Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps
- Preface
- Portuguese possessions in Morocco
- The north-east Atlantic
- Senegambia region
- Upper Guinea
- Sierra Leone region
- Gulf of Guinea
- Kongo and Angola
- Introduction
- 1 The Portuguese in Morocco
- 2 The early voyages to west africa
- 3 The Atlantic Islands
- 4 The Upper Guinea Coast and Sierra Leone
- 5 Elmina and Benin
- 6 Discovery of the Kingdom of Kongo
- 7 Angola, Paulo Dias and the founding of Luanda
- 8 The slave trade
- 9 Conflict in the kingdom of Kongo in the 1560s
- 10 Christianity in the Kongo
- 11 The Angolan wars
- 12 People and places
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Elmina and Benin
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps
- Preface
- Portuguese possessions in Morocco
- The north-east Atlantic
- Senegambia region
- Upper Guinea
- Sierra Leone region
- Gulf of Guinea
- Kongo and Angola
- Introduction
- 1 The Portuguese in Morocco
- 2 The early voyages to west africa
- 3 The Atlantic Islands
- 4 The Upper Guinea Coast and Sierra Leone
- 5 Elmina and Benin
- 6 Discovery of the Kingdom of Kongo
- 7 Angola, Paulo Dias and the founding of Luanda
- 8 The slave trade
- 9 Conflict in the kingdom of Kongo in the 1560s
- 10 Christianity in the Kongo
- 11 The Angolan wars
- 12 People and places
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CASTLE AND CITY OF SÃO JORGE DA MINA, 1482
From Rui de Pina, Crónica de El-Rey D.João II, edited by Alberto Martins de Carvalho, Atlântida (Coimbra, 1950), pp. 7–13.
Translated by Malyn Newitt.
In the sixty years following the capture of Ceuta in 1415, the Portuguese established three more fortresses in Morocco and a fortified factory at Arguim on the coast of modern Mauretania. The fortified towns in Morocco were originally intended to be bases from which to undertake the conquest of Morocco. However, as a result of the war with Castile (1474–79), these plans were largely abandoned and the coastal forts became centres of commerce and cultural interaction with the local populations (see Doc. 3). The decision taken in 1481 to build a fortified trading factory at Elmina on the coast of modern Ghana was not, therefore, a radically new idea. It was the king's intention to make the gold trade an exclusive royal monopoly, which would be administered thousands of miles from Lisbon, that made this a major new departure in Portuguese policy and anticipated developments in the Indian Ocean in the sixteenth century.
Rui de Pina was appointed the official royal chronicler in 1490. His reputation has never stood high in comparison with his predecessors Fernão Lopes and Gomes Eanes de Zurara or with João de Barros, but he was as assiduous a recorder of Portuguese enterprise in Africa as Zurara had been. Like his predecessors, he wanted his narrative to bestow legitimacy on the actions of the king, and the narrative of the building of Elmina is a good example of his style. […]
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- Information
- The Portuguese in West Africa, 1415–1670A Documentary History, pp. 90 - 99Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010