Long before coal-fuelled ships and machine-tooled firearms, in the age of sail and black powder, the Portuguese were engaged all around the coasts of Africa in capturing trading towns, seizing slaves and searching for mineral riches. They fought their ancient Muslim foes wherever they encountered them, overthrew African kingdoms and resisted Dutch, Omani and Ottoman rivals.

Campaigning over difficult terrain and in notoriously inhospitable climates, these were far from one-sided contests. Often victory was theirs, but so too were crushing, ignominious defeats in the field, debilitating sieges and humiliating capitulations. These were clashes between very contrasting societies with their own methods of warfare, choice of weaponry and concepts of what it took to be a heroic warrior.

The enthralling tale of the Portuguese in Africa before the nineteenth century deserves to be every bit as familiar as the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Yet, surprisingly, English-speaking readers know few if any of their ferocious African wars. In this impeccably researched and spellbinding new book, John Leband seeks to redress this imbalance expertly recalling this remarkable saga in full for the first time.

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Illustrations
• Glossary
• Chronology
• Introduction
• CHAPTER ONE - The Battle of the Three Kings
  • Cockpit of War: The Struggle for Sixteenth-Century Morocco
  • King Sebastião Invades Morocco
  • The Battle of the Three Kings
  • The Portuguese Defeat and its Consequences
• CHAPTER TWO - Ravaging the Swahili Coast
  • Outflanking the Muslims
  • Doubling the Cape of Good Hope
  • Sailing to the Swahili Coast
  • The People of the Coast
  • The Sack of Kilwa
  • The Sack of Mombasa
  • The Capture of Sofala
  • The Swahili Coast and its Place in the Portuguese Empire
• CHAPTER THREE - Coming to the Aid of Prester John
  • The Christian Kingdom of Prester John
  • Grañ’s Jihad
  • The Portuguese Crusade
  • The Portuguese Victory on the Antalo Plain
  • The Battle of Wofla
  • The Battle of Weyna Dega
  • The End of the Portuguese Presence in Ethiopia
• CHAPTER FOUR - God Drove Them from Fort Jesus
  • Ali Bey Seizes Mombasa
  • The Zimba Terror
  • The Portuguese Fortify the Swahili Coast
  • The Dutch Besiege Fort São Sebastião
  • Yusuf ibn al-Hassan and the Portuguese Siege of Fort Jesus
  • The Omani Challenge
  • The Omani Siege of Fort Jesus
  • The Short-Lived Portuguese Recapture of Fort Jesus
• CHAPTER FIVE - The Elusive Gold of Mutapa
  • In Search of the Riches of Mutapa
  • The Mutapa Kingdom
  • Lust for Gold
  • Failed Portuguese Military Expeditions into the Interior
  • The Struggle to Control the Zambezi Valley
  • Meddling Perilously in the Affairs of the Kingdom of Mutapa
  • Holding on in the Zambezi Valley
• CHAPTER SIX - Wars and Miseries
  • Slave Wars
  • The Kingdom of Kongo
  • The Conversion of Kongo
  • The Jaga Incursion
  • The Kingdom of Ndongo and the Captaincy of Angola
  • The Portuguese – Ndongo Wars
  • The Dutch Enter the Fray
  • The Portuguese – Kongo Wars
  • The Portuguese – Matamba Wars
  • The Eighteenth-Century Slave Wars
  • The Final Portuguese Conquest of Angola
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index