Eastern Atlantic High Sea

The waters west of Luanda form part of the tropical South Atlantic, opening from the Angolan coast toward the Americas. By the sixteenth century, ships trading between the coast and São Tomé had begun to gather in Luanda Bay. Later voyages carried enslaved Africans from this shore to Brazil and Spanish America. For the captives forced aboard, the open water beyond the coast marked the beginning of a long and perilous Atlantic crossing.