Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire [1 ed.] 9781443884631, 9781443880275

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Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire

Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire Edited by

Philip J. Havik and Malyn Newitt

Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire Edited by Philip J. Havik and Malyn Newitt This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Philip J. Havik, Malyn Newitt and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-8027-2 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-8027-5

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables ............................................................................................ vii Foreword ................................................................................................. viii Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 Philip J. Havik and Malyn Newitt Chapter One .............................................................................................. 16 The Role of the Portuguese Trading Posts in Guinea and Angola in the “Apostasy” of Crypto-Jews in the 17th Century Toby Green Chapter Two ............................................................................................. 30 Mary and Misogyny Revisited: Gendering the Afro-Atlantic Connection Philip J. Havik Chapter Three ........................................................................................... 49 Lançados, Culture and Identity: Prelude to Creole Societies on the Rivers of Guinea and Cape Verde José Lingna Nafafe Chapter Four ............................................................................................. 72 The Politics and Symbolics of Cape Verdean Creole Luís Batalha Chapter Five ............................................................................................. 82 Castaways, Autochthons, or Maroons? The Debate on the Angolares of São Tomé Island Gerhard Seibert Chapter Six ............................................................................................. 102 Between Two Worlds: The Bezerras, a Luso-African Family in Nineteenth Century Western Central Africa Beatrix Heintze

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Chapter Seven......................................................................................... 127 Migration and Miscegenation: Maintaining Boundaries of Whiteness in the Narratives of the Angolan Colonial State 1875–1912 Rosa Williams Chapter Eight .......................................................................................... 142 Atlantic Bridge and Atlantic Divide: Africans and Creoles in Late Colonial Brazil A. J. R. Russel-Wood Chapter Nine........................................................................................... 184 Pirates, Malata, and the Betsimisaraka Confederation on the East Coast of Madagascar in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century Arne Bialuschewski Chapter Ten ............................................................................................ 198 Portuguese Impact upon Goa: Lusotopic, Lusophonic, Lusophilic? Teotónio R. de Souza Chapter Eleven ....................................................................................... 212 The Portuguese Province of the North: “Creole” Power Groups in Urban Centres and their Hinterlands, c.1630–1680 Glenn J. Ames Contributors ............................................................................................ 235 Index ....................................................................................................... 238

LIST OF TABLES

Table 11–1: Revenues and Expenditures of the Estado da Índia, c.1571– 1680 (in Xerafins). Table 11–2: Customs Revenues at Diu and Goa, c.1555–1680 (in Xerafins, pardaos de ouro=6 tangas or 360 reis, pardaos de prata=5 tangas or 300 reis). Table 11–3: Percentage of Total Official Revenues for the Estado da Índia produced by the Province of the North, c.1571–1680.

FOREWORD

The papers in this volume were delivered at the Charles Boxer Memorial Conference held at King’s College London in 2004. This conference celebrated the centenary of the birth of the man who, for most of the twentieth century, was the leading historian of the Portuguese colonial empire. The papers were subsequently published in July 2007 by the Bristol University’s Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies as Volume 6 in its Lusophone Studies series. This series has now been discontinued and Volume 6 is long out of print and virtually unobtainable. The editors believe that, although scholarship in this field has in some respects moved on, many of the papers in this collection are of such exceptional and lasting importance that the scholarly public needs to have continued access to them. This is particularly important as two of the contributors, John Russell-Wood and Glenn Ames, have died since the collection was first published and the academic world no longer has the benefit of their scholarship. Although the biographical details of the contributors have been updated, the texts of the papers are here reproduced as first published in 2007.

INTRODUCTION PHILIP J. HAVIK AND MALYN NEWITT

The Boxer Memorial Conference Charles Boxer, the most distinguished scholar of Portuguese colonial history of the twentieth century, died in 2000 aged 96. Boxer was widely known in the academic world for his lucid and entertaining narratives, for his scholarly translations from Dutch and the Portuguese, for his masterly text-books and for the wide ranging essays, some of them collected into thematic volumes, which helped to shape the whole post-war understanding of European overseas expansion. Boxer was also a great bibliophile and possessed one of the greatest private libraries of his day, eventually selling his massive collection of rare books and manuscripts to the Lilly Library in Indiana. Quite apart from his prodigious academic achievement, Boxer’s life was colourful and eventful enough to have attracted the attention of biographers. As a young man he learnt to speak Japanese, was deeply knowledgeable about Japanese culture and knew many leading figures in the Japanese military. He travelled widely throughout eastern Asia and Indonesia and acquired such a detailed knowledge of Far Eastern history that he was offered the chair of Far Eastern History at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He was an intelligence officer in Hong Kong in the early days of the Second World War and was wounded in the Japanese capture of the city in 1941, after which he spent three years interned as a prisoner of war, some of it in solitary confinement and under sentence of death. In 1945, after a love affair which acquired some notoriety, he married Emily Hahn, an American journalist and writer who chronicled the first ten years of their relationship in two volumes of highly entertaining autobiography, in the second of which Boxer features as the “Major” in scenes of post-war Britain that could have come from E.M. Delafield’s Provincial Lady. None of this, however, adequately describes a man who was able to combine the traditional manners of the English landed gentry with a sceptical outlook on politics, and a deeply cynical view of the British

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Introduction

Empire, whose demise in the Far East he had witnessed at first hand. Famously Boxer twice refused to be decorated by the Queen, first because other more deserving men had been overlooked because of their colour and on the second occasion because, as he famously stated, there was no longer an Empire of which to be a Member. Between 1947 and 1967 Boxer held the Camoens Chair of Portuguese at King’s College London, although he had never attended University himself and held no degree, apart from the six honorary doctorates that he received from different institutions. In 1997 King’s College gave his name to an established chair in Portuguese History and in 2004 the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at King’s College organized a Conference to commemorate the centenary of his birth. The theme of the Conference was Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire. Boxer had published four volumes of essays on Iberian colonial society in the early modern period and the organizers felt that a fitting memorial would be a Conference which would focus on an aspect of Portuguese society overseas that was the subject of current academic debate. The chosen theme was, without doubt, one on which, had he been alive, Charles Boxer would have had a great deal to say. By attending the conference, his daughters, Amanda and Carola, gave the commemorative event a special character, while providing welcome insights into their father’s life and work. It was felt appropriate to invite contributions not only from the leading figures in the field, some of them Boxer’s former students and associates, but also from younger researchers who would form the next generation scholars. The Conference focused on the societies that came into being outside Europe as a result of Portuguese overseas expansion. The intention was to move away from the style of historical writing which sees the history of European expansion as a series of stark confrontations between imperialist Europeans and exploited indigenous populations—a type of discourse that had prevailed since the struggle for colonial independence. Instead a major theme running through the contributions to the Conference was the ability of Creole groups to negotiate their own identities and to some extent their access to resources and even to power. The “white” colonial elites seldom dominated society at all levels and their rule always depended on accommodating the interests of numerous indigenous and Creole interest groups. As Philip Havik expresses it, “the assimilation of Portuguese authorities into, and their dependence on, local societies should be studied, rather than only the opposite, as should the role women played as brokers in these communities.”

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The Portuguese Diasporas Portuguese overseas expansion was not only, or even mainly, an enterprise directed by the political and military elite of Portugal. Rather it was driven forward by three distinct but connected population diasporas. Between 1400 and 1974 millions of Portuguese left their homeland to settle in territories ruled by Portugal in the Atlantic Islands, Brazil, Africa and Asia. Millions more dispersed to other European countries and their colonies and to the New World. The cause of this continuous haemorrhage of population was domestic poverty and the primitive state of the economy —the inability of Portugal to support its population either on the land or in the towns. In addition, natural disasters such as the 1531 earthquake, epidemics such as the plague which ravaged Portugal between 1569 and 1602, as well as the loss of independence, wars and famines all contributed to the exodus from the mainland. In turn, the Atlantic Islands generated their own diasporas and the flows of emigrants from Madeira, the Azores and Cape Verde Islands met and mingled with the flow of migrants still coming from Portugal itself. The second diaspora was, to a large extent, generated by the first. The Portuguese initiated, and for two hundred years almost monopolized, the seaborne slave trade from Africa. However, the vast export of slaves as labour to New World plantations has often resulted in other aspects of this diaspora being ignored. As well as sending Africans to the Americas to be unskilled labourers, the Portuguese sold slaves from one part of Africa to other Africans, they brought large numbers of slaves to Europe and they exported African slaves to different parts of Asia. Slaves were employed as household servants and retainers, as interpreters, as soldiers and sailors in the Portuguese armies and fleets and as skilled artisans and craftsmen. Slave women, for their part, made up for the shortage of European women among the emigrants from Europe. Without the slave mothers the Cape Verde and Guinea Islands would never have been peopled nor would the settlement of the colonies in East and West Africa and in Brazil have been possible. By the early seventeenth century there were about 120,000 African (and native Indian) slaves in Brazil alone, whilst the number of its free inhabitants had increased to fifty thousand, making it Portugal’s largest overseas colony. Although virtually all Africans left the shores of Africa as captives, free populations of African descent rapidly appeared in the areas of settlement. In Cape Verde and São Tomé the children and grandchildren of the original colonists and their slave wives formed a community of free black Portuguese, who in São Tomé significantly adopted the name forros

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Introduction

(freemen) to describe themselves. In the sixteenth century São Tomé was raised to the status of a City and a Bishopric and by the seventeenth century the councillors of the Senado da Câmara and the canons of the cathedral were free black men of African origin. Free black “Portuguese” populations also grew up in Angola, Mozambique and Brazil. Colonial society, therefore, was never simply a matter of white masters and black slaves but from the start was composed of elements, which were differentiated by class, place of origin, religion and cultural affinity. The third diaspora, which coincided chronologically with the other two, was the dispersal of the Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsula. The expulsion of the Jews fell within the same decade in which Columbus reached America and Vasco da Gama made his famous voyage to India. In Portugal this dispersal was not a single traumatic expulsion but continued for centuries as the New Christians (Jews who had thought to remain in Portugal by outwardly conforming to Christianity) were periodically persecuted and forced into new waves of emigration. Although many, probably most, Sephardic Jews went to North Africa, to France or to the Netherlands, others took passage to West Africa, the islands, Brazil and even India, seeking to keep one step ahead of the tentacles of the Inquisition. The importance of the Sephardic Jews in Portuguese expansion can be felt at various levels—from the networks of Jewish bankers who financed Spanish and Portuguese trade and military activity in the seventeenth century, to the investors who established the sugar plantations in Northern Brazil and the religious refugees who celebrated Passover in the trading towns of West Africa. New Christians had to obtain royal permission to leave Portugal and their settlement in West Africa, where many of them secretly went, was prohibited. Tobias Green’s examination of the records of the Inquisition “suggests that West Africa was not only a hotbed of crypto-Jewry, but a place where Catholics were actively converted to the Mosaic faith.” In 1551 the jurisdiction of the Lisbon Inquisition was extended to cover the Atlantic territories but it took little action, largely for financial reasons, for, as Green puts it, “almost two thirds of the debts of the Inquisition were due to the overseas expeditions to Brazil and the Atlantic islands […] purity of the faith was essential and non-negotiable, but it could not be allowed to transcend the purity of the balanced account ledger,”

a sentiment echoed more succinctly by Boxer who wrote of the lançados (as quoted by Philip Havik), “Lisbon was more concerned with tax evasion than with their going native.” In fact, this freedom of religion in the West

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African coastal towns was, Tobias Green suggests in a cleverly turned argument, obliquely encouraged as part of the ideological underpinning of the slave trade. “Both the absence of severe inquisitorial tribunals in Africa, and their presence in the Americas, were fundamental to the perceived legitimisation of the entire process of the slave trade. Their absence in Africa confirmed the assumption that Africans were non-humans, among whom religious or cultural orthodoxy need not be a requirement; their presence in the Americas confirmed the fact that the Africans had been ‘saved’ by the process of their enslavement.”

The Elusive Nature of Identity Although these colonial societies can be studied through the formal structures and legal definitions of church and state, postmodern criticism has made historians aware of the difficulty of trying to establish an objective historical reality. Perceptions of colonial society would inevitably differ when viewed from the point of view of different social groups. Moreover, over time, social relations and issues of identity in the colonial society moved like patterns in a kaleidoscope. As A.J.R. RussellWood repeatedly emphasizes, nothing is more revealing than the complex of names that Portuguese writers used to try to capture these shifting identities, names which might be enshrined in legal pronouncements but which never succeeded in covering the nuances and complexities which people themselves recognised and understood. Or, as Rosa Williams warns, writing of the racial composition of early colonial Angola “rather than engaging with the ways in which racial frameworks are produced and maintained, historians of Lusophone Africa have tended to collapse the heterogeneous populations that they encounter into two or three categories of identity which rarely reflect the ways in which people identified themselves and one another.”

The term “creole” is used throughout this volume. It is a term which exists in most European languages but which is used with widely different meanings. Creole is sometimes used to describe people of European parentage or descent born in the colonies—a white colonial population; it is also used for colonial populations where there is a mixture of European or non-European descent; however, the word also applies to people of African descent born in the Americas. In some cases such as the Cape Verde islands or São Tomé and Príncipe, certain miscegenated groups

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Introduction

defined themselves as Creole having developed their own languages. In other areas such as Guinea, a Creole language emerged as a lingua franca among Africans of different “ethnic” origins living in coastal towns who called themselves “Christians”. Then again, in Angola, Mozambique and Brazil “creolised” groups did not produce a Creole language or dialect, but did leave a distinctive cultural heritage. The term is thus used adjectivally for languages or other cultural traits, which are perceived to mix European with non-European elements. The term is employed by the writers in this volume in a broad, inclusive sense to refer to all populations or cultures, which came into existence outside Europe as a result of European contacts with the peoples of Africa, Asia or the Americas. Contemplating the indigenous populations of their empires seldom created problems for Europeans. Indigenous peoples were, almost by definition, “the other”. They represented either savage primitiveness or civilized decadence, in either case to be described, defined, disciplined, controlled and ruled—for their own benefit. People of European origin who settled, or were born, outside Europe were more difficult to classify. In racial terms they were white Europeans but culturally they invariably reflected the environment in which they lived. Rosa Williams quotes A. F. Nogueira who suggests that “while Africans lag behind in their historical development, they are as yet untainted by the degeneracy that haunts Europeans. Africans at home in Africa are in little danger; Europeans in the tropics are vulnerable.”

Whereas some writers, like James Anthony Froude, could see in the colonial settler a person who recreated, in a truer and more robust fashion, the virtues being lost in the mother country, most people in the metropole saw in the rough-hewn, uncultured colonist someone who poorly represented the civilization of the mother country and who could not be trusted with self-government or the responsibility for his own affairs. In Ebb-Tide (first published in 1894) R.L. Stevenson described a typical white man in the tropics.1 “Throughout the island world of the Pacific, scattered men of many European races and from almost every grade of society carry activity and disseminate disease. Some prosper, some vegetate. Some have mounted the steps of thrones and owned islands and navies. Others again must marry for a livelihood; a strapping, merry, chocolate-coloured dame supports them in sheer idleness; and, dressed like natives, but still retaining some foreign element of gait or attitude, still perhaps with some relic (such as a single eye-glass) of the officer and gentleman, they sprawl in palm-leaf verandahs and entertain an island audience with memoirs of the music-hall.

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And there are still others, less pliable, less capable, less fortunate, perhaps less base, who continue, even in these isles of plenty, to lack bread.”

In the Portuguese empire there was always a deep divide between the reinol, the Portuguese from Portugal, and the Portuguese born in the tropics. As Glenn Ames writes, “the man born in the tropics was corrupted by his environment, was liable to loose morality, to heresy and above all could not be relied upon to uphold the hierarchies and value systems which sustained the ruling elite at home.”

The struggle to control colonial identities, and in this way to control colonial institutions, was fought at many levels. Ames discusses the reluctance of the Portuguese viceroys in the East to allow local Portuguese casados to occupy important offices in the Província do Norte in India, a reluctance which gradually gave way to necessity as the Estado da Índia tried desperately to recover after peace had been made with the Dutch in 1663. Also writing about India, Teotónio de Souza reflects on the comparative failure of the Portuguese to implant their identity, their language and culture in the Goan territories, in spite of five hundred years of occupation and direct rule. He suggests that, in spite of the muchcelebrated policy of intermarriage and the prevalence of irregular unions between Portuguese men and Indian women, the Hindu caste system was strong enough to prevent the emergence of a large Luso-Indian population. The so-called descendentes, the real Luso-Indian Creoles, became, in effect, little more than a very narrow caste of elite families, who would not mix with the lower caste Goans but who were distrusted and frequently side-lined by the Portuguese administration. As a result the Portuguese language failed to establish itself securely in Goa. The native Goans spoke Konkani or, if they sought a modern education, they found it through the medium of English in nearby British India. Without a secure base in the Portuguese language or a Portuguese-based Creole the “Portugueseness” of the Goans remained shallow and transient. The populations which could be described neither as indigenous nor as being of pure European origin were much more difficult to classify and hence more difficult to know and to control. “Mixed” parentage raised legal, cultural and religious problems and, of course, problems of perception and identity. For the Portuguese at the beginning of the era of expansion, the issue was further complicated by their ideological inheritance. In medieval Europe identity, beyond the immediate identification of birthplace,

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Introduction

residence and family, had depended on allegiance to a feudal lord, a sovereign and the Catholic Church. These were concepts which could be used by the Portuguese to assimilate and absorb anyone who would meet these criteria of acceptance. However, already by the end of the fifteenth century, notions of racial origin had begun to intrude. For a person of Jewish and Moorish descent it was no longer enough to be an orthodox catholic and to owe allegiance to the Crown, the mere fact of Jewish or Moorish ancestry cast doubt on these attributes. In the case of the “mouriscos”, that is those descended from the original “mouros”, their position was further complicated by their convert status, which caused them to be looked upon with suspicion, to the extent that they were called “Moorish New Christians”. In the case of the Jewish population itself, similar tropes defined their ambiguous position, some produced by the Sephardi community itself, for being a Jew was held to be something inherited from a Jewish mother. If Jews recognized the Jewishness of New Christians by reason of descent, it was not surprising that Old Christians would do the same. The doubt cast on the loyalty and orthodoxy of New Christians attached itself also to converts from other faiths and ultimately to those descended from parents or grandparents who had not been Christian. It was this that erected the barriers to their full integration into early modern society, illustrated for example by the reluctance to allow such people into the priesthood. Further complications beset attempts to identify people of “mixed” parentage by family or lineage. In West Africa the Portuguese met matrilineal peoples among whom children were considered to belong to the lineage of the mother. Yet the Iberians, coming from a patrilineal and patriarchal society, were predisposed to recognize all the children sired by a man as being part of his family.

The Black Portuguese It was one of the major themes of Boxer’s seminal work Mary and Misogyny that sexual relations between Portuguese men and slave women, or women from the lands where the Portuguese settled, not only created a new nation of non-white Portuguese but allowed the female partners of a frequently transient male population of administrators, soldiers and sailors to acquire a dominant role in colonial society and economy. This was particularly the case in the colonial Iberian societies of Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia, which, in Philip Havik’s phrase, “demonstrated the inexorable logic of the creolisation process.” And Havik shows that in eighteenth century São Tomé the ratio of women to men in the forro

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population was ten to one. The enhanced position of women in Creole societies is a theme pursued by a number of authors in this book. RussellWood notes that, “in brotherhoods of Africans and Afro-Brazilians, to a markedly higher degree than was the case in their white counterparts, women were prominent numerically and had considerable influence”, while Arne Bialuschewski comments that “in Tamatave, women virtually ran the local economy. They set up comprehensive trading networks and controlled the export trade until the late nineteenth century.”

The explanation for this must surely lie in the transience of males in the maritime world of the early European empires. Whereas women were often fixed in the locality and society of their birth, men came and went with the ships and died on campaign or from privation and disease, one way or another disappearing from the scene leaving women not only as heads of households and sole parents but frequently owners of considerable property. This freedom of sexual relations between the Portuguese and the indigenous women of the societies where they settled continued to characterize the Luso-African ethnicity. Like any other African group, the Luso-Africans sought to increase their productive powers and their political and social influence through expanding their lineages. In classic African fashion this could be done by acquiring slaves and clients and by begetting large numbers of children. Describing António Bezerra, a leading nineteenth century Luso-African Ambakista, Beatriz Heintze writes, ”Lunda seemed to be populated with his children and relatives, a rather advantageous result of his earlier travel and trading activities.” In all the areas colonized by the Portuguese, new populations grew up from these “mixed” unions whose identity was complex and diverse. The chapters by Philip Havik and Rosa Williams show how Portuguese attitudes to these Luso-Africans changed. Distrusted in the seventeenth century for their immorality and unorthodox religious beliefs, the LusoAfricans became, in the nineteenth century, the mainstay of Portugal’s imperial presence in both West and East Africa, carrying the flag deep into the interior and providing the military muscle which enabled Portugal to counter the territorial claims of other European powers. The nineteenth century was the heyday of the power and prosperity of the Luso-African Creoles in West Africa. They now ceased to be persecuted for the dubious nature of their religious belief and were feted as heroes (or heroines) of the empire. As Havik puts it, the Creole women

Introduction

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“filled the power vacuum and pioneered the production of export crops on land accessed through their kin networks. Besides owning and running big trade houses, hundreds of slaves, land for cultivation, vessels and shipyards, they also acted as key power brokers by means of their kinship relations with surrounding communities.”

And “the fact that some of the most influential residents were women did not appear to trouble the Portuguese in the least, as long as they were transformed into dedicated wives, mothers and patriots.”

Then, towards the end of the nineteenth century, Portuguese perceptions of their own history changed abruptly. Rosa Williams shows how the imperial narrative now had to be rewritten. A perception of the Portuguese as “not quite white” had to be remedied so that Portugal could fend off the greedy eyes cast on its colonies by the more “civilized” and “racially pure” Germans, British and French. This perception of the Portuguese is graphically illustrated by Joseph Conrad. In An Outcast of the Islands, dating from 1895, there is a description the “half-caste” De Souza family.2 “They were a numerous and unclean crowd, living in ruined bamboo houses, surrounded by neglected compounds, on the outskirts of Macassar. … They were a half-caste lazy lot, and he saw them as they were—ragged, lean, unwashed, undersized men of various ages, shuffling about aimlessly in slippers; motionless old women who looked like monstrous bags of pink calico stuffed with shapeless lumps of fat, and deposited askew upon decaying rattan chairs in shady corners of dusty verandahs; young women, slim and yellow, big-eyed, long-haired, moving languidly amongst the dirt and rubbish of their dwellings as if every step they took was going to be their very last. He heard their shrill quarrellings, the squalling of their children, the grunting of their pigs; he smelt the odours of the heaps of garbage in their courtyards: and he was greatly disgusted. But he fed and clothed that shabby multitude; those degenerate descendants of Portuguese conquerors.”

Such descriptions, whether or not they corresponded to any reality, clearly show the extent of the “image problem” that the Portuguese faced and meant that the Creole elites, which had been the mainstay of Portuguese influence in Africa, now had to be rejected. As Rosa Williams puts it,

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“secure racial superiority is disrupted by the silent, implicit threat of African women diluting Portuguese blood and the explicit threat of pollution from an African physical and cultural environment”,

while “the related tropes of decadence, miscegenation and criminality describe and account for constantly thwarted progress, personified in the existing Portuguese-speaking populations in Angola.”

Such extreme racist ideas, elaborated para os ingleses e os alemães ver, caused an almost immediate reaction from the class most threatened— the Creole elite itself—which was expressed in the writings of the filho da terra journalists of Angola who wrote for Voz de Angola Clamando no Deserto. The conflict was thus begun which was only to end when the European Portuguese were finally expelled from Angola in 1975 by the old Creole families, politically organised as the MPLA. The Luso-African Creole communities were not, of course, confined to the areas under Portuguese control. From the beginning of Portugal’s overseas expansion, there had been an unofficial or informal empire that had grown up alongside the territories formally subject to the Portuguese Crown. Individual Portuguese sought to evade the economic monopolies of the Crown and the capitães donatários by settling in areas outside their jurisdiction and that of the church. This pattern was repeated in the East where many of the “unofficial” Portuguese communities became larger and more prosperous than the official towns of the Estado da Índia. These Portuguese who settled ‘beyond the Pale’ married into the local communities. Their children belonged to the maternal lineages and they themselves would trade within the networks of the indigenous populations. However, they retained ties with their Portuguese culture even after many generations had removed any visible trace of their Portuguese ancestry. The best-known example of a Portuguese Creole society emerging outside the area of Portuguese control is that of the lançados, or AfroPortuguese, of West Africa. José Nafafe shows how far these men were prepared to go in seeking assimilation into the African societies where they lived, adopting religious practices, tattooing their bodies and assuming African styles of dress, or undress. However, he argues that it was the religious freedom of the West African kingdoms, which was the greatest attraction, particularly for those men with a New Christian background fleeing persecution in Portugal. Philip Havik describes the Kriston (Christianised Africans) of Guinea as being dominated by powerful female figures who

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Introduction “were related by kinship to dignitaries from surrounding ‘ethnic’ communities and as a result were in a position to act as cultural brokers who formed bridges between the different geographical and social spaces.”

Havik quotes the example of Crispina Peres from the town of Cacheu (situated in the north of modern Guinea-Bissau). “Married to the wealthy and influential son of a ‘rebellious Jew’, she was the incarnation of the free African woman from the Afro-Atlantic towns acting as head of household, as the partner of an influential traderofficial, and as a slave owner. However, she also represented the Christianised African with syncretic beliefs, indigenous healer and lynchpin of local support networks controlled by women from trade settlements.”

Such a case illustrates the role of both the Portuguese and the Jewish diasporas in the formation of the Creole communities of West Africa. Beatrix Heintze explores in some detail the history of the Bezerras, a family of Ambakistas in nineteenth century Angola. By the nineteenth century the Ambakistas had become clearly identified as a distinct and separate ethnic group. Their ethnic identity may have been based on a narrative myth of a Portuguese ancestry but this had long since ceased to represent the realities of the origin of most of the Ambakistas. As Heintze explains, “the tribute to Bezerra was generally paid in young slaves—the generally accepted currency. These boys and girls comprised his large family, were educated and grew up to be good settlers. Most of them later returned with him to Malanje where they established their own small village.”

Like the Afro-Portuguese of West Africa, the Ambakistas claimed to be culturally “Portuguese” but increased the size and power of their community in traditional African ways by incorporating slaves and clients into their lineages.

The Creation of New Ethnicities One of the constant themes in the study of Creole societies is the question of new ethnicities, just as the emergence of new languages is in the study of linguistic “Creoles”. Groups that were dismissed as degenerate “half-castes” a hundred years ago are now seen as forging new ethnic, even national, identities. Not all such new “identities” flourish and

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survive. In the universe of cultural Darwinism some newly evolved forms thrive, others do not, but societies continue to throw out new potential ethnicities and new cultural and linguistic groupings some of which will emerge as recognised “nationalities” and “languages”. Gerhard Seibert looks at the history of the Angolares, the maroon community in São Tomé, which succeeded in creating a distinct and recognised ethnic identity marked in particular by its own language. For the Angolares, the struggle today is for the recognition of their true historic identity as descendants of escaped slaves in a world where historical origins can carry political significance. Arne Bialuschewski examines another case of the birth of a new ethnicity, the Betsimisaraka, who arose from the apparently inauspicious beginnings of the intermarriage of renegade European pirates with the women of northern Madagascar. Luís Batalha takes the struggle for recognition of Creole identity into the realms of language. Many of the Creole societies that grew up as a result of the contact between people of Portuguese origin and the indigenous populations of Africa, America and Asia developed their own languages. The study of Creole languages reflects the ambivalence that was felt about the identity of those who spoke them. Initially Crioulo was treated as a simplified form of Portuguese “which was seen as much too complex a language to be spoken by ‘uncivilized’ and ‘uncultured’ peoples.” However, as Luís Batalha points out, the linguists “forgot that the Creole language was the language not only of Negro slaves but of everybody else, including the erstwhile white elite.” The designation of some forms of communication as “languages” and some as “creoles” has no scientific basis and reflects the attitudes of intellectual elites to the peoples who use the Creole speech. He argues strongly that the Crioulo of Cape Verde should be formally recognized as a language in its own right, just as the Portuguese language, which began as a Creole form of Latin, has been. Russell-Wood’s chapter focuses on the black and mulatto Creoles of Brazil—that is Brazilians of African descent born in Brazil. From the perspective of the white governing class, the black Creole, even when a freeman, was scarcely to be distinguished from the slave from Africa. “This circumstance of being born a slave or being of slave parentage and thus a base (Portuguese: vil) person, regardless of the passage of several generations and manumission since slavery, led Portuguese settlers, elected municipal officials, crown representatives, and even the king to overlook legal distinctions between slave and free, differences of pigmentation between mulattos and blacks, and place of birth, and to pass or enforce legislation or impose punishments applicable to all persons of African descent.”

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Introduction

But the purpose of the chapter is to unravel the complexities of identity which Creoles (slave and free) and the African-born recognized among themselves. The culture of the Brazilian-born Creoles incorporated many forms and ideas from their African origin—most notably in the area of religion which “was inalienable from African cosmology, rituals, cultures, kingship and lineages, and permeated into value systems and behaviours.” It has been customary for historians to see this working itself out in the various forms of religious syncretism. Russell-Wood again: “Syncretism was one strategy by which African cultures and mores could be maintained, in which facets of African- and European-derived cultures were melded in such a delicate balance that Europeans did not view the African component—if they recognized it at all—as being offensive.”

However, the Brazilian Creole population also distinguished itself sharply from those of African birth, because in Brazil “skin colour and even the ‘accident of birth’, to use a contemporary expression for a person of slave parentage, were negotiable”. A person de cor equívoca or escuro could become pardo or even be “white to all appearances (ao parecer branco) and thus eligible to hold public office notwithstanding decrees to the contrary”. So, “Afro-Brazilians took steps to lessen their being mistakenly identified as Africans. Afro-Brazilian slave women consciously dressed themselves, adopted hair styles, and wore jewellery not merely as indicators of status but also to distinguish themselves from African women.”

