Costa da Mina

After the Dutch victory in the 1637 Battle of Elmina limited the Portuguese to only buying enslaved Africans in Grande Popô (Grand-Popo), Ajudá, Janquim (Godomey),[7] and Apá (Badagry), the term Costa da Mina also began to refer to the Slave Coast in addition to its prior definition.

[7] The National Archives of Brazil defines the Costa da Mina as corresponding to modern-day Benin, Togo, and part of Ghana.

[1] Adjunct Professor Juliana Barreto Farias at Bahia State University and Professor Mariza Carvalho Soares at the Fluminense Federal University refer to the Costa da Mina as corresponding to a region contained within the coastline of modern-day Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria, which sometimes extends to the limits of the Sahel[8][9] Anthropologist Pierre Verger considered the Costa da Mina to be the region of Guinea between the Volta river and Cotonou.

[16] Agrarian settlements that worked iron and gold began to settle the region that came to be known as the Costa da Mina by 1000.

One such expedition led by Fernão Gomes first discovered gold being traded in the region in January 1471 in a village named Shama.

Disputes between the Portuguese and the Spanish over ownership of this newfound region led to the signing of the Treaty of Alcáçovas in 1479, which granted Portugal exclusive rights over coastal West Africa.

[21] In the 1570s, some Portuguese in São Jorge da Mina and many members of the Council of State in Lisbon vouched for the region to be colonized.