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1441: Henry the "Navigator" sent 2 captains, Gonçalves + Tristão, separately, to Cape Bianco (west coast of Africa). They came across a market and received some gold dust; seized 12 black Africans to take back to Portugal (that aren't the first slaves). The new captives included a local Arabic-speaking chief who negotiated his release.
1442: Gonclaves sailed back to Africa, returning with more gold dust + black Africans. Portuguese explorers continued to return with African slaves. -
1445: João Fernandes - Portuguese traveler whose 7-month stay among the nomads of Río de Oro supplied Henry the "Navigator" with info for advancing the slave trade. He found that the nomads obtained their slaves from African kings who raided other tribes. Upon his return, Fernandes told Henry detailed info about the Western Sahara and the trade with the Guinea Coast.
1448: Portugal ceased the hazardous raiding of the African coast for slaves + made agreements with Moorish + African chiefs. -
1482: Built Elmina Castle in Ghana - originally built as a fortified trading post, since the Portuguese were more worried about naval attacks from Europeans than African land attacks. The fort was originally used to trade gold; later used the dungeon as a holding pen for enslaved Africans.
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1493: Spain sends Columbus on his second voyage to the Caribbean islands, where Spanish colonists enslave the Taíno people to perform almost all labor on the island. After finding no gold, Columbus demonstrates his wealth by loading his ship with enslaved Taíno people. During the next 40 years, slavery contributes to the death of almost 7 million Taínos until 1535 when none remain.
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1542: New Laws of 1542 = legislative code designed to protect the Indians and to discourage the encomiendas system. The denunciation of Spanish mistreatment of the Indians became more public when Bartolomé de Las Casas lobbied and influenced Charles I's passing of the New Laws. The New Laws originally wanted to completely strip individuals of their encomiendas, but after a rebellion in Peru, the Crown relented and enabled the encomenderos to pass on their grants in 1545.
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1562: John Hawkins = England's first slave trader; sailed from the Barbican in Plymouth with 3 ships and violently kidnapped about 400 Africans in Guinea, later trading them in the West Indies. Between 1562-1567, him and his cousin Francis Drake made 3 voyages and enslaved between 1200-1400 Africans. He sailed for the west coast of Africa, kidnapped villagers, and cross the Atlantic to sell his cargo to the Spanish. The slave trade was better business than plantations.
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1655: British expedition led by Admiral Sir William Penn captured Jamaica + completely expelled the Spanish within 5 years. Many of the Spaniards' escaped slaves had formed communities in the highlands or escaped from British plantations. Former slaves = Maroons, derived from Spanish meaning "wild/untamed." Although tropical diseases killed many Jamaican slaves and Europeans, slave traffic and Euro immigration increased; the island population also boomed within a few decades.
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1660: King Charles II granted a charter to the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa. Led by his younger brother James II, the group had a monopoly on British trade with West Africa (gold, silver, slaves).
1667: Collapsed under mounting debts thanks to England's war with the Netherlands.
1672: Reemerged with a new royal charter and a new name: the Royal African Company (RAC). Monopoly extended through 5k miles of the western coast; traded mainly for gold and slaves. Dissolved in 1698. -
1728: Constant skirmishes between the British and the Maroons led to the 1st Maroon War: First British governor Robert Hunter vs. the Windward Maroons (led by Captain Quao) and the Leeward Maroons (led by Cudjoe). After Hunter's death, the British realized the war had to end with negotation.
1739: Peace treaty between Britain and the Maroons freed the Maroons and returned their land. In return, they would support the British government in Jamaica against foreign invasion. -
1787: Several waves of freed black settlers from England, Nova Scotia, and Jamaica arrived in the area. The Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor (an abolitionist group) established the colony in what is now modern-day Freetown in May of 1787. That settlement was named Granville Town after Granville Sharp (a member of the abolitionist group), who also wrote a constitution based on the British legal tradition and on a framework of Christian principles.
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1807: Britain and the US acted decisively to abandon the transatlantic slave trade; "abolition" was to emerge as one of the most important reform movements of the 18th + 19th centuries. Thomas Jefferson first signed a bill approved by Congress, followed by the British House of Lords that passed an Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
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1833: Brtain passed the Abolition of Slavery Act, ordering the gradual abolition of slavery in all British colonies. Plantation owners in the West Indies received 20 million pounds in compensation.
