1375-1620: For All the Gold in the World

At the end of the Middle Ages, Europe opened up to the world and discovered that it was at the margins of the main area wealth generation on the planet: Africa. The Portuguese Conquistadores were the first to set out to conquer Africa. They went to get gold, and came back with hundreds of thousands of captives to sell in Europe. Between the African coasts, Brazil and their trading posts, the Portuguese set up the first colonies entirely populated by slaves. Off the coast of Gabon, the island of São Tomé became the testing ground for the most profitable exploitation system ever to exist: the sugar plantation…