- Africa
Nguni peoples move south
Bantu-speaking Nguni groups, among them the ancestors of the Dlamini, migrate southward into south-eastern Africa over the following centuries.
Era: Nguni Migrations and the House of Dlamini
Sources: History of Eswatini · Wikipedia, Eswatini · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Asia
Kyrgyz consolidate in the Tian Shan
Through the upheavals of the post-Mongol centuries the Kyrgyz tribes settled in the Tian Shan, living as mountain nomads organized in tribes and clans, the homeland they hold to this day.
Era: The Silk Road, the Tian Shan and the Mongol Age
Sources: Kyrgyz (people) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Kyrgyzstan: A Country Study (in Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan: Country Studies) · U.S. Library of Congress, Federal Research Division
- Oceania
Settlement of the Chatham Islands
Māori reached the remote Chatham Islands (Rēkohu) over 750 km east of the mainland, where the settlers became the distinct Moriori people with their own traditions.
Era: The Polynesian voyage and the making of the Māori world
Sources: Pacific voyaging and discovery · NZ History (Manatū Taonga — Ministry for Culture and Heritage), Māori arrival and settlement · Te Ara — The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
- Africa
The Atlantic slave trade
European demand drew the Bights of Benin and Biafra into the transatlantic slave trade; ports such as Bonny and Old Calabar became major export points, and vast numbers of people were deported in conditions of extreme violence.
Era: The Atlantic slave trade and the Sokoto Caliphate
Sources: Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (Estimates) · SlaveVoyages.org, Bight of Biafra · Slavery and Remembrance (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation), Nigeria (country overview and history) · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Africa
The Rice Coast chiefdoms
The Sherbro, Bullom, Temne, and other peoples farmed rice, fished, and traded along the coast and rivers, organised in chiefdoms and ritual societies rather than a single state.
Era: The Rice Coast peoples and the Mane
Sources: Sierra Leone (country overview and history) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Sierra Leone · Encyclopaedia Africana
- Africa
The Ewe exodus from Notsé
Ewe tradition tells of escape from the walled town of Notsé and the tyranny of King Agokoli, after which the people dispersed westward and southward — a foundational narrative of Ewe identity across Ghana, Togo and Benin.
Era: Peoples, migrations and the land
Sources: Exodus of the Ewe from Notsé · Wikipedia, Togo (country overview and history) · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Europe
Rise of the Cossacks
On the southern steppe frontier free men known as Cossacks emerged, evolving by the mid-sixteenth century a democratic military organisation with an assembly, the rada, and elected hetmans.
Era: Between Lithuania, Poland and the Steppe
Sources: Ukraine: The Cossacks · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Zaporozhian Sich · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Asia
Shaybanid Uzbeks conquer Transoxiana
Muhammad Shaybani Khan leads the Uzbeks south, expelling the last Timurids from Samarkand and Herat and founding the Shaybanid dynasty ruling from Bukhara.
Era: The Uzbek Khanates
Sources: Shaybānid dynasty · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Uzbekistan — The early Uzbeks · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- North America
Spanish enslavement of the Lucayans
Spanish raiders began systematically seizing Lucayans as forced labour for the mines and pearl fisheries of the Greater Antilles and Venezuela, devastating the islands' population.
Era: The Lucayans and Columbus's landfall
Sources: How Archaeologists Are Unearthing the Secrets of the Bahamas' First Inhabitants · Smithsonian Magazine, The Bahamas — British colonization (History) · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Africa
Afonso I protests the slave trade
King Afonso I (Nzinga Mbemba) writes to João III of Portugal complaining that traders are illegally enslaving his subjects, even as the Atlantic trade expands.
Era: Kongo & the Savanna Kingdoms
Sources: Afonso I, king of Kongo kingdom · Encyclopædia Britannica, Kingdom of Kongo · Wikipedia, Kingdoms of the Savanna: the Luba and Lunda Empires · The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- South America
Transatlantic slave trade
Brazil becomes the largest single destination of the Atlantic slave trade, receiving roughly 4.8-5 million enslaved Africans over more than three centuries.
Era: Portuguese Colony: Sugar, Slavery, and Gold
Sources: Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database · SlaveVoyages, Emory University, Brazil · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Africa
The Angolar maroon community
Escaped slaves formed independent communities in the forested interior; the Angolares, of disputed origin, settled the rugged south and lived by fishing, rejecting plantation labour.
Era: Sugar, the slave trade and the revolt of Rei Amador
Sources: Forros (people) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Angolares of São Tomé and Príncipe · São Tomé Expert, History of São Tomé and Príncipe · Wikipedia
- Asia
Arrival of Europeans and firearms
Portuguese traders reach Japan, introducing firearms and, soon after, Christianity, adding new pressures to the Sengoku wars.
Era: Sengoku and Edo: Unification and the Long Peace
Sources: Sengoku period · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Japan · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Africa
A sorting-house of the slave trade
Ribeira Grande became a major entrepôt where enslaved Africans from the Upper Guinea coast were held, baptised, taxed and re-exported to the Americas, with thousands passing through annually by mid-century.
Era: Entrepôt of the slave trade — and its decline
Sources: History of Cabo Verde · Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Portuguese Colonization of Cape Verde · World History Encyclopedia, History of Cape Verde · Wikipedia, The small island nation of Cabo Verde was once a hub for slave trading · NPR
- Asia
Emergence of the Turkish-Cypriot community
Muslim settlers, many from Anatolia, established a distinct Turkish-Cypriot community alongside the Greek-Cypriot majority, while the Orthodox Church regained authority over Greek Cypriots under the millet system.
Era: Ancient Cyprus and the Ottoman Inheritance
Sources: Cyprus - Ottoman rule · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Cyprus: A Country Study · U.S. Library of Congress (Federal Research Division)
- Africa
Emergence of the Mende
Out of the mingling of Mane aristocrats with indigenous Bullom and other populations the Mende identity and language took shape, spreading as a lingua franca and becoming one of Sierra Leone's largest ethnic groups.
Era: The Rice Coast peoples and the Mane
Sources: Mane people · Wikipedia, History of Sierra Leone · Wikipedia
Peoples & MigrationThe 16th century
Peoples & Migration in the 16th century
Every event in the Terralore archive tagged peoples and migration — settlement, movement and displacement, narrowed to the 16th century — 16 of them, drawn from 15 nations, running from 1500 to 1580. Each entry keeps the sources it was verified against and links back to the chronicle it came from.
- Events
- 16
- Nations
- 15
- Earliest
- 1500
- Latest
- 1580
- Africa
- 8
- Asia
- 4
- Europe
- 1
- North America
- 1
- Oceania
- 1
- South America
- 1
Every entry below is the same record, with the same sources, as the one on its nation’s chronicle.