ABSTRACT
In 1482, in their search for a secure base for their trade in gold and slaves, the captains of the Portuguese King John II set up the factory-fort of Sic) Jorge da Mina, or Elmina, on the Gold Coast of West Africa. At that date the fort represented the most remote of all the feitoras,or factories, the defensible trading compounds which the Portuguese had adapted from the Arab commercial posts and the fondachi of the medieval Italian merchants. In the Portuguese version, trading and war often went together.