Brazilian Creoles recognized a range of social indicators, including, of course, manumission, but also place of birth, language and profession. Creoles were often skilled persons, held positions of responsibility on plantations or aspired to membership of brotherhoods and militias. “Africans were not formally excluded by decree or statute, but such formal exclusion would have been redundant. The social reality was that they were far less likely than were creoles to have the requisite qualifications to make them eligible and, if they were eligible, they did not have access to the social network in the Afro-Brazilian community whose support and trust they would have needed to become full participants in guilds or militia companies.”

If there is one conclusion to be drawn from these chapters it is that Creole societies should not just be seen as marginal forms of the societies

Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire

15

indigenous to Africa, America or Asia nor as exhibiting some kind of bastard European culture. Creole lineages and communities, whether arising from slaves negotiating status for themselves in Brazil, or from the maroons of São Tomé, or from the offspring of unions between European traders and pirates and local women in Madagascar, all had the potential to grow into clearly distinct ethnicities like the Ambakistas or the Betsimisaraka. Others like the descendentes of Goa and the Província do Norte remained as tiny, exclusive groups condemned to impotence by the strictures of caste. Yet others, like the Cape Verdeans, transcended all the doubts originally cast on their origin and on the validity of the Crioulo tongue and developed into nations with their own independent state and distinctive language. If in the case of Brazil, which incorporates the largest creolised society in the lusophone world, a Creole language did not emerge, its multifaceted cultural heritage spread far beyond its frontiers. In Boxer‘s view miscegenation was the general rule on both sides of the Atlantic: while climatic reasons, among others, impeded the evolution of large mulatto communities in continental Africa, the opposite was the case in Brazil. In his Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, Boxer held that processes of creolisation in Africa differed in accordance with geographic location: whereas on the mainland Portuguese became Africanised, on the islands—as in the Americas—European cultural traits tended to dominate. Since Boxer published these lectures and those reproduced in Mary and Misogyny, research has covered new ground and uncovered novel aspects of cross-cultural change along the shores of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The current volume provides a sample of recent work on Africa, Asia and the Americas, which highlights the roles that creolized communities played in such a vast area over a period of four centuries. Its intention is to contribute to the continuing debate on the changing patterns of historical interaction and the formation of complex identities in the Lusophone world that Charles Boxer initiated more than half a century ago.

Notes 1

R.L. Stevenson, The Ebb-tide, Tusitala Edition, 4th impression, (Heinemann: London, 1929), p.1. 2 Joseph Conrad, An Outcast of the Islands, (Collins Classics: London, 1955), pp.19–20.

CHAPTER ONE THE ROLE OF THE PORTUGUESE TRADING POSTS IN GUINEA AND ANGOLA IN THE “APOSTASY” OF CRYPTO-JEWS IN THE 17TH CENTURY TOBY GREEN

The story of the Sephardic Jews is a sad and a well-worn one. In 1492, the Reyes Católicos, Fernando and Isabel, ordered all the Jews in Castile and Aragon to convert or depart from their kingdoms. Of the perhaps 100,000 who left,1 many went to Portugal where, in 1497, the vast majority were forcibly converted to Christianity by D. Manuel I.2 Though initially protected from inquisitorial investigations into the nature of their Christian faith, these cristãos novos would eventually be persecuted by inquisitors just as their forebears had been in Castile and Aragon. Many fled to the Ottoman Empire, Italian principalities, the Netherlands and North Africa; however others remained in the Iberian possessions, both in Europe and in the New World, and in these areas some of them retained elements of their Jewish faith in a covert manner. A much less well-worn strand of the story of the Sephardim, however, is their presence and influence in the Portuguese trading posts of West Africa. This topic will be examined through documents that have hitherto been neglected by Africanists, the inquisitorial records of the New World. These show not only that there was a significant Sephardic presence in Angola and Guinea, but that these Portuguese settlements were crucial in the development of an active crypto-Jewish diaspora across the Atlantic which was subject to widespread persecutions in Cartagena, Lima and Mexico in the middle years of the seventeenth century.

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Persecution of Portuguese Jews by the Inquisition in Lima and Cartagena These persecutions began in Peru. In 1635, the inquisitors of Lima uncovered what they termed a “gran complicidad”—what they saw to be a Jewish plot by many of the most powerful merchants of the Viceroyalty. Scores of people were tried for being Jewish heretics, and some were “relaxed” to the secular arm—that is, they were handed over to the secular authorities to be executed in the Auto da Fé of 23 January 1639. One of those executed in this way was Juan de Acevedo. Acevedo was born in 1609, and originated from Lisbon.3 Asked by the inquisitors where and when he first began to practice the Jewish faith, Acevedo answered that when he first went to Angola, at the age of sixteen, he fell ill: “and a doctor came to see him called Manuel Alvarez, who was Portuguese; and learning over the course of his illness, that the Defendant (Azevedo) was a Christian, [Alvarez] said to him, that he lived in error because the faith of the Christians was one that worshipped idols of stone and wood.”4

Acevedo wished to denounce Alvarez, and the following day a priest visited him, whereupon Acevedo related what had befallen him. The priest berated Acevedo, telling him that since the doctor had only wished to “enlighten him on the true path which was that of the Law of Moses, so he should do him no harm.”5 Invited to eat a meal by one Juana Mendez, Acevedo soon found himself pressed to fast for Yom Kippur, where “they all went in to pray in the said room where the lanterns were, with the doctor taking up a book from which he read prayers from the Law of Moses, and those who were present responded in the same manner; and when the doctor tired the cleric picked up the said book, and continued with the Reading, and that was how they remained until midday, without extinguishing the lanterns...”6

Once the great fast of the Jewish faith had ended, the congregants ate a communal meal of fish and fruit, which had been prepared the night before.7 Acevedo’s evidence is certainly suggestive of an active population of crypto-Jews in Angola in the early seventeenth century. Indeed, had the inquisitors of Lima compared notes with their fellow inquisitors in Cartagena, in what was then the Nuevo Reino de Granada, and wished to instruct the inquisitors of Lisbon to instigate proceedings in Angola, they would have found ample materials with which to do so.

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Chapter One

Contemporaneously with the trials in Lima, a group of crypto-Jews living in Cartagena was being tried by the Inquisitorial Tribunal of that city. One of those being tried was Manuel Alvarez Prieto, an important trader in Cartagena. One of the witnesses against Alvarez Prieto was Blas de Paz Pinto, another Jew, who stated that he had started judaising thirty years previously [circa 1606] in Lisbon, and that “he had then gone to Angola where he had found the said manuel alvarez prieto,”8 and that Alvarez Prieto “had taught again the said law”9 to Blas de Paz Pinto. Alvarez Prieto himself claimed that “approximately twenty-two years ago, when he was in angola Diego de Santillana who is already dead taught him the law of Moses.”10 He claimed that many people had come to him in Cartagena and confessed to being active Jews, including one “Juan Fernandez de Azamor who declared himself as a Jew observant of the law of Moses in Angola, along with a friend of his called Antonio Nunez da Costa.”11 It is of course impossible to say whether this Manuel Alvarez Prieto is the same as the Manuel Alvarez who proselytised Acevedo, although the absence of any record of Alvarez Prieto having been a doctor would argue against such an identification. Nevertheless, the links between the cryptoJewish networks of Lima, Cartagena and Angola is further confirmed by another aspect of Acevedo’s evidence. Acevedo testified against one Francisco Rodriguez Carnero, resident in Cartagena, who, he claimed, had also sought to proselytise him, and “had taught him the mosaic law in angola, and that through his teaching he had performed fasts, prayers and ceremonies of the said law.”12 That the nexus of Angola included São Tomé was confirmed by the evidence of one of the witnesses against Alvarez Prieto, Francisco Rodriguez de Solíz, who stated that “he had been taught to observe [the aw of Moses] by Juan fernandez angel, who was now dead, living at the home of this defendant [Soliz] around ten years ago…with angel having come from sanctome.”13

Notwithstanding the perennial difficulty facing those who study the records of the Inquisition, namely what one is to make of evidence that has been exacted from people through torture—a difficulty which recent events have shown to be as pressing today as it was in the seventeenth century—this material alone would be enough to suggest that crypto-Jews were active in Angola. Nevertheless, the material suggests that West Africa was not only a hotbed of crypto-Jewry, but a place where Catholics were actively converted to the Mosaic faith. Let us consider further the evidence of Juan de Acevedo. He claims that, when he arrived in Cartagena from Angola, he went to visit Francisco

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Rodriguez Carnero in the latter’s home: “and finding himself with one Manuel de Sosa the said Carnero said to him, see here is one who we taught the law of moses to in angola.”14 The language is specific: Acevedo is one of those who have been converted to Judaism in Angola; that is, there are others of whom the same is true; and, furthermore, a legitimate interpretation might be that it is common practice to attempt the conversion of people to Judaism in Angola. That this interpretation is valid will be shown by switching attention from Angola to Guinea. Another of those “relaxed” to the secular authorities in the 1639 Auto da Fé of Lima was Antonio de Espinoza. Espinoza related the process of his conversion to Judaism as follows: “in may or june of [1]631 he took ship in cadiz with captain Pero Correa who was going to Guine in a ship; Correa was a Portuguese merchant, who took the defendant in his poop-deck cabin, and in many conversations which they had over the course of the journey persuaded him of the merits of the law of Moses, which the defendant resisted at first.”15

However, Espinoza’s resistance was of little effect. Arriving in Guinea, “four other portuguese men gathered, who he named along with the said Captain Correa, and they all said to the prisoner so many things about the law of moses, discussing it with the prisoner at great length, and saying how god had given the law of Moses in the mountain, and how when coming down from it he had found the people of Israel had committed idolatries; [and they had] wasted over a sheet of paper in elaborating this, so that in the end the defendant resolved to observe the said law.”16

Espinoza’s evidence implies that there was a veritable team of proselytes waiting in Guinea—more precisely, in Cacheu, as is made clear by subsequent denunciations made by him17—to convert passing Portuguese. Not only did the ship’s captain and the people in Guinea wish to convert him, but another crewmember told Espinoza that the truth lay with the Mosaic Law. Furthermore, the vagaries of trade meant that the party spent eight months in Guinea, during which time they observed the fast of Yom Kippur and kept the Jewish Sabbath every week.18 Although Espinoza retracted the evidence during his trial, he later said that what he had claimed of Guinea and Cacheu was true.19 Furthermore, Espinoza was not the only victim of the gran complicidad to have learnt his Judaism in Guinea. The same was also true of Sebastian Duarte, the brother-in-law of the alleged ringleader of Lima’s Jews, Manuel Bautista Perez. In his evidence, given without being under torture, Duarte confessed that

20

Chapter One “being in Guinea in the year of [16]19, and the prisoner [Duarte] being 18 years old, and dealing in a store of merchandise belonging to an uncle of his called Phelipe Rodriguez, one Diego de Albuquerque taught him the law of Moses.”20

Although Duarte later retracted the evidence, documents from Cartagena show that he had strong connections with known traders from Cacheu and support the veracity of his original claims. Meanwhile, in the trial of Manuel Bautista Perez, himself one of the witnesses, Juan Rodriguez Duarte, confessed that he was Jewish and had “observed the law of moses, taught him in guinea by one francisco rodriguez de acosta and Juan Rodrigues de acosta and alvaro goncalez frances.”21 Although this evidence was given under torture, there is a certain corroboration lent to it through the fact that Alvaro Goncalez Frances (known in Portuguese documents as Gonçalves Frances) was also accused of judaising by Juan Rodriguez Mesa in Cartagena, albeit also under torture.22 Furthermore, the presence of an active branch of the Rodriguez de Acosta family in Guinea is at least partially corroborated by the evidence of a slave ship captain called Antonio Rodriguez de Acosta sailing from Seville for Guinea in 1618.23 The American inquisitors of the 1630s had, therefore, a rich seam of evidence as to the importance of the trading posts of West Africa in converting people to Judaism. It was not just that crypto-Jews came from Africa to the Americas: many of them claimed to have been converted there in the first place. Furthermore, such tales were not new. As far back as 1623, the trader Garci Mendez de Dueñas was imprisoned in Lima on suspicion of being a Jew; then 58, he confessed that at the age of fifteen [circa 1580] he went to Lisbon “where he took ship for guinea in the company of his brother-in-law called Rui Mendez, and that they had been in the São Domingos River [Cacheu] making up a party of slaves to take to the indies.”24

During this journey, Mendez “persuaded him that there was only One true God…and that there was no other law but that which God had given to moses.”25 The trial of Garci Mendez dragged on. On 11 January 1624 he became desperate, telling the inquisitors that for two days he had been unable to sleep thinking of his troubles. In response, “having been consoled by the said Lord Inquisitor and been warned of the great deal that depended on his saying clearly and openly the truth, that

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he should think hard about saying it, and he was ordered to return to his cell.”26

The following morning Garci Mendez was found hanged in his cell.

The Portuguese Inquisition and West Africa As well as revealing the institutional inhumanity of the Inquisition, this case is of interest as it reveals that conversions to Judaism had been occurring on the Guinea coast for many decades. Furthermore, by the time that this evidence was collected in the Americas in the 1630s, the inquisitors of Lisbon, under whose jurisdiction both Guinea and Angola fell, had long been aware of both the presence of cristãos novos in West Africa, and of their proselytising activities there. There is evidence of this in the Inquisition archives in Portugal. On 21 May 1592, an inquiry was made to the Conselho Geral do Santo Ofício in Lisbon with regard to one “Luis preto who is at present detained, the prosecuting Judge having placed his ship, bound for Guine[a] under an embargo; owing to the fact that it was carrying on board enrique de solis, and francisco fernandez, of the New Christian nation.” 27

At this time, the cristãos novos of Portugal were barred from leaving the kingdom without the permission of the king. As this permission had not been granted, Luís Preto had acted unlawfully—and the perceived danger of the presence of cristãos novos in Guinea is underlined by the action which the state had taken against him. Almost exactly a year later, on 11 May 1593, in a letter to the Conselho Geral, Pero Rodrigues, visitor of the Jesuit mission in Angola, wrote that São Paulo de Luanda was rife with Jews and heretics of all descriptions: “To Judaism belong [the errors] which declare that the sentence of Pilate against Christ was just, and had a great basis. That those who die at the hands of the Holy Office are martyrs. A Torah was found here, and on this Maundy Thursday some people gathered to have a celebratory meal at the house of someone whose faith is deemed very suspicious…” 28

Rodrigues claimed that the provisor, Manoel Roiz Teixeira, was a great friend of the gente da nação, as the cristãos novos were sometimes known, and concluded that

22

Chapter One “to be safe it would be advisable to send here a person with the requisite powers to reside here [in San Pablo de Loanda] as it is a healthy place, and to have [members of the] religious [orders] who can be helped with jurisdiction over Congo, the island of Príncipe, and São Tomé, which are full of New Christians.” 29

Pero Rodrigues’s evidence not only reveals the extent of the presence of crypto-Jews in Angola, Congo and São Tomé, but also implies that the Luandan branch was a fully functioning community, with a Torah, no less, with which divine services could be held. This would seem to be a condition of the sort of proselytising activity, which we have adduced from the evidence of the American Inquisitions, and to confirm the impression that West Africa was a centre for the conversion of Catholics to Judaisers. Yet the archives of the Inquisition of Lisbon are empty of trials of Judaisers from West Africa. While there are not a few denunciations in the Libros de Denuncias or the Cadernos do Promotor, the lists of the Autos da Fé from Lisbon are light on prisoners from Cacheu or Luanda. Indeed, it is probably this very fact, which encouraged the freedom of worship, which appears to have been the norm there. There are several reasons which explain how and why this lack of interest might have developed. This comparative lack of inquisitorial interest in West Africa was slow to develop. Indeed, the archives of the early years of the Lisbon tribunal contain a number of references to activities in West Africa. In 1551, the jurisdiction of the Inquisition of Lisbon was extended to cover the Portuguese possessions in the Atlantic30, and it was doubtless under these auspices that the inquisitors turned their attention to Cabo Verde. A document from the Torre do Tombo (ANTT) shows that in the same year, they nominated a visitor to go to Cabo Verde in order to “conduct an investigation regarding the things which touch on the holy office”, one of which were the cristãos novos. 31 Unfortunately the results of this journey of inquiry have not been preserved for posterity. Nevertheless, it is possible to glean from several other documents that the cristãos novos of Cabo Verde and Guinea remained a source of concern for the Lisbon inquisitors for quite some time thereafter. In June 1558, António Varela was appointed procurador of the cristãos novos of Santiago de Cabo Verde, with the special task of enforcing all laws which prohibited them from living there. 32 In January 1563, the pilot of the ship Esperança was given several letters to take to the bishop of Cabo Verde, with information about cristãos novos living there. 33 Then, in September 1567, further letters were sent to the bishop urging him to make some more inquiries. 34 Nor was Cabo Verde alone in

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23

Africa as a destination for cristãos novos. A letter of the same year [1567] from the Inquisition was addressed to a vicar on the island of São Tomé, urging him to arrest a cristão novo living there. 35 The picture that emerges, then, is of an institution which, in its early years, was aware of the presence of cristãos novos in West Africa and attempted, however ham-fistedly, to control the situation from afar. The concern, which was felt regarding the presence of Jewish elements in the Ultramar, resulted in 1591 in the appointment of Heitor Furtado de Mendonça as inquisitorial visitor to Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde and São Tomé. Surely, now, given the increasing evidence as to the presence of cristãos novos in West Africa, the problem would be resolved. Yet Mendonça—though highly active in Brazil—appears never to have gone to Africa. The reason—at least for Cabo Verde—can be gleaned from a letter dispatched to Mendonça by the Conselho Geral from Lisbon on 10 April 1593, in which he was instructed “that as soon as he has finished visiting the captaincy of Pernambuco, that he should not go to the Islands of Cabo Verde, or that he should do so with all brevity and if it seems possible.” 36 In point of fact, it took Mendonça another two years to finish his work in Brazil, and it seems likely that the prolonged visit meant that he did not bother to visit Cabo Verde on his way back to Portugal. The reason for this was straightforwardly financial. The coffers of the Portuguese Inquisition were by this time in a sorry state. A letter from the Conselho Geral, probably of 1594, stated the matter baldly: “On May 14th of this current year we recounted to Your Grace all the difficulties and necessaries which are wanting in this Inquisition; how 3634 thousand reis are owing: and of the letters [of credit] which were passed to the Visitors of the islands and Brazil 2 360 thousand reis...and to the officials of their lodgings 1 274 thousand reis.” 37

That is, almost two thirds of the debts of the Inquisition were due to the overseas expeditions to Brazil and the Atlantic islands, a figure that was confirmed in accounts of 15 July of that year. 38 Furthermore, the officials in Lisbon were by now pessimistic with regard to the likely outcomes of these overseas inquiries. Referring specifically to the request of Pero Rodrigues for steps to be taken about the cristãos novos in Angola, the Conselho Geral pointed out that “to send there a person with the necessary powers would be very expensive and the holy office is not in the right state to make these outlays: because with the Visits to the Islands and Brazil a lot has been spent, and it

24

Chapter One is still to be expected that the Visitor of Brazil will return with many payments to be made.” 39

It seems that at the turn of the seventeenth century the philosophy of the Inquisition might be summarized as follows: purity of the faith was essential and non-negotiable, but it could not be allowed to transcend the purity of the balanced account ledger. The record suggests that, although the purity of the faith was of course essential and non-negotiable, it was perhaps more negotiable in some places than others—most particularly, in Africa. Referring to the vast profusion of heresies in Africa, Pero Rodrigues, who has already been mentioned, concluded his litany of misfortunes with Guinea, which, he said, “invites freedom of words and customs.” 40 This freedom of words and deeds was clearly deeply worrying to all right-thinking Catholics and certainly ran contrary to the ideology of the Inquisition, whose prime concern was to enforce orthodoxy, and it was thus highly threatening. Furthermore, this freedom of activity could be viewed through the prism of the well-known and much reviled lançados. There is, of course, an extensive literature about the activities of the lançados, most especially in Senegambia and Guinea41, and it is well-known that from the beginning of the sixteenth century the Portuguese crown had done everything in its power to prevent its subjects from settling freely in Africa, outside its jurisdiction. However, what was most threatening about these men was not necessarily their interference with the trade of the Portuguese royal monopoly, but their potential freedom of action and belief. In a letter of instruction from the Conselho Geral to the inquisitors of Goa in 1585, the officials in Goa are instructed that “one should proceed as against apostates and those who are distanced from the faith, against those christians who live in the territories of the Infidels and walk about dressed in the manner of the Infidels, without there being any proof of their performing the rites or ceremonies of the Infidels, other than that of being dressed in their Clothes which are different to those of the christians.” 42

By the following years, cases were being taken against some of these criminals. 43 In other words it is clear that, where the Inquisition had the power—or perhaps more accurately the will-to enforce absolute orthodoxy, it did not hesitate to do so. In the Portuguese overseas empire, someone could be a heretic simply by virtue of their clothing—hence the dismay which Rodrigues felt at the “freedom” of Guinea, a freedom which went absolutely unchecked. Yet, as has been shown, Rodrigues was

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25

completely ignored by the hierarchy, because in the final analysis, perceived difference—however shocking to the Portuguese scale of values—was essential to their project in Africa.

The Logic of the Slave Trade It will be recalled that the logic of the slave trade was as follows: the slaves were being saved from eternal damnation through their baptism. One of the main roles of the islands of Cabo Verde, for instance, was to act as a holding station where slaves could be baptised prior to their departure across the Atlantic. The Middle Passage was, thus, an exercise in “saving” the slaves, and further, in making them “human”. Once they reached the other side, they would be seen as genuine human beings, a rung above the indigenous American peoples and, as Thornton points out, the evidence for this is precisely that, unlike the Amerindians, the African slaves of the Americas were deemed appropriate subjects for the Inquisition, which is appropriate people from whom orthodoxy could be demanded. 44 However, the Church was a disinterested participant in this process of salvation. As Quenum has pointed out, the papacy had often seen it as its duty to protect Christians from slavery and thus, he suggests, only economic interest can explain why the Church did not demand that baptised Africans were freed. 45However, allied to this economic interest was also the ideology of the age, an ideology which perceived Africans as fundamentally different, and thus legitimate objects of European slavery. The cause of this perception of fundamental difference was the process of “otherisation” which has been so expertly traced by, for instance, Todorov46 and Tolentino Dipp.47 The “others” had to be progressively dehumanised if they were to fulfil the role, which the Europeans had preordained for them, of building their empires of death and desire. Aspects of the change which this wrought in the Portuguese conceptual lexicon can be seen, for instance, in the change of meaning of the word “negro”, cited by Ramos Tinhorão, from a word referring generically to all peoples of darker skin colour to a word referring specifically to Africans.48 A situation was gradually developed in which, as Spivak has demonstrated, the “other” became an essential correlate of every category of Western thought. 49 To summarise a process of thought and action that has become clear enough: in Africa, Africans were free non-humans; in America, they were enslaved humans. As a human being, the African was—in the Aristotelian category so beloved of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—a “natural” slave.

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Chapter One

The corollary of this for the nature of the Inquisition in Africa is not too difficult to see. Both the absence of severe inquisitorial tribunals in Africa, and their presence in the Americas, were fundamental to the perceived legitimisation of the entire process of the slave trade. Their absence in Africa confirmed the assumption that Africans were nonhumans, among whom religious or cultural orthodoxy need not be a requirement; their presence in the Americas confirmed the fact that the Africans had been “saved” by the process of their enslavement. 50

Conclusion This chapter has shown how many of the crypto-Jews tried by the Inquisitions of the Americas had been converted in the Portuguese trading posts of Africa. Secondly, it holds that the freedom of action and belief which Jews found themselves able to practice in Africa was in fact a corollary of the prevailing commercial and racial ideology of the age. The converso leaving Iberia for the first time, and arriving in Cacheu or Luanda in preparation for dispatching their own peças de escravos across the Middle Passage to the Americas, found a world in which, for the first time in their life experience, they could indulge in free thought and expression; and not only could they do so, but they were obliquely encouraged to do so. Given the authoritarian repression, which they faced in Catholic Iberia, like all good rebels, they sought difference, and found it in crypto-Judaism. Although many of them were thus preparing the ground for their own deaths at the stake or in the torture chambers of Lima and Cartagena, they were at least negotiating their own passage from repression to freedom—even as they led the Africans across the Atlantic, from freedom, to slavery.

Notes 1

For instance, John Edwards notes that rough estimates have in recent years been revised down to 70–100,000—The Spanish Inquisition, (Tempus Publishing Ltd: Stroud, 1999), p.88. 2 It has usually been state that all the Jews converted. This received orthodoxy has been challenged in recent years by, among others, José Alberto Rodrigues da Silva Tavim, Os Judeus na Expansão Portuguesa em Marrocos Durante o Século XVI: Origens e Actividades duma Comunidade, (Edições APPACDM Distrital e Braga: Braga, 1997), pp. 83–4.

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3

27

Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid (hereafter AHN) – Sección Inquisición, Libro 1031, folio 84 verso (hereafter “v”). 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., folio 85 recto (hereafter “r”). 6 Ibid., folios 85 r–v. 7 Ibid., folio 85v. 8 AHN. Sección Inquisición, Legajo 1620, Expediento 15, folio 17v. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid., folio 37r. 11 Ibid., folio 38v. 12 AHN. Sección Inquisición, Libro 1020, folio 514v. 13 AHN. Sección Inquisición, Legajo 1620, Expediente 15, folio 20v–21r. That São Tomé was also involved in the crypto-Jewish network is perhaps inevitable, given the historical origins of the island's population. In 1493, João II seized a large number of Jewish children from their parents and exiled them to the island. It is estimated that between 1000 and 2000 were sent there, in order both to colonise the island and so that they might be converted to Christianity. Although these orphans inevitably lost many vestiges of their Jewish heritage, recent scholarly debate has pointed to possible vestiges of Jewish heritage in Santomense culture – see for instance Gerhard Seibert, Há Vestigios dos Meninos Judeus na Cultura Santomense?, in: Moshe Liba ed., Jewish Child Slaves in São Tomé, pp.41–58 with the editorial co-operation of Norman Simms, (New Zealand Jewish Chronicle Publications: Wellington, 2003), and Lúcio Lima Viegas Pinto, ‘Valores Culturais em São Tomé e Príncipe: A Abordagem da Influência Judia’, in: Liba, Jewish Child Slaves in São Tomé, pp. 70–75. 14 AHN. Sección Inquisición, Libro 1020, folio 514v. 15 AHN. Sección Inquisición, Libro 1031, folio 114v. 16 Ibid., folios 114v–115r. 17 Ibid., folio 115r “En otra audiencia que pidio ansi mesmo voluntariamente el reo...dixo que queria descarregar su conciencia, y echar de si aquella desdicha porque no quería mas dela salvación de su alma, y fue declarando contra muchos complices en cacheó de guinea...”. 18 Ibid., folio 115r. 19 Ibid., folio 115v. 20 Ibid., folio 195v. 21 AHN. Sección Inquisición, Legajo 1647, Expediente 13, folio 222v. 22 AHN. Sección Inquisición, Libro 1021, folio 13r. 23 Huguette and Pierre Chaunu, Séville et l'Atlantique (1504–1650): Partie Statistique (Tome IV)—le Trafic de 1596 à 1620, (Librarie Armand Colin: Paris, 1956), pp. 506–7. 24 AHN. Sección Inquisición, Legajo 1648, Expediente 16, folio 70r. 25 Ibid., 72v. 26 Ibid., folio 84v.

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Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (hereafter ANTT), Conselho Geral do Santo Ofício, Livro 129, folio 373r 28 Ibid., folio 202r. It seems reasonable to suspect that this feast was that of the Passover, or Pesach. 29 Ibid. 30 I.S. Révah, ‘Les Marranes Portugais et l'Inquisition au XVIe Siècle’ in R.D. Barnett ed., The Sephardi Heritage: Essays on the History and Cultural Contribution of the Jews of Spain and Portugal, (Valentine, Mitchell & Co.: London,1971) vol 1, p.504. 31 ANTT, Inquisição de Lisboa, Livro 840, Folio 8r. 32 Christiano José de Senna Barcellos, Subsídios Para a História de Cabo Verde e Guiné, (Academia Real das Sciencias: Lisbon, 1899) vol. I., p. 139. 33 ANTT, Inquisiçäo de Lisboa, Livro 840, Folio 41r. 34 Ibid., Folio 53r. Although this memorandum does not state what these inquiries were about, as the Inquisition in Portugal was most concerned with crypto-Judaism at this time, it is likely that they included this. 35 Ibid., Folio 52r 36 ANTT, Conselho Geral do Santo Oficio, Livro 92, folio 53r. 37 ANTT, Conselho Geral do Santo Ofício, Livro 129, folio 54r. 38 ANTT, Conselho Geral do Santo Ofício, Livro 99, folios 32v–33r. 39 ANTT, Conselho Geral do Santo Ofício, Livro 129, folio 201r. 40 Ibid. 41 E.g. Maria Emília Madeira Santos, ‘Lançados na Costa da Guiné: Aventureiros e Comerciantes’, in Carlos Lopes ed., Mansas, Escravos, Grumetes e Gentio: Cacheu na Encruzilhada de Civilizações, (Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisa: Bissau, 1993), pp. 65–78, and the many references to lançados in George E. Brooks, Eurafricans in Western Africa: Commerce, Social Status, Gender, and Religious Observance from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, (James Currey: Oxford, 2003). There is also much valuable material in Jean Boulègue, Les Luso-Africains de la Sénégambie: XVIe—XIXe Siècle, (Université de Dakar: Dakar, 1972) and in Maria da Graça Garcia Nolasco da Silva, ‘Subsídios para o Estudo dos Lançados na Guine’, Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa, Vol. XXV, nos. 97–100. 42 ANTT, Conselho Geral do Santo Ofício, Livro 100, folio 57r. 43 ANTT, Conselho Geral do Santo Ofício, Livro 96, Doc. 21, folio 2r. 44 John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400– 1800, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1998; second edition), p. 141. 45 Alphonse Quenum, Les Églises Chrétiennes et la Traite Atlantique du XVe au XIXe Siècle, (Éditions Karthala : Paris, 1993), p. 83. 46 Ibid. 47 Hugo Tolentino Dipp, Raza e Historia en Santo Domingo: Los Orígenes del Prejuicio racial en América, (Fundación Cultural Dominicana: Santo Domingo, 1992; first published 1974).

