First large group of enslaved Africans sold at Lagos, Portugal
- Date
- 8 August 1444
- Category
- Economy & trade
- Region
- Portugal (Lagos) and West Africa
- Era
- Post-Classical / Medieval
- Significance
In August 1444 a fleet of six ships organised by the Lagos tax-collector Lançarote de Freitas returned from raids on the Bay of Arguin (modern Mauritania) and landed roughly 235 captive Africans at Lagos in southern Portugal.
The captives were divided into five lots in a public sale, with Prince Henry the Navigator claiming a one-fifth share as sponsor of the venture, and groups were formed without regard to family ties, deliberately separating relatives. Chronicled in detail by Gomes Eanes de Zurara, this is widely regarded as the first large-scale public sale of enslaved sub-Saharan and Berber Africans in Europe, marking the commercial institutionalisation of what became the Atlantic slave trade. Earlier, smaller Portuguese seizures had occurred from about 1441 under Antão Gonçalves and Nuno Tristão, but the 1444 Lagos sale transformed sporadic raiding into an organised, profitable trade. Lançarote was knighted by Prince Henry for the enterprise on 8 August 1444. The event inaugurated nearly four centuries of transatlantic enslavement that would forcibly displace more than twelve million Africans.
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Empires active in 8 August 1444
- Malacca Sultanate1400 CE – 1511 CE
- Aztec Empire1428 CE – 1521 CE
- Inca Empire1438 CE – 1533 CE
- Ming Dynasty1368 CE – 1644 CE
- Kanem-Bornu Empire700 CE – 1900 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE – 1922 CE
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Further reading
The wider story
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