Endpoint of a centuries-long enforced odyssey, the region of the Bahian Recôncavo received more documented enslaved human beings than any other port-of-call throughout the entire history of mankind.
This was until 1831, when the transport of enslaved Africans to Brazil was made illegal. Between 1831 and the 1850s the number of captives taken to Brazil, primarily to Minas Gerais, can only be estimated.
Those estimates are for clandestine landing points spread up and down the coast, and on islands, over a wide geographical area.
Number of Embarked/Disembarked Enslaved at Selected Landings from 1514 to 1866:
Bahia, port unspecified *
Embarked: 1,339,627
Disembarked: 1,206,934
* “Bahia” above is the archaically used name for the city of Salvador. These are the numbers for Salvador and the Recôncavo.
The numbers below are for Bahia including Taipu and Porto Seguro:
Bahia
Embarked: 1,347,121
Disembarked: 1,213,691
Rio de Janeiro
Embarked: 1,216,113
Disembarked: 1,099,908
Brazil
Embarked: 3,515,638
Disembarked: 3,165,307
Mainland North America
Embarked: 359,628
Disembarked: 301,740
Our source is the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database centered at Emory University and available online at http://slavevoyages.org/
Up top is “Slave Ship” by J. M. W. Turner, painted in 1840.