1760-1850: Porto-Novo emerged as a significant embarkation point for captives primarily during the last third of the eighteenth century, competing with Ouida…

1760-1850: Porto-Novo emerged as a significant embarkation point for captives primarily during the last third of the eighteenth century, competing with Ouidah and Lagos for regional dominance. The vast majority of slaving voyages leaving this port originated from Salvador da Bahia in Brazil or from French ports like Nantes and La Rochelle. Captives from Porto-Novo were overwhelmingly destined for the plantation economies of Bahia and the French colony of Saint-Domingue. The port saw a brief resurgence in slaving activity in the mid-nineteenth century before the trans-Atlantic trade was finally suppressed.