Slavery in Portugal existed since before the country's formation. During the pre-independence period, inhabitants of the current Portuguese territory were often enslaved and they enslaved others. After independence, during the existence of the Kingdom of Portugal, the country played a leading role in the Atlantic slave trade, which involved the mass trade and transportation of slaves from Africa and other parts of the world to the Americas. The import of black slaves was banned in European Portugal in 1761 by the Marquis of Pombal, and at the same time, the trade of black slaves to Brazil was encouraged, with the support and direct involvement of the Marquis. Slavery in Portugal was only abolished in 1869, but with the banning of the trade itself happening in 1836-1842.
The Atlantic slave trade began circa 1336 or 1341, when Portuguese traders brought the first Canarian slaves to Europe. In 1526, Portuguese mariners carried the first shipload of African slaves to Brazil in the Americas, establishing the triangular Atlantic slave trade.
History Ancient era
Slavery was a major economic and social institution in Europe during the classical era and a great deal is known about the ancient Greeks and Romans in relation to the topic. Rome added Portugal to its empire (2nd century BC), the latter a province of Lusitania at the time. The details of slavery in ancient Roman Lusitania are not well-known; however, there were several forms of slavery, including enslaved miners and domestic servants.
Visigothic and Suebi kingdoms The Visigoths and the Suebi (Germanic tribes), of the 5th century AD, seized control of the Iberian Peninsula as the Roman Empire fell. At the time, Portugal did not exist as a separate kingdom, but was primarily a part of the Visigothic Iberian kingdom (the Visigothic ruling class lived apart and heavily taxed the native population). However, during this period, a gradual transition to feudalism and serfdom was occurring throughout Europe.
Islamic Iberia
After the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the 8th century, in which Moors from North Africa crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and defeated the Visigothic rulers of Iberia, the territory of both modern-day Portugal and Spain fell under Islamic control. The pattern of slavery and serfdom in the Iberian Peninsula differs from the rest of Western Europe due to the Islamic conquest. They established Moorish kingdoms in Iberia, including the area that is occupied by modern Portugal. Islamic Ibera became known as al-Andalus.
Al-Andalus was described in the Muslim world as the "land of jihad" or dar al-harb, a religious border land in a state of constant war with the infidels (kafir), which by Islamic Law was a legitimate zone for enslavement, and slaves were termed as coming from three different zones in Christian Iberia: Galicians from the northwest, Basques or Vascones from the central north, and Franks from the northeast and France.Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History. (2017). Storbritannien: Oxford University Press. p. 126
Trade ties between the Moorish kingdoms and the North African Moorish state led to a greater flow of trade within those geographical areas. In addition, the Moors engaged sections of Spaniards and Portuguese Christians in slave labor. The Moors used ethnic European slaves: 1/12 of Iberian population were slave Europeans, less than 1% of Iberia were Moors and more than 99% were native Iberians. Periodic Arab and Moorish raiding expeditions were sent from Islamic Iberia to ravage the remaining Christian Iberian kingdoms, bringing back stolen goods and slaves.
The medieval Iberian Peninsula was the scene of episodic warfare among Muslims and Christians during the reconquista. Periodic raiding expeditions were sent from Al-Andalus to ravage the Christian Iberian kingdoms, bringing back booty and people. For example, in a raid on Lisbon in 1189 the Almohad caliph Yaqub al-Mansur took 3,000 female and child captives, and his governor of Córdoba took 3,000 Christian slaves in a subsequent attack upon Silves in 1191. Brodman, J. (1986). Ransoming Captives in Crusader Spain: The Order of Merced on the Christian-Islamic Frontier. USA: University of Pennsylvania Press. In the Almohad raid to Evora in Portugal in 1181–82, 400 women were taken captives and put for sale in the slave market of Seville. Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History. (2017). Storbritannien: Oxford University Press. p. 139 The governor of Córdoba, in a subsequent attack upon Silves, held 3,000 Christian slaves in 1191. In addition, the Christian Iberians who lived within Arab and Moorish-ruled territories were subject to specific laws and taxes for state protection.
Reconquista
Muslim Moors who converted to Christianity, known as Moriscos, were enslaved by the Portuguese during the Reconquista; 9.3 per cent of slaves in southern Portugal were Moors and many Moors were enslaved in 16th-century Portugal. It has been documented that other slaves were treated better than Moriscos, the slaves were less than 1% of population.
After the Reconquista period, Moorish slaves began to outnumber Slavic slaves in both importance and numbers in Portugal.
