Lagos

Lagos in the Algarve was a port facing the routes toward the Atlantic coast of Africa. In the fifteenth century it became a departure and arrival point for Portuguese voyages along that coast. In 1444 a group of enslaved Africans was brought to Lagos and sold there, giving the town a direct place in the early development of Portuguese maritime slave trading.

The port expanded during the sixteenth century, and new walls were built around the growing town. Its maritime importance also made Lagos a centre of royal activity in the Algarve. This urban development suffered a major break in 1755, when the earthquake and the tsunami that followed destroyed much of the town. The surviving historical landscape consequently joins memories of oceanic voyages and the enslavement of Africans with fortifications and the effects of a destructive coastal disaster.