Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
first sale of black Africans as slaves to Europeans, and the town grew into a slave-trading
centre.
It was also from Lagos in 1578 that Dom Sebastião, along with the cream of Portuguese
nobility and an army of Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and German buccaneers, left on a dis-
astrous crusade to Christianise North Africa, which ended in a debacle at Alcácer-Quibir
in Morocco. Sir Francis Drake inflicted heavy damage on Lagos a few years later, in
1587.
Lagos was the Algarve's high-profile capital from 1576 until 1755, when the earth-
quake flattened it.
