Portuguese colonization of Africa

The Portuguese navigator Fernão Gomes reached A Mina on the coast of present-day Ghana in 1471. On discovering a thriving gold trade between the natives and Arab traders, the Portuguese established a feitoria (trading post) and built a fortress there. Because of the abundance of gold, the region came to be known as the Gold Coast.

​​​​​​​Later, the port, today called Elmina, was used for exporting slaves from inland regions. The Dutch West India Company captured Elmina in 1637 and used it as a hub for their slave trade.

As the Portuguese explored the African coastline of Africa, they erected padrões, stone crosses engraved with the Portuguese coat of arms to mark their claims. From the trading posts they founded, they took part in the profitable trade in both gold and slaves. To begin with, most slaves were brought to the Portuguese capital, Lisbon. The transportation of enslaved Africans to work on the sugar cane plantations of the Portuguese colony of Brazil began in the 1550s.

The Portuguese pressed on southwards down the coast of Africa in the 1480s. Diogo Cão encountered and established friendly relations with the Kingdom of Kongo in 1482. Kongo was converted to Christianity in 1495, its king taking the name of João I. Years later, Kongo allowed the Portuguese to colonize Luanda island, where a slave port was set up in 1575. It was the beginning of the colony that would become known as Angola. From 1580 to the 1820s, more than a million enslaved people from Angola were forcibly shipped to the New World, mainly to Brazil.

Both the Portuguese and the Kongolese fought against Ndongo, a kingdom that lay inland from Luanda, and which fiercely resisted Portuguese attempts to enslave its people. You can read about the story of Ndongo's Queen Nzinga here.

When Portuguese explorers reached East Africa in 1498, they came across the trading ports that already existed along the Swahili coast. With voyages led by Vasco da Gama and others, the Portuguese came to dominate the coast by 1515. Portuguese trading posts and forts, including Mozambique, Sofala, Mombasa and Kilwa, would now become regular ports of call on the new trade route to India and the east.

By the 1530s, Portuguese explorers had penetrated the interior region of southeastern Africa, seeking gold. They set up trading posts on the River Zambezi and established trading relations with the Kingdom of Mutapa in the 1560s. In 1629, Portugal gained full control of Mutapa in order to secure the gold trade for itself.

With the help of Omani Arabs, the Portuguese were expelled from the Swahili coast by 1729 and the region became part of the Sultanate of Oman. The Portuguese settlements on the southeast coast of Africa and along the River Zambezi eventually became a colony which now forms the Republic of Mozambique.