The 1444 Lagos auction inaugurated the systematic Atlantic slave trade

Evidence

The 1444 Lagos slave auction is, in the conventional periodization, the inaugural moment of the Atlantic slave trade. It is not the first European enslavement of Africans — Christian-Mediterranean enslavement of sub-Saharan Africans had occurred sporadically for centuries through the Trans-Saharan trade — but it is the first systematic Portuguese maritime-direct raiding-and-transporting operation. … The Portuguese chronicler Gomes Eanes de Zurara, who witnessed the auction and described it in his Crónica dos Feitos da Guiné (1453), records the scene as visually striking and morally noteworthy. Mothers and children were separated. Husbands and wives were separated. Zurara writes that the day’s events provoked tears even among hardened Portuguese spectators. He immediately follows by writing that the captives’ subsequent baptism into the Christian faith made the operation, in the providential view, a net good for the enslaved. — , The Rod and the Child, 4357

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes that the Atlantic slave trade began as a distinct Portuguese maritime enterprise, separate from older Trans-Saharan enslavement.
• XREF: connects to: Portugal monopolized the Atlantic slave trade until 1570; Medieval Mediterranean slavery foreshadowed Atlantic colonial slavery; Medieval Mediterranean slavery provided the full model for Atlantic slavery (+2 more)

Related

• Portugal monopolized the Atlantic slave trade until 1570 (similarity 0.87)

Broader Connections

• Portugal monopolized the Atlantic slave trade until 1570 #qualifies (0.60)
• Medieval Mediterranean slavery foreshadowed Atlantic colonial slavery #qualifies (0.50)
• The slave trade destabilized African kingdoms as early as 1526 #expands (0.50)
• For 300 years more Africans than Europeans crossed the Atlantic annually #expands (0.50) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 432
• Medieval Mediterranean slavery provided the full model for Atlantic slavery #qualifies (0.40)