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Mercado de Escravos (Slave Market Museum)
Housed in a rebuilt customs building at Praça Infante Dom Henrique, the Mercado de Escravos (Slave Market Museum) reopened in 2016 on the site widely believed to be Europe's first market for the sale of enslaved Africans, established around 1444 under the sponsorship of Prince Henry the Navigator. The museum's two floors document the arrival of the first captives from West Africa, the mechanics of the market itself, and the broader history of slavery in the Algarve through 1761. An excavated medieval waste pit nearby was found in 2009 to contain the remains of enslaved individuals discarded without ceremony.
Counter-Narrative
The myth this site refutes: that the African American struggle was isolated. It resonated from Paris to Lagos to Port-au-Prince.
Descendant Voice
This site is actively engaged with descendants of those enslaved here.
Enslaved Focus Exhibit
Ground-floor and upper-floor exhibits include period engravings, maps, texts, models, and artifacts such as shackles; interpretive panels (Portuguese and English) cover baptism and integration of enslaved people into European society and their later transport to Brazil.
Associated Events
Sources
Before & After This Era
← Before · Colonial America
→ After · Early Republic
Sites in Conversation
"Shared theme: Slavery & International Diaspora Connections"
"Shared theme: Slavery & International Diaspora Connections"
"Shared theme: Slavery & International Diaspora Connections"