Before Middle Passage: Translated Portuguese Manuscripts of Atlantic Slave Trading from West Africa to Iberian Territories, 1513-26

On the 20th of January 1526, the Santiago left Lisbon bound for Africa with a cargo of brass and tin bracelets, round bells, barber basins and cloth; by early October the ship was back in Portugal with a very different cargo, 108 enslaved Africans. With chilling detachment the ship’s trading log records the commodification of human beings, the prices paid for them, the sums received for their sale...