The foundations of Afro-European relations were laid in the first one hundred or so years of contact, the period from the 1440s to at least the 1550s during which Portuguese activities in Guinea proceeded without grossly damaging interference from other European powers. From 1482 up to the final disaster of capture by the Dutch in 1637, the fort of Sáo Jorge da Mina was the principal base for official Portuguese activities, ‘Mina’ being the conduit for the most extensive sea-export of gold. Despite its economic value to the crown, and its international status as the symbol of the Portuguese claim to sovereignty over Guinea and monopoly of the sea-export trade of western Africa, the fort had probably less lasting influence on early Afro-European relations than had the less heralded, and even more poorly recorded, activities of private Portuguese traders in western Guinea. Nevertheless, the history of the fort, when Portuguese, deserves close attention, and these two volumes by Joseph Bato'ora Ballong-wen-Mewuda represent a brave attempt to provide an analytical account.