Canhoca Coast

South of Benguela, the Angolan coast meets the Atlantic below a dry coastal plain and the rising country of the interior. The nearby port of Benguela was founded by the Portuguese in 1617, on a bay south of the Catumbela River. Its merchants sought access to the populous highlands beyond the shore, and the port became an outlet for the Atlantic slave trade. Ships carried captives from this coast across the ocean, particularly as trade expanded in the eighteenth century.