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1526-1532 (sources differ)Reputable source · 2 sourcesDebated

The Transatlantic Slave Trade Begins

Portugal starts shipping enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to its American colonies, opening a trade that would run for more than three centuries

On the timeline · around 1526-1532 (sources differ) · A Connected WorldConquest and CircumnavigationA Connected WorldThe Transatlantic Slave Trade Begins152015251530153515401545

Quick facts

First major transport (disputed)
1526 or 1532, to Portuguese Brazil
Preceded by
Attempted enslavement of Indigenous Caribbean peoples
Leading ports
Lisbon, Seville, Cadiz
Route
The Middle Passage

What happened

Portugal had already been trading enslaved Africans within Africa and to Europe and its Atlantic island colonies since the 1440s, decades before Columbus's voyages. Spanish colonizers first tried enslaving Native Americans in the Caribbean, including the Taino, but found the practice less sustainable as Indigenous populations collapsed under forced labor and disease. Attention turned to Africa instead. Sources differ on the exact date of the first large-scale shipment of enslaved Africans directly to Portugal's Brazilian colonies: the World History Encyclopedia dates it to 1526, while an EBSCO account places the start of Portuguese importation of African slaves into Brazil in 1532. Either way, Portuguese and Spanish ports, especially Lisbon, Seville, and Cadiz, handled the overwhelming majority of European slaving voyages in this early period, and within decades Brazil became a major destination for ships carrying enslaved people. Death rates aboard the ships that crossed the Atlantic, known as the Middle Passage, were high throughout the trade's three-century history.

Why it matters

This early shipment marks the start of a trade that would eventually carry more than 12 million enslaved Africans across the Atlantic over the next three centuries, becoming one of the largest forced migrations in history. It began directly out of the earlier failure and collapse of Indigenous forced labor in the Caribbean, one atrocity feeding into another.

How we know

The exact starting date for large-scale transport to Brazil is genuinely disputed between sources: the World History Encyclopedia gives 1526 while EBSCO's Research Starters entry on the trade's expansion gives 1532, both describing the same underlying shift away from Indigenous American slavery that preceded it.

Sources

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Part of a timelineThe Age of Exploration27 events · How Portuguese and Spanish voyages connected the world's oceans between 1415 and 1600, and what that connection cost the people already living thereView all →
The Transatlantic Slave Trade Begins · The Age of Exploration · SourcedStory