Exploration of the African Coast.--Thus equipped and ably manned, the little fleets began the exploration of the African coast, cautiously feeling their way southward and ever returning with reports of progress made. Year after year this work went on. In 1419 the Madeira Islands were rediscovered and colonized by Portuguese settlers. The growing of sugarcane was begun, and vines were brought from Burgundy and planted there. The wine of the Madeiras has been famous to this day. Then were discovered the Canaries and in 1444 the Azores. The southward exploration of the coast of the mainland steadily continued until in 1445 the Portuguese reached the mouth of the Senegal River. Up to this point the African shore had not yielded much of interest to the Portuguese explorer or trader. Below Morocco the great Sahara Desert reaches to the sea and renders barren the coast for hundreds of miles.
South of the mouth of the Senegal and comprising the whole Guinea coast, Africa is tropical, well watered, and populous. This is the home of the true African Negro. Here, for almost the first time, since the beginning of the Middle Ages, Christian Europe came in contact with a race of ruder culture and different color than its own. This coast was found to be worth exploiting; for it yielded, besides various desirable resinous gums, three articles which have distinguished the exploitation of Africa, namely, gold, ivory, and slaves.
Beginning of Negro Slavery in Europe.--At this point begins the horrible and revolting story of European Negro slavery. The ancient world had practiced this ownership of human chattels, and the Roman Empire had declined under a burden of half the population sunk in bondage. To the enormous detriment and suffering of mankind, Mohammed had tolerated the institution, and slavery is permitted by the Koran. But it is the glory of the mediæval church that it abolished human slavery from Christian Europe. However dreary and unjust feudalism may have been, it knew nothing of that institution which degrades men and women to the level of cattle and remorselessly sells the husband from his family, the mother from her child.
Slaves in Portugal.--The arrival of the Portuguese upon the coast of Guinea now revived not the bondage of one white man to another, but that of the black to the white. The first slaves carried to Portugal were regarded simply as objects of peculiar interest, captives to represent to the court the population of those shores which had been added to the Portuguese dominion. But southern Portugal, from which the Moors had been expelled, had suffered from a lack of laborers, and it was found profitable to introduce Negroes to work these fields.