Slave trade: "Middle Passage" slave ship

Anger following George Floyd’s death at the hands of police in the United States has prompted a new look at the slave trade between Africa and the European colonies in the Americas.

The enslavement of Africans by Europeans began in the late 15th century. Between 1441 and 1521 as many as 156,000 African slaves arrived in the Iberian Peninsula -- Portugal and Spain.

Initially, the Catholic church endorsed African slavery. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued a papal bull that granted King Afonso V of Portugal the right to reduce to “perpetual slavery” all “infidels and enemies of Christ.” In 1454, a second bull granted Portugal the power to conquer and enslave people along the coast of West Africa. These papal bulls signalled to the rest of Christian Europe that the enslavement of sub-Saharan Africans was acceptable. The trade continued until the 19th century, contributing substantially to the wealth and development of Europe.

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