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29

José Ramos Tinhorão, Os Negros em Portugal. (Editorial Caminho S.A: Lisbon, 1988), pp.71–2. 49 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Towards a History of the Vanishing Present, (Harvard University Press: Cambridge Mass., 1999). 50 In 1626 the Licenciado Luís Pires de Viega was sent as an inquisitorial visitor to Angola, and that correspondence refers to the need for this in relation to the large number of cristãos novos then in Angola (see José Lourenço de Mendonça and António Joaquim Moreira, História dos Principais Actos e Procedimentos da Inquisição em Portugal, (Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda: Lisbon, 1980; first published 1842), pp.142–3). The correspondence shows that an Auto da Fé was held in Luanda on 18 August 1626 as a result, but our investigations in the ANTT have yet to reveal any record of the same. Nevertheless, this sole visit in comparison to the large amount of correspondence is insignificant, especially as Viega spent only a few months in Angola before the Auto, in contrast to the four years spent by Mendonça when visitor in Brazil.

CHAPTER TWO MARY AND MISOGYNY REVISITED: GENDERING THE AFRO-ATLANTIC CONNECTION PHILIP J. HAVIK

Introduction Charles Boxer devoted a great deal of attention to Cape Verde, São Tomé, Angola and Brazil in his Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire and The Portuguese Seaborne Empire but made scant reference to the Guinea coast. The region referred to as the “Rios de Guiné de Cabo Verde” during the first centuries of Portuguese presence was, as he recalled, frequented by “Portuguese traders and exiled criminals” who acted as commercial intermediaries.1 Referring to their assimilation and intermarriage with the region’s inhabitants, he states that they and their mulatto offspring were established in the “Negro villages”, penetrating the interior by means of the region’s many rivers. The paragraphs in question, which are very similar in content, convey the marked lack of control the metropole exercised over the activities of these mavericks on the periphery of the empire. According to Boxer, Lisbon was more concerned with tax evasion than with their going native. In his Race Relations… he quotes from a Jesuit missionary’s report that “the Joloff women” were “very good natured and extremely fond of the Portuguese nation”, which was “not the case with the men.” In fact women “often revealed secretly to the Portuguese plots which were being hatched by their menfolk.”2 This quotation—one can just imagine the domestic tangles that ensued from these Luso-African encounters—from an early seventeenth century source, was followed by a remark that suggested a considerable measure of complicity between Portuguese settler-traders and their female partners: apparently, some Portuguese had “acquired a special standing in the eyes of the Negro rulers and their peoples by marrying into ruling families.”3

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Boxer adds that their influence, furthered by means of “advantageous agreements with local chiefs”, were “long a source of envy and astonishment to other European traders who frequented Upper Guinea.”4 Judging by these contemporary quotes—and one could include many others—the pattern of interaction along the Guinea coast differed from that in other areas of Portuguese presence. For example, in the case of the fortress of El Mina along the Gold Coast, “the Portuguese remained in their forts”, while trading with Africans who brought their wares from the interior. Even the relations with local women followed a different pattern in the Bight, given that the “women of Benin” behaved “obligingly to all, more especially to the Europeans, except the Portuguese which they don’t like very well.”5 However, this being a Dutch source, it is not surprising that the Portuguese were given a bad reputation. In Angola, the growth of the “mulatto” population was mainly ascribed to the soldiers in the praças, the Portuguese strongholds, rather than to itinerant traders.6 Apparently, the best locations for “uninhibited sexual intercourse” which resulted in “the creation of a thoroughly Portuguese mulatto population” were insular ones, like the Cape Verde archipelago and São Tomé and Príncipe.7 Unfortunately, Boxer did not expand any further upon these different trends along the African coast, nor did he produce any comparative follow-up. The study of Luso-African relations would certainly have benefited from a more profound study of interaction between African women and European outsiders that went beyond a mere series of lectures. While in Mary and Misogyny he does explore the roles of women in the Azores, São Tomé, Angola and Mozambique, nothing is said about the Guinea coast and very little about the Cape Verde islands. Nevertheless, in order to gain insight into his ideas regarding women’s agency in Portuguese overseas settlements, this chapter will first focus on the general thrust of his argument and on these areas of contact in order to discuss their relevance for developments elsewhere. It will then provide a short overview of the situation on the Upper Guinea coast in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries based upon archival and bibliographical research. This will be followed by a critical assessment of Boxer’s analysis in the light of recent publications and suggestions for future research.

Widows and Washerwomen In Mary and Misogyny Boxer describes women’s roles and contemporary tropes over a period of almost three centuries in different locations from Brazil to the Philippines. What emanates from this interesting collection of lectures is the correlation between categories such

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as colour/race, class and sex/gender in terms of the stratification that left indelible marks on these far flung “Portuguese” communities. Putting the emphasis on intermarriage across cultural lines, the author shows how this mixing served as the main impulse for the demographic growth of these communities. In these corners of empire, European women were rare and were actively discouraged by Portuguese authorities from emigrating with their male partners.8 If and when they did settle in the colonies, they were usually kept in seclusion by their Portuguese husbands. In addition, Boxer conveys images of social mobility involving local (“free black” and “mulatto”) women marrying and remarrying dignitaries and merchants, acting as heads of households (cabeça do casal), and becoming rich heiresses in their own right. Notably, many of these women were widows from the “pardo aristocracy” who in some recorded cases managed large estates, while others were lavandeiras or washerwomen (a euphemism for mistresses) with whom incoming and resident officials and traders shared bed and board. As a result, these communities gradually became Africanised, a trend which in the case of Angola was only reversed in the 1800s with the influx of Brazilians and Europeans. Examples from sixteenth century São Tomé and Angola provide similar impressions of a society in the throes of “creolisation” where women appear to acclimatise and acculturate better than men. Thus Boxer suggests that the ongoing process of miscegenation in the tropics provided local women with considerable clout at the domestic level, which gave them access to key human and material resources. He touches upon the demographic aspects that, although statistical data had not been unearthed at the time, would point to a female surplus. His hunch proved to be right when twenty years later some authors confirmed the existence of distinct majorities of women resident in São Tomé and Luanda in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.9 The fact of women’s comparative longevity is also borne out by these statistics, for example on São Tomé where, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the female surplus in the age group older than forty was an astounding factor of ten! In addition, more women than men were registered as heads of households, among whom one found many widows and single women. In the case of Luanda, where Europeans were also few and far between, figures for the same period also show a, (less) marked, female surplus in the “mulatto” and “black” strata.10 The impressive record of the Donas of Zambesia in the eighteenth century serves to illustrate his point regarding Africanisation and its gendered construction. The way in which these women, who were often of mixed Goan and African descent, succeeded in maintaining control over the prazos for many generations, was ascribed by Boxer (quoting

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Isaacman) to their strategic partnerships with influential officials and wealthy traders, to their greater resistance to disease than their menfolk and above all to the forcefulness of their personalities. Moving on to other American and Asian pastures, it becomes clear that the ingredients that launched women’s careers in “Lusophone” Africa, were also present in Iberian communities in Mexico, the Caribbean, Peru and Brazil as well as in India and the Philippines, although in varying combinations. Differences were associated with the much more numerous presence of European settlers, with the nature of colonial rule and with the intervention of the Inquisition.11 The dynamic of what Boxer calls “interracial marriage” is a common denominator, as is the failure of the authorities to curb or discourage these unions between officers and “undesirable local women.”12 Wealthy “mulata” widows also make their appearance here as do lesser known Spanish and Creole women who showed a remarkable strength of character in the face of adversity. The men generally do not receive such favourable epithets, ranging from rule breaking judges and their “scandalous careers” to “sex starved conquistadors.”13 As in Spanish colonies, the Portuguese authorities’ obsession with the “limpeza de sangue” (litt. “cleanness of blood”, i.e. divested of Jewish, Moorish, Negro, or “heretic” elements) also affected communities in colonial Brazil. Nevertheless, the “prevalence of miscegenation through concubinage” at all levels demonstrated the inexorable logic of the creolisation process in the absence of “white women”.14 Again the issue of dowries, wills and testaments surfaces in connection with the bequeathing of assets to married as well as unmarried female partners, whether wives or servants, as a means of local women’s accessing of resources.15 Without going into the details of his chapter on Asia and Philippines, it will suffice to say that Goa, Macao and Manila share some of the characteristics given above, in so far as European women were largely absent, and flexible marriage arrangements, by means of concubinage, were common. The few who actually settled there were orphaned women sent out with dowries in the form of government posts or estates in order to attract potential spouses, as Timothy Coates has demonstrated.16 The main influx of non-native men came from convicted criminals banished to the colonies, the so-called degredados, who were employed as soldiers or officers in the local administration.17 The death rate of these men was high according to Boxer, “due to a combination of continual warfare, sexual over-indulgence, and tropical diseases”, leaving widows as heads of households, who then acquired the legal tutorship over their siblings.18 The cases of Macao and Manila confirm these patterns of intermarriage, which

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involved persons of “exotically mixed blood” from all over the empire.19 These liaisons involved women, for example employed as servants, whose conversion to Christianity constituted a pre-condition for receiving legacies in the form of dowries, which were meant to secure colonial connections as well as underpinning lineal aspirations. In the last chapter, which carries the title of the book, Boxer outlines the misogynous tropes that accompanied the processes described above. Emphasising the strong current of “anti-feminine” feeling that characterised Iberian culture, the author takes us through a string of religious sources, which attested to an “innate masculine superiority” and women’s “intellectual inferiority”.20 Reproducing classical stereotypes of “virtuous virgins and matrons”, ecclesiastical writing was inspired by the cult of the Virgin Mary, which was “firmly implanted overseas where it gained considerable popularity among all ranks and conditions of men.”21 The missionary zeal of the Church Militant was greatly aided by indigenous clergy whose recruitment was regarded as indispensable on account of the high death rates among Europeans22. Unfortunately, the author does not include examples from Africa in order to demonstrate the local impact of the cult, which was meant to induce women to accept the “double standard in sexual relationships more or less uncomplainingly.”23 Although the African mainland is referred to in preceding chapters, it remains conspicuously absent from the section on misogynistic tropes, only to be mentioned in his Church Militant and Iberian Expansion published three years later. As a result, one wonders in what way these clergymen reacted to the ongoing Africanisation and feminisation of the “Portuguese” communities in Africa, which they themselves often denounced. Indeed, it leaves us to deal with the parallel processes of creolisation and changing gendered role patterns in these corners of empire which, judging by the trends enumerated above, hardly tallied with the purity of the faith and blood as preached by ecclesiastical and secular agents and institutions. Boxer’s inference about women not being “invariably passive and uncomplaining”, as the aforesaid cult would have it, also provide food for thought regarding their attitudes and practices in these multicultural environments.24 These and other questions associated with this dynamic are discussed in the next section.

From Outcasts to Allies Given that Boxer’s work is notable for its omission of the Guinea coast and its importance for an understanding of Iberian expansion overseas, his centenary seems an opportune moment to fill the gap and highlight a

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region, largely neglected by Africanists, and which has remained peripheral to “Luso-Africanists”’ concerns. In fact, some scholars have gone as far as to state that this “Portuguese enclave in Guiné-Bissau” was “slightly anomalous” on account of the longer (Portuguese) presence here in comparison other parts of Lusophone Africa.25 The formation of a class of Afro-Portuguese, or Luso-Africans as they are often labelled, distinct from the Luso-Europeans, on the Upper Guinea coast, has been the subject of a small number of publications by Rodney, Boulègue, Brooks and Mark26. My own field and archival research on the region over the past fifteen years has centred upon the presence of these communities, and above all on the importance of women’s agency in a local context and the gendered dynamics of Afro-Atlantic interaction.27 The main tenets of Boxer’s work, such as the absence of European women, cross-cultural intermarriage, matrifocal households, wealthy widows, figure prominently in the history of the Guinea coast. From the arrival of banned exiles and religious refugees from the Iberian Peninsula, the so called lançados, to the tungumá, the presence of assimilated (settler) traders forms a recurrent theme in the literature on the pre-colonial period of the region. Setting up households with African women from coastal areas, these mavericks of the slave trade, somewhat similar to the pombeiros in Angola, have been presented as the pioneers of Luso-African trade and miscegenation.28 The question then is whether these communities differed in any way from their counterparts in other areas of Lusophone settlement and what roles local actors, and above all the women, played in the twin processes of Africanisation and creolisation that Boxer describes in his work. It is also important to establish what happened to these communities and how women’s agency changed over time. One may also ask if any forceful female personalities emerged and whether contemporary views held by religious and secular institutions regarding gendered role patterns and representations correspond with those described by Iberian authorities in the region under consideration. The evolution of Afro-Atlantic communities along the Guinea coast is bound up with the slave trade, and at a later stage also with the crop export trade, over a period of five centuries. Rather than developing a plantation economy, the commerce of the region was essentially based upon the riverine relay trade, operated by baptised Africans, the so-called Kriston, who formed and inhabited settlements on the West African littoral. Their communities, dispersed throughout the Guinea-Bissau region, were composed of baptised Africans who were kept as slaves or employed as free labourers in Portuguese trade settlements in the area. Boxer’s casual comment on the importance of demographic data and the autonomous,

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home grown aspects of far-flung settlements and colonies, is crucial for an understanding of their evolution. So far, surprisingly few efforts have been made to collate statistical data on these sites, which could provide a glimpse of the changes that took place over the centuries and the social stratification that characterised their populations. A detailed study of archival documents, travel accounts and secondary literature for the Guinea coast, from the seventeenth until well into the nineteenth centuries, shows remarkable female surpluses in coastal settlements such as Cacheu and Bissau and their dependencies.29 These sources also indicate the existence of an overwhelming majority of residents, both free and enslaved, labelled as “black” or “mulatto”, there being very few “whites” born in Europe at any given time during this period. This implies that these locations attracted female labour (thus distinguishing them from the transAtlantic flow of African males) which in turn created opportunities for women’s autonomy and social mobility. Other data also show that local women formed the majority of home-owners in these settlements, and that they kept slaves, were traders in their own right, and acted as legal heirs and managers of estates. In this respect, the stigma put on “undesirable local women” in Iberian tropes, also applies to the Guinea coast. However, it is important to point out here that the so-called tungumá, or free women from the settlements, formed key pillars of these communities.30 Not only did they maintain liaisons and partnerships with incoming and resident traders, officials, soldiers and clerics, they were also influential members of Kriston society and were well connected with communities in the interior. This gave them a measure of authority and prestige, in and outside the trade settlements, which any aspiring resident or outsider had to reckon with. In addition, they were related by kinship to dignitaries from surrounding “ethnic” communities and as a result were in a position to act as cultural brokers who formed bridges between the different geographical and social spaces. While Boxer did refer to Spanish women as carriers of “Iberian” culture in the case of Latin America, and claimed that many Portuguese settlements had few or none, he failed to acknowledge local women as agents of Africanisation or creolisation. Rather than merely recognising women’s roles as partners of Portuguese settlers on the Guinea coast, their autonomous position and strategies in relation to European and African dignitaries require special attention. It was precisely this circumstance that aroused the suspicion of the religious authorities, who received Kriston women in their churches and confessionals. Whilst their communities gained the upper hand as commercial intermediaries along the region’s rivers, and European rivals

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such as Castile, England, France and Holland successfully undermined the official Portuguese monopoly by the mid-seventeenth century, women from the praças became the focus of persecution by the Portuguese Inquisition. Their “hybrid” origins and “heretical” religious beliefs were used as arguments to accuse them of witchcraft. In The Church Militant and Iberian Expansion, Boxer identified “the persistence of idolatry and synthetic Christianity” as a common phenomenon in Africa, which led Roman Catholic missions and the Inquisition to clamp down on these “pernicious practices”. Despite their ineffectiveness, these campaigns did occasionally succeed in identifying, and sometimes even catching, suspected culprits accused of pursuing “African rites”. The women among them, for example the best-known case of Beatriz Kimpa Vita in eighteenth century Congo, were invariably strong characters with great local prestige. While such female cult figures occasionally appear in sources, forceful personalities, such as Crispina Peres from the town of Cacheu (situated in the north of current Guinea-Bissau), were less of a rarity. Married to the wealthy and influential son of a “rebellious Jew”, she was the incarnation of the free African woman from the Afro-Atlantic towns acting as head of household, as the partner of an influential trader-official, and as a slave owner. However, she also represented the Christianised African with syncretic beliefs, indigenous healer and lynch-pin of local support networks controlled by women from trade settlements. All these qualities emerge from the long trial that the Lisbon Inquisition subjected her to in the 1660s, accusing her of witchcraft, superstitious practices and idol worship.31 Arrested, transported to Portugal and then locked up in the Santo Ofício’s dungeons in the capital, she refused to confess, defending herself with great courage during repeated interrogations by zealous inquisitors.32 Her insistence that she had had recourse to locally accepted methods, which were widely condoned and actually applied by the Catholic clergy themselves in Guinea including the priest who denounced her, was a direct criticism of the latter’s double standards. The fact that she admitted to have believed in the curative powers of potions in order to save the life of one of her daughters and to aid her when in labour was an admission of what was common practice among all local female residents. Her description of the town’s community, and the testimonies by her fellow residents, clearly demonstrate women’s kinship relations with African societies and their brokerage roles in an Afro-Atlantic context. It is precisely this aspect that aroused the worst fears of the inquisitors and secular authorities alike, and which underpinned negative tropes of women from trade settlements. Another female contemporary, Bibiana Vaz de

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França, who led a revolt against the authorities in the same town of Cacheu thirty years later, acutely demonstrated women’s power and authority in the local community.33 These and other cases contain all the ingredients of a seventeenth century Iberian tragedy, such as impure bloodlines, heathen roots, female inconstancy, witchcraft, as well as the involvement of New Christians, Protestants, Muslims and “heathen”. The cases made against other Kriston women during the Peres’ trial hearings followed the same pattern, denouncing their ambivalent behaviour, essentially accusing them of acting like an “indigenous fifth column” that favoured African neighbours and European rivals. The case of Bibiana Vaz also projects images of viragos who could not be tamed, and whose persecution was abandoned because their loss would seriously damage the already weak Portuguese position in West African commerce. Acting as the brokers and leaders of networks which involved women and men, while controlling resources of strategic importance they were persons to be reckoned with. Seventeenth century sources thus convey a measure of diversity in the way gendered meanings about Africans were generated, to the point of suggesting negotiated rather than static outcomes. Although associations can be made with Boxer’s remarks about the misogynistic invective that supposedly permeated Iberian culture well into the eighteenth century, these examples do suggest that there was some differentiation in the way (Luso-)African women were looked upon by religious and secular authorities at the time. The question is whether this negative image changed over the centuries and, if so, why and in what sense. The time frame is important here, because Boxer’s account unfortunately ends at the turn of the eighteenth century. However, it was precisely in the 1800s, when the scramble for Africa began in earnest, that “official” attitudes towards women from overseas Portuguese possessions began to shift. The case of the Guinea coast is paradigmatic in this respect. As the export of slave labour was outlawed and gradually petered out, Portuguese policies increasingly aimed at valorising historical territorial claims in order to produce export crops and for purposes of colonisation. Their weak position on the ground obliged Portuguese authorities to work through local intermediaries, thereby providing opportunities for those who were well placed to fulfil these roles. Among these, a number of women, who exercised considerable economic and political power in what was then called Portuguese Guinea, stand out.34 Whilst women traders, the signares, in neighbouring French colonies such as St. Louis and Gorée, lost out, women from settlements in towns such as Cacheu and Bissau rose to the occasion.35 Together with their partners, i.e. high-ranking traderofficials, but also as widows, they filled the power vacuum and pioneered

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the production of export crops on land accessed through their kin networks. Besides owning and running big trade houses, hundreds of slaves, land for cultivation, vessels and shipyards, they also acted as key power brokers by means of their kinship relations with surrounding communities. Rosa Carvalho de Alvarenga, Júlia da Silva Cardoso, Aurélia Correia, and others, thus symbolise the combination that Boxer so much admired in the case of the Donas de Zambézia whom he presumed to be unique.36 As partners, brokers and entrepreneurs, these ñara combined forceful personalities with commercial and political skills, which allowed them to dominate “Portuguese” Guinea until the last quarter of the nineteenth century.37 Against the background of rapidly changing European and Atlantic economies and political realities, Portuguese sources stress the crucial importance of these women and their offspring in terms of their contribution to the securing of territorial footholds and to leading the economic upturn of a largely forgotten part of the empire. Governors called upon them to mediate conflicts and give advice on complex political and economic issues. Some officials included references to these ñara in reports to Lisbon that included oral data from indigenous informants in order to reconstruct these women’s careers, while praising them for their patriotic stance and their great authority over African rulers and their people. Respectfully referred to as Dona or Mãe in official dispatches as well as in the colonial literature, they were treated with velvet gloves whereas their seventeenth and eighteenth century predecessors had invariably been demonised. Clearly then something had changed in the meantime. While Boxer’s references to misogynistic tropes were mainly religious, the latter manifestly lost much of their former relevance after the French Revolution, the liberal reforms in Europe and the emergence of nation states. From then on representations of Africans were modelled more closely on a different set of ideological values, which were developed at the political level in the context of colonial aspirations. Classifications of social strata in the Portuguese case notably shifted from religious labels, based upon adherence to the Christian faith and the Roman Catholic Church, to political ones related to citizenship and patriotism. Attitudes towards miscegenation and intermarriage also changed in the 1800s to incorporate racial distinctions, which left their mark upon colonial concepts of “the other”. Gendered notions of social difference began to emphasise the importance of sexual mores and the notion of degeneracy that cast suspicion upon concubinage and put the onus on local women.

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However, without external political control, little could be done to change centuries of Afro-Atlantic habitus. Thus, the weak Portuguese authorities had no option but to continue to rely upon local intermediaries until the region was eventually “pacified” by military means. Whereas most women who were not wealthy, well connected or married, remained the Jezebels of old, accused of witchcraft, of prostitution or of inciting their husbands to rebel, the ñara were declared model citizens. The fact that some of the most influential residents were women did not appear to trouble the Portuguese in the least, as long as they were transformed into dedicated wives, mothers and patriots. The male settlers, a few Europeans and a larger number of Creole trader officials from Cape Verde, who had been reviled for centuries for their Jewish ancestry, for their criminal background, and for evading taxes were also seen in a different light, despite their involvement in the by then covert slave trafficking. The partnerships between these women and men were seen as having averted the loss of Guinea to rival European nations, and as paving the way for the conversion of Portuguese claims into tangible territory. By ignoring the fact that these actors were essentially pursuing their own interests and those of their gan, or mercantile lineage, and depicting them as stalwarts of the “national interest”, colonial tropes put a fresh gloss on the territory’s chequered pre-colonial history.

Rethinking Afro-Atlantic Encounters: Strategic Engagement In the introduction to Mary and Misogyny, Boxer makes a point of informing the reader that at the time of writing there were few references (such as James Lockhart’s essay on the social history of colonial Spanish America) that dealt with the place of women in Iberian society in a satisfactory way.38 That was more than thirty years ago, and much has been written since then. One of the often quoted references is RussellWood’s article on “Female and Family in the Economy and Society of Colonial Brazil” published a few years after Mary and Misogyny.39 In fact, Brazil has since then undoubtedly become the main theatre for a reassessment of women’s agency in a “creolised” colonial context in the Lusophone world. Muriel Nazzari, Eni Mesquita de Samara, Mary del Priore and Beatriz Niza da Silva among many others have decisively contributed to putting women on the colonial map. The case of Mexico is probably best researched for the impact of Spanish colonialism on gender relations in the New World.40 Although Hispanic scholars have made considerable progress in this field, no remotely similar academic dynamic

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can be identified for Portugal or its former African colonies. Not surprisingly Boxer, in what amounts to a jibe at the feminists of his day, commented that “the published documentation on women in the Iberian colonial world” was not sufficient “in quantity or in quality to provide adequate material for structures, models, and other fashionable inter-disciplinary paraphernalia”. However, he added that, contrary to the often-voiced complaint in these quarters about the strong male bias in sources, the latter did nevertheless allow for “full, intimate portraits” which were “not harder to produce for women than for men.” 41 Clearly then parts of the puzzle, both in terms of data and analysis, are still missing. A number of authors such as Allen Isaacman, José Capela, Malyn Newitt and Mozambican scholars such as Benigna Zimba have made considerable inroads with regard to cultural change and women’s agency in Mozambican history.42 Regarding Angola, Anne Stamm, Joseph Miller and Roquinaldo Ferreira have been important sources of information on different aspects of Afro-Atlantic communities, while Selma Pantoja has focused on women’s roles in colonial Angola.43 Authors such as Arlindo Caldeira and Isabel Rodrigues have begun unravelling the mysteries of creolisation and sexuality in São Tomé and Cape Verde respectively.44 George Brooks’s studies, those of Amanda Sackur and Frances White also contributed to the debate on similar gendered processes in the regions of Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and Sierra Leone.45 The stratification of society along colour and gender lines, which is implicit in Boxer’s Mary and Misogyny, begs many questions, which remain largely unanswered for spheres of “Luso-African” influence in Africa. Malyn Newitt threw some light on the emergence of what he called “mixed race groups” in different Portuguese settlements and colonies in Africa, including Cape Verde, Guinea, São Tomé, Angola and Mozambique.46 Focusing on kinship ties, he drew comparisons between Afro-Portuguese communities with regard to the distinctive role women played in them as heads of the matriclans that retained considerable economic power in areas such as Guinea, São Tomé and Zambesia. The underlying suggestion is that powerful matriclans and matrilineal ideologies would once have been a common feature of Afro-Portuguese settlement in these areas. Such hypotheses require comparative research and analysis for the different kinds of Afro-Portuguese communities that emerged in areas of Portuguese presence, as well as between these and other Afro-European experiences in Africa. As regards the Upper Guinea coast, a preliminary comparison between Franco-African, Anglo-African and Luso-African interaction shows that there were remarkable differences

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between the ways in which these strata developed, the extent to which women gained control of strategic resources and developed their influence over time. In seeking to provide answers, the Afro-Atlantic connection needs to be seen from an anthropological angle in order to gain a better understanding of the kinship and patron-client relations that underpinned these lineages and women’s commanding role in them in areas that were, though often only nominally, Portuguese. When discussing women’s roles overseas, Boxer emphasises their upward mobility, moving from lavadeiras to herdeiras—from washerwomen to heirs. All the abovementioned authors, describing Afro-Atlantic strata in pre-colonial times, converge upon this point. Anne Stamm, for example, highlights the remarkable upward social mobility that characterised pre-colonial towns which, in her view, precluded the drawing of clear divisions between the different citizens of nineteenth century Luanda.47 In order to deepen our understanding of the different social strata involved, and the role of women in them, the concept of “strategic engagement” as proposed by Heidi Gengenbach in an article on Shangani women in early colonial Mozambique, could be employed.48 Recent research has underlined the importance of brokerage in the approaches women pursued towards colonizers and new colonial phenomena in general. Rather than considering women’s agency in the context of the binary concepts of “resistance or complicity”, they were “motivated by their own agendas” and they engaged “things European with the aim of buttressing feminine forms of knowledge, power and authority in local communities.”49 The relations that Shangani women in the South of Mozambique established with Portuguese men should then be understood as a “selective appropriation of resources” that enhanced “the very kinds of authority that Europeans were trying to appropriate, eliminate, or transform.”50 It was precisely the elasticity of this cross-cultural paradigm that would become a great cause for concern for colonial authorities from the late nineteenth century onwards. In attempting to establish their authority, colonial regimes introduced segregationist measures that were to become the cornerstone of future policies. Nationality and citizenship formed the dividing lines that were drawn to contain the upward mobility of the colonies’ native inhabitants. These policies bore clear implications for local women whose access to positions of social prestige was barred, for example, by the introduction of laws regarding marriage, inheritance and property. As a result, women who were not only excluded from citizenship but also from personhood, had to work through male dominated networks,

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controlled by their fathers, brothers, uncles or husbands. As the “suspicious” nature of native relatedness now was formalised in law and measures adopted that redefined spatial and social distinctions, women’s brokerage role between towns and the interior came to be progressively neutralised. Along with other scholars, Boxer appears to have assumed that these pre-colonial societies were essentially ruled by men. Clearly influenced by the male bias contained in many written sources, male dominance was taken for granted. But Boxer also contrasts the presence of powerful women with the male contingent that often perished as a result of armed conflict, high risk behaviours and disease.51 One wonders how this observation can be reconciled with his statement on the following page that these societies were “male dominated.” There is an inherent contradiction in Mary and Misogyny regarding the matrifocal elements that underpinned women’s influence and their authority in the overseas possessions. At the same time, tropes that evoke male superiority strongly contrast with their apparent vulnerability in tropical environments. It should be borne in mind here that tropes be they misogynistic or not, tell us very little about the actual situation on the ground. Some authors, such as Caldeira, cast doubts upon the use of the term “misogyny”, suggesting that misogamy would be more appropriate.52 After all, he said, men were certainly not indifferent about the opposite sex. But why attach so much importance to formally sanctioned marriage contracts, when these were limited to a tiny segment of the population? The widows Boxer so often mentions, may well have been married once in church, but they maintained other liaisons before or after the death of their husbands. What remains to explore for many areas of “Luso-African” settlement is how these flexible marriage arrangements worked to women’s advantage, and what was the impact of their repression in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Male domination, at least in the public sphere, was associated with the establishment of a colonial administration. “Portuguese” Guinea is a case in point. Only after military conquest in 1915 did the Portuguese authorities succeed in effectively imposing juridical-political concepts of exclusion/inclusion based upon European models. This cut women off from access to material and social resources, forcing them to adapt their strategies for autonomy, an issue which, however, falls beyond the range of this paper. Another issue that requires rethinking is Boxer’s somewhat haphazard use of terms like intermarriage, miscegenation and “creolisation”. Ann Laura Stoler already warned against the use of heavily politicised terms such as métissage, which “was first a name and then made a thing”.53

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There is an obvious need of clarity on these different forms of social interaction in an Afro-Atlantic context. The term Creole, which has above all been associated with the growth of insular plantation societies, should therefore be used with great caution, precisely because of its historical and cultural ramifications.54 Thus it is crucial to distinguish in the “LusoAfrican” or “Afro-Portuguese” universe, between the plantation societies such as the Cape Verde and São Tomé islands and the continental entrepôt-based settlements in Guinea, Angola and Mozambique. As regards the Guinean praças, the mass of Christianised Africans, the Kriston stratum from which the above mentioned women originated, do not in any way correspond to notions of a “Creole” society, but did form the mainstay of settlement populations. In fact, the term was only, and is still, used by Cape Verdean immigrants to distinguish themselves from continental or “ethnic” Africans. Given that the former played a key role in administration in pre-colonial and colonial periods, the political connotations are obvious.

Conclusions One may conclude, therefore, that these coastal and insular communities differed from their African and European counterparts by offering opportunities for women to consolidate and extend their personal autonomy, and that this was precisely the reason why Europeans commented on women’s influence and status. Secondly, the stratification of these societies along colour or class lines is problematic in view of their particular social dynamic and women’s remarkable social mobility. Thirdly, rather than opting for a colonial huis clos, (the plantation, the town, the presídio or capitania) the ties between the populations of these sites, the different spaces they drew on, and the roles women played in these networks, should all be taken into account. Fourthly, we should consider the demographic changes, which occurred in a given location over a certain period of time, and analyse the sex ratios in conjunction with social parameters such as religious affiliation, colour, class, age, and if possible make comparisons with other neighbouring areas. Finally, the assimilation of Portuguese authorities into, and their dependence on, local societies should be studied, rather than only the opposite, as should the role women played as brokers in these communities. The fragile Portuguese presence on the African continent provides us with a historical indicator that “Afro-Atlantic” communities evolved largely autonomously from Lisbon, in a constant symbiosis with the African hinterland and Atlantic space. However, while Boxer portrays

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Portuguese women as conveyers of Iberian culture in Latin America, he fails to regard African women as carriers of an Afro-Atlantic heritage. Their private and public worlds were apparently not simply ruled by men but represented a deviation from patriarchal European or gerontocratic African societies. Thus they cannot be regarded as historical anomalies or for that matter as social hybrids. Straddling categories and tropes, their existence, and the forceful presence of women in them, reveal social spaces that constituted crucial sites “for the construction of new race, class, gender identities.”55 In addition, they provided bargaining counters for women and men whose relationships were much more than “interracial unions” or “concubinage”. The characteristic diversity of positions and tropes obliges us to demystify and rethink labels and boundaries that do little to capture or enhance the dynamics of interaction in these outposts. As Amselle stated in his Mestizo Logics, it is necessary to recognise the importance of the ongoing “renegotiation of identities” in the context of cross-cultural relations that produced “unstable conditions” and “fluid meanings”.56 This implies not only a rereading of published sources, but also the further excavation of dusty archives and the gathering of oral data in order to find missing pieces of the puzzle. Considering African women inhabiting overseas settlements as windows on their societies and as autonomous social actors and personalities in their own right will greatly enrich an understanding of the communities of which they formed a part, far beyond the mere “facts and fancies” with which Boxer, modestly, subtitled his ground-breaking work.

Notes 1 See Charles R. Boxer, Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, 1415– 1825, (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1963), Ch. 1 ‘Morocco and West Africa’ and by the same author The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415–1825, (Hutchinson: London, 1969), Ch. I ‘The Gold of Guinea and Prester John (1415–1499)’. 2 Boxer, Race Relations… p. 10. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., pp. 10–11. 5 Ibid., p. 12. 6 Ibid., pp. 30–1. 7 Ibid., p. 13. 8 C.R. Boxer, Mary and Misogyny, Women in Iberian Expansion Overseas (1415– 1815). Some Facts, Fancies and Personalities, (Duckworth: London, 1975), p. 27. 9 Maria Filomena Rodrigues Coelho Almeida de Sousa, ‘A Mulher na Construção da História de S. Tomé e Príncipe (1770–1807)’, in: Actas, Congresso Internacional

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O Rosto Feminino da Expansão Portuguesa, (CIDM: Lisbon, 1995), pp. 507–21; and Fernando Albuquerque Mourão, ‘A Evolução de Luanda: aspectos sóciodemográficos em relação a independência do Brasil e ao fim do tráfico’, in CEAUSP/SDG-Marinha/CAPES (São Paulo, 1997), pp. 57–74. 10 Mourão, ‘A Evolução de Luanda …’, pp.65–8. The data reproduced by Mourão refer only to the 1850 census (table 4), in which age groups above 25 are not specified, thereby precluding any comparisons. 11 For an account of early ‘creolisation’ in Mexico, see Herman L.Bennett, Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianisty, and Afro-Creole Consciousness, 1570–1640, (Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 2003). 12 Boxer, Mary and Misogyny..., pp. 36–8. 13 Ibid., pp. 48, 50. 14 Ibid., p. 56. 15 Ibid., p. 61. 16 Timothy J.Coates, Convicts and Orphans: forced and state sponsored colonizers in the Portuguese Empire, 1550–1755, (Stanford University Press: Stanford, 2001). 17 Boxer, Mary and Misogyny..., p. 67. 18 Ibid., p. 77. 19 Ibid., p. 86. 20 Ibid., pp. 98–9. 21 Ibid., pp. 104–5. 22 Charles R.Boxer, The Church Militant and Iberian Expansion, 1440–1770, (Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 1978), p.10. 23 Boxer, Mary and Misogyny..., pp. 111–2. 24 Ibid., p. 112. 25 Edward A. Alpers, ‘Studying Lusophone Africa: retrospect and prospect’, Ufahamu, 1995, 3, pp. 94–109. 26 See Walter Rodney, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545–1800, The (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1970); Jean Boulègue, Les Luso-Africains de Sénégambie, (IICT/CRA: Lisbon, 1989); George E. Brooks, Eur-Africans in Western Africa: commerce, social status, gender, and religious observance from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, (Ohio University Press/James Currey: Athens/Oxford, 2003); Peter Mark, Portuguese Style and Luso-African Identity: pre-colonial Senegambia, sixteenth-nineteenth centuries, (Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 2002). 27 See for example Philip J. Havik, Silences and Soundbytes: the gendered dynamics of trade and brokerage in the pre-colonial Guinea Bissau region, (LIT Verlag/Transaction Publishers: Muenster/New Brunswick, 2004). 28 See Carlos Alberto Zerón, ‘Pombeiros e Tangomãos: intermediarios de escravos na África’, in Rui Manuel Loureiro and Serge Gruzinski, ‘Passar as Fronteiras’, Actas, Centro de Estudo Gil Eanes (Lagos, 1999), pp. 15–38. 29 Havik, Silences and Soundbytes…, pp. 57–85, tables 1, 3. 30 See Havik, Silences and Soundbytes…, pp. 130/1.

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47

For an account of the trial, see Havik, Silences and Soundbytes…, pp. 149–62, and Philip J. Havik, ‘La Sorcellerie, l’Acculturation et le genre : la persecution religieuse de l’inquisition portugaise contre les femmes africaines converties en Haut Guiné (XVIIe siècle)’, Revista Lusófona das Religiões, 2004, ano III, 5/6, pp. 99–116 . 32 In spite of only making what was regarded as a ‘partial confession’ Crispina Peres was condemned to a public recantation of her sins, and sent back to Guinea in order to undergo religious instruction, by that time considerably weakened after years of incarceration and illness. 29 Philip J. Havik, ‘Matronas e Mandonas: parentesco e poder feminino nos Rios de Guiné (séc. XVII)’, Selma Pantoja ed., Entre Áfricas e Brasis, (Ed. Paralelo 15: Brasilia, 2001), pp.13–34 and ‘A Dinâmica das Relaçoes de Gênero e Parentesco num Contexto Comercial: um balanço comparativo da produçao histórica sobre a regiao da Guiné Bissau (secs. XVII e XIX)’, Afro-Asia (Bahia) 2002, pp.27–28 34 Havik, Silences and Soundbytes…, pp. 200–310. 35 For developments in pre-colonial Senegal, see Amanda Sackur, ‘The Development of Creole Society and Culture in Saint-Louis and Gorée, 1719– 1817’, unpublished PhD thesis (London University, 1999). 36 Boxer, Mary and Misogyny…, p. 84. 37 The Guinean Creole term ñara derives from the Portuguese word senhora, meaning lady. Ñara were typically Christianised women from trade settlements, generally operating as traders and slave owners in their own right. 38 Boxer, Mary and Misogyny... p. 9. 39 Published in: Asunción Lavrin ed. Latin American Women: historical perspectives, (Greenwood Press: Westport, 1978), pp. 60–100. 40 See for example Solange Alberro, Presencia y transparencia: la mujer en la historia de México, (Colegio de México: Mexico City, 1987); Jean Franco, Plotting Women: gender and representation in Mexico, (Columbia University Press: New York, 1989); Richard Boyer, Lives of the Bigamists: marriage, family and community in colonial Mexico, (University of New Mexico Press: Albuquerque, 1995). 41 Boxer, Mary and Misogyny... p. 9. 42 Allen Isaacman, The Africanization of a European Institution: the Zambezi prazos, 1750–1902, (University of Wisconsin Press: Madison, 1972); José Capela, Donas, Senhores e Escravos, (Afrontamento: Porto, 1995); Malyn Newitt, A History of Mozambique, (Hurst: London, 1995); Benigna Zimba, Mulheres Invisíveis: o género e as políticas comerciais no Sul de Moçambique, 1720–1830, (Promedia: Maputo, 2003). 43 Roquinaldo Ferreira, Transforming Atlantic Slaving: trade, warfare and territorial control in Angola, 1650–1800, (University of California: Los Angeles, 2003); Joseph Miller, Way of Death...; Anne Stamm, ‘La Societé Créole à Saint Paul de Luanda dans les années 1838–1848’, in Révue Francaise d’Histoire d’Outre Mer, LIX, 217, 1972, pp. 578–609.

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Arlindo Manuel Caldeira, Mulheres, Sexualidade e Casamento no Arquipélago de S. Tomé e Príncipe (séculos XV a XVIII), (GTMCTP: Lisbon, 1997); Isabel Fêo Rodrigues, ‘Islands of Sexuality: theories and histories of creolization in Cape Verde’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 2003, 36, 1, pp. 83– 103. 45 See Frances E.White, ‘Sierra Leone’s Settler Women Traders: women on the Afro-European frontier’, (University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, 1987). 46 Malyn Newitt, ‘Mixed Race Groups in the Early History of Portuguese Expansion’, T.F Earle and S. Parkinson eds., Studies in the Portuguese Discoveries (I), (Aris and Phillips: Warminster, 1992), pp. 35–52. 47 Stamm, ‘La Societé Créole à Saint Paul de Luanda dans les années 1838–1848’, p. 594. 44 Heidi Gengenbach, ‘What My Heart Wanted: gendered stories of early colonial encounters in southern Mozambique’, in: Jean Allman, Susan Geiger and Nakanyika Musisi eds. Women in African Colonial Histories, (Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 2002), pp. 20–47. 49 Ibid., p. 21. 50 Ibid., p. 27. 51 Boxer, Mary and Misogyny..., p.77. 52 Caldeira, Mulheres, Sexualidade e Casamento no Arquipélago de S. Tomé e Príncipe, p. 175. 43 Ann Laura Stoler ‘Sexual Affronts and Racial Frontiers: European identities and the cultural politics of exclusion in colonial East Asia’, Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler eds. Tensions of Empire: colonial cultures in a bourgeois world, (University of California Press: Berkeley, 1997), pp. 198–237. 54 See for example Odile Goerg, ‘Sierra Leonais, Creoles: Krio. La dialectique de l’identité’, Africa, 1995, 65, 1, pp. 114–32. 55 Genegenbach, ‘What my heart wanted…’ p. 29. 56 Jean Loup Amselle, Mestizo Logics: anthropology of identity in Africa and beyond, (Stanford University Press: Stanford, 1998), pp. 54–5.

CHAPTER THREE LANÇADOS, CULTURE AND IDENTITY: PRELUDE TO CREOLE SOCIETIES ON THE RIVERS OF GUINEA AND CAPE VERDE JOSÉ LINGNA NAFAFE

The study of modern Creole society or indeed the concept of “hybridity”1, “globalisation”2, “|creolisation”3, “interstitiality”4, “acculturation”5, “interculturation”6, “inculturation”7, “assimilation”8, “ganagoga”9, “enculturation”10 and the integration of the Portuguese mercantile settlers, namely lançados or tangomãos, on the West coast of Africa, in particular Guinea-Bissau, requires a sound historical paradigm which looks at that measure of cultural and community cohesion or pluralism that preceded modern Creole society, a pluralism that was the product of the exchange of Western and West African cultural practices and the dynamic interplay of cultures between these two continents. “Culture” is here taken to mean a conceptualised framework of essential and authentic attributes that characterise people within a specific territory or region.11 The term “culture” is also used in this chapter holistically to include values and belief systems that at a given time may pertain to a people group, nation, or region. In the very first encounter between Europeans and Guineans (i.e. West Africans) Western categories of culture may be detected, though these categories did not come to the fore but remained firmly in the background. African concepts and cultural values survived intact because they were not yet subsumed into the Western mind-set. The legitimacy of African values was not made to depend on their conformity to those of the West. Any attempt at suppressing or taming African cultural ambivalences seemed preposterous to both sides and, anyway, such an exercise would have been impossible, for Europeans who came to the West Coast of Africa saw its indigenous culture as empowering, liberating and attractive. Consequently, one highly significant aspect of this first encounter was explicitly that of

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cultural tolerance leading to multiculturalism and the eventual creolising of societies.12 The Western and the Guinean cultures were regarded as being on an equal footing. Both groups were prepared to coexist; so much so that the Western newcomers inclusively borrowed from Guinean models and were attracted to the cultural and ritual practices of Guinean people.13 Therefore, it is expected that the outcome of the analysis of this encounter between the two cultural worlds will throw some light on the formation of Creole society in the region of Upper Guinea. This chapter does not set out to provide an etymological reconstruction of the term tangomãos or lançados as attempted by Nolasco14 and Hair15 nor does it focus on the tangomãos or lançados descendants (children raised by African or Luso-African mothers in African milieus) dealt with in the works of George E. Brooks16 and Peter Mark.17 Rather, it tries to establish that the Creole societies emerged from the foundations laid by the tangomãos whose role was that of intermediary, or point of contact, between Portugal and Africa. Their direct contact with Africans, particularly the ruling class, helped to form significant plural communities alongside their hosts, such as those of São Filipe, Cacheu, São Domingos and the Buba communities. In these centres the tangomãos adopted the cultures of the host communities. The tangomãos or lançados were “interpellated” into the West African identity. Louis Althusser uses the term, “interpellation” or “hailing” to convey what he perceives as a relationship of power between individuals and groups in society. He contends that ideological state apparatuses “hailed” people into certain subject positions. According to Althusser, hailing is a form of calling or an invitation that persuades people to position themselves in certain ways and assume a different identity. Interpellation is a process, which makes the link of the individual to the social; it may work consciously or unconsciously. Althusser sought to link the individual and the social and to show how some social structures work to recruit people into identities—hence the process of identity formation.18 Identity here can be explained as a social dynamic or “narrative”, that is, identity is not separated from what happened.19 There is also a tension between how much control people have in constructing their identities and how much control or constraint is exercised over them. According to Sarup, “we do not have a homogeneous identity but…instead we have several contradictory selves…two important features…are perpetual mobility and incompletion…identity can be displaced; it can be hybrid or multiple. It can be constituted through community: family, region, or the nation-state. One crosses frontiers and boundaries.”20

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Tangomãos/Lançados Negotiate their Space However, before dealing with the issue of the tangomãos as agents of 21 creolising communities, trade and change , it is necessary to establish the historical background that led to their role in Guinea. Breuilly postulates that “history is the only way to understand a society (…) it is the only way to apprehend the spirit of a community; it is the principal way of learning the language of a particular society.”22

It is hoped that this diachronic analysis may lead to a better understanding of the synchronic analysis of the Creole community. Tangomãos were Portuguese merchants who went to Guinea to engage in business with the Africans. They are not to be confused with the crusaders, those employed by Infante Dom Henrique (1394–1460) and Dom João II (1481–1495) to bring wealth to the Portuguese crown. Tangomãos were hóspedes (guests) among African rulers. The term hóspedes was used by Almada who said of these merchants, “formerly our [people] were not in the trouble that they are now, for they were entertained securely in noblemen’s houses for they were kept as their guests, as brothers, sons and parents.”23

Moreover, tangomãos are also to be distinguished from filhos da terra 24 (the children of the land) or mulattoes. There is some debate concerning the term tangomão and its origin. Donelha used the terms tangomãos and lançados interchangeably.25 He employed the word tangomãos for the first time in chapter four of his work, without defining it, as he probably assumed that his readers were already acquainted with the term.26 These tangomãos were Portuguese living in Sierra Leone among the African ruling elite. In 1581, when he visited Bruco, the palace of the King of Guínala in southern GuineaBissau, Donelha found ten ships belonging to the tangomãos who at that time had their own town there.27 Donelha said that, “the fugitive Portuguese in Guinea are called tangomaos”.28 Although he gave extensive translations of African terms in use at the beginning of the sixteenth century, including words of African origin such as velude, malagueta, tambakumba, mampatazes, sibes, irans, tarrafes and a religious term, jabacoces, which are still current in Guinea-Bissau Creole, he did not include the term tangomãos in his African vocabulary. The term had been used at the beginning of the sixteenth century by Fernandes but

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without any attempt at definition. Fernandes normally defined the terms that he employed semantically, particularly those terms that were foreign, 30 31 32 such as mãdimãsa, bugam, coco, etc. It would seem unlikely that he would use a term without defining it to his readers, unless he thought that it was already known to them. The term, as it is used here, retains a religious significance, although 33 its origin probably predates the period of the rediscovery of Guinea. It appears reasonable to suppose that Fernandes may have resurrected an old term that was applied to the Portuguese who joined the so called gentio 34 (heathen). If he was making use of an archaic Portuguese word but was not the author of this word, it may explain why he did not define it for his readers. Guerreiro, a hundred years later, employed the term tangomãos in a religious and economic context, though it was the religious aspect that was his greatest concern, for they, the lançados, had been leading this kind of life for twenty or thirty years without confessing, and had forgotten about 35 God and their salvation. It is also important to note that when Guerreiro employed the term, he used lançados and tangomãos as twin terms, and 36 did so interchangeably. Nolasco da Silva, however, contends that the term tangomão appeared in the sixteenth century and that its origin is African. She quoted Franz 37 Hümmerich in support of her case. Hümmerich, however, did not analyse the term tangomão, he simply offered his reading of the text. According to her, the term Trango-Mango used in popular song, though it could predate the sixteenth century, had its origin in an African term, while the term lançados may not have any connection with the word tangomão at all. Nolasco’s argument is centred on economic issues relating to lançados at the beginning of sixteenth century, whereby their properties were being confiscated after their death and given to the Hospital Real de Todos-Santos. She makes an attempt to establish that use of the term began from this period. It must also be pointed out that the activities of the tangomãos in 38 Guinea predated the sixteenth century. Münzer recorded that in the fifteenth century there was a conflict in Portugal between the Jews and the Christian Portuguese, that some Jews were expelled and that without delay some of them went to reside in foreign countries: “considerantes hoc Iudei 39 continuo abeunt et extera loca pro habitatione querunt.” Nolasco therefore concludes that tangomão as a term is of African origin. However, the term tangomão, has not been found in any African

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40

language. The Portuguese did not employ African vocabulary unless they knew its original meaning. It would have been strange, considering the significance of a word as widely used as tangomão, if its use in Guinea 41 languages had already become obsolete. In 1886, Barros undertook detailed research on the Guinean vocabularies that derived directly from the Portuguese language. In one passage he states that “this chapter consists of…Creole vocabularies from the Guinean Coast, among which it can be noted that many of them are Portuguese, especially technical words that are used in our dialect with little or no apparent alteration.”42

Barros used the word tangomão and gave its semantic alteration tungumá from the Guinean Creole.43 It is significant that Barros did not derive the term from Guinean languages, which he attempted to do with other words, but rather he gave its derivation from Portuguese. Almada employed tangomão in the sixteenth century for Negro women who were serving the lançados and were nicknamed tangomãos.44 His use of the term is significant, for he attached its meaning to the lançados. In other words, apart from the term lançados, it had no meaning. Almada considered the term to be Portuguese and used it as if it is already known. It was not until the nineteenth century that more definitive statements were made. Viterbo, for example, said in 1896 that the term tangos-mão was intrinsic in the Portuguese tradition and that those who were living 45 freely with the heathens were given the special name of tangomáos. Lançados and tangomãos were not only Portuguese Christians, but also 46 Jews. Rodney extends this picture further by stating that “the lançado [tangamão] was almost invariably a Portuguese, but he is best regarded as a phenomenon—the private European trader living among African tribesmen—and as such he could be of any nationality.”47 48

Rodney says that in Sierra Leone, a Greek and an Indian were found, 49 whereas in the Cacheu region of Guinea-Bissau there were Spaniards. Da Mota has given us a clear picture of who the tangomãos were, although it is a definition that is prejudicial about their characters. They were: “Portuguese-speaking adventurers and merchants, who resided in Guiné, against the orders of the crown, and who married and established mestiço families there. There were some religious dissidents, especially

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Chapter Three Jews, some criminal fugitive from the law, other businessmen from nonprivileged parts of the Portuguese empire challenging the metropolitan centralism of the crown. They were particularly hated by orthodox ‘loyal’ Portuguese, for they co-operated with non-Portuguese white traders.”50

Earlier chroniclers gave the impression that most of the tangomãos were not privileged individuals, and that they were largely Christians of different nationalities, “Portuguese Jews, Portuguese Christians…and Frenchmen.”51 The fact that they were treated as guests, paid their taxes to the African rulers and lived according to the law of the land or that the African kings inherited their property cannot be used as evidence in support of their status, though there were some who clearly came from privileged positions in their own countries.52 The notion that the traders who went to the Guinea Coast were “underprivileged” has been used to defend the morality of the slave trade.53 This description may be justified given the legal positions of the traders as far as Portuguese law of the time was concerned since some tangomãos evidently were criminals. Rodney stated that prisoners were brought from Portugal to help with the construction of the fort of Bissau—“prisons of Portugal were scraped to provide exiles to send to Bissau and Cacheu as labourers and soldiers.”54 However, this group to which Rodney was referring, appeared to be different from the tangomãos and they certainly had a different role in Guinea. The nearest contemporary evidence for Da Mota’s statement about low status individuals is an “Apostolic Authority” given to Dom João II by the Pope in 1487. The statement says this. “For in this year of four hundred and eighty seven, the King was told that there were many heretics and bad Christians among them, [and] through the authority and license of the Pope…he ordered some commissioners, doctors in Canon Law and some teachers in theology and that they would inquire into their lives through the provinces (comarcas) of the Kingdom. After a true cross-examination many were found guilty and justice was done and some were burnt, others were imprisoned in perpetuity and some were penitent; according to their guilt they received the justice they deserved. For some of them sailed to the land of the Moors, and there publicly and immediately became Jews. The King defended his Kingdoms and domains by ordering the death penalty…for any one would allow them to cross the sea. And then he gave permission to those who would want to leave and the Captains of the ships would take them, and they gave assurance that they would not take them to the land of the Moors, and that they took them and put them only in the Christians' land and brought back with them authentic certificates to this effect.”55

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In the fifteenth century, there were many criminals in Portugal, Spain and Catalonia who were awaiting the death penalty. There were political as well as religious prisoners who were being given temporary stay of execution while their cases were being reviewed by the civil and religious authorities. The King gave some permission to leave Portugal though the captains of the ships, before allowing heretics to board, had to abide by two rules. First, the captains must hold a certificate of permission, which would allow them to take the prisoners overseas. Second, these prisoners must not be taken to the region where Islam was predominant. This policy was later to be inherited by Dom Manuel I (1495–1521) during whose reign the Jewish (Sephardic) community was expelled from Portugal. This group had been protected by the crown and nobility, but it has been estimated that some 60,000 Jews sought refugee status in Portugal after their expulsion from Spain in 1492. Six hundred wealthy families were believed to have purchased the right of settlement; the remainder were allowed to stay for eight months only. In 1497 Manuel decreed that all Jews and Muslims after a period of ten months and there were some 20,000 who reluctantly agreed to accept Christianity and were then known as ‘New Christians’. Change of religion, however, did not bring immunity from persecution and numbers left the country to join the growing Diaspora. Some of these Jews went to Guinea, and Fernandes says that there were Jews there who did not have synagogues or practise the same religious ceremonies as their European counterparts.56 Donelha later also insisted that there were Portuguese Jews in Guinea.57 This, however, does not mean that the tangomãos mentioned by Fernandes were necessarily Jews. Tangomãos were given refuge in Guinea among the African ruling 58 class. They were protected from their enemies within and from outside. The king of the Jalofs even went a step further in protecting his hóspedes or tangomãos by asserting that in his kingdom religious plurality was to be practised by all who lived there, and that punishment would soon follow for those who ignored it, for he decreed that all must live peacefully. Here, without doubt, is an example of full-blown pluralism. As Donelha reports: “in their Kingdom [of the Jalofs] live Portuguese Jews and Portuguese Christians that go there as lançados to trade, and Frenchmen. The king, however, will not permit them to dispute which religion is best. He says that each ought to please himself and live as he desires in the religion he accepts, and there should not be wrangling in his kingdom, for they will be punished.”59

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Coelho, observing the same phenomenon later, said that “lançados live in this freedom for the King consents to protect them.”60 This was a law intrinsic to West African culture and was designed to protect not only the Africans but those who sojourned and sought asylum among them.61 Among the Manes, one of the ethnic groups of Sierra Leone, the ruling elite protected their lançados even at the point of risking their lives for them. Meanwhile the tangomãos had to pay their taxes just the same as any local West African.62 As Rodney clearly expressed it, “very broadly speaking, the lançado was asked to fit into the African way of life.”63 This way of life included the religion and this religious aspect is discussed in the next section.

