Atlantic interactions between Salvador and Porto Novo (Costa da Mina) in the eighteenth century

Abstract

The article discusses the Atlantic dinamycs between Salvador of Bahia and Porto Novo in eighteenth-century bight of Benin. In spite of the focus on the Bahian trade at Ouidah, the eastern ports of trade – the so-called “portos de baixo” (lower ports) – represented important points of deportation for Africans to the Americas. The article will also explore the dinamycs between Porto Novo and Dahomey, the major enslaving kingdom of the bight of the Benin in the eighteenth century, who claimed the “monopoly” over the trade in the region. The slave trade’s political game involved local African polities, slave traders of several European powers and colonial authorities. To look at the interactions between these two regions in the Atlantic will shed light upon the different phases of the Atlantic commerce in the bight of Benin during the eighteenth century.