JOÂO FERNANDES (1447)

Portuguese traveller to West Africa whose seven-month stay among the nomads of Río de Oro, later in the Spanish Sahara, supplied Prince Henry the Navigator with intelligence for advancing Portuguese slave trade.

In 1445 Fernandes went with a Portuguese trading ship to the Río de Oro, at a latitude of about 23º N. When a Moorish trader wished to return with the ship to Portugal to investigate trade possibilities. Fernandes volunteered to remain as a hostage with his family. He was welcomed by the nomad sheep herders of the region.

Taken south across the desert to visit an old patriarch, Fernandes found that the nomads obtained their slaves from Negro kings who raided other tribes.

Upon his return to Portugal he furnished Prince Henry with detailed information of the western Sahara and the trade with the Guinea Coast from about 15º N to 15º S. 

In 1446 and 1447 Fernandes again visited Río de Oro to make trade arrangements.

As a result the Portuguese ceased the hazardous raiding of the African coast for slaves and from 1448 made profitable slavetrading agreements with Moorish and Negro chiefs.