Tangomãos/Lançados—Hybrid Identity and Africanisation It may be argued that the tangomãos in general had good reason to be disillusioned with the Old World and to forsake their past and embrace the ‘New World’ which seemed to be freer and more liberating and humane. Malfante in 1447, had clearly stated that the Jews who were living in Africa, were given special treatment and that they were protected by the African ruling class who received them as guests so that, “there are many Jews, who lead a good life here, for they are under the protection of the several rulers, each of whom defends his own clients. Thus they enjoy very secure social standing”.64

The adaptation of the tangomãos to African traditions, in all probability, began with their marriages to African women and with undergoing 65 circumcision. Such marriages gave them the right to participate in, or perform, religious rites. Among the Beafadas flirting with a married woman was a capital crime, thus the way forward was through matrimonial ceremonies. A letter from the priests in Bissau on 1 June 1686 expressed the situation of marriages between tangomãos and African women. It said that: “for that which in those part is called Christianity, has been found to be a monster born from illicit commerce of Christians with gentile women who through their concubinage, give birth to mestiços in body and monsters in faith, pretending to baptise their sins by baptising their concubines…. Concubinage is found well established, they celebrate it like a true wedding and they live totally in ignorance of the mystery of our

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Holy faith, unable to take the sacraments, and other disgraceful things that cannot be said, but which can easily be inferred from this Report.”66

The influence of the African traditions in Guinea on the tangomãos was a reality that became a concern for some priests. The capitão-mor of the town of Cacheu, António de Barros Bezerra, wrote a letter to a visiting priest, father António de Andrade Agueyra in 1719, expressing his concern that, “many, for sins for which they have been punished and absolved, have I understand left the town and gone to the hinterland.”67 Fourteen years later, another capitão-mor, João Pereira de Carvalho, wrote to the king of Portugal in 1733 complaining about the state of the lançados as Christians who embraced African traditional religious practices, saying that: “I was informed that there are many Christians living among the gentiles with grave danger to their salvation, and that they could die as heathen without confession or sacraments, and yet they embrace the heathen rites and superstitions that are against our Holy Catholic Faith.”68

Thus the tangomãos became Guinean, though Portuguese by birth and religion. Rodney points out that the “tangomao was…a white trader who had gone to the extreme of adopting the local religion and customs, and who had his body covered with tribal tattoos.”69 C.R. Boxer wrote that many Portuguese settled in Negro villages and “those of them who went completely native, stripping off their clothes, tattooing their bodies, speaking the local languages, and even joining in fetishistic rites and celebrations, were termed tangos-mãos, or lançados.”70

Father Guerreiro gives a vivid picture of the tangomãos and their activities in Guinea in the year 1602: “tangos maos or lançados…are a sort of people who, although they are Portuguese by nationality and by religion or baptism are Christian baptism, live in such a way that they are neither the one thing nor the other. For many of them go around naked and so that they can better accommodate themselves and be more congenial with the heathen of the land where they trade, they cut all their bodies with iron and they wound their bodies until the blood flows and make various designs which, after consuming certain herbs, resemble figures like lizards or snakes or whatever they desire...and in this form they went round the whole of Guinea, dealing and buying whatever slaves they could find…They have forgotten God and their salvation and live like the very Negroes and heathen of the land, because

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Dutch sources concerning the tangomãos indicate that the adaptation process of Portuguese to African traditions had gone beyond the external elements by internalising the Africans’ ethics and customs to the extent that no traces of Christianity could be found among them. According to Dapper, the tangomãos were ready to live their lives in the manner of the Biafada people of Guinea-Bissau: “This kingdom is between that of Guinala, and around this arm of the Rio Grande which has the same name, and the people who inhabit it are also known as Biafars [Biafadas]. The main towns are the harbour of Biguba, where there are several Portuguese, and that of Balola, where the Tangos-maos live. These people descend from Portuguese who married Negroes, but nowadays they have no trace of Christianity, they go about naked, they make incisions in their bodies, and live in such a way that they are as barbarous as the other Idolaters of Biguba, whose customs/ethics are very little different to these inhabitants of Guinala.” 72

John Newton, the eighteenth century English slave trade captain and later hymn-writer, not particularly associated with African religiosity, provides an additional source of evidence. His appreciation of African traditional religion has generally been overlooked. Newton was infatuated with this notion of the appropriation of African religious ideas and declared that: “there is a significant phrase frequently used in those parts, that such a white man is grown black. It does not intend an alteration of complexion, but disposition. I have known several, who, settling in Africa after the age of thirty or forty, have at that time of life been gradually assimilated to the tempers, customs, and ceremonies of the natives, so far as to prefer that country to England; they have even become dupes to all the pretended charms, necromancies, amulets, and divinations of the blinded Negroes, and put more trust in such things than the wiser sort among the natives. A part of this spirit of infatuation was growing upon me; in time perhaps I might have yielded to the whole.”73

Those who accused them of living a life not worthy of the Christian name, however, failed to condemn them for their involvement in the slave trade. The tangomãos were criticised for their loss of the Christian faith, and not for their business with the Africans. Gradually the tangomãos penetrated the Africans’ lifestyle, culturally and religiously, accommodating

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those empowering elements from African traditions. As Rodney rightly points out “the resident traders themselves and their descendants grew more Africanized culturally and ethnically, they moved closer to, and eventually penetrated the local power structure.”74

Tangomãos/Lançados and the Formation of Creolising Communities The sources show that there were Portuguese commercial activities in the region of the Rio das Palmas as early as the fifteenth century. Pacheco points out that the Portuguese ships went up the Rio das Palmas a distance of 25 leagues to the region of Quinamo inhabited by the Bullom.75 This is supported by Fernandes's account. Moreover, André de Faro records a case of a Portuguese tangomão, a learned nobleman, living in a valley in the hills of Sierra Leone who married nine wives. He was presumably there since the age of 30, because at this time he was in his fifties.76 He was found by a Franciscan missionary and was evidently a well-known figure. Faro states: “he said to me that he was a son of Portugal who had been living at the foot of that Sierra, in a place closely concealed and very remote for more than twenty years, in order that no one should know about him. He lived there according to the gentiles’ law of the land and had nine wives and many children”77

In the middle of sixteenth century, Almada reported a case of a Portuguese tangomão in Guinea who was given the name of Ganagoga by the Beafada people.78 He later married a princess from the court of GrandFulo. His Portuguese name was Fuão Ferreira. He was in the service of a member of the African ruling class, the Duke of Casão at the River Gambia. “This Portuguese lançado went to the Kingdom of Grand-Fulo by the order of the Duke of Casão, who was a powerful Negro who lived in this port by the River Gambia called Casão. He sent him [Ferreira] by his order with his people. And in the Court of Grand-Fulo he married his daughter of whom he had a daughter.”79

During king Massatamba’s reign the administration and application of justice on his subjects and his guests was greatly admired by the

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Europeans. The law, namely a chai, (the customary law) of the kingdom, was to be respected.80 A story was once told about his celebrated justice, which involved two couples, European and native African. The quotation is rather long, but worth noting because of the nature of the narrative. “There was in Casamance a tangomão who was skinny and shrunken, and was so mean in character that if any white or Negro man came to his house, he would not even give him a cola to accompany a mug of water, and because of his miserliness and stinginess he was called alike by the whites and by the Negroes, Sad Life. A negro was determined to implicate him in a chai, what is called among the Moors and Turks a Grabulho, and what we call a plot or trap. This Negro arranged that his wife ought to go to Sad Life's house and ask him for something, and if he did not give it to her, she ought to scream and say Sad Life had forced her. It is a law in Casamance that the Negro man who assaults a married woman must die for this, but if it is a white man he is fined the value of a slave. The woman, who was a young lady and well built, came to Sad Life’s house and sat down on his bed. After talking of many matters, she asked him for some cloth and for something to drink. Sad Life, giving not being part of his character, did not give her anything, but despite that he told her to leave the woman began to wail, at which her husband rushed in to help. She told him that Sad Life had forced her. The Negro (her husband), making a great show of surprise, tied up Sad Life's hands and took him tied up before His Majesty, saying that he had forced his wife and that he demanded justice. His Majesty asked Sad Life if it was true. The poor [man] denied it and swore it on oath. Knowing his character, the King made fun of him, said to him that his eyes told him that he had committed this crime and adultery and that he should tell the truth, for he would not die, but only pay a fine. The poor man did not, but continued to deny it. His Majesty asked the woman, she said that he had raped her when she went to his house to sell fruit. The husband said that he had found the man in intercourse with his wife. His Majesty asked him if he had witnesses, the husband said that the witnesses had come rushing, in answer to the wails of his wife, and he had no others who were eye-witnesses. His Majesty, after pondering for a moment, called Negro his servant, a young man and said to him, under pain of death, I order you, immediately, in front of me, to have intercourse with this woman. The King’s command had to be carried out, regardless of the risk involved. The young man immediately grabbed the woman and brought her down. Some white people were watching, as Masatamba always had some as guests and more than three hundred Negroes, men and woman. The Negro woman, not wanting to be mounted in the sight of His Majesty and many others, defended herself. The young man used all his strength to carry out His Majesty's order and she set out to defend herself, to extent that the young man began to tire out and sweat ran from his face. Having seen this, Masatamba commanded the young man to stop, and said to the woman, rascally woman, if this Negro, who is a young man and well

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built, could not have intercourse with you, after I had ordered him to do so under pain of death, how could Sad Life, who is so weak and contemptible have forced you, since you are a young women well-built and strong, as we have seen. If he slept with you, it was by your own will and so that you will not bring another case like this before me, you and your husband will be one of Sad Life's [slaves] this took place fifty years ago and there is no tangomão who has not heard what I have told.”81

In this West African region strong political protection was provided for those who sought help, particularly foreigners and the administration of justice in the land was greatly admired by Europeans. Some Europeans went to Massatamba’s royal palace “Brucama” just to confirm their curiosity. In his kingdom there was no stealing and neither whites nor blacks could lose their property. “At first there came a man from the kingdom [Portugal] who had not been to Guinea and was there for the first time. He travelled there with another tangomão from Sara to Brucama, which is what his palace is called and where he lived. Both went along talking about the greatness of this King and that he was a friend of the whites, and that in his kingdom neither whites nor Negroes could lose anything and there was no stealing. The white man from the kingdom, to test what the tangomão told, took a poinard or dagger which he carried and left it on the road. They reached Brucama. The next day, in the early morning, a Negro man came with the dagger in his hand and gave it to the King. He said that he had picked it up on the road so that His Majesty might give it to the owner. The King asked the Negro when he had picked it up. He said that it was yesterday afternoon, and because he did not arrive until late at night, he did not bring it immediately to His Majesty. The King said, ‘you must not sleep with anything belonging to a white man. Although I was asleep you should have awakened me’. Therefore he ordered him to be killed, because of the delay of one night. With this the whites travel about in as much security as if they were in their own homes.82

King Masatamba, took strong measures to protect his guests, the tangomãos. For him, community cohesion was seen as a guarantee for his policy in conducting foreign relations and trade. With such protection from the king, the sixteenth century became a period of intense commercial activity in the region and saw an influx of European mercantile settlers. By 1581 the situation of some mercantile settlers in the region seemed to have worsened and the news of their plight reached Cape Verde. At this time, the governor of Cape Verde had charge of the West African regions where the Portuguese had gone to settle and trade. The governor, Gaspar de Andrade, sought to reverse the situation for the whites by diplomatic

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means. He dispatched Francisco de Andrade, sargento-mor of the city of Santiago, to the region as an envoy to hold talks with king Masatamba. An agreement was reached that the Portuguese mercantile settlers should be dispersed and settled in an area under the jurisdiction of the king. The settlers were removed to the town of St. Philip, in the Farim River, a town named after king, Philip I of Portugal. Almada’s text reads as follows: “It was about ten years ago that the Francisco de Andrade Chief Sergeant of the city of Santiago, went to these parts [by command of the governor, Gaspar de Andrade]. Seeing the ill-treatment that blacks gave to the whites, he made an agreement with the King of Casamance, Masatamba, a friend of ours; and he transferred our people from the town of Buguendo to a port of this King situated further up the River Farim, on a little channel leading to the King’s first land called Sarar. Here our people built a town, and gave it the name of St. Philip’s town, in honour of His Majesty, since it was shortly after he had taken possession of the kingdom of Portugal. The town of Buguendo from which people moved is a very unhealthy spot, where there were many deaths. The town to which they moved, St. Philip’s, is not healthy, for it is in marshy district with many swamps around, but the country is a safer one: no one is ill-treated, and our people are more secure there. It is completely surrounded by forests of palms and other trees, but it has good water, with several refreshing streams. From there to Brucama, where King Masatamba holds his court, is one day’s journey.”83

Andrade, in his account of 26 January 1582, made mention of ten commercial sites on the West African Coast, commencing from Cape Verde to Sierra Leone—Cape Verde, the harbour of Ale, Yola, Berbeçin, the Gambia River, the São Domingos River, Casamance, Island of Biyagios (Bijagos) or Island of Boão, the Nuno River and Sierra Leone.84 In these centres of commercial activity, Andrade claimed that there were many Portuguese merchants living and undertaking their business with the Africans. Andrade said that in the region of the São Domingos River alone, there were 50 houses that belonged to the whites and in these houses there were more than 100 white people. There were about 20 to 30 ships harbouring and dispatching their cargo in São Domingos.85 In the São Domingos River region, the settlers were facing illtreatment by the natives: “in the days of Almada, the Portuguese were at war with the Banhus people of Iziguikier, to whom that land belonged.”86 Such a situation was not, however, a widespread problem; the majority of mercantile settlers were well-protected. In this particular case, ill-treatment had arisen due to scanty protection from the local king. It would not seem far-fetched to note that the Banhus people did not have a king figure at this

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period of their history, and since Masatamba was not totally in control of the region, he could not have offered a safe haven for them. BertrandBocandé says that the “persecutions that the Portuguese had to suffer at the hands of the Banhus people forced them to ask the King of the Cassanga’s people for another site to establish their residence. He [Masatamba] gave them a place towards the Saral River, which was closer to Brikam [palace] than that of the Rio São Domingos”.87 The settlers needed a safe enclave and Andrade’s diplomatic mission to the region was to reach a settlement with Masatamba in order to offer the newcomers a safe haven in the king’s compound. According to Andrade, the settlers needed also spiritual security, namely a church building. “There is much need of a church in this River; outside São Domingos, and in order to be saved from any harm that the heathen Negroes may want to inflict on them, it is necessary to have a place of withdrawal (a house) and a fortress, where white people could be housed, making them strong.”88

From other sources, however, we learn that these tangomãos stayed in São Filipe under the king’s protection for 65 years before they left for Ziguinchor. Bertrand-Bocandé shows that there is little evidence from oral tradition about the site where the settlers were. He remarks that he: “collected no [oral] tradition regarding Saint-Philippe from these local inhabitants. They said that the chain had been entrusted to the Hiran [ancestor spirit], or to the spirit who dwelt in the baobab; and that whoever removed anything from it would be put to death with immediate effect. It was exactly the site of the village that Almada had spoken about. In 1645, the Portuguese of Saint-Philippe went to live in Zéguichor.”89

Conclusion This paper has attempted to examine more than two hundred years of the commercial activities of the tangomãos or lançados and their cultural interactions on the West Coast of Africa. Tangomãos not only exchanged commodities with West African people, but they also exchanged culture, religious ideas and practices. They negotiated their space and identities on the West African coast. It was the lançados and not the crusaders who were the agents that gave rise to mixed societies that were found throughout the Portuguese colonial Empire. Thus, in this first encounter between the two continents, it was the lançados who were agents for creolising society on the rivers of Guinea

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and Cape Verde. The lançados’ willingness to be assimilated earned them favour among the West African ruling class and yet this factor is not cited by their later critics who viewed them as lawless criminals. It must be stated that the lançados themselves have only rarely left substantial written documents, which might justify the pejorative descriptions of those who saw them as outcastes from European society. This negative image of the lançados, it is argued, has been used to explain the ills that occurred in the institution of slavery. Yet Creole societies quite clearly emerged from the foundation laid by the tangomãos, whose role was that of intermediaries or points of contact between Portugal and Africa. Their direct contact with Africans, particularly the ruling class, helped to form significant plural communities alongside their hosts, such as those of São Filipe, Cacheu, São Domingos and the Buba communities. In these centres the tangomãos adopted the cultures of the host community, they spoke African languages fluently and infiltrated African society, lived with the African ruling class and traveled into the Guinean hinterland. Although the bulk of the lançados were, in origin, Portuguese-speaking traders, their commercial activities were not confined to the Portuguese alone, but included English, French and Dutch and as a consequence they were considered criminals. As a result of their commercial activities with foreigners on the rivers of Guinea and Cape Verde their properties in Portugal were liable to be confiscated by order of the Portuguese Crown. The integration of the tangomãos or lançados into West African society raises questions about the very existence of human identity. The classical understanding of human subjectivity is that people in society have a coherent identity. The tangomãos/lançados challenge this assumption. Identity is perceived as a carrier of unconscious multiple mainstream ideologies, in other words, identity is where varieties of cultural constructs and discursive formations are realized. Identity is also a link between the personal and the social. Sarup asserts that “identity…may perhaps be best seen as a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of 90 writings blend and clash.” The tangomãos practised intermarriage with local women and some of them observed African rites of passage such as circumcision. It may well have been that they were allowed to integrate because of this and so became acceptable as part of the African community. Finally, the data has suggested that the West African society of the period in question showed far less hostility to the mercantile settlers than it did to the crusaders.

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Notes 1

R.J.C. Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race, (Routledge: London, 1995) and see also H. Bhabha, Location of Culture, (Routledge: London, 1995). 2 U. Beck, What is Globalization? (Polity Press: Cambridge, 2000) and H.R. Wicker, ‘From Complex Culture to Cultural Complexity’, in P. Webner and T. Modood eds,, Debating Cultural Hybridity: Multicultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-Racism, (Zed Books: London, 1997), pp. 47–50. 3 J. Lingna Nafafé, ‘Guinea Bissau: Language Situation’, in K. Brown ed., Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics, second edition, vol. 14, (Elsevier: Oxford, 2005) and see also U. Hannerz, Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places, (Routledge: London, 1996). 4 T. Sofield, ‘Globalisation, Tourism and Culture in South East Asia’, in P. Teo, et al eds., Interconnected Worlds: Tourism in South East Asia, (Pergamon: Amsterdam, 2001), p. 106. 5 A. L. Kroeber, Anthropology: Race, Language, Culture, Psychology, Prehistory, (Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc: New York and Burlingame, 1948) p. 425 and R. H. Winthrop, Dictionary of Concepts in Cultural Anthropology, (Greenwood: New York, 1991), pp. 3, 82–83. 6 J. Kicza, Resilient Cultures: America’s Native Peoples Confront European Colonization, 1500–1800, (Prentice Hall: Washington, 2002). 7 J. Waliggo, et al. Inculturation: Its Meaning and Urgency, (St. Paul Publications: Nairobi, 1986) and P. Schineller, Inculturation: a Handbook, (Paulist Press: New York, 1991). 8 J. Crisp, New Issues in Refugee Research: The Local Integration and Local Settlement of Refugees: A Conceptual and Historical Analysis, (Global Commission on International Migration: Geneva, 2004). 9 A. A. de Almada, Tratados Breue dos Rejnos de Guine...op. cit., chap. 2, fol.16v. Ganagoga is an African term in Guinea-Bissau, used by the Beafada people to describe the process of Creolisation in the 16th century. In the Beafada’s language it means a man who speaks all languages, as they do, he can cross the whole of hinterland of our Guinea and [talk] to whatever Negroes there may be, “chamado pellos negros ho ganagoga q querdizer nalinguados Beafares homë q falla todas as linguas como de feito as fallam. E pode este homë atravesar todo o sertao do nosso guine de quaes quer negros que seja”. 10 J. Scudder and P. Mickunas, Meaning, Dialogue and Enculturation, (University Press of America: Washington, 1985). 11 Beck, What is globalisation…. 12 De Silva mentions a similar case of religious tolerance in the West Coast of India, two centuries prior to the Portuguese arrival, in his book, From Rta to Dharma, the Symbolic and Diabolic of the Systems of Production and Representation in Kinship and Tributary Societies. Transition as Structural Transformation in West-Coast India, (Tkanara, 1985). The history of colonial domination in Africa is not uniform. In some countries it came fairly late, for

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instance, 1914 in Guinea-Bissau. There was a process of infiltration. W. Ustorf, Christianised Africa—De-Christianised Europe? Missionary Inquiries into the Polycentric Epoch of Christian History (Tyrannus Press: Seoul, 1992), p. 196. “the expansion of Christianity within the last 200 years did lead to the establishment of the Church among nearly all nations and peoples, but this amazing ‘ecumenefication’ of the Church takes place at the same time as the universalisation of capitalism”. 13 See V. Fernandes, Description de la Côte Occidentale d'Afrique (Sénégal au Cap de Monte, Archipels) par Valentim Fernandes (1506–1510), (Centro de Estudo da Guiné Portuguesa: Bissau, 1951), p. 100. 14 M.G.G. Nolasco da Silva, ‘Subsídios para o Estudo dos “Lançados” da Guiné’, Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa, no. 25, 1970, pp.25–40, 217–32, 397–420, p.413. 15 See P.E.H.Hair, ‘An Ethnolinguistic Inventory of the Upper Guinea Coast before 1700’, African Language Review, 1967, vol. 6, pp. 49 and 54. 16 George E.Brooks, Landlords and Strangers: Ecology, Society, and Trade in Western Africa, (Westview Press: Boulder Co., 1993). 17 Peter Mark,”Portuguese” Style and Luso-African Identity: Precolonial Senegambia, (Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 2003). 18 L. Althusser. Lenin and Philosophy, (Monthly Review Press: London, 1971). 19 M. Sarup, Identity, Culture and the Postmodern World, (Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, 1996). 20 Ibid., pp.xvi and 1. 21 These groups should be differentiated from those sent by Infante Dom Henrique who were obliged to give an account of their expeditions to the prince; among them were soldiers, who were in general crusaders. A second group, voluntary private traders, were residents who lived among the African kings and learnt about their way of life. Some lived in the hinterland and others in the coastal towns such as the ports of Rio S. Domingos, Guinalla, Biguba, Rio das Pedras, Bissao, Cacheo and Ioala. M. S. de Faria, ‘Discyrso Sexto, Sobre a Propagaçam do Evangelho nas Provincias de Guiné, Das Condições, com que os Summos Pontifices deraõ Reys de Portugal Senhorio de Guiné’, in Noticias de Portvgal, (Lisboa, 1655), p. 225. See also, W. Rodney, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545–1800, (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1970). 22 J. Breuilly, Nationalism and the State, (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 1982) p. 344. 23 Almada, Tratados Breue dos Rejnos de guine...., fol.65. See also F.A. Lemos de Coelho, Duas Descrições Seiscentistas da Guiné, Introdução e Anotações Históricas pelo Damião Peres, (Edição da Academia Portuguesa de História: Lisbon, 1684), p. 92. 24 Filhos da terra were children born out of marriages between the tangomãos and Guinean women and these children were later known as mestiços or mulattoes. 25 A. Donelha, ‘Outra Relação em 14 Capítolos que fez Andre Donellas, ao Governador e Capitão Geral Fr. de Vaz Concellos da Cunha; Sobre a Serra Leoa,

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Reys e Senhores que a Habitão, e Secunvezinhos,Ritos, Costumes e Todas Variedades de Rios, Portos, Arvores, Animais Aves Pexes com os Proveitos que Dela se Tirão’, 1625, Ajuda, Ms. 51–IX–25, chap.9, fol.19, “andam lá lançados”. 26 Ibid., fol.9. 27 Ibid., chap.12, fol. 29 and chap.15, fol. 35. 28 Ibid., fol.12, “chamam-se tangomao Portugueses lançados em Guiné”. 29 Fernandes, Description de la Côte Occidentale d'Afrique, p. 102. 30 Ibid., p. 36. 31 Ibid., p. 50. 32 Ibid., p. 54. 33 The first tangomão about whom information is available was João Fernandes. He was a squire of the duke of Viseu. In 1444 he went and lived with the Berbers people for seven months and obtained some information about this people. It was in the same year that the Portuguese Crown sent Antão Gonçalves, Gomes Pires and Diogo Afonso to establish contact with those who lived in the region of the Rio de Ouro (River Gold). See, Dicionário de História dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, (Editorail Caminho: Lisboa, 1994). 34 It is important to note that Münzer and Cadamosto did not use the term tangomão, however Münzer referred to the relation between the Portuguese and the Africans which explicitly could apply to the tangomãos who made peace with the Africans, “Et Portugalenses...pacem cum eis fecerunt”, J.Münzer, “Itinerarium, De Inventione Africae Maritimae et Occidentalis Videlicet Genee Per Infantem Heinrichum Portugallie”, fls. 280–88, 1494, in P.A. Brásio, Monumenta Missionaria Africana, Africa Ocidental 1342–1499, Segunda Série, I, (Academia Portuguesa da História: Lisbon, 1958), p. 233, and see also Bettencourt's story, a nobleman, mentioned by Münzer, who took his wealth and went to live in the Canary Islands with his family because he was despised for having leprosy, “Iohannes de Betenëor, homo nobilis, sed leprous a suis spretus accepto thesauro Sibiliam cum duabus nauibus venit, exploraturus loca extera, ut solus cum uxore et liberis habitaret”, p.217–8. 35 P.F. Guerreiro, Relação Anual das Coisas que Fiszeram os Padres da Compahia de Jesus nas suas Missões, Nos Anos de 1600 a 1609, Tomo I, , (Imprensa de Universidade: Coimbra, 1930), pp.400–1. 36 Ibid., p.400. 37 Nolasco da Silva, ‘Subsídios para o Estudo dos “Lançados” da Guiné’, p. 413. 38 See Garcia de Resende, Chronica do Valerosos, e Insignes Feitos Del Rey Dom Ioam II, de Gloriosa Memoria, Em que ƒe refere ƒua Vida, ƒua Virtudes, ƒeu Magnanimo Esforço, Exceilentes Costumes, o ƒeu Chriƒtianiƒmo Zelo, (Real officina da universidade: Coimbra, 1798) chap.59, pp. 101–2. 39 J. Münzer, De Inventione Africae Maritimae et Occidentalis…, p.553, “contemplating this, the Jews immediately departed and looked for favourable residences in foreign places”. 40 P. E. H. Hair, ‘An Ethnolinguistic Inventory of the Upper Guinea Coast before 1700’, African Language Review, 1967, vol. 6, pp. 49 and 54.

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In the Portuguese etymological dictionaries, often a long list of words is presented, but their origin is not stated as African, which means that its origin is unknown. J. Pedro Machado presents us with a list of the words as: tanglomanglo, tanglomango, tângolomango, tangomange, tangromangro, tranglomango and tângoro-mângoro, and concludes that its origin is obscure, Dicionário Etimológico da Língua Portuguesa, Com a Mais Antiga Documentação Escrita e Conhecida de Muitos dos Vocábulos Estudados, 3 Edition, V, (Editorial Congluência: Lisboa, 1952), p. 268. F. da Silveira Bueno, gives its meaning, “Tanglomango means disgrace, unfortunate, very naughty, less lucky” and he concludes that its origin is unknown, see, Grande Dicionário Etimológico-Prosódico da Língua Portuguêsa, Vocábulos, Expressões da Língua Geral e Científica-Sinônimos Contribuições do Tupi-Guarani, (Edição Saraiva: São Paulo, 1967), p. 3891. 42 M. Barros, ‘O Guineense’ in Revista Lusitana, 1902, 7, (2), p. 6, “Conta este capitulo...vocabulos crioulos da Costa da Guiné, entre os quaes se notam muitos que são portugueses, sobretudo technicos, usados no nosso dialecto com pouca ou nenhuma alteração apparente”. 43 Ibid., vol. 7, 4, p. 278. 44 Almada, Tratados Breue dos Rejnos de guine..., chap. XI. 45 S. Viterbo, ‘Os Portugueses e o Gentio’, Instituto, 1896, 43, (3), pp. 473–5. 46 F.A. Lemos de Coelho, Duas Descrições..., p. 7. 47 Rodney, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, p. 77. 48 The Indian referred to here is not a West Indian (India Occidental), but rather an Indian from India. 49 Rodney, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, p.77, Rodney here is quoting Father Baltasar Barreira, a Jesuit who worked in Sierra Leone for many years as a missionary and subsequently visited Guinea-Bissau. He later wrote from there telling of his experience. See Biblioteca de Ajuda Ms. no. 50, fol. 58, 20 December, 1605. 50 A. Teixeira da Mota and P.E.H. Hair, eds., Descrição da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde, (1625), (Junta de Investigação Centífica do Ultramar: Lisboa, 1977) p. 238, “Aventureiros e comerciantes de fala portuguesa, que se instalavam na Guiné, contra as ordens da coroa, e que aí se casavam e estabeleciam famílias mestiças. Uns eram dissidentes religiosos, especialmente judeus, outros criminosos fugidos à lei, alguns empresários de partes não privilegiados do império português desafiando o centralismo metropolitano da coroa. Eram particularmente detestados pelos portugueses ortodoxos ‘leais’, porque cooperavam com traficantes brancos não portugueses”. 51 Donelha, Outra Relação..., fol. 19, “Judeos portugueses e Portugueses cristiaos...e Francesses". 52 Ibid., fol. 19 53 J. Miller, ‘Slavery and the Uses of People: Ideologies of Protection. Progenity, Profits, and Product’, unpublished paper, presented at International Conference, Torre do Tombo, 9 December 1998. 54 Rodney, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast..., p. 245.

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Resende, Chronica do Valerosos, e Insignes Feitos Del Rey Dom Ioam II... chap. 69, pp. 101–2. “E porque a el Rey foi dito, que antre elles auia muytos herejes, e maos Chriƒtãos, neƒte anno de quatrocentos e oitenta e ƒete, per authoridade e licença do Papa...ordenou certos commiƒƒairos doutores em canones, e outros meƒtres em theologia, que pellas comarcas do Reyno entenderam em suas vidas, tirando ƒobre iƒƒo verdadeiras inquirições, em que acharam muytos culpados, e fez nelles muytas juƒtiças, que delles foram quimados, outros em carceres perpetuos, ea outros pendenças segundo ƒuas culpas o mereciam. E porque alguns ƒe lançaram por mar em terra de mouros, e la publicamente ƒe tornarão logo judeus, el Rey denfedeo, que em ƒeus Reynos, e ƒenhorios, ƒopena de morte...peƒƒoa algüa não paƒƒaƒƒe algum delles per mar. E depois deu lugar que se ƒahiƒƒem, e os Capitães das naos, ou nauios que os leuauão, dauão ƒeguras fianças de os não leuavem a terra de mouros, ƒaluo a leuante, e os porem em terra de Chriƒtãos, e trazerem diƒƒo autenticas certidões". 56 Fernandes, Description de la Côte Occidentale d’Afrique…, fol. 91, p. 8. 57 Donelha, Outra Relação..., chap. 9, fol. 19. 58 Coelho, Duas Descrições..., p. 92. 59 Donelha, Outra Relação..., fol. 19, “Estes Jalofos...vivem no seu reino Judeos portugueses e Portugueses Cristãos, que andam lá lançados, a resgatar, e Franceses, mas não consente que haja desputa quais das leis é milhor; diz que cada um faça seu proveito, e vivam como quiserem na lei que tiverem, e não haja porfia, porque serão castigados no seu reino”. 60 Coelho, Duas Descrições..., p. 7, “vivendo nesta liberdade pelo Rey o consentir, e os defender”. 61 Donelha, Outra Relação..., chap. 14, fol. 177. 62 Ibid., chap. 6, fol. 14. 63 Rodney, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast..., p. 86. 64 A. Malfante, ‘The Letter of Antoine Malfante from Tuat, 1447’, in G.R. Crone ed., The Voyages of Cadamosto and Other Documents on Western Africa in the Second Half of the Fifteenth Century, (Hakluyt Society: London, 1938), p. 86. 65 On the circumcision of the tangomãos, see Nolasco da Silva, ‘Subsídios para o Estudo dos “Lançados”da Guiné’. 66 AHU Guiné. 1a. Secção. Caixa 3, doc. 8. 1685. 67 AHU Guiné, 1a. Secção, Caixa 4, doc.76, 1719, “a muitos por culpas de que estavaõ ja punidos e absoltos com tanto excesso que entendi largavaõ a Prassa e se hiam para o sertaõ”. 68 AHU Guiné, 1a. Secção, Caixa 6, doc. 2, 1733, “estaõ muitas pessoas Christãos Vivendo entre os gentios Com grave perigo da Sua Salvaçaõ, e poderem morrerem na gentilidade sem Confiçaõ, nem Sacramentos, e ainda poderie a pegar os Ritos da mesma gentilidade ou superticoins que enContrem a nossa Santa Fê Catholica”. 69 Rodney, A History of Upper Guinea Coast...., p. 74. 70 C.R. Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415–1825, (Hutchinson: London, 1969), p. 31.

