Sails and shadows how the Portuguese opened the Atlantic and launched the slave trade Patricia Seed

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Seed, Patricia, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slave trade--Africa, West--History.

Slave trade.

Navigation--Technological innovations--Portugal--History.

Navigation.

Navigation--Atlantic Ocean--History.

Seafaring life--Portugal--History.

Seafaring life.

Portugal--History--Period of discoveries, 1385-1580.

Portugal.

Navigation--History.

Seafaring life--History.

Slave trade--History.

Atlantic Ocean.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Oakland, California University of California Press [2026]

Summary:

"The Portuguese conquered the challenges of sailing the unforgiving Atlantic Ocean, extending their colonial empire along Africa's western shores. With their dedication to developing new sailing techniques and a groundbreaking new understanding of weather patterns and ocean currents, the Portuguese set the tone for the Age of Exploration. But their navigational achievements had horrific consequences for the people of western Africa: subjugation to the slave trade. Patricia Seed examines the historical and climatic odds that Portuguese seafarers had to overcome to be the first Europeans to tame the Atlantic. Using scientific tools from fields ranging from oceanography to ethnography, she recounts how the Portuguese rapidly innovated and developed profound new understandings of the ocean and sailing. At the same time, she foregrounds the reality that these same innovations enabled them to inflict unimaginable cruelty as, against sometimes violent resistance, they forged what became their spoils of empire: the historic trade in human cargo that enslaved millions across Africa and beyond. Sails and Shadows is a history of incredible innovation outweighed and overshadowed by the horrors it wrought"-- Provided by publisher

Contents:

Nature intervenes

Around the Bulge : Bojador, 1434

From mistaken expectations to conquest : the Sahara, 1434-1444

How trading replaced conquest, 1444-1460

Language : how slave interpreters established trade

A Painted ship upon a Painted Ocean, 1460-1470

Gold at Last : the Route to Mina, 1470-1480

A Star to steer her by

The deepest river and the oldest desert, 1480-1486

A first glimpse of the Indian Ocean, 1486-1488

Crisscrossing the Atlantic, 1497

Encounters along the African Coast and in India

A dreadful mistake : the return from India

The salty tears of the Atlantic

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed

Other Format:

Print version Seed, Patricia. Sails and shadows

Print version:

ISBN:

0520415884

9780520415881

OCLC:

1528573887

Publisher Number:

CIPO000317105

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license