Portugal and the Congo: Impact of the Slave Trading

In the 1480s, Portuguese ships arrived in Central Africa at the mouth of the Congo River, the center of the Kongo kingdom. It was from the Kongo that Europeans got the name for the entire region. Initially, the Kongo were glad to trade with the Portuguese, because the relationship provided a new market for their goods and they received goods from the Portuguese. The Kongo also hoped that the Portuguese would share new technological knowledge. In a few years, however, the Portu­guese traders found that the Kongo could not supply the volume of gold, copper, and other valuable resources that they wanted. After the Portuguese established sugar-cane plantations on nearby islands off the coast of central Af­rica, they found African labor—slaves—to be a much more valuable commodity.

Slavery existed throughout the continent of Africa before Europeans began to travel there. In Africa, slaves were often prisoners of war captured from enemies, who were either eventually ransomed back to their families or sold to others. Frequently, enslaved people were allowed to earn money or own land, or even to marry locals. Over the course of generations, enslaved Africans and their descendants were often able to assimilate into their new societies. Despite these traditions, some slaves still were abused and many de­sired their freedom.

How did Portuguese slave trading influence Central Africa?

When the Portuguese suggested trading merchandise for slaves, the concept among the Kongo and other peoples of the region was not new. However, the influence of the Portuguese and their high demand for slaves changed the local African societies. Conflicts between dif­ferent groups intensified as they searched for new captives who could be traded for Euro­pean manufactured goods, including weapons. The introduction of guns disrupted societies, and changed the nature of their relationships with one another. Those with direct contacts with the Portuguese could trade humans for weapons which could then be used to capture still more slaves.

In 1506, King Afonso took the throne of the Kongo. Afonso converted to Christian­ity and even communicated with the Pope in Rome. He sent his son to study in Portugal, who returned to become the first black Catho­lic bishop. He also increased his power and the size of his kingdom by using guns he pur­chased from the Portuguese.

Beginning in 1514, the slave trade be­came an integral part of the economy of the area. Like all Kongo monarchs, Afonso owned slaves, but he was troubled by the nature of this new slave trade. In 1526, he wrote to the Portuguese king about its disruptive effects on his kingdom.

“Sir, Your Highness should know how our Kingdom is being lost in so many ways.... We cannot reckon how great the damage is, since the mentioned merchants are taking every day our natives, sons of the land and the sons of our noblemen and vassals and our relatives, because the thieves and men of bad conscience grab them wishing to have the things and wares of this Kingdom…. So great, Sir, is the corruption…that our country is being completely depopulated, and Your Highness should not agree with this nor accept it.”

—King Afonso’s letter to the King of Portugal

Afonso’s pleas had no effect. Instead, increasing numbers of Europeans—notably the French, British, and Dutch—came to the region to purchase more slaves for their plantations in the New World. By the late eighteenth century, Europeans were exporting about fifteen thousand slaves per year from the Congo. Congolese middlemen traded with groups in the interior to supply this demand. European records from the 1790s show slaves arriving at the coast from as far inland as seven hundred miles. Until Europeans abandoned the slave trade in the early 1800s, it dominated the commerce of the area.

Many ethnic groups in the interior aban­doned their traditional productive activities such as farming and fishing to devote all of their time to the slave trade and the trade of other European products. Records show that the Aruwimi people, over two thousand miles from the coast, received European and Ameri­can cloth, satin strips, kettles, umbrellas, brass rods, iron cooking pots, pipes, mirrors, knives, beads, muskets, and gunpowder in trade for local products. While some ethnic groups lost large numbers of their people to slavery, other groups prospered as the middlemen of the slave trade.

The damage the slave trade caused Africa can never be fully calculated, but some state­ments can be made with certainty. The slave trade caused direct loss of life through warfare, both with Europeans and among African eth­nic groups. Fighting caused indirect loss of life through destruction of crops and food storage areas, and through the spread of diseases. The slave trade enriched African kingdoms and communities that had developed advanced methods of warfare, but destroyed many small­er populations that fell victim to conquest.

Many captives died while being trans­ported to the coast or on the voyage overseas. The result was the loss of millions of lives. However, the Congo interior suffered far less from the slave trade than did many areas of West Africa and coastal areas of Central Africa, the main sources of slaves taken by European traders. Historians estimate that one and a half million slaves were taken out of the Congo region. Overall, the Atlantic slave trade took about twelve million people from Africa.