Introduction
- Opening Point: Many people falsely believe that slavery began because African people sold other Africans to Europeans and Arabs. This is a misconception.
- Key Assertion: Slavery, particularly the transatlantic slave trade, didn’t start that way. It was initiated by specific actions involving Europeans and endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church.
1. Who Was Gonçalvez?
- Name to Remember: A key figure in the origins of the transatlantic slave trade was a Portuguese sailor named Antão Gonçalves.
- Historical Context: Gonçalves was a sailor from Portugal who traveled to the West Coast of Africa in the early 1400s.
- Significant Action: When Gonçalves arrived in Africa, he found that Arabs already had a slave trade established, which involved African peoples.
- Key Event: Rather than initiating something new, Gonçalves took some of the enslaved Africans and brought them back to Portugal, distributing them among the elite of Portuguese society.
2. Role of the Roman Catholic Church
- Papal Involvement: In 1455, Pope Nicholas V issued a significant papal bull, a type of decree. This bull sanctioned and encouraged the enslavement of African peoples by Christian nations.
- Consequences of the Papal Bull: The papal endorsement meant that countries like Portugal, Spain, Great Britain, and France felt justified in engaging in the slave trade, seeing it as morally and religiously permissible.
3. Dispelling Myths About African Involvement
- Common Myth: Many believe that the transatlantic slave trade was driven primarily by Africans selling other Africans.
- Reality: While African societies were involved in various forms of slavery before European involvement, the transatlantic slave trade was fundamentally a European-driven enterprise, initiated by figures like Gonçalves and institutionalized by European powers with the approval of the Catholic Church.
4. Conclusion
- Closing Thoughts: The transatlantic slave trade began not simply because of internal African practices but because of European intervention and religious endorsement. Figures like Gonçalves and Pope Nicholas V played pivotal roles in setting this tragic system in motion.