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The Guided Tour that Brings Back African History Hidden in the Streets of Lisbon

During four centuries of slavery, more than 12 million African slaves were transported. Portugal was responsible for the trafficking of 5.8 million people, the vast majority were sent to Brazil.

Naky Gaglo makes the attendance call to make sure that the almost 20 people joining the African Lisbon Tour have found the right group.

They arrive from various latitudes. Americans, English, Belgians and Brazilians. The meeting point is at Terreiro do Paço in Lisbon, or in this context, the place that represents the arrival of many slaves to Portugal across the Tagus.

“It is one of the means of circulation by which many Africans arrived on the boats, where they were disembarked. So Terreiro do Paço is one of the places and there are many more.”

Naky Gaglo, guide for the African Lisbon Tour, is from Togo. He arrived in Lisbon almost five years ago and realized that the city’s streets were empty of a history that needed to be rescued.

“What’s missing, not only in Portugal but in many European countries, is a physical presence of African history. I’m talking about the names of streets, museums, statues that don’t exist.”

To talk about slavery and how it was done in Portugal and Europe, the Togolese went looking for more information and equipped himself with knowledge from the work of Isabel Castro Henriques and Pedro Pereira Leite, creating a guided tour to provide an alternative to the various tourist routes that already exist in Lisbon.

“Most of the tours here are about Portuguese history. So I had the idea of creating something that would be an alternative to what already exists in the country,” he says.