.
The Spanish asiento was based on a similar system for the delivery of slaves.
Meanwhile the gold trame was increasing in volume, though the Portu-
guese failed to reach the mines and had to be content with trading on the coast.
In 1482 they built a fortress, Säo Jorge da Mina, which made possible a great
expansion of trade in that area. Ironically, one of the barter items the Portu-
guese used to obtain gold dust was slaves, brought mainly from Benin.
From 1483 onwards Diogo Cäo's voyages of discovery opened the doors
of Central Africa to the Portuguese, through the intermediary of the Kingdom
of Kongo. Thus another centre of the slave trade came into being contempora-
neously with the colonization of Säo Tomé, where the cultivation of sugar cane
quickly developed. The first settlers on the island were deportees and converted
Jewish children—'new Christians'—who were married off to slaves brought
initially from Guinea and subsequently from Kongo. This mestico society soon
became slave-traders, after the inhabitants of Säo Tomé had obtained from the
king the privilege of resgate or purchase on the African coast opposite the
archipelago.
When the Portuguese reached the mouth of the Zaire (Congo) river they
found themselves, for the first time in Africa, in contact with a powerful,
well-organized kingdom. The first embassy to arrive at the capital, Mbanza,
situated upstream in the interior, was well received by the sovereign, who was
receptive to European beliefs and skills. Despite some vicissitudes, after the
accession in 1505 of the manikongo Dom Afonso a very special relationship
grew up between the Portuguese crown and this African monarchy. Dom
Afonso was genuinely anxious to transform his country with the help of the
whites, while preserving its independence. Several members of the royal house
went to Lisbon, and Catholicism became the State religion. Nevertheless the
real interests of the Portuguese crown in the early sixteenth century were
elsewhere; and, although the king of Portugal kept up a correspondence with
the manikongo, and sent him missionaries and craftsmen, Dom Afonso's hopes
were disappointed and his country fell inescapably into a state of decline. There
were several reasons for this, all more or less directly connected with the slave
trade. Portugal at that time was being pulled in different directions by wide and
varied interests. Having made herself mistress of the route to India, her main
commercial activity was concentrated on the silk and spice trade. The discovery
of Brazil in 1500 led to the introduction of sugar cultivation there in the mid-
sixteenth century; and this in turn brought about an increased demand for