Lançarote de Freitas
Lançarote was appointed as almoxarife (customs-collector) of Lagos, Portugal in April 1443, succeeding his father-in-law Soeiro da Costa, who resigned the position in his favor.
Peter's letters also granted Henry the royal fifth and customs duties (tenth on imports) normally due to the Portuguese crown, on any African goods or slaves brought back to metropolitan Portugal.
Having acquired their license, the Lagos company equipped a fleet of six slave ships and about thirty men that set out for the Arguin banks in the spring of 1444.
[6] Lançarote's fleet headed straight to the southern end of the Arguin Bay, where they had been told by Nuno Tristão's captives that populous fishing settlements could be found.
The spectacle of the disembarkation, partition and sale of the Arguin slaves in Lagos, in the presence of Prince Henry, mounted on his horse, is described in heart-breaking detail in Zurara's Crónica.
At Grã's suggestion, Lançarote's fleet, now thirteen strong (only Palançano's fusta remained unaccounted for) attacked Arguin island again, taking four captives.
The element of surprise being gone and the bulk of the population having already evacuated the coast, Lançarote's captives were principally Sanhaja Berber tribesmen who had decided to stay and put up a fight.
As a result, Lançarote partitioned his fleet, taking only six or seven caravels with him, sending the remaining ships back to Lagos under the command of Soeiro da Costa (a few of which would conduct an unauthorized slave raid on the Canary Islands of La Palma and Gomera on their way home).
Venturing ashore at one point along the river bank, Afonso abducted two Wolof children from a local woodsman's hut, only to be chased down and furiously beaten by their father.
[18] After sending back yet another caravel to Lagos, Lançarote proceeded with his five remaining ships to sail around Cape Vert and enter Dakar Bay.
[19] But they also found signs of prior human presence - some goat skins and a carved marker with Henry the Navigator's motto (Talent de bien faire).
[20] During his stay, Alvaro Fernandes had attempted to seize a couple of native canoes in Dakar Bay, with the result that the Wolof (or more probably Lebou) tribesmen of the mainland were already alert and in arms against the arriving ships of Lançarote's fleet.
[22] (Zurara makes no report of the planned attack or storm; he says merely the Portuguese captains decided they ought to depart and sail back north and try their luck at the Senegal River again).
Lançarote managed to hold two caravels (Álvaro de Freitas and Vicente Dias) together with his own, but lost sight of the remaining two ships.
Perhaps realizing they were now too few to launch an attack on the Wolof mainland, Lançarote's trio skipped past the Senegal River, and set sail back to the Arguin banks.
[26] Prince Henry ordered the erection of a permanent factory on Arguin island by 1450, to tap into the Trans-Saharan trade traffic in slaves and gold coming up overland from Guinea.
[28] He noted that to keep the peace around Arguin, Prince Henry had instituted a prohibition on any further kidnapping of Berber Sanhaja people, and only allowed the acquisition of pagan Black African slaves by trade.
[29] In his memoir, Cadamosto claims that the Portuguese had also negotiated the establishment of trading posts with the Wolof kingdoms of Waalo and Kayor along the Grande Côte of Senegal.
[30] It has been suggested that Lourenço Dias, one of the captains of Lançarote's slave raid of 1445/46, returned to the Senegal region (sometime between 1448 and 1455), and negotiated peace and trade agreements with the Wolof statelets.
