Episode 2: Gold, Sugar and Slavery | How the TransAtlantic Slave Trade Began | Slavery Routes

The history of slavery did not begin in the cotton fields. Long before the transatlantic slave trade reached its full scale, Africa was already at the center of expanding networks of conquest, commerce, and slavery.

Episode 2: For All the Gold in the World begins at the end of the Middle Ages, when Europe started looking beyond its borders and realized that one of the world’s greatest sources of wealth lay in Africa.

Driven by the search for gold, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to sail along the African coast. Under the impulse of Henry the Navigator, they opened new maritime routes, established trading posts, and soon transformed their quest for African gold into a vast traffic in human beings.

From Lisbon to the Kingdom of Kongo, from Elmina to São Tomé, and eventually to Brazil, the Portuguese created the foundations of a new Atlantic system. Off the coast of Gabon, the island of São Tomé became a brutal laboratory for one of the most profitable exploitation models in history: the sugar plantation.

Through archives, historical analysis, and powerful storytelling, this second episode of Slavery Routes reveals how the pursuit of gold gave birth to a new slave economy — one that would reshape Africa, Europe, and the Americas for centuries.

-------

Chapters
▷ 00:00 - Introduction: How Slavery Helped Build Powerful Empires
▷ 01:50 - Portugal, Henry the Navigator, and the Search for African Gold
▷ 05:35 - One Million Africans Deported by European Slave Traders
▷ 09:00 - Africans in Lisbon: Segregation, Forced Labor, and “Impure” Professions
▷ 11:52 - 1453: The Fall of Eastern Trade Routes and Europe’s Atlantic Ambition
▷ 15:10 - European Kingdoms Invest in the Atlantic Expansion
▷ 17:15 - The Portuguese in the Kingdom of Kongo: Trade, Diplomacy, and Slavery
▷ 21:40 - The First Triangular Trade: São Tomé, Kongo, and Elmina
▷ 23:40 - São Tomé: Mass Deportation and the Birth of the Sugar Plantation
▷ 27:35 - The Gold Rush and Portuguese Expansion Toward Brazil
▷ 28:10 - 1516: The First African Slaves Arrive on the Brazilian Coast
▷ 31:44 - The Forgotten Memory of Black Slaves and Black Citizens in Lisbon
▷ 35:54 - Luanda and the Kingdom of Kongo: Epicenter of the Slave Trade to the Americas
▷ 38:00 - Angola and the Descendants of Survivors of the Slave Trade
▷ 40:00 - São Tomé: Fugitive Slaves, Mocambos, and Resistance
▷ 42:34 - Mixed-Race Elites and the Hierarchical Society of São Tomé
▷ 44:30 - Greed, Power, and the Decline of the Kingdom of Kongo
▷ 48:10 - Epilogue: Slave Revolts and the Fall of the São Tomé Experiment
▷ 51:20 - Credits

#slaveryroutes #historydocumentary #africanhistory #slaveryhistory #atlanticslavetrade #portugueseempire #kingdomofkongo #saotome #brazilhistory #fulldocumentary #historydocumentary #WocomoHISTORY
-------
Subscribe to the channel: https://goo.gl/4bVtZk
Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wocomo/
-------

Original title: Slavery Routes: 1375-1620: For All the Gold of the World
Directed by: Daniel Cattier, Juan Gélas, Fanny Glissant
Produced by: Compagnie des Phares et Balises, ARTE France
In co-production with: Kwassa Films, RTBF Télévision Belge, Lx Filmes, RTP, INRAP

© 2018, licensed by Incognita Distribution

-------
Documentaries about politics, society and science produced by leading studios around the world. Our goal is to be a reliable source of high-quality information and investigative journalism for a better understanding of relationships, backgrounds and future developments.

Check out our other channels to watch high quality documentaries:
▷ wocomoHUMANITY: https://www.youtube.com/wocomoHUMANITY
▷ wocomoWILDLIFE: https://www.youtube.com/wocomoWILDLIFE
▷ wocomoHISTORY: https://www.youtube.com/wocomoHISTORY
▷ wocomoTRAVEL: https://www.youtube.com/wocomoTRAVEL
▷ wocomoCOOK: https://www.youtube.com/wocomoCOOK

Wocomo DOCS is part of the Wocomo channel network by NIKITA VENTURES. Wocomo - wonderful content in motion.