Portugal and the Curse of Cain: The Birth of the Transatlantic Slave “Trade”, 1421-1441

This article investigates the role of Portugal in the birth of the transatlantic slave trade. For a long time, most explanations of this traffic by American historians divorced the so-called “Old World” slave trade from the New World slave trade. This historiography blamed Christopher Columbus for the latter trade, while writing Portugal out of Atlantic history. Recent research, however, has shown that Portugal was the first country to claim the governance of the Atlantic Ocean and to trade in African slaves across the Atlantic. In an attempt to bring a much-needed African perspective to balance this Eurocentric debate, I question the notion of “trade” in the transatlantic slave trade. I suggest that this “trade” originated not in commerce, but in the Portuguese, pioneer role as slave raiders on the coast of Western Africa, a role spuriously justified by an invented Curse of Cain. The Pope confirmed this role with a bull granting Portugal exclusive rights to capture African slaves and trade them in Europe. This neglected original slave-raiding chapter is the precedent without which the transatlantic slave trade is dangerously misunderstood.