BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY: PORTUGAL ROLE IN THE SLAVE TRADE PART II :

By 1488 Portugal was making so much money from the Slave Trade that King Joao with pride in his eyes, would tell Pope Innocent VII that " the profits from the slave trade were helping to finance the wars against Islam in North Africa.  By 1506, the Portuguese Monarch was earning over two million reis from the slave trade through taxes and duties. By royal decree, Portuguese settlers in the Americas were given loans on easy terms from 1531 onwards  to buy Slaves to work their sugar plantations. The most important Merchant  in Portugal concerned in the slave trade in the mid-16th century was Fernando Jemenez who was based in Lisbon.