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Sails and Shadows
How the Portuguese Opened the Atlantic and Launched the Slave Trade
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2026
About this book
Kirkus Best Book of 2025
How the early Portuguese Empire facilitated the modern slave trade.
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 groundbreaking new knowledge of weather patterns and ocean currents, Portuguese mariners set the tone for the Age of Exploration. But their navigational achievements had horrific consequences for the people of western Africa: subjection to the slave trade.
Patricia Seed examines the historical and climatic odds that Portuguese seafarers overcame to be the first Europeans to tame the Atlantic. Using insights from fields ranging from oceanography to ethnography, she recounts how the Portuguese rapidly innovated and achieved profound new understandings of the ocean and sailing. At the same time, she foregrounds the reality that these innovations enabled them to inflict unimaginable cruelty as, against sometimes violent resistance, they forged what became their spoils of empire: the lucrative trade in human cargo that enslaved millions across Africa and beyond. Sails and Shadows is a history of incredible ingenuity outweighed and overshadowed by the horrors it wrought.
How the early Portuguese Empire facilitated the modern slave trade.
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 groundbreaking new knowledge of weather patterns and ocean currents, Portuguese mariners set the tone for the Age of Exploration. But their navigational achievements had horrific consequences for the people of western Africa: subjection to the slave trade.
Patricia Seed examines the historical and climatic odds that Portuguese seafarers overcame to be the first Europeans to tame the Atlantic. Using insights from fields ranging from oceanography to ethnography, she recounts how the Portuguese rapidly innovated and achieved profound new understandings of the ocean and sailing. At the same time, she foregrounds the reality that these innovations enabled them to inflict unimaginable cruelty as, against sometimes violent resistance, they forged what became their spoils of empire: the lucrative trade in human cargo that enslaved millions across Africa and beyond. Sails and Shadows is a history of incredible ingenuity outweighed and overshadowed by the horrors it wrought.
Author / Editor information
Contributor: Patricia Seed
Patricia Seed is Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. She is the award-winning author of To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico; American Pentimento: The Invention of Indians and the Pursuit of Riches; and Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1492–1640.
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Frontmatter
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Contents
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List of Illustrations
vii -
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Introduction
1 -
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1 Nature Intervenes
4 -
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2 Around the Bulge
10 -
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3 From Mistaken Expectations to Conquests
17 -
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4 How Trading Replaced Conquest
37 -
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5 Language
52 -
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6 A Painted Ship upon a Painted Ocean
63 -
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7 Gold at Last
73 -
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8 A Star to Steer Her By
85 -
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9 The Deepest River and the Oldest Desert
94 -
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10 A First Glimpse of the Indian Ocean
108 -
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11 Crisscrossing the Atlantic
117 -
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12 Encounters Along the African Coast and in India
128 -
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13 A Dreadful Mistake
146 -
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14 The Salty Tears of the Atlantic
153 -
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Notes
159 -
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Bibliography
219 -
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Index
239
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
January 20, 2026
eBook ISBN:
9780520415881
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
256
eBook ISBN:
9780520415881
Keywords for this book
Portugal; Portuguese empire; slave trade; Portugal history; Age of Exploration; ocean travel; ship technology; navigation; sea exploration; empire building; weather knowledge; sailing skills; African opposition; slave routes; early navigation; colonizing voyages; sea power; technology and empire; ocean history
