Africans and Luso-Africans in the Portuguese slave trade on the Upper Guinea coast in the early seventeenth century

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Periodical article

Title:	Africans and Luso-Africans in the Portuguese slave trade on the Upper Guinea coast in the early seventeenth century
Author:	Newson, Linda A.
Year:	2012
Periodical:	The Journal of African History (ISSN 0021-8537)
Volume:	53
Issue:	1
Pages:	1-24
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	West Africa Portugal
Subjects:	slave trade mercantile history historical sources
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853712000011
Abstract:	Using previously unknown account books, found in archives in Peru, of three New Christian Portuguese slave traders on the Upper Guinea coast, this article examines the extent and nature of African and Luso-African involvement in the Atlantic trade during the early seventeenth century. Beads, textiles, and wine that figured most prominently among Portuguese imports were traded predominantly by Luso-Africans. Meanwhile, slaves were delivered in small numbers by people from a diverse range of social backgrounds. This trade was not a simple exchange of imported goods for slaves, but was a complex one that built on pre-European patterns of exchange in locally-produced commodities. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]