HISTORY OF THE TRADE TO GUI.KEA. 
493 
vessels ; he afterwards put a woman on shore, to induce the natives 
to redeem the prisoners, but the next day one hundred and fifty of 
the inhabitants appeared on horses and camels, provoking the Portu- 
guese to land ; which they not daring to venture, the natives dis- 
charged a volley of stones at them, and went off. After this, the 
Portuguese continued to send vessels on the coast of Africa, particu- 
larly we read of their falling on a village, whence the inhabitants fled, 
and being pursued, twenty-five of them were taken ; “ he that ran 
best,’' says the author, “ taking the most.” In their way home they 
killed some of the natives, and took fifty-five more prisoners. After- 
wards Digama landed his crew on the island Arguin, where they 
took fifty-four Moors, then running along the coast eighty leagues 
farther, they at several times took fifty slaves ; but here seven of the 
Portuguese were killed. Then being joined by several other vessels, 
Digama proposed to destroy the island, to revenge the loss of the 
seven Portuguese ; of which the Moors being apprised, fled, so that 
no more than twelve were found, whereof only four could be taken, 
the rest being killed, as also one of the Portuguese.” Many more 
captures of this kind on the coast of Barbary and Guinea are reported 
to have been made in those early times by the Portuguese, who, in 
1481, erected their first fort at D’Elmina on that coast, from whence 
they soon opened a trade for slaves with the inland parts of Guinea. 
From the foregoing accounts, it is undoubted that the practice of 
making slaves of the negroes owes its origin to the early incursions 
of ihe Portuguese, solely from an inordinate desire of gain. This is 
clear from their own historians, particularly from Cada Mosti, about 
1455, who writes, “ that before the trade w'as settled for purchasing 
slaves from the Moors at Arguin, sometimes four and sometimes more 
Portuguese vessels were used to come to that gulf, well armed, and, 
landing by night, would surprise some fishermen’s villages ; that they 
even entered into the country, and carried off Arabs of both sexes, 
whom they sold in Portugal.” And also, that the Portuguese and 
Spaniards, settled on four of the Canary islands, would go to the 
other islands, by night, and seize some of the natives of both sexes, 
whom they sent to be sold in Spain.” 
After the settlement of’ America, those devastations, and the cap- 
ture of the miserable Africans, greatly increased. Anderson, in his 
History of Trade and Commerce, p. 336, speaking of what passed in 
1508, writes, that ‘‘ the Spaniards had by this time found that the 
miserable Indian natives, whosn they had made to v/ork in their mines 
and fields, were not so robust, and proper for those purposes, as ne- 
groes brought from Africa ; wherefore they, about that time, began 
to import negroes for that end into Hispaniola, from the Portuguese 
settlements on the Guinea coasts ; and also afterwards for their 
sugar works. 
About 1551, towards the end of Edward VL’s reign, some London 
merchants sent out the first English ship to the coast of Guinea. 
This was soon followed by several others ; but the English not having 
then any plantations in the West Indies, and consequently no occa- 
sion for negroes, they traded only for gold, elephants’ teeth, and Gui- 
nea pepper. This trade was carried on at the hazard of losing their 
