West Africa was of such import that it was referred to as the “New World” decades before the discovery of the Americas, and tapping the wealth of this region was so vital to Lisbon that it considered Black Africa to be the Portuguese Main, in much the same way the Spanish would come to regard the American mainland. And lest one imagine this to be an obscure detail, Portugal, as we will shortly see, waged the first naval battles in history fought between European powers outside of that continent’s own waters off West Africa in order to retain preeminence over its rivals there.