Age of Discovery
Background Origins of slavery in the Iberian peninsula The prolonged conflicts between Moors and Christians on the Iberian Peninsula, driven by struggles for survival, laid the groundwork for the emergence of slavery as a byproduct of relentless violence.Jesuits and the Problem of Slavery in Early Modern Japan, Rômulo da Silva Ehalt, 2017. p. 70, "In the Iberian Peninsula, the relation of just war to slavery was a process mediated by the constant history of violent clashes during the Reconquista. The doctrine of just war became a necessary political tool for the maintenance of the war against Muslims. Henrique Quinta-Nova wrote that the doctrine represented not only an opposition against Islamic values, but also a great ethic justification for the continuous war that absorbed political dynamics199." This historical context set the stage for Portugal's slave trade, which began out of economic and military necessities and expanded gradually.Jesuits and the Problem of Slavery in Early Modern Japan, Rômulo da Silva Ehalt, 2017. pp.132-133, "Slave trading had very real consequences in terms of military power and capability – more slaves meant more manpower in conflicts. Given the long history up to the 1560s of battles between Muslims and Christians in Asia, unsurprisingly the clergymen at the Council were also concerned about the issue of military power derived from the slave trade. Reaching beyond slave trading networks which nodes ended in Portuguese ports, prelates wished to use the maritime jurisdiction exerted by the Portuguese crown to curtail slave traders who fed markets in adversary areas, namely Muslim ports. Effectively, this decree requests a change of policies in relation to foreign ships navigating in Portuguese-controlled waters, requiring that slaves should not be sent to Muslim areas. " By the early 15th century, southern Portugal faced severe labor shortages in its sugarcane fields, causing escalating labor costs and prompting complaints from landowners as farmers abandoned the land. This economic strain led to the arrival of the first ship carrying captives from the Sahara coast in 1441, marking the integration of Moorish slaves as an essential labor force in Portuguese agriculture and spurring the development of slavery laws.Jesuits and the Problem of Slavery in Early Modern Japan, Rômulo da Silva Ehalt, 2017. pp. 76-77, "In the Guimarães Courts, held in 1401, D. João listens to farmers who complain that, because of labor shortage, they could lose their vineyards and crops, and those few servants they already had were constantly lured by others to leave their masters in exchange for better wages...By the turn of the century, the crisis regarding labor and the need of manpower for sugarcane plantations in Southern Portugal became a factor behind the first period of Portuguese maritime expansion. 219 Since the beginning of the 1400s, sugar had become an important piece of the regional economy, and since the 1440s the Atlantic islands were also included in this industry. Slavery was then the best alternative to supply these crops with labor, thus in 1441 the first ship with captives from the Saharan seacoast arrived.220 With Muslim captives from the wars in Africa arriving in Portugal, the legislation started."
Slavery in Islamic military campaigns Centuries earlier, during the 11th to 13th centuries, the Almoravid and Almohad invasions of Iberia introduced another dimension to slavery, with non-Islamized West African Black slaves imported as soldiers and organized into military units.Blumenthal D. Slavery in Medieval Iberia. In: Perry C, Eltis D, Engerman SL, Richardson D, eds. The Cambridge World History of Slavery. The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Cambridge University Press; 2021, p. 515, "But as we move into the late eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries (the Almoravid and Almohad periods), we see a notable increase in the number of slaves from the "Sudan" or non-Islamized regions of sub-Saharan West Africa being imported into the Muslim-controlled territories in the Iberian Peninsula. Many of these sub-Saharan West African slaves seem to have been employed as slave soldiers and formed separate African infantry units." This practice was underpinned by figures like Islamic scholar Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), who dehumanized Black slaves by likening them to animals, providing a racial justification for their enslavement.Blumenthal D. Slavery in Medieval Iberia. In: Perry C, Eltis D, Engerman SL, Richardson D, eds. The Cambridge World History of Slavery. The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Cambridge University Press; 2021, p. 516, "In his fourteenth-century work, the Muqaddimah, the North African Berber historian, Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), offered an even more explicitly "racial" justification for the practice, affirming that "the Negro nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery because [Negroes] have little [that is essentially] human and have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated."13" Similarly, Islamic states highly valued Christian slaves as prized spoils of war, often noting that those redeemed through ransom returned profoundly altered, stripped of individuality and autonomy.Jesuits and the Problem of Slavery in Early Modern Japan, Rômulo da Silva Ehalt, 2017. p. 71, "José Luis Cortés Lopez writes: [In Spain, the Muslim presence had originated a series of violent clashes with Christian kingdoms, where the figure of the 'captive' as the most appreciated spoil by them. This new character by the fact of having been captured in a warlike situation, or considered as such, lose all his individuality and autonomy, thus becoming property of who captured him, so that if he wished he could give him back his freedom by freewill or via a ransom. The captive was, then, strange or foreign person reduced to a state of submission by violent acts, but in no way they were being subjected 'by nature' to perpetual slavery, as Aristotle wished to make of some members of society]"
Economic pressures and the rise of the slave trade