The Portuguese Gold Coast: Slavery Before the Atlantic

We often picture the transatlantic slave trade beginning with the ships bound for the Americas, but the machinery of human bondage was being assembled decades earlier on Africa’s west coast. This episode explores the establishment of the Feitoria de São Jorge da Mina in 1482, a fortified trading post that served as the primary hub for European commerce in West Africa for over a century. We examine how the Portuguese, initially focused on gold and ivory, gradually shifted their economic gravity toward human beings as demand grew in the Canary Islands and later the Iberian sugar plantations. Through the eyes of chroniclers like Gomes Eanes de Zurara and the administrative records of the Casa da Índia, we uncover the bureaucratic coldness that turned people into cargo before they ever crossed the ocean. The narrative follows the rise of local African powers like the Kingdom of Kongo and the Asante, who navigated complex diplomatic relationships with European traders, and the eventual emergence of the Dahomey kingdom, whose military expansion was fueled by the raid economy. We also look at the early resistance movements and the legal frameworks that defined enslaved status in these coastal enclaves, setting the stage for the horrific scale of the Middle Passage that would follow. #SãoJorgeDaMina #PortugueseGoldCoast #AtlanticSlaveTrade #Feitoria #GomesEanesDeZurara #CasaDaÍndia #KingdomOfKongo #AsanteEmpire #DahomeyKingdom #1482 #WestAfricaHistory #Colonialism #SugarPlantations #IvoryTrade #AfricanResistance #TransatlanticSlavery #FexingoHistory #History Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo