Qualla: Arguin https://qualla.com/arguin en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:09 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/e/e/s/m/arguin-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Arguin https://qualla.com/arguin Arguin: Introduction https://qualla.com/arguin/ Photo credit Public domain. It is a low, arid scrap of land in a bay full of treacherous reefs, hardly the kind of place history usually remembers. But Arguin holds a terrible distinction. In 1445, on this island off the Mauritanian coast, the Portuguese built the first European fortress ever raised outside Europe - and turned it into one of the earliest engines of the Atlantic slave trade. The fort changed hands again and again over the centuries that followed, flying Portuguese, Dutch, English, Brandenburg, and French flags in turn. But its founding purpose left the deepest mark: from here, human beings were carried away from their homeland in chains.

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/e/s/m/arguin-wp/eesm-arguin-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Arguin: The First Fort https://qualla.com/arguin/ Photo credit The Ogre at English Wikipedia / Later versions were uploaded by The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick at English Wikipedia., Public domain. The Portuguese explorer Nuno Tristao reached Arguin in 1443, the first European known to set foot there. Two years later, under the patronage of Prince Henry the Navigator, Portugal established a feitoria - a fortified trading post - on the island. It was a landmark of a grim kin...

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Image: The Ogre at English Wikipedia / Later versions were uploaded by The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick at English Wikipedia. | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/e/s/m/arguin-wp/eesm-arguin-the-first-fort.mp3 0:06 2 full Arguin: The Trade in Human Beings https://qualla.com/arguin/ Photo credit Kokopelado, CC BY-SA 3.0. The numbers are stark and they should not be softened. By 1455, around 800 enslaved West Africans were being shipped from Arguin to Portugal every year, and as the trade matured that figure rose toward a thousand. They were carried to Portugal itself and to the sugar plantations ...

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Image: Kokopelado | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/e/s/m/arguin-wp/eesm-arguin-the-trade-in-human-beings.mp3 0:06 3 full Arguin: A Fort Everyone Wanted https://qualla.com/arguin/ Photo credit Paul Langhans, Public domain. Because of its trade, the little island was fought over for centuries. In January 1633 a Dutch force seized the fort for the Dutch West India Company; that same year the company's young chief factor, Daniel van Peere, was taken and killed by local people during a trading mission,...

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Image: Paul Langhans | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/e/s/m/arguin-wp/eesm-arguin-a-fort-everyone-wanted.mp3 0:06 4 full Arguin: The Sea Takes Its Due https://qualla.com/arguin/ Photo credit Jean-Jérôme Baugean, Public domain. The reefs that made Arguin so hard to approach claimed their most famous victim in July 1816, when the French frigate Meduse, bound for Senegal, wrecked off the island. Around 350 people died in the disaster and its harrowing aftermath, when survivors were abandoned on a makeshif...

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Image: Jean-Jérôme Baugean | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/e/s/m/arguin-wp/eesm-arguin-the-sea-takes-its-due.mp3 0:06 5 full