For centuries, it has been held that the ideas and movement for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade came from western abolitionists. No input from Africans has been acknowledged.
As a professor of African and Atlantic history, I challenge this notion in a book titled Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Seventeenth Century. The book is based on new material found in Portuguese, Spanish and Vatican archives. Its key argument is that the ideas and movement for ending transatlantic slavery began largely among Africans in the Portuguese empire in the 17th century. And not, as most accounts would have it, as a European idea in the 18th century.
The book is based on two decades of research into abolition, universal freedom and justice. In it, I explore the role played by Angolan prince Lourenço da Silva Mendonça. He became a central figure in championing the abolition of slavery after he was exiled in 1671 to Brazil and then Portugal.
