Pombeiros

Pombeiros were African and sometimes mulatto agents who purchased slaves in the African interior on behalf of the Portuguese crown or private Portuguese traders for the Atlantic slave trade. The term pombeiro comes from Pumbe, a market located by the Malebo Pool.

In general, the Portuguese government did not want Portuguese slave traders going into the interior. It preferred them to stay at its colonies of Benguela and Luanda on the coast, while the native pombeiros led caravans into the interior to buy slaves. During their trips into the interior, the pombeiros resided at fortified marketplaces called feiras, to which Africans from beyond the frontier would come to sell produce, wares and slaves. According to one account from 1700, the pombeiros would set out with their own slaves, who in turn had slaves under them to act as porters. A slaving expedition could last a whole year and bring in between 400 and 600 slaves.