-^ The Slave Trade 



rapidly led to the dispatch of Negro slaves to Southern Persia, 

 Western India, the coasts of Arabia, Egypt, the whole of 

 North Africa, and most parts of the Turkish Empire. Negro 

 slaves were occasionally imported into Italy as curiosities during 

 the Middle Ages. 



The early Portuguese explorers sent out by Prince Henry 

 at first took every opportunity of kidnapping the Moors whom 

 they met on the coast of the Sahara, and these people were 

 dispatched as slaves to Portugal. Prince Henry, however, came 

 in time to realise the iniquity of this proceeding and its bad 

 policy on the part of a nation which at that time was aspiring 

 to colonise and rule Morocco. He therefore ordered that 

 they should be given a chance of ransoming themselves. One 

 of these Moors explained that he was a nobleman by birth, 

 and stated that he could give five or six Negroes for his own 

 ransom and another five for the freedom of those amongst his 

 fellow captives who were also men of position. The result 

 was that Antao Gon^alvez, their captor, on returning to the 

 Rio de Oro, received ten Negroes, a little gold-dust, a shield 

 of ox-hide, and a number of ostrich eggs as ransom. 



The Portuguese learnt in this way that by pursuing their 

 journeys farther south they might come to a land where it 

 was possible to obtain "black Moors " as slaves. It was already 

 appreciated that the Negro as a captive was a far more tractable 

 and manageable person than any one akin to the white man 

 in race. Consequently, during the first hundred years of 

 their African exploration, the Portuguese picked up Negroes 

 by purchase from the Fula and Mandingo chiefs of Senegambia, 

 and also by kidnapping them occasionally on the peninsula of 

 Sierra Leone and on the Liberian Coast. They traded for 

 them on the Gold Coast, in the Congo and Angola countries. 

 These slaves were mostly sent to Portugal as curiosities, quite 



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