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Luanda

The Portuguese port and capital of Angola, whose merchants sent agents inland to buy captives.

Today: Luanda, Angola

How the Angola Trade Fed Cartagena

Alonso de Sandoval, On Restoring the Salvation of the Ethiopians (Seville, 1627; 2nd ed., Madrid, 1647), book 1, chapter 22 · first printed 1627; this text from the second edition, 1647 (events of about 1600–1620)

22.7a

Pero el ordinario modo, y trato desta tierra, en orden a rescatar las piezas de que hazen sus armaçones para sacarlas a otras partes, es bien que le aduirtamos, y es, que los vezinos, y moradores de Loanda tienen algunos negros, que llaman Pumberos, que vale cada vno mil pesos: estos se parten en compañia de otros, que llaman cargadores, lleuando a cuestas la hazienda para el rescate, la tierra adentro trecho de ochenta leguas, donde hallan vnas grandes ferias, y juntas, para rescatar en ellas muchos negros, a quienes llaman Genses, que quiere dezir mercaderes, que han venido de mas de docientas y trecientas leguas, con muchos negros de diferentes Reinos, para rescatarlos por varias mercaderias a los Pumberos,

But we should note the ordinary way the trade works in that land, how they buy the “pieces” that make up their cargoes to ship them elsewhere. The citizens and settlers of Luanda own certain Africans whom they call Pumberos, each of them worth a thousand pesos. These men set out with others, called carriers, who carry the trade goods on their backs eighty leagues inland. There they find great fairs and gatherings where they can buy many Africans. The sellers are Africans called Genses, which means merchants, who have come from more than two or three hundred leagues away with many captives from different kingdoms. They trade them to the Pumberos for all kinds of goods.