slavery+bt

Slavery was prominent presumably elsewhere in Africa long before the beginnings of the transatlantic slave trade. The maritime town of Lagos Portugal was the first slave market created in Portugal for the sale of imported African slaves – the //Mercado de Escravos//, opened in 1444. In 1441, the first slaves were brought to Portugal from northern Mauritania. By 1552 black African slaves made up 10 percent of the population of Lisbon. In the second half of the 16th century, the Crown gave up the monopoly on slave trade and the focus of European trade in African slaves shifted from import to Europe to slave transports directly to tropical colonies in the Americas – in the case of Portugal, especially Brazil. In the 15th century one third of the slaves were resold to the African market in exchange of gold.