In chapter 25 of The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, Gomes Eannes de Azurara describes the division of the captives which occurred in the city of Lagos on August 8, 1450. Azurara says that a large crowd gathered from the city and the surrounding countryside to watch this division. The crowd came because such a spectacle was entirely new to them and they had never seen such an assortment of people or such a process before. The people, therefore, "for that day gave rest to their hands (in which lay their power to get their living) for the sole purpose of beholding this novelty."

According to Azurara, some in the crowd wept, while others attempted to help in separating the captives. Even those who attempted to assist, however, had the opposite effect and merely caused greater confusion. The crowd's wonder at the division of the captives, however, was surpassed when the saw the caravel (a small Portuguese sailing ship of the type that was used to explore the West African coast in the fifteenth century) on the sea. Never having seen anything like this ship, some of them thought it was a fish, while others said it was a bird, and still others believed it was a phantom. Some of them went out in small boats to look more closely but fled again when they saw that there were men on board.