Antigo Mercado de Escravos (Old Slave Market), Lagos (must see)

The Old Slave Market of Lagos is one of the most historically significant and sobering sites in the Algarve region. Its origins are tied to the earliest phase of the Atlantic slave trade. In 1441, the first recorded cargo of enslaved people was delivered to Lagos by Captain Antão Gonçalves, who had learned of an existing slave trade along the African coast and returned with fourteen captives. Demand grew rapidly. Owning enslaved people soon became a marker of social status, and the trade expanded into a profitable enterprise. Prince Henry the Navigator was entitled to one fifth of the value of all enslaved people brought back to Portugal. In 1444, Captain Lançarote de Freitas arrived in Lagos with 235 captives, forty-seven of whom went directly to Henry, signalling how quickly slavery became big business.

Public slave auctions took place in this area from the 1440s onward, making Lagos the site of the first documented slave market in Europe. However, in 1512 King Manuel I decreed that enslaved people imported into Portugal could be landed only in Lisbon, ending Lagos’s role as an official entry point.

The present building dates from 1691 and was constructed on the site of an earlier 14th-century slave market. Built in a restrained Mannerist style, it has two floors, with the ground level enclosed by stone arches and an iron fence.

In 2014, the city council installed a permanent museum inside the building, transforming it into a space for historical interpretation and public reflection. The site became part of UNESCO’s Slave Route programme, acknowledging its global historical importance. In December 2018, Portugal’s International Observatory of Human Rights designated the building the “International Centre for Living Memory of Human Dignity.”