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Guerreiro, Relação Anual das Coisas que Fiszeram os Padres da Compahia de Jesus nas suas Missões, pp. 400–1. 72 O. Dapper, Description de l'Afrique, Contenant, les Noms, la Situation & les Confins de toute ƒes Patries, leurs Rivieres, leurs Villes & leurs Habitations, leurs Plantes & leurs Animaux, les Richeƒƒes, la Religion & le Goverment de ƒes Peuples, (Chez Wolfgang, Waesberge, Boom & van Someren: Amsterdam, 1686) p. 245, “Ce Royaume egt du deggus de celui de Guinala, & autour ce bras du Rio Grande qui porte le même nom, & les peuples qui l'habitent portent auƒƒi le nom de Biafars Les Principales habitations ƒont le havre de Biguba ou il y a quelques Portugais & Celui de Balola, ou demeurent les Tangos-maos. Ces peuples ƒont iƒƒus de Portugais qui s'allièrent avec les Nègres, mais ils n'ont aujourd'hui nulles reƒtes de Chriƒtianiƒme, ils vont tout nuds, ils ƒe ƒont de inciƒions dans le corps, & vivent d'une maniere, auƒƒi barbare que les autres Idolatres de Biguba, dont les moeurs diffèrent fort peu de celles des habitans de Guinala.” 73 J. Newton, Authentic Narrative, 1763, (Edinburgh, 1880), pp.13, 15. 74 Rodney, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast..., p.93. 75 Duarte Pacheco Pereira, Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis, Series II, LXXXI, (Hakluyt Society: London, 1936), p1. 76 L. Silveira, ed., Peregrinação de André de Faro à Terra dos Gentios, (Tipographia Portugal–Brasil: Lisbon, 1945), p.77. “Mostraua este portugues ser de idade de cincoenta annos”. 77 Ibid., “e me respondeu que hera filho de portugal, e que passaua de uinte annos q moraua ao pê daquella Serra, em sitio tão escondido, e ratirado, pera q nimguem soubesse delle, o qual ueuia a ley dos gentios da terra, e tinha noue molheres e muitos filhos”, p.77. 78 Almada, Tratados Breue dos Rejnos de guine...., chap. 2, fol. 16v. For Ganagoga see note 9. 79 Ibid., chap. 2, fol. 16v. “este lansado portugues se foi ao Reino do Graõ-Fullo por ordë do duque de casão que hum negro poderoso que abita no Rio de Gambea no porto chamado casão este ho mandou por sua hordem cun gente sua ao GraõFullo. E na sua corte se casou con sua filha sua da quall teve huma filha”. 80 For the debate concerning the meaning of chai and Grabulho see Teixeira da Mota and Hair, “Notes”, in Descrição da Serra Leoa…, pp. 313–314. 81 See Donelha, Outra Relação..., chap. 14, fol. 177. 82 Ibid., fol. 176 v. and fol. 177. 83 Almada, Tratados Breue dos Rejnos de guine...., chap. 2, fol. 16v. 84 F. de Andrade, “Relação de Francisco de Andrade Sobre as Ilhas de Cabo Verde”, 1582, in P. António Brásio, Monumenta Missionaria Africana, África Ocidental, (1570–1600), Segunda Série, Vol. III, (Agência Geral do Ultramar: Lisbon, 1965), pp. 102–3, “ho Cabo Verde, o porto dAle, Yoala, Berbeçin, o rio de Gunbia, o rio de San Domingos, Casamansa, Ylhas dos Biyagos, que comunmente se chamaǀas ylhas de Boaǀ, o rio Nuno, a Serra Leoa”. 85 Ibid., p.105, “Ho setimo, que hé o do Rio Grande, hé de tanta ynportança que soçede muitas vezes acharense vinte e trinta nauios nele, e todos se despacharen cö

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muita copia de escrauos, marfin e ouro, que ven da terra dentro; averá neste rio 50 cazas de branq[u]os espachadas, e nelas estarão ao prezente de 100 branq[u]os para çima”. 86 M. Bertrand-Bocandé ‘Mémoires, Extraits, Analyses et Rapports, Notes sur la Guinée Portugaise ou Sénégambie Méridionale, Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, 1849, Mai et Juin, p. 308. “Du Temps d’Almada, les Portugais ètaient en guerre avec les Bagnous d’Iziguikier, à qui appartenait le territoire”. 8787 Ibid., p. 316, “Les persecutions que les Portugais eurent à souffrir de la part des Bagnouns les obligèrent à demander au roi des Cassangues un autre emplacement pour y établir leur factorerie. Il Leur indiqua un lieu au Rio de Saral, plus rapproché de Brikam que le Rio de san-Domingo”. 88 Andrade, “Relação de Francisco de Andrade Sobre as Ilhas de Cabo Verde”, p. 105, “tem muita neçesidade este rio de huá ygreya mais, afora a de San Domingos, e para poder estar segura de algNJ desacato, se os negros yentios lho quiçeren faxer, hé neçesario estar en hNJ recolhimento e fortaleza, honed tanben hos home[n]s branq[u]os posão estar recolhidos cĘ ela, fazendose fortes”. 89 Bertrand-Bocandé ‘Mémoires, Extraits…’, p.317, “Je n’ai pu recueillir des habitants aucune tradition au sujet de Saint – Philippe. Ils disent que cette chaine a été donnée à garder au Hiran, ou à l’esprit qui demeure dans le baobab; que celui qui en enlèverait quelque chose mourrait bientôt. C’était là sans doute l’emplacement du village don’t parle Almada. En 1645, les Portugais de SaintPhilippe allèrent demeurer à Zèguichor”. 90 Sarup, Identity, Culture and the Postmodern World, p. 25.

CHAPTER FOUR THE POLITICS AND SYMBOLICS OF CAPE VERDEAN CREOLE LUÍS BATALHA

I The interest in Creole languages began to emerge in linguistic circles of Europe in the late 1800s. Addison Van Name’s comparative study (1869-70) of the Creoles found in the Caribbean (French, Spanish, Dutch and English) is considered by some as the beginning of the scientific study of Creole languages.1 In Portugal, Francisco Adolfo Coelho published his studies of Cape Verdean Creole in the Boletim da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, titled “Os Dialectos Românicos ou Neo-Latinos na África, Ásia e América” (The Roman or New-Latin Dialects in Africa, Asia and America), between 1880 and 1886.2 The pioneering scholars who reflected upon Cape Verdean Creole understood it as a sort of broken Portuguese a view that passed on to the Cape Verdean colonial elite and which served their agenda of “assimilation” with metropolitan culture.3 They saw Cape Verdean Creole as the result of the incapacity of the African Negroes to speak Portuguese properly, which was seen as much too complex a language to be spoken by “uncivilized” and “uncultured” peoples. However, they forgot that the Creole language was the language not only of Negro slaves but of everybody else, including the erstwhile white elite. This may be true for Creoles in general: “There is considerable evidence that at the time of the Creole’s early development Europeans often spoke them more fluently than has generally been assumed.”4 Being dominated by an assimilationist view of colonization, the Cape Verdean colonial elite viewed Cape Verdean culture and language as mostly determined by the Portuguese cultural contribution, which they saw as prevailing over everything else:

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“In Cape Verde, the Portuguese language had to struggle fiercely with the Negroes’ languages. The Portuguese language came out as a winner from that struggle, but not unhurt. The blows it suffered left it with so many scars that it lost its shape.”5

The African Negroes’ contribution was seen as having been “pathological” and deleterious to the language formation in Cape Verde: “The Creoles (Negro-European languages) are the result of the miscegenation of human types. We know that the Portuguese brought the vocabulary and grammar, which the Afro-Negro simplified. It was to him the pathological modification of the Portuguese that led to the creation of the Creole language.”6

This rejection of the African cultural and linguistic contribution to the formation of colonial societies is understandable in the light of the cultural context of the colonised Creole subjects. As Frantz Fanon points out: “To speak (…) means above all to assume, to support a culture, to support the weight of a civilisation (…). Every colonized people—in other words, every people in whose soul an inferiority complex has been created by the death and burial of its local cultural originality—finds itself face to face with the language of the civilizing nation, with the culture of the mother country”.7

Or in the words of Murdoch: “The ordeal of being forbidden to speak Creole at school—and, among the burgeoning middle classes, even at home—on pain of punishment creates a situation in which the colonial subject is forced to develop a psycho-linguistic double consciousness, in which he or she adopts a language determined by the social context or even, in some cases, by the interlocutor.”8

II Despite the overall view being that Creoles were broken dialects resulting from the mixture of Portuguese and African languages, some of the earlier analysts had insights that matched the most modern “theories” about Creole languages, as in the case of some of the remarks made by Rodrigo de Sá Nogueira in the prologue to Silva’s grammar of Cape Verdean Creole published in 1957.

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In the quotation below a “substratist” stance is implicitly assumed by admitting that the African languages supplied the rules to Creole language: “Those Negroes did not learn Portuguese under the rule of school. In order to speak Portuguese they were guided by the rules of their own languages.”9

Sometimes, as can be seen from the words of Sá Nogueira in the prologue to Silva’s grammar of Cape Verdean Creole, scholars thought that it was the Portuguese language which influenced the African languages, assuming thus a “superstratist” stance: “There is in the scientific study of the African languages, amongst others, some value which many scholars do not recognise. By this I mean the influence exerted by the European languages over the African languages ever since the Europeans began to establish themselves in Africa.”10

The general “pre-scientific” view on Creole languages is well summarised in Holm’s words: “What earlier generations thought of pidgin and creole languages is all too clear from their very names: broken English, bastard Portuguese, nigger French, kombuistaaltje (‘cookhouse lingo’), isikula (‘coolie language’). This contempt often stemmed in part from the feeling that pidgins and creoles were corruptions of ‘higher’, usually European languages, and in part from attitudes toward the speakers of such languages who were often perceived as semi-savages whose partial acquisition of civilized habits was somehow an affront.”11

III Sometimes the Cape Verdean Creole was compared to the dialectical forms of the Portuguese in the archipelagos of Azores and Madeira, pointing out that the great difference was that in these archipelagos there had been no African influence. So, African influence was seen as the corruptor of the metropolitan Portuguese, and the African natives were seen as incapable of learning the “complex” structure of Portuguese language, as can be seen from the following quotations: “It was the morphological part which suffered most of the mutilations, particularly in terms of verbal morphology, which was reduced almost

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exclusively to the infinitive. The morphological structure of Portuguese must have looked too complex to the dominated people.”12 “In the Azores the Portuguese is the same as in the metropolis, only with minor scratches. In Cape Verde, the Portuguese is deeply wounded in its phonetics, morphology, semantics and syntax. (…) The language spoken in the Azores is properly called Portuguese, while in Cape Verde it is called Creole.”13 “Judging from the Cape Verdean speech, the Creoles in that archipelago are nothing but the Portuguese profoundly changed in the mouth of the Negroes, either in its phonetics, morphology, semantics or syntax.” 14 “The culture of the peoples dominated by the Portuguese had not yet led them to the creation of certain words since the concepts those words represented were unknown to them. (…) If we look into the child’s language we will see that she only plays with words that express the meaning of concrete objects or which are related to them. The child in this case represents the mentality of the dominated peoples.”15

IV The standpoints of Silva, Nogueira and other contemporaries during the first half of the twentieth century represented an advance in relation to the traditional nineteenth-century view on Creole languages which was well expressed by Lima: “[European teachers] who pronounce Portuguese correctly without the corruption of the African Creole (ridiculous slang, monstrously assembled from the antique Portuguese and the languages of Guinea, which the people value highly and the whites enjoy imitating).”16

Nogueira assumes a critical standpoint towards this sort of remark, excusing Lima for his lack of proper scientific and linguistic knowledge of Creole: “If we consider the Creoles ridiculous and monstrous just because they represent an adulteration of the metropolitan Portuguese, then we should also consider ridiculous and monstrous the varieties of the Portuguese spoken in the Azores, Madeira and Brazil. Furthermore, we should then consider the Portuguese itself and all the other roman languages as nothing else than adulterated forms of Latin.”17

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Silva shows some division between his allegiance to the Portuguese cultural “origin” of Cape Verdean Creole and the necessity of affirming Creole as an independent language capable of representing the Cape Verdean “culture” as a world of its own. Rodrigo de Sá Nogueira clearly states that the Creole languages have a grammar of their own and are not gibberish talk without rules.18 Silva says that the Creole of Guinea-Bissau is derived from the Cape Verdean Creole due to the Cape Verdean cultural influence in that colony: “I think that the Creole spoken in Guinea did not emerge from the indigenous contact with the Portuguese but was instead derived from the Cape Verdean Creole brought in by the numerous Cape Verdeans used as colonizers.”19

This reflects the fact that the Cape Verdean intellectual and political elite always looked down upon the Guineans, who they saw as more African-like and as culturally inferior and less capable of being assimilated into the Portuguese culture. They also saw themselves as the spearhead of Portuguese culture in Guinea-Bissau.

V Silva considers the existence of two main Creole dialectal variants in Cape Verde: the windward and the leeward variants.20 He then considers sub variants within each regional dialect. In the windward there are the sub variants of Santo Antão and São Vicente and that of São Nicolau. In the leeward there are the sub variants of Santiago, Maio and Fogo, and that of Brava. This means that instead of a “national” Cape Verdean language there are a number of dialects, which equate differences in the way the people of the different islands construct their identities vis-à-vis each other. Silva uses phonological and lexical linguistic arguments in order to base his claims about dialectical variance in Cape Verde. Veiga re-examines the idea of two different forms for the Cape Verdean Creole, i.e. the windward on the one hand and the leeward on the other.21 He considers that the Santiago variant is the mother of all the others and that the variant of São Vicente, though more recently developed, is socially and politically important. He clearly puts the Creole of Santiago before any other and uses the argument that other scholars from São Vicente have themselves admitted that the variant of Santiago is the one that should be considered when it comes to the patterning of the Cape Verdean Creole.22

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In terms of the analysis of the Cape Verdean Creole this division reflects the way in which the Cape Verdeans represent themselves in terms of regional identities. The fact that the Cape Verdean population is a mixture of Europeans and Africans, creates a divide between being “European” and “African”. Some islands are seen as more “European” while others more “African”, but overall Cape Verde is viewed as undoubtedly “European” in culture. As Silva writes, “I do not know of any form in the morphology of Cape Verdean Creole which does not derive its origin from the Portuguese.”23 While Silva admits some African influence in the leeward part of the archipelago, he denies its importance in relation to the windward part (where his home island is situated). He thinks that the Cape Verdean Creole is grammatically simpler than the Portuguese, in the same way that the Portuguese and the other romance languages are simpler versions of the Latin. By considering that in the archipelago the metropolitan Portuguese has been easily “contaminated” by the African languages of the slaves, there exists in his work a certain notion of “impurity” and “contamination” of the European cultural and linguistic elements by the African culture.

VI Modern-day views on Creole languages represent a different stance from those held by mid-twentieth-century Cape Verdean linguists like Silva (1984) and Almada (1961), as well as by the colonial and postcolonial elites in power. But they are relatively recent as Holm points out: “It is only comparatively recently that linguists have realized that pidgins and creoles are not wrong versions of other languages but rather new languages. (…) Their systems are so different, in fact, that they can hardly be considered even dialects of their base language. They are new languages, shaped by many of the same linguistic forces that shaped English and other ‘proper’ languages.”24

The more traditional nineteenth- and early twentieth-century views, which expressed the asymmetry between Europeans and natives in terms of differences in “civilization”, were later replaced during the second half of the twentieth century by explanations based on the “power asymmetry” between coloniser and colonised. Creoles are no longer the languages of “inferior” peoples but of “oppressed” ones. Past theories stated that the natives were not capable of learning the superior languages of their

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masters because of their innate incapacity to learn complex languages. Today’s theories say that the natives did not learn European languages because they were not sufficiently exposed to them. In technical terms, the natives or slaves received a poor input, in terms of quantity and variety, of “superstrate” languages.25 Therefore, the emergence of Creole languages is not a question of capacity but one of opportunity. Also, while past theories saw pidgins and creoles as imperfect versions of the superior superstrate languages, today’s theories view creoles as languages in their own right, retaining the essential structural characteristics of any language system. This is clearly expressed by Trudgill: “The scientific study of language has convinced scholars that all languages, and correspondingly all dialects, are equally ‘good’ as linguistic systems. All varieties of a language are structured, complex, rule-governed systems which are wholly adequate for the needs of their speakers.”26

The emergence and growth of the “scientific” study of Creole languages was made possible by the political developments that led to the independence of the European colonies in the Caribbean. According to Holm, “the early growth of creole linguistics [in the early 1950s and 60s] was probably related to the movement toward independence in the British West Indies, which helped shift the perspective on language from that of the colonizer to that of the colonized.”27

VII Despite modern linguist “theories” pointing out that Creole languages are not inferior versions of former European languages, most of the postcolonial Cape Verdean elite still think that Creole is not mature enough to be the sole official language. At present, Portuguese is the official state language in Cape Verde, which means that it is used in schools, administration, and in every formal domain of Cape Verdean society, whereas Creole, despite being the lingua franca, is viewed as the language of informal contexts. As a result, it still requires time for it to become the national language side by side with Portuguese. Although the postcolonial political elite has vowed to make Creole the national language, in practice little has so far been done. It seems that the postcolonial elite are still held hostage by the old prejudices about Creolespeaking that emerged during centuries of colonialism.

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The local political and intellectual elites use the existing regional divides within the archipelago as an excuse not to take seriously the adoption of Creole as the sole national language in Cape Verde. The regional identity divide between badiu and sampadjudo (or even more detailed varieties according to each island’s spokespeople) Creoles seriously hampers any attempt to introduce a standard written form of Cape Verdean Creole and to make it the official language. In the 1970s, when the first bilingual programs were introduced in the Boston area of the US among Cape Verdean immigrants, families from the islands of Brava and Fogo refused to allow their children be taught the Creole variant of Santiago, which they saw as an African stronghold. Regional and racial divides within the Cape Verdean society, both within and without the archipelago, hamper the acceptance of Creole as the real national language of the country. For the local elites the use of Portuguese as the state and official language gives them an edge over the masses who are speakers of Creole and illiterate in Portuguese. The elites use Portuguese as the contact language between Cape Verde and Portugal, which represents its most important trade and political partner and which hosts the largest Cape Verdean immigrant community in Europe. The fact that Portuguese is also the language in schools gives an advantage to the elite’s children who use it to gain entrance to Portuguese universities. So, despite a quarter of a century of independence, Cape Verde and its political and intellectual elites are still being shadowed by old colonial identity representations. The country remains essentially diglossic, a situation that is still common among many of the ex-colonies. As Sebba points out: “It is those who have power within a society who are able, by and large, to define what is ‘standard’ and what is ‘inferior’: During colonial times, the colonial masters–expatriates and the locally born elite were able to define the standard language of the colonising country as the norm, with local languages, including pidgins and creoles, as inferior or substandard. Independence has swept away the expatriate elites in many countries since about 1960 – but the status of pidgins and creoles in many places is unchanged. Even where there have been positive changes in status for developing languages, often there has been little practical improvement. This may be due to power being held by an elite who can comfortably use the official Standard or lexifier language.”28

Manuel Veiga, who is possibly the only official voice seriously in favour of Creole (he is a linguistic expert and politician at the same time), argues that the Cape Verdean Creole should be taught as the first language

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and the Portuguese as the second. Neither of the two should be taught to the exclusion of the other. If Cape Verde really wants to be a bilingual country it should promote the formal teaching of Creole while at the same time keeping Portuguese as a foreign second language. Finally, the strongest argument against making Creole the school and official language is a financial one. It would require a significant amount of money to comply with all the necessary requisites for replacing Portuguese with Creole in schools (books written in Creole, teachers capable of teaching it, and so forth). Therefore, it seems that Cape Verde will have to wait a few more years until serious thought is given to the adoption of Creole as the de facto national and official language. And as acknowledged above, the fact that the postcolonial elites have a vested interest in keeping political control over the masses works against the promotion of Creole to a national language.29

Notes 1 John Holm, An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2000), p. 24. 2 Jorge Morais-Barbosa, ed. Estudos Linguísticos Crioulos, (Academia Internacional da Cultura Portuguesa: Lisbon, 1967), p. xiii. 3 A. de Paula Brito, ‘Dialectos Crioulos Portugueses: apontamentos para a gramática do crioulo que se fala na Ilha de Santiago de Cabo Verde’, Boletim da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, 1887, 7ª série, nº10, pp. 611–669; F. Adolfo Coelho, ‘Os Dialectos Romanos ou Neolatinos na África, Ásia e América’, Boletim da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, 1880–86, 2ª série, nº 3, pp. 129–196; 3ª série, nº 8, pp. 451–478; 6ª série, nº 12, pp. 705–755; Dulce Almada, Cabo Verde: contribuição para o estudo do dialecto falado no seu arquipélago, Estudos Políticos e Sociais, Vol. 55, (Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, Centro de Estudos Políticos e Sociais: Lisbon, 1961); Edmundo Correia Lopes, ‘Dialectos Crioulos e Etnografia Crioula’, Boletim da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, 1941, 59ª série, 9–10, pp. 415–435; Baltazar Lopes da Silva, O Dialecto Crioulo de Cabo Verde, (Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda: Lisbon, 1984 [orig. 1957]). 4 Holm, An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles, p. 70. 5 Silva, O Dialecto Crioulo de Cabo Verde, p.11 my translation. 6 Baltazar Lopes da Silva, ‘Notas para o Estudo da Linguagem das Ilhas’, Claridade, 1936, August, p. 5. 7 H. Adlai Murdoch, Creole Identity in the French Caribbean Novel, (University Press of Florida: Florida, 2001), p. 21. 8 Murdoch, Creole Identity in the French Caribbean Novel, p. 21. 9 Silva, O Dialecto Crioulo de Cabo Verde, p. 12 my translation and emphasis. 10 Silva, O Dialecto Crioulo de Cabo Verde, p. 9 my translation and emphasis.

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Holm, An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles, p. 1. Almada, Cabo Verde: contribuição para o estudo do dialecto falado no seu arquipélago, p.18 my translation and emphasis. 13 Silva, O Dialecto Crioulo de Cabo Verde, p.11 my translation. 14 Silva, O Dialecto Crioulo de Cabo Verde, p.12 my translation. 15 Almada, Cabo Verde: contribuição para o estudo do dialecto falado no seu arquipélago, p. 23 my translation and emphasis. 16 José Joaquim Lopes de Lima, Ensaios Sobre a Statistica das Possessões Portuguezas no Ultramar, (Imprensa Nacional: Lisbon, 1844–46) quoted in Silva, O Dialecto Crioulo de Cabo Verde, p. 13 my translation and emphasis. 17 Silva, O Dialecto Crioulo de Cabo Verde, p. 16 my translation. 18 Silva, O Dialecto Crioulo de Cabo Verde, p. 18. 19 Silva, O Dialecto Crioulo de Cabo Verde, p. 31 my translation. 20 Silva, O Dialecto Crioulo de Cabo Verde, pp. 35–6. 21 Manuel Veiga, O Crioulo de Cabo Verde: introdução à gramática (2nd ed.), (Instituto Caboverdiano do Livro e do Disco: Praia, 1996[1995]), p. 12. 22 Veiga, O Crioulo de Cabo Verde: introdução à gramática, p. 12. 23 Silva, O Dialecto Crioulo de Cabo Verde, p. 38 my translation. 24 Holm, An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles, p.1. 25 Michel DeGraff, ed. Language Creation and Language Change, (MIT Press: Cambridge Mass, 1999), p.5. 26 Peter Trudgill, Sociolinguistics: and introduction to language and society, (Penguin Books: London, 1974), p.8. 27 Holm, An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles, p.44. 28 Mark Sebba, Contact Languages: pidgins and creoles, (St. Martin’s Press: New York, 1997). pp. 236–7. 29 Sebba, Contact Languages: pidgins and Creoles, p. 237. 12

CHAPTER FIVE CASTAWAYS, AUTOCHTHONS, OR MAROONS? THE DEBATE ON THE ANGOLARES OF SÃO TOMÉ ISLAND GERHARD SEIBERT

Introduction The island republic of São Tomé and Príncipe located in the Gulf of Guinea is the second smallest country in Africa, with a total area of 1,001 square kilometres. The population of 150,000 is made up of three groups, namely the majority Creoles, known as forros, the tongas, descendants of African contract workers recruited between 1875 and 1970, and the Angolares. Like most scholars, Charles Boxer had no doubt that São Tomé was uninhabited when Portuguese navigators discovered the island in 1470.1 However, this assumption has been questioned in the context of the debate on the Angolares. It is generally accepted that in socio-cultural and linguistic terms the Angolares constitute a distinct group of some 10,000 people in São Tomé. However, there is no consensus with regard to their origin, and there exist at least three competing theories. According to the oldest, and most propagated theory, the Angolares are descendants of survivors of a slave-ship that was wrecked off the South coast of São Tomé in the mid-sixteenth century. This story was first published by a Portuguese writer in the mid-nineteenth century and has since been reiterated by innumerable authors. Probably it is still the most widely disseminated and accepted thesis. The second theory claims that the Angolares are the autochthons of São Tomé, who had arrived there prior to the Portuguese. Not surprisingly, in the 1970s local nationalists quickly embraced this explanation. The third and most recent thesis holds that the ancestors of the Angolares were runaway slaves of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Interestingly, in São Tomé and Príncipe the first two theories have always been very popular, while the third explanation

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has been widely ignored and rejected within the country. Apparently São Tomé’s Creole society denies the possible existence of a former maroon community on the island. This paper traces the history of the emergence of the three theories, examines the respective arguments, and puts them in a wider historical and political context.

Angolares According to most writers, the Angolares left the forests of São Tomé’s interior for the first time in 1574, thirty years after the supposed shipwreck, when they began to assault plantations and attack the towns. Many authors stress that their raids aimed particularly at the abduction of women. The assaults and lootings of the Angolares have been considered an important factor that contributed to the collapse of São Tomé’s sugar industry in the seventeenth century. Some authors, and contemporaneous local oral tradition, even assert that the legendary Rei Amador, the leader of the great slave revolt in 1595, and his followers were Angolares.2 According to contemporary documents, however, there is no doubt that they were plantation slaves. In the nineteenth century all Portuguese books on São Tomé confirmed this version and did not associate the slave leader Amador with the Angolares at all. Amador as “King of the Angolares” first appeared in Tenreiro’s book, apparently with the objective of denying that his was a slave revolt at all by deliberately reducing Amador from King of São Tomé to King of the Angolares, a group of primitive castaways living in the forest. The last battle between settlers and Angolares took place in 1693 when the latter were defeated by the bush captain, Mateus Pires, and accepted a ceasefire agreement with the colonists that they always respected. After the defeat they remained in their territory in the south, where allegedly “no stranger dared to enter, on pain of not leaving alive.”3 Their isolation was possibly due to the inaccessibility of their territory and the economic and demographic decline of the island in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.4 The Angolares enjoyed a certain autonomy under the leadership of their captain (chief), called chief magistrate (regedor) by the colonial government. He exercised administrative and juridical functions and had troops at his disposal under the command of lieutenants and ensigns. From 1850 priests were sent to the Parish of Santa Cruz dos Angolares, in the southeast of São Tomé, which had been established in 1848. This was the first step towards their submission to the authority of the Portuguese government. In 1878 their village, Anguéné (Santa Cruz), was occupied by a contingent of 27 Portuguese soldiers in

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order to subordinate them to the colonial government that acted in the interest of the Portuguese planters, who wanted to establish estates in the unexplored South of the island. In 1884, Francisco Stockler, a local Creole of Brazilian descent, wrote about the Angolares that, “the Angolar...hates everything that comes from the established legitimate authorities. They give the whites the contemptuous name of Flemish (flamengo), to the natives they grant the insulting name of Támedê.” 5

The appropriation of their territory by the planters, however, did not provoke serious conflicts, for it did not result in a radical change to their way of life which was based on fishing. The Angolares used to exchange their fish on the estates for bananas, cotton cloths, machetes, and young pigs. In addition, they dedicated themselves to the production of sea salt and made planks cut with their machetes, which they sold in town, together with fish, pigs, foodstuffs, hats made of palm straw, ropes, wooden bowls, and other handmade utensils. Like the forros, the Angolares rejected contract work on the plantations, but they accepted occasional jobs such as felling and cutting trees, weeding and cleaning palm trees or providing transport from the plantations to the town with their canoes, whose length supposedly reached up to twenty metres.6 At that time there were no roads in the south and all transport was conducted by boat along the coast. The occupation brought strangers to their territory and in turn the Angolares started to get in direct touch with the other social groups in the island.7 While previously the Angolares had practised endogamy, at that time their women began to accept unions with forros, but refused to maintain intimate relationships with the contract workers on the estates. The majority of authors assert that, contrary to the forros, who are polygamous, the Angolares are predominantly monogamous, with the exception of prominent men.8 Almeida is the only one, who maintains that their family organisation is predominantly polygamous.9 In 1895, about 2,000 Angolares lived in the Parish of Santa Cruz dos Angolares or were dispersed along the coast as far as Neves, in the northwest of the island. The last captain of the Angolares, Simão Andreza, died at the beginning of the twentieth century without leaving descendants. The occupation of his territory had resulted in the dissolution of the social organisation, a greater dispersal throughout the island and a process of acculturation to the dominant forro culture. In their turn, the forros of the northeast learnt the art of fishing from the Angolares.10 Notwithstanding

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the assimilation with the other Creoles, the Angolares succeeded in preserving their own language and other particularities, such as their dwellings and nucleated villages, remaining a distinct group with their own social-cultural identity.11 The population census of 1950 indicated the existence of 4,490 Angolares.12 Currently about 10,000 Angolares live along the South coast, from Ribeira Afonso to Porto Alegre in the Caué district, and on the northwest coast, from Neves to Bindá in the Lembá district. In addition, small groups exist near São Tomé town in São João da Vargem, Pantufo and Praia Melão.13 All villages have a chief who considers himself a descendant of the founders of the settlement.14 The Angolares have always worked predominantly as fishermen with canoes carved from trunks of large trees, locally known as ocá (Ceiba pentandra). The canoes are steered with oars supported by small quadrangular sails. Nowadays, canoes do not generally carry more than three persons. During the period of abundance of the voador (flying fish, Cypselurus lineatus), from the end of May until early September, many fishermen out-migrate from the South to the North coast, where they construct their temporary settlements called chadas with simple and provisional huts.15 The women’s task is to sell the fish in the markets. They also practise the modest cultivation of food crops in small enclosures between the houses.

