Interview with historian João Pedro Marques, who has just published Combates for Truth – Portugal and the Slaves (Guerra & Paz), a book that brings together chronicles published in several newspapers, including DN.
He states in his book that Portugal was not the greatest slave power, as is often repeated. What was it then?
In the western world it was the United States of America. At the time of the civil war, in the middle of the 19th century, the United States of America had about 4 million black slaves. Portuguese Brazil at the beginning of the 19th century would have just over 1 million and the Portuguese colonies in Africa and Asia would have at that time only a few tens of thousands. But it should be borne in mind that in the rest of the world there were potentates with many more slaves than the United States of America and even in Africa it is possible that in the 19th century the Caliphate of Sokoto, in the north of Nigeria, had close to 4 million slaves .
Slavery is associated with a phenomenon of oppression of white Europeans over black Africans, but before and after the transatlantic trade there were other logics, right?
Of course yes. It is a mistake to limit slavery to the European-African relationship. Slavery and human trafficking are very old practices, long before the Discoveries and European expansion to Africa and the Americas. Just think, for example, of the size and importance they had during the Roman Empire, where black slaves were, incidentally, relatively rare. It must also be said that after the end of the transatlantic trade and the abolition of slavery in the 19th century, other forms of human exploitation emerged, generally called forced labor, forms that unfortunately still exist in various parts of the world.
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