In some cases, they were also used as farm laborers. Parts of
Portugal were suffering from a distinct shortage of farm
laborers, and Africans filled the void. At the beginning of the
sixteenth century, in some sections of rural Portugal as much as
one third of local population was African in origin.
Even so, European labor needs could not support much of a
slave trade for long. The enclosure system was under way,
changing farming techniques, and it had created a labor surplus.
However, at the same time, emerging capitalism financed
explorations in Africa, Asia, and the western hemisphere. African
sailors were involved in most of these explorations including
Columbus's voyage in 1492. New World gold provided the economic
basis for even more rapid European expansion. When the New World
came to be viewed by the hungry capitalists as having a potential
for agricultural exploitation, New World labor needs expanded
astronomically. At first these needs were filled by surplus labor
from Europe or by exploiting the local Indian populations. When
these labor sources proved to be inadequate, the exploitation of
slave labor from Africa was the obvious answer.
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