Castaways The earliest known historic account of the shipwreck is from Lucas Pereira de Araújo e Azevedo, São Tomé’s chief-judge from 1712–1716, who reported in his Memories that in the island’s interior “uninhabited by settlers, live only some savage Negroes, who used to do great damage to the plantations by nocturnal assaults to steal and abduct women, which is what they needed most, but today they do no longer harm anyone”, adding that “according to a tradition they come from a ship which had run ashore at the beach.”16 Around 1734 the native Creole Father Manuel Rosário (ca. 1666–1734) wrote in his chronicle of São Tomé that “When a ship from Angola loaded with slaves ran aground at a beach in the South-west of this island, the major part of the slaves escaped and established their village in a mountain (pico). And they increased in such a manner that, armed with arrows, they destroyed many sugar mills, and in the same year when Bishop Dom Gaspar Cão died (1574) they came with determination to take the town. As the island’s captain had been warned, he sent soldiers, who attacked them with crossbows. The soldiers defeated

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Savage Negroes called “angolas” or “angolis” in São Tomé’s interior are mentioned in three other documents of the late eighteenth century. In a document dated 1770 and titled “Relação da ilha de S. Thomé e de todas as prayas e portos à roda della” the author writes: “...before reaching the Ponta Azeitona (coming from the Macaco islet) is a bight where the savage Negroes called ‘angolas’ come to make salt.”18 In the same year 1770 São Tomé’s school master, Manuel de Deus Penaforte e Oliveira, reports that “in the said island one finds a good many ‘Angolis’ Negroes, still pagan and savage, who live there independently.”19 In 1789 the chiefcaptain João Baptista e Silva writes in a letter to the Secretary of State that “in the mountains of this island live a number of slaves, who were from a ship departed from Angola that ran ashore on this island. In the first years they robbed the plantations and not only stole fruits, but also slave women, and multiplied so successfully that they are divided into three settlements, with the necessary cultivation for their maintenance and the livestock which is taken from the plantations and kept. There was a disease that killed many (and) some came to talk to the slaves of the nearest plantations to tell them what had occurred. They left (the settlements) to offer their submission to the city and did not harm it and the settlers did not take them prisoners like they did in the beginning to kill or enslave them. I asked two to come to me and they said they wanted to present themselves and move from the sickly place to get baptised and asked the government to teach them. I asked the bishop to listen to them, some are already baptised and without your determination nothing can be carried out.”

The chief-captain proposed to the Secretary of State to settle these Negroes in an area close to the parish of Trindade, suited for the cultivation of cinnamon, pepper and coffee, and to instruct their children.20 The first published information on the Angolares appeared in Cunha Matos’s book Corographia Histórica das Ilhas de S. Thomé, Príncipe, Anno Bom e Fernando Pó in 1842. Cunha Matos (1776–1839), who was a soldier in São Tomé from 1797–1814 and governor from 1816–1817, introduced for the first time the designation “Angolares” and, apparently basing himself on Rosário Pinto’s account, calculated the date of the supposed shipwreck at between 1540–1550. Without quoting any source, he says that “It is not exactly known in which year the ship ran ashore that brought us the Angolares: ungrateful gift of that time and now very esteemed. It is

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to be presumed that it was approximately in the years from 1540 to 1550, because the sons of the first arrivals accompanied their fathers in the attack and robbery of many sugar mills in the year 1574.” 21

In his book Compêndio Histórico das Possessôes de Portugal na África, Cunha Matos admits that the story of the shipwreck is a legend: “They say that then a ship that came from Angola loaded with slaves had shipwrecked on the island’s south coasts: those were the ancestors of the people that are today called Angolares.”22

Nevertheless, since Cunha Matos the majority of authors have accepted the story of the shipwreck, although there is no document to prove this event ever occurred. In 1844 Lopes de Lima, who derived his information from Cunha Matos, invented the exact place of the tragedy, writing that “they rescued themselves by swimming from a slaver, which had been shipwrecked on the East coast, at the Sete Pedras islets, around 1544.”23 In 1882 the governor of the Banco Nacional Ultramarino in São Tomé for the first time referred to the number of the survivors of the shipwrecked slaver. In his report of that year he recounts that “Left to themselves after they were shipwrecked at the cliffs called Sete Pedras, in a ship coming from Angola in 1540, (the Angolares) reached the coast and fled into the forests; they must then have been savages, just departed from the African bush...Their number, less than 200 in the mid-16th century when they arrived here, today amounts to some 2,000.”24

With regard to their language, the German scientist Richard Greef affirmed at the same time that they had maintained the Mbundo language taken from Angola, since “the numbers of the Angolares generally correspond entirely to that of this language.”25 The fact that, according to the narrative, the presence of the castaways remained unnoticed among the settlers during thirty years was explained by their refuge in the dense forest in the island’s South, their small number and their fear of being discovered.26 Already in 1895 the colonial administrator Almada Negreiros27 asserted in his História Ethnographica da Ilha de S.Thomé that the anatomical and physiological character of the Angolares indicated an “inferior anthropological type”, “with extraordinary length of arms”, “of the type of Africa’s interior”, and therefore he considered them different from the other ethnic groups represented in São Tomé.28 In 1950 and 1954

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the Portuguese Bio-anthropological Mission of Angola and the Ethnosociological Brigade respectively, both headed by the physical anthropologist António de Almeida (1900–1984), attempted to ascertain the supposed origin of the Angolares. The most prominent representative of this science of the races (antrobiologia) still popular at that time in Portugal, was António Augusto Mendes Corrêa of the University of Porto, who was president of the Junta das Missões Geográficas e de Investigações do Ultramar in the 1950s. According to Mendes Corrêa the role of the anthropological missions was “the investigation of the bioethnic characteristics of the population as well as of their capacity for collaboration with the regime and for their economic utilisation.”29 Contradicting Greef, Almeida asserts that, “the characteristic dialect of the Angolares is Quimbundo.” However, after having evaluated some physical data (body height and the cephalic, nasal and Pignet indexes) obtained from a sample of a hundred Angolares, the researchers came to the conclusion that they resembled the Mussurungos, a Kicongo-speaking people living on the left bank of the river Zaire, formerly part of the kingdom of Congo. Almeida believed that cultural anthropology and linguistics were not sufficient to solve the problem of the origin of the Angolares. He was convinced that only the statistical study of several dozens of morphological characters of the sample of the hundred Angolares would allow him metrically to confirm his hypothesis that the language of the Mussurungos shipwrecked in the sixteenth century was subsequently replaced by the language of the tribe of the Angolas of the interior of Luanda.30 Meanwhile, in 1959, the physical anthropologist Leopoldina Ferreira Paulo concluded that “by their stature the Angolares are similar to the peoples of the interior of Angola such as the Biessos and the Bailundos...the characteristics observed lead us to verify a greater affinity of the Angolares with the Angolans than with the natives of Guinea.”31

The Luso-Santomean geographer Francisco Tenreiro (1921–1963) also accepted the story of the shipwreck in his monograph A Ilha de São Tomé (1961). Based on Lopes de Lima, Tenreiro writes that “as it seems...they were Negroes, who rescued themselves swimming from a slaver that had shipwrecked at the East coast, at the Sete Pedras islets, approximately in 1544 and that thirty years later they assaulted the town and its sugar mills of the northeast, which they looted.”32

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In addition, Tenreiro suggests that before the occupation of their territory by the Portuguese, the Angolares had been merely gatherers in the forest and only afterwards formed nuclei of fishermen close to the beaches and became sailors of canoes. This assertion, however, is contradicted by a seventeenth century Dutch map of São Tomé that shows several fishing villages in the island’s South33 and by Araújo’s memoir of the eighteenth century that says that “these savages live by […] fishing which they practise at the beaches of the west.”34 There was no radical transformation of their economy as Tenreiro claimed. Notably, Tenreiro’s book contributed considerably to the further dissemination of the version of the shipwreck.35 Taking into account the contributions of all these authors, CasteloBranco concluded in 1971 that: “it can be said that anthropological, ethnological and philological investigations do not contradict the traditional version about the origin of the Angolares and in a certain way they even confirm it. The divergence pointed out, however, obliges us to consider this evidence with reserve and caution.”36

Notwithstanding, many authors accepted the oral tradition about the origin of the Angolares and continued to transmit the story of the shipwreck without querying it. In his book A Economia de S. Tomé e Príncipe, written in 1960, updated and published by the Instituto para a Cooperação Económica in 1993, Costa Oliveira asserts: “The Angolares are, as we know, the descendants of a group of castaways arrived in São Tomé in the sixteenth century.”37 The historian Garfield (1972, 1992)38 and the anthropologist Eyzaguirre (1986)39 also accepted the legend in their PhD theses. Subsequently, in his thesis São Tome e Príncipe. Elementos para uma análise antropológica das suas vulnerabilidades e potencialidades published in 1997, Heitor Romano writes a little more cautiously about the Angolares: “Little is known about their origin, because it is only known that a ship loaded with slaves originating from Angola en route to Brazil had shipwrecked at Sete Pedras.” Interestingly, he does not consider any other hypotheses about their origin, although these had already been debated for many years.40 Also recent Portuguese TV documentaries on São Tomé, such as “Gente Remota” (1994) and “O Coro das Palavras” (2005), both by Carlos Brandão Lucas, and “Fragmentos de um País” (1995) by Paulo Costa repeat the oral tradition of the shipwreck as if it was an uncontested and incontestable historical fact.

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African Primacy The second theory is closely related to the controversy about whether São Tomé was already settled by Africans when the first Portuguese arrived there around 1470. The first assertions that São Tomé was not uninhabited when the Portuguese settled the island in the late fifteenth century appeared in the 1950s. In his report about a visit to São Tomé in December 1951, the famous Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre (1900– 1987) wrote that, at the time of discovery in 1470, the islands “already had their black population.”41 Unfortunately Freyre did not support his assumption by documentary evidence. A testimony of a Portuguese bank employee about an argument with a local Creole in 1952 confirms the existence of this thesis during that period of growing tensions between the Creoles and the Portuguese colonial government. During the dispute the islander claimed that the assertion that São Tomé was uninhabited prior to the arrival of the Portuguese was an invention of white colonial historiography.42 A few years before independence the Portuguese Jorge Marques, at the time a functionary at the Agrarian Station in São Tomé, tried to prove that continental Africans could have sailed with simple canoes from the coast to the Gulf of Guinea islands. This courageous adventurer never attempted to make the journey by canoe but in 1971, having learnt from local fishermen the art of navigating in a fragile canoe, Marques sailed alone in a canoe the 150 kilometres from São Tomé to Príncipe Island where he arrived after three long days. Five years later Marques, who in the meantime had become a journalist, bought another canoe in São Tomé and departed again alone, this time in the direction of the Nigerian coast. After an alleged odyssey of twelve days, during which he was hit by four tornados, Nigerian fishermen found him off the coast and took him onshore. A third voyage by canoe from São Tomé ended in a failure. Marques claims that after 38 dramatic days at sea he was thrown on a beach on Fernando Pó (Bioko, Equatorial Guinea), where he was detained and interrogated by the local authorities before he was repatriated to São Tomé.43 In São Tomé the theory of the primacy of an autochthonous African population became official historiography after independence. In 1975 an official but anonymous publication entitled Esboço Histórico das Ilhas de S.Tomé e Príncipe, that has been attributed to the local historian Carlos Neves, rejected the story of the shipwreck and claimed the presence of the Angolares prior to the Portuguese colonisation. The author concludes that

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“in my opinion the Angolares are a branch of the Bantus, who probably had settled in the Gabun and Rio Muni regions and who subsequently might have moved to some of the islands in the Gulf of Guinea.”44

In addition, the author points out that in their myths the Angolares themselves never refer to any shipwreck of their ancestors. He asks himself: “Suppose that (the Bantus) sailed as far as Fernando Pó, why should they not have advanced a little more, to São Tomé?” This writer is the first, who poses the question how the shipwrecked slaves could cover the distance between the Sete Pedras rocks and the coast and concluded that “they had to be individuals used to the sea or to large rivers, because to save their lives it was indispensable that they were able to swim….”45 In 1975, the Portuguese author of the book S.Tomé e Príncipe: do Colonialismo à Independência asserts that “contrary to what the colonialist ‘Histories’ narrate, there are no fundamental proofs that guarantee the absence of autochthonous peoples at the time of the arrival of the Portuguese… Circumstances (sugar cultivation in the northeast), added to the island’s topography and the distribution of the vegetation (impenetrable forests that separated the relatively flat north from the mountainous south), would necessarily have prevented contacts between the colonialist invaders and the peoples of the South, a hypothesis (of course it is a hypothesis), which the colonialist historians refused to admit by describing the Angolares as survivors of an imaginary shipwreck of a slaver that transported slaves from Angola to Brazil, thirty years before.”46

In a long article on the archipelago’s history, based on Marxist historiography, published by the state-owned paper Revolução in 1977, the local historian Carlos Neves again rejects the story of the shipwreck as inconsistent and unlikely. He claims that “... the Angolares constituted a fishing tribe of the African coast that during an unknown period moved to the south of São Tomé. Although it is not possible to demonstrate this at this moment, I am convinced that future research will lead us to more satisfactory conclusions.”47

In 1985 an unpublished manuscript titled A História da República Democrática de São Tomé e Príncipe compiled by a group of prominent Santomeans together with a team of Soviet researchers repeated the theory presented ten years before. The authors claim that

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Chapter Five “The small territory and the small population of the islands led to the autochthons being liquidated, dispersed or expelled to the unexploited regions by the European invaders during the first period. The colonialists wanted to delete the memory of the islands’ first inhabitants and declared them uninhabited. But soon the Portuguese would be forced to recognise the presence of the people, who appeared in São Tomé independently from themselves, and experience their anger and refusal to accept subjugation. These people were then declared to be descendants of slaves, who were on a ship wrecked off the coast of São Tomé in the 1540s and got the name angolares.”48

The theory that the Angolares are the autochthons is still widely believed in São Tomé, whereas the theory of the maroons is almost completely ignored. Illustrative of this position is an Internet site on São Tomé and Príncipe constructed in 2002 by a Santomean. This author questions whether São Tomé was really uninhabited when Portuguese navigators discovered the island in 1470. He replies that, “I am convinced that it was not and that the Angolares were the first inhabitants.”49 He supports his claim by repeating word for word the arguments given in the Revolução article 25 years before. Typically, the author does not even take into account the hypothesis of the maroons.

Descendants of Maroons The third hypothesis is largely based on linguistic, historic and genetic data. The first scholar who suggested that the Angolares might be descended from runaway slaves was the Luso-South African linguist Luís Ferraz, who had visited São Tomé in 1969.50 Ferraz quickly discovered that the Angolares did not speak a Bantu language, as Portuguese researchers had maintained, but a Creole language distantly related to the Creole of the forros. He put the question how the Angolares could speak a Portuguese-based Creole, although they had lived in complete isolation from the rest of the population during a long time. He concluded that runaway slaves, who constituted the early Angolar communities, had already some knowledge of the local Creole that shared 67 per cent of the lexicon of the Angolar Creole.51 Subsequent linguistic research by other experts in Creole languages has confirmed Ferraz’s findings. According to Maurer’s linguistic analysis of the lexicon of the lunga ngolá, the Angolar Creole, 65 per cent is derived from the Portuguese, one per cent is of kwa origin, 15 per cent stems from Bantu languages and the origin of the remaining 20 per cent is still unknown.52 The linguist Lorenzino suggests that the lunga ngolá can

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be understood as the linguistic result of the necessity of escaped slaves to develop communicative behaviour, to maintain the integrity of the group and to give symbolic and psychological value to the Angolar community and, at the same time, make their language incomprehensible to outsiders. In this logic the development of such a secret language became advantageous for the survival of the Angolares, whose existence was constantly threatened by colonial society.53 More likely is Hagemeijer’s theory that the four Creole languages spoken in the Gulf of Guinea region genetically have a common origin in a proto-Creole that developed in the early sixteenth century in São Tomé.54 This author comes to the conclusion that the first maroons already spoke this proto-Creole.55 Abundant historical documents on escaped slaves and communities of runaway slaves in São Tomé also strongly support the maroon thesis. As early as 1499 São Tomé’s third donatário, Álvaro de Caminha, who succeeded in establishing the first settlement in São Tomé, refers several times in his testament to slaves who escaped to the forest or by boat to sea.56 This confirms that from the beginning of the island’s colonization the flight of slaves into the forest occurred frequently. Contrary to the Europeans, the Africans managed to adapt themselves to this harsh environment and succeeded in surviving in the interior. The dense and impenetrable forests that covered two thirds of São Tomé during the sugar-cane period constituted a suitable shelter for runaway slaves. Departing from their quilombos in the forests the escaped slaves, who were organised in gangs, each headed by a leader, assaulted and looted the sugar mills and the town creating a constant threat for the colony. According to contemporary documents, between 1514 and 1527 out of the 13,548 slaves arrived in São Tomé 684 (4.8%) managed to escape.57 In the year 1529, the administrator João Lobata reported that slaves escaped to the forest due to the lack of food cultivation on the sugar-cane plantations.58 The following year, 230 slaves disappeared from the king’s administrator into the forest.59 From 1530 onwards the so-called bush war (guerra do mato) started when the governors and planters began to pursue and attack the Africans in the forest with armed troops to capture them and destroy their bases. It was an authentic war, a war for life or death between the maroons and the defenders of the colonial order.60 In 1531, the runaway slaves defeated an expedition sent by the settlers to fight them. One year later the plantations located near the forests were abandoned due to the threat of assaults from the island’s interior. The number of escaped slaves continued to increase. In 1535 the situation had deteriorated to such an extent that the settlers expected at any moment a great assault of the maroons on the town. They urged military support from Lisbon that in the

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following year sent a contingent of armed troops to participate in the bush war. During one of these expeditions in 1547 one planter with his armed slaves captured forty maroons including women and children.61 The guerra do mato continued until the end of the seventeenth century, although the flight of slaves never ended. The Dutch, who occupied São Tomé from 1641–1648, reported that at that time the Portuguese planters gave preference to slaves from Adra (Dahomey) over those from the river Calabar, because many of the latter fled to the interior or disappeared by boat to the sea.62 There are innumerable sixteenth century documents that mention the flight of plantation slaves into the forests; however, there is not a single reference to the alleged shipwreck. The historian Caldeira explains the designation Angolas or Angolis given to the self-liberated Africans in the interior by the fact that in the sixteenth century the slaves used to come from Angola and Congo, while thereafter the majority of slaves were “Minas” slaves, taken from the Mina (Elmina, Ghana) coast that had been transformed from a purchasing area of slaves into a supply market.63 Consequently, in the eighteenth century people in São Tomé distinguished the Minas slaves from the Angolas, who became the Angolares in the nineteenth century when the oral tradition about the shipwreck emerged.64 In 1988 Hodges and Newitt are among the first scholars who doubt the story of the shipwreck in the sixteenth century. They believe that “it is more likely that the Angolar population dates from the beginning of the eighteenth century, for it is only then that the first references to them occur in contemporary documents.”65 In addition, these authors suggest that Angolares and escaped slaves were different categories that co-existed side by side prior to the re-colonisation of São Tomé in the mid-nineteenth century.66 Around the same time the Portuguese historian Castro Henriques, without rejecting the story of the shipwreck, suggests that the majority of the so-called Angolares were runaway slaves from the plantations.67 In another article first published in 1994 Castro Henriques also claims that escaped slaves and Angolares constituted two separate communities. The latter had settled far distant from the Europeans in the south where they had remained isolated until the second half of the nineteenth century.68 In a small article on Quilombos in São Tomé published in 1996, Vansina concludes about the story of the shipwreck that “the obvious possibility is that the whole (oral) tradition began as an etiological story of origin current among the majority population of São Tomé to explain a foreign settlement in their midst and a story that grew after 1700 as this now peaceful group of settlers was in the process of

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becoming recognized as an ethnic group, the Angolares…in essence the so-called Angolares are the descendants of a maroon community, first mentioned as a refugee settlement “mocambo” existing in the 1580s, a community that grew as more refugee slaves joined it.”69

The author of this chapter has also always argued that the Angolares descend from runaway slaves.70 In her book São Tomé e Príncipe. A Invenção de Uma Sociedade (2000) Castro Henriques finally rejects both the oral tradition of the castaways as well as the nationalist myth of the autochthons as “equally marked by an almost caricaturist nationalist burden by referring to the same models of interpretation used by colonial history, compromise the elaboration of rigorous explanations of the past of African peoples exposed to Portuguese colonial domination.”71

However, as already pointed out, in São Tomé this view has been widely ignored or rejected. Recent comparative genetic research conducted among forros, tongas and Angolares also supports the maroon theory. According to this DNA research, in comparison with the other two groups, the Angolares show less genetic variation, but they do not possess any genetic homogeneity that would support the first or second theory of their origin.72 Consequently, Trovoada et al. conclude that “…taken together these findings seem to be rather more compatible with the Angolares being the descendants of fugitives slaves, who with time consolidated a community who lived in relative isolation from the other São Tomé e Príncipe inhabitants.”73

Conclusions The thesis of the shipwreck is an old oral tradition that probably emerged among the local population to explain the presence of alien “savage Negroes” in the interior of the island, outside the government’s control. This legend was first published by Cunha Matos and further embroidered by other nineteenth and twentieth century colonial authors. During that period the Portuguese denial of the existence of a maroon community that had survived in the forest also served to discourage the flight of contract workers from the estates. Taking into account the strong sea currents in the area of the Sete Pedras reefs and the distance of about four kilometres to the beach, it

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would have been almost impossible for the shipwrecked slaves to have reached the beach alive, even if one supposes that they could swim. Concerning the physical characteristics of the Angolares, it is striking that the followers of Mendes Corrêa did not associate them with their professional activity as fishermen. Even if a shipwreck had occurred it is unlikely that the survivors constituted the demographic origin of the Angolares but only that they would have joined an existing nucleus of escaped slaves. For the same reason, it is unlikely that Angolares and runaway slaves existed separately at the same time. It seems much more likely that settlements of escaped slaves, the so-called mocambos, gradually developed into the maroon community that became known as Angolares. Recent comparative genetic studies in São Tomé also strongly support this assumption. The theory of a local African settlement prior to the Portuguese arrival has been more inspired by nationalist ideology than by scientific evidence. At the time of independence this claim became of critical importance for the national identity of the new state. By asserting a pre-colonial human history in São Tomé, the regime attempted to equate the country’s history with that of continental Africa to constitute a political identity as an African nation state that had its supposed origin in a remote pre-colonial past. In addition, the denial of the Portuguese primacy in São Tomé was a denial of the colonial stratification system that defined group status on the island by their time of arrival in the archipelago. When the Portuguese arrived in the Gulf of Guinea in the fifteenth century only Fernando Pó (Bioko) that is only 32 kilometres from the coast of Cameroon and visible from the continent had an existing autochthonous population, the Bubi. This island was connected by land with the continent in the recent past at a time when the sea level was low, whereas the other three Gulf of Guinea islands certainly were not linked by land to the continent.74 Besides, the characteristics of São Tomé’s fauna, such as the absence of carnivores and mammals at the time of the discovery by the Portuguese, refute the alleged existence of a human presence. Linguistic research proving that the lunga ngolá is a Portuguesebased Creole also contradicts this theory. In addition, Thornton explains that although the Africans had built boats for the coastal and fluvial navigation, they had not succeeded in overcoming the problems of the long-distance ocean navigation.75 For this reason, the Cape Verde islands were also uninhabited when the first European arrived. Moreover, Marques, the Portuguese adventurer, failed to demonstrate that, at least theoretically, maritime currents could have taken people in canoes involuntarily from the continent to São Tomé.

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Despite abundant historic evidence that the escape of slaves constituted a constant problem from the beginning of the island’s colonisation in the late fifteenth century, both the thesis of the shipwreck and that of African primacy completely ignore this phenomenon and the consequent constitution of a maroon community in São Tomé. Although it was known that quilombos existed in the Caribbean, Brazil, Surinam and in other slave societies, the Creole elite in São Tomé, which also owned slaves and therefore was not interested in the recognition of the existence of maroons in the archipelago, preferred to accept the story of the shipwreck. Moreover, for political reasons this elite was more interested in claiming the country’s African pre-colonial past. Therefore they never promoted São Tomé and Príncipe as a ‘Creole’ society. As a result of this claim, and despite strong historic and linguistic evidence, the Angolares of São Tomé are still widely ignored in academic studies on maroon communities in the Atlantic world.

Notes 1

Charles R. Boxer, Relações Raciais no Império Colonial Português 1415–1825, (Afrontamento: Porto, 1988). Originally published as Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire 1415–1825, (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1963), p. 18. 2 Francisco Tenreiro, A Ilha de São Tomé, (Junta de Investigações do Ultramar: Lisbon, 1961), p.73; Fernando de Macedo, O Povo Angolar de S. Tomé e Príncipe (São Tomé, 1996), p.27. 3 António de Almeida, Da origem dos Angolares habitantes da Ilha de S. Tomé. Separata das “Memórias”, (Academia das Ciências: Lisbon, 1962), p.10. 4 Alfredo Gomes Dias and Augusto do Nascimento Diniz, ‘Os Angolares: da autonomia à inserção na Sociedade colonial (segunda metade do século XIX)’, Ler História, 1988, 13, p.53 5 Francisco Stockler, ‘O povo dos Angolares’, Revista Illustrada. As Colônias Portuguezas, 1884, II (4), p.177. 6 Richard Greef, ‘Die Angolares. Neger der Insel São Tomé’, Globus. Illustrierte Zeitschrift für Länder- und Völkerkunde, 1882, XLII, 23, pp. 362–364; XLII (24), p.376. 7 Manuel Gonçalves, Manuel Joaquim Sobral, ‘Angolares. Uma aproximação antropológica’, Geographica. Revista da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, 1973, IX, 34, p.79. 8 Greef, ‘Die Angolares. Neger der Insel São Tomé’, p. 376; Gonçalves, ‘Angolares. Uma aproximação antropológica’, Geographica. Revista da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, 1973, IX, 34, p.79.

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António de Almeida, ‘Contribuição para o Estudo da Etnologia dos “Angolares”’, in Actas da Conferência Internacional dos Africanistas Ocidentais. 6ª Sessão, vol. V., pp. 21–28, (Lisbon, 1956) p. 22. 10 Tenreiro, A Ilha de São Tomé, p.137. 11 Mária Nazaré Ceita, ‘Ensaio para uma Reconstituição Histórico-Antropólogica dos Angolares de S. Tomé’, unpublished post-graduate thesis, Centro de Estudos Africanos (CEA), (Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa (ISCTE): Lisbon, 1991), p.1. 12 António de Almeida, ‘Contribuição para o Estudo da Antropologia Física dos “Angolares”’, in Actas da Conferência Internacional dos Africanistas Ocidentais. 6ª Sessão, vol. V, pp. 11–20. (Lisbon, 1956), p.11. 13 Ceita, ‘Ensaio para uma Reconstituição Histórico-Antropológica dos Angolares de S. Tomé’, p. 23. 14 Ceita, ‘Ensaio para uma Reconstituição Histórico-Antropológica dos Angolares de S. Tomé’, p. 26. 15 Ceita, ‘Ensaio para uma Reconstituição Histórico-Antropológica dos Angolares de S. Tomé’, p. 30. 16 Lucas Pereira de Araújo e Azevedo, Memorias da Ilha de Sam Thomé, (Museu Nacional de São Tomé e Príncipe: São Tomé, 1978), p. 8. 17 António Ambrósio, Manuel Rosário Pinto (A sua vida), (Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos: Lisbon, 1970), p. 37. 18 Quoted in Carlos Agostinho das Neves, S. Tomé e Príncipe Na Segunda Metade do Séc. XVIII, (Região Autónoma da Madeira: Funchal, 1989), p.287. 19 Neves, S. Tomé e Príncipe Na Segunda Metade do Séc. XVIII, p. 293 20 Neves, S. Tomé e Príncipe Na Segunda Metade do Séc. XVIII, pp. 401–402; p. 408. 21 Raimundo José da Cunha Matos, Corografia histórica das Ilhas de S.Thomé e Príncipe, Ano Bom e Fernando Pó, (Imprensa Nacional: São Tomé 1916 [1842]). 22 Raimundo José da Cunha Matos, Compêndio Histórico das Possessôes de Portugal na África (Ministério da Justiça e dos Negócios Interiores—Arquivo Nacional: Rio de Janeiro, 1963), p.104. 23 Cited by Tenreiro, A Ilha de São Tomé, p.72. 24 A.F. Nogueira, A Ilha de S.Thomé. A questão bancária no Ultramar e o nosso problema colonial, (Typ. do Jornal As Colonias Portuguezas: Lisbon, 1893), p. 36. 25 Greef, ‘Die Angolares. Neger der Insel São Tomé’, p. 377. 26 Tenreiro, A Ilha de São Tomé, p. 73; Gonçalves, ‘Angolares. Uma aproximação antropológica’, Geographica. Revista da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, 1973, IX, 34, p.78; Fernando Ferreira da Costa, ‘A política portuguesa em face do “reino angolar” de S. Tomé’, Diário de Notícias, 1 February 1983. 27 The author in question was father of the famous Portuguese painter and writer José de Almada Negreiros (1893–1970) who was born in São Tomé. 28 A. Lobo de Almada Negreiros, História Ethnographica da Ilha de S.Thomé, (Antiga Casa Bertrand: Lisbon, 1895), pp. 296, 302.

