ABSTRACT
The West African kingdom of Benin prohibits the export of all male slaves, a ban it continues until the 18th century.
1517 The Bishop of Chiapa, Bartolomeo de las Casas, protests to Spain’s King Charles V about the enslavement of indigenous peoples and asks that Spanish settlers in Haiti should be allowed to import 12 African slaves each to release indigenous slavery from forced labour; a licence is granted by Portugal for the importation of slaves into Spanish America.
