Who is Ruy Do Sequeira?

• A. Portuguese navigator who mapped the West African coast.
• B. A Dutch trader who established a fort on Cape Verde.
• C. An English merchant involved in early slave trade.
• D. The Portuguese captain who began the European slave trade in 1472.

Answer: (D)

The key idea here is the origin of the European slave trade in the Atlantic and which early figure helped initiate it. Ruy do Sequeira is identified as the Portuguese captain who, around 1472, led one of the first documented expeditions that shipped enslaved Africans from the West African coast back to Portugal, signaling the start of organized European involvement in the Atlantic slave trade. This event helped establish a pattern where coastal expeditions along Africa would capture people and move them into European markets, a foundation that would expand dramatically in the centuries to come.

Context helps: Portuguese explorers and traders were moving along the West African coast in this era, establishing posts and trading networks. While there were earlier captures in the 1440s, the voyage associated with Sequeira represents an early, more organized instance of the trade that would grow into a vast Atlantic system. The other descriptions—mapping the coast, a Dutch trader with a Cape Verde fort, or an English merchant—do not fit the established association with Sequeira or with the earliest phases of the European slave trade.