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. […]

Duarte Pacheco Pereira probably made several voyages to west Africa before accompanying Afonso de Albuquerque to the East in 1503. There he was involved in the defence of the factory of Cochin and in the first serious fighting between the Portuguese and the Indians of Calicut. He returned to Portugal in 1505 and appears to have busied himself with the manuscript of his book, mysteriously entitled Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis. This work provides the first comprehensive account of Portuguese explorations and activities in western Africa. It is largely a compendium of geographical information, but the author incorporates much historical detail and gives his reflections on the peoples of the region and their relations with the Portuguese. He abandoned the manuscript unfinished around 1506, although he himself lived until 1533. It was first published in 1892.

This extract shows how the reputation of Henry ‘the Navigator’ had developed in the forty years since his death. Duarte Pacheco does not share either the doubts expressed by many modern historians concerning Henry's role in the peopling of the islands and the discovery of the upper Guinea coast or twenty-first century reservations about the slave trade. It was the wealth brought to Portugal by these discoveries, including the trade in 3,500 slaves a year, which for him was the principal reason why Portugal should honour the prince and pray for his soul.

The Mbundu kingdoms to the south of the Kongo state were nominally subject to the king of Kongo, but had taken the opportunity of the presence of traders from São Tomé to assert their independence. Fear of the Kongo attacks, however, prompted the ruler of Ndongo (called the Ngola) to seek official Portuguese aid by offering to be baptized. A mission was sent in 1520, which included a Kongolese priest, and which remained in the country until 1526. Eventually, in 1560, a Portuguese embassy consisting of two Jesuit priests, two lay brothers and an ambassador, Paulo Dias de Novais, was sent. After making their way to Ndongo, Paulo Dias and the Jesuits were detained as hostages. It became clear that the intention of the Ngola was to use the hostages to obtain as much in the way of presents and trade goods as possible. Paulo Dias was eventually sent back to Portugal in 1565, but Father Gouveia, on whose letters these extracts are based, died a captive in Ndongo in 1575.

The Jesuits were anxious to obtain their own mission field in Africa, and 1560 was the year in which they sent Gonçalo da Silveira to start a mission on the coast of eastern Africa. The experience of Father Gouveia, who was being held hostage, and Silveira, who was murdered in 1561, convinced the Jesuits that conversion could not be achieved without conquest. […]

This account of the succession dispute that followed the death of the Kongo king, Dom Diogo, in 1561 shows how the Portuguese and the Christian faction in the capital sought to control the succession. The Portuguese priests had tried to insist that the kings observe monogamy and that the succession should be by primogeniture. This aroused the hostility of clans who would find themselves excluded from the succession if primogeniture were established. These naturally found themselves in opposition to the Christian religion and in support of the traditional pattern of multiple marriages (see Doc. 29). The fact that the Kongo Church remained subordinate to the bishop of São Tomé meant that the development of a truly indigenous church was blocked. The struggle to secure the supremacy of the Christian cult was thus inextricably caught up with the struggles of the Kongo ruling lineages over the succession.

This is typical of the rather plaintive letters written by Dom Afonso of Kongo to the kings of Portugal. Afonso felt increasingly isolated in his attempt to impose the Christian cult in Kongo and became ever more reliant on the support of the Portuguese Crown – support which was dependent on the continuation of the slave trade (see Doc. 36). The letter refers to the building of the church of Nossa Senhora da Vitória (so named to commemorate Afonso's victory over his rivals) on the site of the royal graves. This involved destroying the grove of trees that had previously protected the burial ground and had been the focus of the cult of the royal ancestors in the previous reign. The building of this church was an important step in consolidating Christianity as a royal burial cult. It seems that Afonso was making some attempt to apply diplomatic pressure by hinting that approaches might be made to the kings of Castile and France, although it is unlikely that he seriously considered seeking support from any quarter other than Portugal.

Cadamosto's trading voyage to Budomel's country, fifty miles beyond the Senegal river, took place in 1455. Budomel has been identified as the ruler or Damel of Cayor. The account that the author gives of his visit is one of the most remarkable early accounts of the meeting of Europeans and black Africans. In this encounter there was a high level of trust arising from the mutual advantage of the exchange of horses for slaves. Cadamosto, it appears, handed over his valuable trade goods ahead of any payment by the ruler. It is clear that European traders were already being treated as honoured strangers by the African rulers, who stood to gain so much from the trade. Cadamosto has an extraordinary curiosity about African society and how it functioned, and his account shows little if any trace of the medieval legends that had previously coloured the way Europeans viewed the equatorial regions. Particularly noteworthy is his understanding of the function of polygyny, the ruler moving round the villages of his wives who were able to support him and his entourage.