When the first slaves from West Africa were taken to Portugal, in August 1444, it marked a new phase in a trade as old as recorded history.
The entrepreneur responsible, the King of Portugal's brother, Henry the Navigator, could not have foreseen that he was opening a new chapter of the trade that would span more than four centuries, change Africa forever and cause misery to millions of innocent people.
Hugh Thomas is one of Britain's most celebrated historians. His Spanish Civil War is the definitive work on that bloody conflict and this book will be seen as having equal authority in its exhaustive study of its subject. The Slave Trade is made all the more powerful by Thomas' decision to avoid emotive rhetoric and instead present the damning and distasteful facts.
In 1444 Henry's boats were not looking for slaves, but for gold. When they failed to find any, they decided to kidnap more than 200 locals and sell them back home. Finding that such slaves were in demand, they returned and persuaded some African kings to start selling captives taken in internecine wars.
For many rich Europeans it became fashionable to have a black slave in the household. However, with Columbus' discovery of the New World in 1492, the Atlantic trade was raised to a new level. He was followed by Spanish and Portuguese colonisers. In January, 1511, Ferdinand II, King of Aragon, gave permission for 50 West African slaves to be sent to Hispaniola in the Caribbean. They were the first to be shipped to the Americas. He had been persuaded by a report declaring that 'one black slave was equal to that of four Indians'. The indigenous population simply could not stand the hard work and heat in the gold mines. Africans took longer to die.
Demand grew throughout the European nations' American colonies, as vast plantations were established growing coffee, cotton and most important of all, sugar.
The Portuguese and Spanish dominated the trade until the early 18th century, when British ships took centre stage. The Dutch and French also became heavily involved.