Bight of Benin
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The Bight of Benin, or Bay of Benin, is a bight in the Gulf of Guinea area on the western African coast.
The coast of Benin with Cotonou port in the background
Atlantic slave trade
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The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people to the Americas. This trade was operated by slave ships from both Europe a
Bight of Benin
…around.) It extends eastward for about 640 kilometres (400 mi) from Cape St. Paul to the Nun outlet of the Niger River. Historical associations with the Atlantic slave trade led to the region becoming known as the Slave Coast. As in many other regions across Africa, powerful indigenous kingdoms along the Bight of Benin…
Reproduction of a handbill advertising a slave auction in Charleston, British Province of South Carolina, in 1769
Portuguese mariners used caravel ships and traveled south along the West African coast and colonised Cape Verde in 1462.
Noah curses Ham by Gustave Doré – the curse of Ham was used as a justification to enslave Africans.
Elmina Castle in the Guinea coast, present-day Ghana, was built in 1482 by Portuguese traders. Its primary purpose was trading in gold, but when the outward slave trade from the Gold Coast began, it was used in the slave trade. The Gold Coast was a late entrant to the outward slave trade (though there was an inward trade to supply workers in the gold mines).