Portugal’s role in the Atlantic slave trade is foundational to understanding the trade as a whole, yet it rarely features in reparations discussions, which focus almost exclusively on Britain.
Portuguese exploration of the West African coast began in earnest in the 1420s and 1430s under royal patronage. The Portuguese were searching for a sea route to the spice trade of Asia, but they quickly discovered that West Africa offered profitable trading opportunities of its own, including gold and enslaved people.
The first documented Portuguese slave trading voyage from West Africa occurred around 1441, when Antao Goncalves returned to Portugal with a small number of enslaved Africans. The trade grew rapidly. By the 1450s, Portuguese traders were operating regularly on the West African coast, and enslaved people were being transported to Portugal itself and to the Portuguese Atlantic islands of Madeira and the Azores.
When Portugal established colonies in Brazil from 1500 onward, the demand for enslaved labour expanded enormously. Brazil’s sugar plantations, and later its gold mines, consumed enslaved people at a rate that required constant resupply. Portugal developed an extensive infrastructure for the trade, including fortified trading posts on the West African coast, most notably Elmina in present-day Ghana, established in 1482.
Portugal transported more enslaved Africans to the Americas than any other nation. Estimates suggest around 5.8 million enslaved people were transported on Portuguese ships over the full duration of the trade, representing roughly 46 percent of the total. Britain transported approximately 3.1 million, around 26 percent of the total, in a period of active trade spanning roughly 150 years compared to Portugal’s 400-plus years.
Portugal abolished the slave trade in its territories only in 1836, thirty years after Britain, and slavery itself in its colonies only in 1869, thirty-six years after the British Abolition Act. The CARICOM reparations campaign has made no significant demands of Portugal.
