![[Pasted image 20250201175352.png]] *The Portuguese maritime empire* The brother of Portugal’s ruler, Prince [Henry the Navigator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Henry_the_Navigator), spearheaded his country’s exploration of Africa and the Atlantic in the 1400s. With his support, Portuguese mariners  [Bartolomeu Dias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolomeu_Dias) and [Vasco da Gama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_da_Gama) successfully navigated an eastward route to Asia around the "bottom" of Africa, establishing a foothold there that became a foundation of their nation’s trade empire in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Portuguese mariners also built an Atlantic empire by colonizing the Canary, Cape Verde, and Azores Islands, as well as the island of Madeira. One of the principal products of these islands was sugar. Merchants then used these Atlantic outposts as debarkation points for subsequent journeys. From these strategic points, Portugal spread its empire down the western and eastern coasts of Africa (Angola and Mozambique), along the western coast of India, and eventually to Brazil on the eastern coast of South America. It also established trading posts in China and Japan. While the Portuguese didn’t rule over an immense landmass, their strategic holdings of islands and coastal ports gave them almost unrivaled control of nautical trade routes and a global empire of trading posts during the 1400s. ![[West-Africa-Sugar-Mill.jpg]] *Ruins of a sugar plantation from about 1530, on São Tomé off the African coast* The travels of Portuguese traders to western Africa and the establishment of colonies on both the west and east coasts of the continent introduced the Portuguese to the African slave trade already underway between African states and the Muslim world. Seeing the value of forced labor in growing the profitable crop of sugar on their Atlantic islands, the Portuguese soon began exporting African slaves along with African ivory and gold. Profits from sugar fueled the Atlantic slave trade even before European discovery of the Americas, and the Portuguese islands quickly became home to sugar plantations worked by enslaved Africans. The Portuguese also traded these slaves to other Europeans and as exploration spread, slavery spread as well. In time, much of the Atlantic World would become a gargantuan sugar-plantation complex in which Africans labored to produce the highly profitable commodity for European consumers. --- Next: [[2.6 Elmina]] Back: [[2.4 Cod]]