Nuno Tristão was a 15th-century Portuguese explorer and slave trader, active in the early 1440s, traditionally thought to be the first European to reach the region of Guinea (legendarily, as far as Guinea-Bissau, but more recent historians believe he did not go beyond the Gambia River). First voyage Nuno Tristão was a knight of the household of Henry the Navigator. In 1441, Tristão was dispatched by Henry in one of the first prototypes of the lateen-rigged caravel to explore the West African coast beyond Cape Barbas, the furthest point reached by Henry's last captain five years earlier (Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia, in 1436). Around Rio de Oro, Tristão met up with the ship of Antão Gonçalves, who had been sent on a separate mission by Henry that same year to hunt monk seals that basked on those shores. But Gonçalves happened to capture a solitary young camel-driver, the first native encountered by the Portuguese since the expeditions began in the 1420s. Nuno Tristão, who carried on board one of Henry's Moorish servants to act as an interpreter, interrogated Gonçalves's captive camel-driver. Tristão and Gonçalves were led by his information to a small Sanhaja Berber fishing camp nearby. The Portuguese attacked the fishermen, taking some ten captives, the first African slaves taken by the Portuguese back to Europe. Gonçalves returned to Portugal immediately after the slave raid, but Nuno Tristão continued south, reaching as far as Cape Blanc (Cabo Branco), before turning back. Second voyage In 1443, Nuno Tristão was sent out by Henry again, and pressed beyond Cape Blanc to reach the Bay of Arguin. On Arguin island, Tristão encountered a Sanhaja Berber village, the first permanent settlement seen by Henry's captains on the West African coast. Tristão immediately attacked it, taking some fourteen villagers captive and returned to Portugal with his captives. Tristão's report of easy and profitable slave-raiding grounds in the Arguin banks prompted numerous Portuguese merchants and adventurers to apply to Henry for a slave-trading license. Between 1444 and 1446 several dozen Portuguese ships set out for slave raids around Arguin Bay. Third voyage As fishing settlements around the Arguin banks were quickly devastated by the Portuguese slave raiders, in 1445 (or possibly 1444), Nuno Tristão was sent by Henry to press further south and look for new slave-raiding grounds. Tristão reached as far south as borderlands of Senegal, where the Sahara desert ends and forest begins, and