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Mendes Corrêa, Separata do Jornal do Médico, 1945, quoted by Ceita, ‘Ensaio para uma Reconstituição Histórico-Antropológica dos Angolares de S. Tomé’, p. 11. 30 Almeida, Da origem dos Angolares habitantes da Ilha de S. Tomé, p. 17. 31 Quoted by Fernando Castelo-Branco, ‘Subsídios para o estudo dos “angolares” de S. Tomé’, Studia, 1971, 33, pp. 149–159. 32 Tenreiro, A Ilha de São Tomé, p. 70. 33 Drawn in ca. 1660 by Johann Vingboons (1617–1670), cartographer of the Dutch West India Company (WIC). 34 Lucas Pereira de Araújo e Azevedo, Memorias da Ilha de Sam Thomé, (Museu Nacional de São Tomé e Príncipe: São Tomé, 1978). 35 Tenreiro, A Ilha de São Tomé, pp. 120, 134. 36 Castelo-Branco, ‘Subsídios para o estudo dos “angolares” de S. Tomé’, p. 158. 37 Jorge Eduardo da Costa Oliveira, A Economia de S. Tomé e Príncipe (Instituto para a Cooperação Económica, Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical: Lisbon, 1993), p. 120. 38 Robert Garfield, ‘A History of São Tomé Island, 1470–1655’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, (Northwestern University, 1971). 39 Pablo B. Eyzaguirre, ‘Small Farmers and Estates in São Tomé, West Africa’, unpublished PhD thesis, (Yale, 1986). 40 Heitor Alberto Coelho Barras Romana, São Tomé e Príncipe. Elementos para uma Análise Antropológica das suas Vulnerabilidades e Potencialidades, (Universidade Técnica de Lisboa. Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas: Lisbon, 1997). 41 Gilberto Freyre, Aventura e Rotina. Sugestões de uma viagem à procura das constantes portuguesas de caráter e ação, (José Olympio: Rio de Janeiro, 1980 [1953]), p. 311. 42 Ministério de Exército, 25 October 1956, p. 230. 43 Jorge Trabul Marques, Exhibition Sobreviver no Mar dos Tornados. 38 Dias numa Piroga, Padrão dos Descobrimentos, 10 March–10 April (Lisbon, 1999). 44 Esboço Histórico das Ilhas de S. Tomé e Príncipe, (Imprensa Nacional: São Tomé, 1975), p. 23. 45 Esboço Histórico das Ilhas de S. Tomé e Príncipe, p. 22. 46 Carlos Benigno da Cruz, S. Tomé e Príncipe: do Colonialismo à Independência, (Moraes Editores: Lisbon, 1975), pp. 19–20. 47 Revolução, n.º 30, 21 January 1997. 48 História da República Democrática de São Tomé e Príncipe, p.274. 49 http: //mega.ist.utl.pt/~mles/SaoTome/Home.html. 50 Luiz Ivens Ferraz, ‘A Linguistic Appraisal of Angolar’, in: In Memoriam António Jorge Dias, vol. II, pp. 177–186, (Junta de Investigações Científicas do Ultramar: Lisbon, 1974), p.180. 51 Luiz Ivens Ferraz, The Creole of São Tomé, (Witwatersrand University Press: Johannesburg, 1979), p. 9. 52 Philippe Maurer, ‘L'apport lexical bantou en angolar’, Afrikanische Arbeitspapiere 1992, 29, p. 163.

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Gerardo A. Lorenzino, ‘The Angolar Creole Portuguese of São Tomé: Its Grammar and Sociolinguistic History’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, The City University of New York (1998), p. 69 54 The other two Creole languages are Lung’ie on Príncipe and Fa d’Ambô on Annobón Island (Pagalu, Equatorial Guinea). 55 Tjerk Hagemeijer, ‘As Línguas de S. Tomé e Príncipe’, Revista de Crioulos de Base Lexical Portuguesa e Espanhola, 2009, vol. 1 nr. 1, pp. 1–27. 56 Document published in Luís de Albuquerque, A Ilha de São Tomé nos Séculos XV e XVI, (Publicações Alfa: Lisbon, 1989). 57 Catarina Madeira Santos, ‘A formação das estruturas fundiárias e a territorialização das tensões sociais: São Tomé, primeira metade do século XVI’, Studia, 1996, 54/55, p.78. 58 Rui Ramos, ‘Rebelião e sociedade colonial: “alvoroços” e “levantamentos” em São Tomé (1545–1555)’, Revista Internacional de Estudos Africanos, 1986, 4–5, p. 35. 59 Santos, ‘A formação das estruturas fundiárias e a territorialização das tensões sociais: São Tomé, primeira metade do século XVI’, p.77. 60 Arlindo Manuel Caldeira, ‘Rebelião e outras formas de resistência à escravatura na ilha São Tomé (séculos XVI a XVIII)’, Africana Studia, 2004, 7, p.110. 61 Ramos, ‘Rebelião e sociedade colonial: “alvoroços” e “levantamentos” em São Tomé (1545–1555)’, p. 34. 62 Klaas Ratelband, Vijf Dagregisters van het Kasteel São Jorge da Mina (Elmina) aan de Goudkust (1645–1647), (Martinus Nijhoff: The Hague, 1953), p. 112. 63 Arlindo Manuel Caldeira, Mulheres, Sexualidade e Casamento no Arquipélago de S. Tomé e Príncipe (Séculos XV a XVIII), Grupo de Trabalho do Ministério da Educação para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 2nd edition, (Edições Cosmos: Lisbon, 1999), p. 95. 64 Caldeira, ‘Rebelião e outras formas de resistência à escravatura na ilha São Tomé (séculos XVI a XVIII)’, p.123. 65 Tony Hodges and Malyn Newitt, São Tomé and Príncipe. From Plantation Colony to Microstate, (Westview Press: Boulder, CO. and London, 1988), p. 60. 66 Hodges and Newitt, São Tomé and Príncipe. From Plantation Colony to Microstate, p. 28. 67 Isabel Castro Henriques, Os Pilares da Diferença. Relações Portugal-África. Séculos XV–XX, (Caleidoscópio: Lisbon, 2004), p.204. 68 Henriques, Os Pilares da Diferença. Relações Portugal-África Séculos XV–XX, p. 218. 69 Jan Vansina, ‘Quilombos on São Tomé, or in Search of original sources’, History in Africa, 1996, 23, p. 457. 70 Gerhard Seibert, A Questão da Origem dos Angolares de São Tomé. CEsA Brief Papers n.º 5. (Lisbon, 1998); Seibert, Comrades, Clients and Cousins. Colonialism, Socialism and Democratization in São Tomé and Príncipe, (CNWS Publications: Leiden, 1999). 71 Isabel Castro Henriques, São Tomé e Príncipe: A Invenção de uma Sociedade,

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(Vega Editora: Lisbon, 2000) p.59. Gil Tomás, et al., ‘The Peopling of São Tomé (Gulf of Guinea): Origins of Slave Settlers and Admixture with the Portuguese’, Human Biology, 2002, 74 (5), pp. 397–411; Maria de Jesus Trovoada et al, ‘Evidence for population sub-structuring in São Tomé e Príncipe as inferred from Y-chromosome STP analysis’, Annals of Human Genetics, 2001, 65, pp.271–283; Trovoada, ‘Pattern of mtDNA Variation in Three Populations from São Tomé e Príncipe’, Annals of Human Genetics, 2003, 68, pp. 40–54. 73 Trovoada, ‘Pattern of mtDNA Variation in Three Populations from São Tomé e Príncipe’, p.50. 74 P.J. Jones, J.P. Burlison, and A. Tye, Conservação dos ecossistemas florestais na República Democrática de São Tomé e Príncipe, (UICN: Gland, 1991), p. 5. 75 John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the making of the Atlantic World, 1400– 1680. (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1992), p. 21. 72

CHAPTER SIX BETWEEN TWO WORLDS: THE BEZERRAS, A LUSO-AFRICAN FAMILY IN NINETEENTH CENTURY WESTERN CENTRAL AFRICA BEATRIX HEINTZE

When the two pombeiros Pedro João Baptista and Anastácio José successfully completed the first documented double crossing of the African continent1, between 1804 and 1814, travelling from Angola to Mozambique and back, it was perceived as a reflection of Portuguese glory. And when, decades later, European explorers undertook their “voyages of discovery” to the Lunda and the Luluwa, the penetration into supposedly “untouched” territory in the darkest interior of Africa was regarded by those back home to be entirely their accomplishment. However, both pombeiros were in fact indigenous Luso-Africans. Although they travelled in Portugal’s name, regarded themselves as “Portuguese” and were classified as such by other Africans, who identified them not by the colour of their skin but by cultural characteristics, the two travellers only succeeded in their mission, because they were not Portuguese, but rather Luso-Africans. In other contexts white Portuguese did not let these Luso-Africans so easily forget that they did not belong and scorned them. As for the explorers, they would soon have failed in their mission, had it not been for their Luso-African predecessors, guides and interpreters. Who were these Luso-Africans? Since the seventeenth century, particularly in the heavily populated Ambaca region, a Luso-African elite that was independent of the chiefdoms had developed. They were a very heterogeneous group and not easily distinguishable, made up largely of black Africans (a large proportion of whom were freed slaves) and “mestizos”, but also of a few whites. Their European ancestors included

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conquistadores, soldiers, merchants and so-called degredados, criminals who had been banished from Portugal.2 As a symbol of their elevated status these Luso-Africans wore shoes (this being a particular privilege) and European clothes. They regarded themselves as Christians and spoke Portuguese. Many of them could read and write. Amongst their privileges was the exemption from compulsory service as porters in caravans. In the first half of the nineteenth century they were to be found in small settlements scattered across the entire coastal hinterland, dispersed across chiefdoms and market towns. The influence they exerted on “traditional” African societies was significant both in political and economic terms, since they often served as secretaries, interpreters and advisors to the chiefs and married into the latter’s families. They also occupied unpaid leadership positions in the colonial auxiliaries (companhias móveis da 2a linha), which provided them with the means for exploiting the African population. They were joined by numerous specialised African craftsmen, such as tailors, cobblers and carpenters. Ambaca and its environs had not only long been a locus in the slave trade, but now also became a prospering centre of agriculture and craftsmanship. Slaves were the primary means by which upward social mobility was achieved, and it was through them that the emancipation from the guardianship of the traditional chiefs became possible. In the course of the nineteenth century the Africans who lived here developed their own identity as so-called Ambakistas, a term which gradually lost its geographic meaning and increasingly came to carry cultural and social connotations. These Ambakistas achieved particular renown as merchants who ventured ever deeper into the African interior. Since they invested their profits largely in the accumulation of wives and children, they had access to a steadily growing following of kin and dependents with whose help they were able to consolidate their social and economic positions and expand their entrepreneurial activities. Their orientation was “upward”, towards the Portuguese, so that cultural and political ascriptions were decisive. This is why they regarded themselves as Portuguese and “white”, a term which referred not to their appearance—only rarely did they also happen to have fair skin—but to particular cultural characteristics. This ascription became more widespread, largely thanks to Africans still rooted in the traditional way of life. Because of racist prejudice and what were regarded to be silly syncretic cultural traits these “white” Africans provoked disdain and derision amongst white Portuguese (and other Europeans). They, for their part, adopted European value judgements in order to distinguish

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themselves from “uncivilized” Africans and accordingly treated the latter as “savages”. The aura of these Ambakistas was so great that many other people, often called quimbari3 tried to emulate them and claimed to be the “children of Ambakistas”.4

The Bezerra Family The most important Luso-African merchant family in nineteenth century western central Africa, seems to have been the large Bezerra family whose most famous member was Lourenço Bezerra Correia Pinto, also known as Lufuma. He and his relatives played a prominent role in long-distance trade between the Portuguese, the Lunda “Commonwealth”5, the Luluwa, Kete and Kuba, as well as in German and Portuguese scientific expeditions, which they served as interpreters, guides and informants. The following pages will introduce not only Lourenço but also three other family members, Manuel Correia da Rocha (Calucâno), António Bezerra de Lisboa and Joannes Bezerra Correia Pinto (Caxavala). Although practically nothing is known of Lourenço’s ancestors, there is quite probably a close, if not a direct, relationship to a certain Lourenço Bezerra Pinto, who lived one hundred years before and who was the grandson and scribe of the Ndembu Caculo Cacahenda Sebastião Francisco Cheque. In 1784/85 the macota (elders) at the Ndembu’s court accused this earlier Lourenço of conspiring against the chief and demanded that the Portuguese government capture both him and his accomplices and deport him to Brazil.6 António Bezerra Pinto, who in 1823 served as substitute scribe in the Ndembu province of Golungo, was probably also an ancestor.7 Furthermore, there may also have been some sort of kinship with Joaquim Correia Pinto, to whom reference was made in 1801. This Europeanized African had established his own trading company in Luanda one year before.8 Prior to this, he had spent twenty years trading both in his own name and for others in the Feira of Cassanje, an important market place in the Mbangala state, the eastern-most outpost of Portuguese political influence. This state already had close trade relations with the Lunda Commonwealth, through which it obtained copper from distant Cazembe,9 and which allowed the Mbangala successfully to block the Portuguese from inner African trade conducted along this route. This particular merchant’s biography fits so well with that of other Bezerra family members that the similarity in name may be more than mere coincidence. The sources refer to several other members of this Luso-African merchant family, but these generally provide us with little more than their

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names. One of these is Agostinho Alexandre Bezerra, either one of António Bezerra’s cousins or nephews,10 who accompanied Henrique Dias de Carvalho’s four-year Lunda Expedition as deputy interpreter. During this great journey with Carvalho, he became well-known, primarily for his involvement in a rather complicated love affair. Beyond that it is only known that in late July 1880 he was witness to the great inner-African earthquake at Quimbundo.11

Lourenço Bezerra Correia Pinto, also known as Lufuma The younger Lourenço Bezerra, who is to be the focus of this paper, came from the Golungo district and was proud of his European ancestry. Coming from this particular district his mother tongue was most likely Kimbundu, but he could both speak and write Portuguese and later also became fluent in Lunda. He dressed like a European and, because he spent his early years in Golungo, was very familiar with both local and European agricultural techniques. By the 1840s he was already successfully engaged in trading activities in the Lunda region, which he carried out on behalf of the Quimbundo branch office of the Portuguese trading company Carneiro & Machado.12 At the time when the renowned Joaquim Rodrigues Graça conducted his expeditions (1846–1848) on behalf of Portugal to the then still powerful Lunda king Mwant Yav Noéji (Nawej a Ditend, ca. 1821–1852), Lourenço was staying with the prominent Lunda chief Cambunje on the right bank of the Upper Kasai River. This area was part of the Lunda province of Tenga, or Tengue, whose governor carried the title xanama/sanam and was one of the potential successors to the Mwant Yav.13 The Mwant Yav, who had been informed of Bezerra’s presence, ordered that the latter be invited to expand his trading activities to his capital (mussumba/musumb) Cabebe.14 Thus in 1840 Lourenço Bezerra, and a trading caravan supplied by Carneiro & Machado, set out to take advantage of this invitation and spent the last two years of the Mwant Yav’s rule at his court. With the passing of this ruler, Lourenço Bezerra returned to Malanje. In 1859 Lourenço Bezerra, now roughly in his mid-forties, set out for Mussumba once again on behalf of the same company and upon his arrival encountered the new Mwant Yav, Muteba (Muteb a Chikomb, 1857– 1873–7415), with whom he subsequently became good friends.16 After having undertaken two or three more successful journeys to Mussumba, Muteba suggested to him that he settle there permanently and establish a branch office. Lourenço took his suggestion to heart and returned bringing

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his whole family, several Ambakistas and other followers, as well as various seeds, cattle and tools. In 1862 the group established a colony on the edge of the newly built mussumba Chimane between the Kalanyi (Calanhi) River in the east and the Cassacala River in the west.17 This settlement is reported later to have numbered approximately six hundred inhabitants. While most of these Ambakistas conducted their business along the reopened trade routes, the remainder of the group remained in Chimane, dedicating themselves to farming and to various handicrafts. Lourenço Bezerra now travelled only seldom.18 When years later in 1887 Henrique Dias de Carvalho reached the Kalanyi river, he still found remnants of the plants first introduced by Lourenço Bezerra: cabbage, onions, beans, tomatoes, aubergines, sorrel, chicory, radishes, squash, watermelon, peanuts, figs, sweet potatoes, manioc, cotton and most importantly tobacco and rice, which had been newly introduced into the area. The German explorer and big game hunter, Paul Pogge, who stayed at the Lunda court between December 1875 and April 1876,19 was upon his departure given several sacks of rice by Bezerra. Mwant Yav Muteba who is said to have visited Bezerra every morning, was particularly interested in pushing the Lunda to cultivate enough tobacco to become self-sufficient, and punished anyone who resisted or was not sufficiently committed to his project. In the Ambakista colony handicrafts also flourished. Cloth was woven from cotton and other plant fibres, which was used to make bed-sheets, shirts, skirts, jackets and vests. Leather shoes with wooden soles were also woven from hemp and other plant fibres, as were large mats, baskets and hats in the shape of European straw hats. High quality earthenware was also produced, as were knives, forks, bolts for doors, axes and hoes, all made of iron. Spoons, chairs, stools, tables, large chests and doors were all carved from wood, cigars were made and liquor was distilled from sugarcane.20 Since Muteba particularly valued cattle, Bezerra not only gave him good breeding stock sent from Malanje, but also presented him with some of his own cattle, eventually multiplying the royal herd to a reported 1,200 head!21 As far as Bezerra’s trading activities were concerned, ivory was first and foremost. No one obtained a greater number of tusks for his trading company in Lunda than he, approximately six hundred in all, most of which came from Samba (Southern Luba) and Canhíuca (Kanyok).22 Lourenço Bezerra was generally regarded the colony’s chief representative and increasingly consolidated monopoly control over trade between Angola and Lunda. The Ambakistas now living in the direct vicinity of the Lunda residence married and had children, bought or were

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given slaves, while numerous former slaves joined the community. Employees of Carneiro & Machado in Quimbundo were also numbered among the settlers, as were porters, who left Mbangala and Ambakista trade caravans or fled the German expeditions headed by Pogge and Buchner or landed in Lunda by other means. Bezerra taught Portuguese, writing and arithmetic. Among those taking advantage of his courses were youths, who each chief (quilolo/chilol) had to give as servants to the Mwant Yav. Muteba also wanted each of these youths to master a handicraft. In 1887, on the banks of the Kalanyi, Carvalho met three Lunda, who could both speak and write Portuguese. They had been Lourenço Bezerra’s students. From the crop yields produced by the settlers, Bezerra received a tribute with which he paid for special services such as medical care. Tribute revenues were also saved for a rainy day and were only paid out to settlers once they returned for good. The remainder of the crop yields were consumed directly by the settler who had produced them. The tribute to Bezerra was generally paid in young slaves—the generally accepted currency. These boys and girls comprised his large family, were educated and grew up to be good settlers. Most of them later returned with him to Malanje where they established their own small village.23 Long-distance trade flourished, and one can be fairly certain that the caravan supplied and sent by the Mwant Yav to Cassanje, which is reported to have encompassed some two thousand persons, also transported goods sent by Lourenço Bezerra and his followers.24 The mutual trust between Bezerra and the Mwant Yav grew to such an extent that Muteba wished to intensify his trade relations with Portuguese Angola. To this end, around 1869, he sent one of his nephews as an envoy to meet with the governor in Luanda, also charging him to present the latter with a large quantity of ivory and a live leopard. This nephew accompanied a caravan en route to Quimbundo headed by one of Bezerra’s relatives, Joannes Bezerra Correia Pinto, also known as Caxavala (see below). However, this caravan ended its journey prematurely in Tenga on the Kasai, where the local governor, who would become the next Mwant Yav, Ambumba, was not on good terms with Muteba (see below).25 At some unknown point in time, Lourenço Bezerra, or his caravans, also visited Muteba, the Caungula on the Lóvua, whose residence lay en route to the Shilange (Luluwa or Luba Kasai) in Lubuku in the north, and who, well into the eighties, continued to boast of his good relations with Lourenço and his brother António.26 After Muteba’s murder and the investiture of Ambumba, the xanama (governor) of Tenga, as Mwant Yav (Mbumb Muteba Kat, 1874–1883) the

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golden age of the Ambakista colony came to an end. Lourenço Bezerra, Muteba’s friend and confidant, was regarded with distrust by the new Mwant Yav, who was suspected of having been involved in the murder of his predecessor. It was during this time that Paul Pogge came to the Lunda. The situation for Bezerra had become quite tense. When on 15 December 1875 he first visited Pogge—who characterised him as a roughly sixty year-old “negro” and ivory trader from Ambaca—he was still living in Chimane. Ambumba, however, was already having him watched.27 Three months later, while the German explorer was still staying among the Lunda, Lourenço Bezerra had apparently already been driven out of Chimane: “Deserra [Bezerra] had to leave Quimeme [Chimane] on Muata Jamwo’s order, even though he planted crops and owned a house there. He was allocated a spot on an empty lot south of that belonging to the Kipanga of Muata Jamwo, where he lived in an interim house with his caravan guides. When I visited and conversed with the old gentleman this afternoon, he asked me to end my visit to him as soon as possible, since our meeting was sure to be reported to the chief, who would suspect us of conspiring against him.”28

Later Ambumba would have the colony burnt to the ground.29 Bezerra visited Pogge quite frequently during the latter’s stay at the Lunda court, telling him a good deal about the customs and habits of his people and teaching him much about the geography of the region. Pogge owed pretty much everything he learned about the Lunda, including the kingdom’s history, to Bezerra.30 However, the fact that Lourenço Bezerra conveyed his own Ambakista version of history and culture as well as his own worldview is often overlooked, as is the fact that over the years he imposed much of this on the Lunda with whom he lived. In 1878 the colony was moved to Luambata on the left bank of the Kalanyi River. However, Lourenço Bezerra’s troubled relationship with the Mwant Yav called into question his position as director and in 1881 his cousin, Manuel Correia da Rocha (see below), took over his responsibilities.31 Bezerra resumed his travels and was in Quimbundo in 1878, where he met with the German explorers Otto Schütt and Paul Gierow, telling them about the history and prevailing conditions in the area.32 In 1882 his failing eyesight prompted him finally to leave Mussumba, accompanied by most of his family and followers, and to retire near Malanje, where he owned a house and fields. As it happened, it was nearby in this very town that in 1884 Hermann von Wissmann and Henrique Dias de Carvalho were

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preparing to set out for their large expedition into the continent’s interior, so that they were able to take advantage of his experience and advice. In the middle of 1885 Bezerra finally went blind and died that very year in Malanje.33

Manuel Correia da Rocha, also known as Calucâno Manuel Correia da Rocha, also known as Calucâno, was one of Lourenço Bezerra’s cousins and like him originally came from Golungo. Before finally settling in Mussumba in 1873, he had already been active as a merchant for the trading company Carneiro & Machado, travelling between Angola and Lunda, and had most recently done business for Lourenço, making Mwant Yav Ambumba’s acquaintance during the period of great tension when he was the xanama of Tenga, the period during which the rivalry between him and Mwant Yav Muteba first erupted.34 Ambumba regarded him highly and liked to play him off against Lourenço, who in his eyes had compromised himself through his friendship with Muteba. After Mwant Yav Ambumba had ordered Chimane to be vacated and the Ambakista settlement to be moved to Luambata, Lourenço transferred his responsibilities in 1881 to his cousin, hoping that this would make the Mwant Yav look upon his village more favourably and so improve its future under this difficult ruler. Rocha received Henrique Dias de Carvalho in Luambata when the latter had reached his final destination, the region with various mussumba on the Kalanyi River, and spent the first six months of 1887 with him. By now political turmoil had eroded much of the Lunda Commonwealth’s former prosperity. The impoverished settlers, who did their best not to become enmeshed in conflicts between the various Lunda factions or between the Lunda and the Chokwe, and who felt threatened by smallpox and raiding Chokwe who had been ravaging the area for years, were simply waiting for the right moment to abandon their new home and return to Angola. Carvalho’s expedition provided them with such an opportunity and Rocha, along with his family and a number of other Ambakistas, finally left Luambata forever in July 1887.35 Carvalho describes Manuel Correia da Rocha as a small but strong and lively man about sixty years of age with a very neat appearance. He always dressed in European fashion, wearing a blue flannel suit, which was handed down to him from Mwant Yav Ambumba, good shoes and a straw hat of his own design; and he always carried a hunting rifle with him. Like many Ambakistas living in the area, he spoke and wrote Portuguese and, when called upon to do so, wrote letters for Mwant Yav

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Ambumba.36 One of his daughters was married to a settler in the colony and had already established a family of her own.37 Ambumba had granted him the title Calucâno, supposedly in order to underscore Rocha’s importance at court as a non-Lunda in Lunda society and at the same time to demote Lourenço Bezerra in the courtly hierarchy, for the title was a composite of lucâno, the most important Lunda insignia, and the diminutive prefix ca- and thus could be translated as “small power” (next to the Mwant Yav’s “big power”).38 Rocha, and to an even greater extent his son-in-law, was well versed in the geography, politics and recent history of the country. Both German explorers, Paul Pogge (1875–6) and Max Buchner (1879–80), as well as Henrique Dias de Carvalho definitely profited from their expertise, although Carvalho is the only one who actually credited his sources. Generally the significance of the Ambakista colony for the explorers who arrived there was either not mentioned at all or downplayed so that their personal glory would not be compromised.39 Carvalho held Rocha in high esteem because of his capacity to think critically and because he did not blindly believe everything he was told. Later, much of the information he provided proved to be correct. In addition, most of what we know of Lourenço Bezerra’s activities in Chimane has reached us through him. Rocha, for his part, was impressed by the extent of the efforts exerted by European explorers in corroborating the accuracy of all geographical data by cross-checking them with their books and instruments.40 In October 1887 Manuel Correia da Rocha arrived in Malanje along with Carvalho, and he and his followers probably settled somewhere in the vicinity.41

António Bezerra de Lisboa Lourenço Bezerra’s younger brother, who displayed his Portuguese ancestry by calling himself António Bezerra “of Lisbon”, came from Golungo Alto, was raised as a European, could both read and write and had always served Europeans.42 Most importantly however, he, like Lourenço, was a long-time employee of Carneiro & Machado in Quimbundo.43 Besides living in this important centre of trade, António Bezerra also spent time among the Mbangala, Songo, Chokwe, Lunda and Luba, usually accompanied by his wife Maria, a Lunda. He spoke the languages of all these peoples, although when he spoke he often mixed them and his translations into Portuguese left much to be desired. His journeys led him beyond the Chicapa and Kasai rivers, and he made several visits to the Mwant Yav, travelling to the heart of the Lunda

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Commonwealth.44 António Bezerra was apparently also amongst those who around 1871 led Quiximbo Cassongo, the brother of, and famous predecessor to, the Shilange chief Mukenge, from the residence of the Chokwe chief Congolo45 to his prominent relative Mucanjanga Quilunga on the Lushiko River, and from there to the Portuguese branch office in Quimbundo.46 The great earthquake, which rocked much of Central Africa in late July of 1880, occurred while António Bezerra was in Lubuku visiting Mukenge.47 In the following year he claims to have accompanied the Bié caravan of the famous Portuguese merchant Silva Porto, which set out to the north for a second time, leaving the Chokwe chief Congolo and heading for Lubuku and Kabau, a particularly attractive centre of ivory trade situated in Kete territory. This eighteen to twenty month-long trade expedition, transporting three hundred loads and four hundred firearms valued at 20:000$000 reis, was the largest that António had seen up until that point. By the end the expedition had managed to procure some three hundred elephant tusks. In 1883–84 António Bezerra finally returned to Cassanje, travelling from Lubuku via Quimbundo, accompanied only by his family.48 Although the inner-African slave trade was still flourishing at the time, Carvalho never received reports that António might also have traded in slaves.49 Accompanied by his wife Maria, António travelled with Carvalho’s great Lunda Expedition and from 1884–1888 served as his senior interpreter. At the same time he was also supposed to conduct business for his brother, Lourenço Bezerra, who wanted him to collect old debts amounting to nineteen large tusks. Carvalho was surprised that these debts, many of which had been incurred quite a long time ago, were honoured and repaid with no fuss or haggling. Since António knew the areas east of the Kwango river like no other, he was able to give Carvalho valuable information regarding which routes to take, or rather which routes to avoid, the local population, their attitudes, history, trade relations and customs. Moreover, António also had a knack for practical skills: he tailored shirts and trousers for the soldiers who accompanied Carvalho’s expedition, a skill which he also imparted to a number of Chokwe youths along the way.50 Maria, who was baptised, shared her husband’s interests and supported his scientific explorations, gave birth to four children while travelling, including one set of twins—an amazing feat by today’s standards, if one considers that during her pregnancy she undertook these journeys on foot and that no extra stops were made for her. Being the mother of twins she was given the honorary title Ná Passe51, which boosted her reputation even

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amongst the porters from Malanje, who were not known to be easily impressed. António was generally known to have a particular penchant for women, a proclivity which, during the Carvalho expedition, was confirmed time and again. Lunda seemed to be populated with his children and relatives, a rather advantageous result of his earlier travel and trading activities.52 That he also had a good heart became clear when, upon his return to Malanje, he took pity on Anzaje—a boy who ended up joining Carvalho’s caravan after he was left behind in Lunda by a Congo trading expedition, because he had been infected by smallpox—and adopted him. Although he never failed to display his Europeanization, he remained firmly embedded in the worldview of his African environment, much to Carvalho’s amusement. Once, while travelling, his leg became infected, leaving him unable to walk for five months.53 Finally, he consulted an indigenous doctor, who proceeded to extract various objects from his leg (ostensibly the source of his ailment) and concluded that his illness was the result of witchcraft. This had the rather unfortunate consequence that no one wished to carry him in his hammock, so that now he was forced to hobble the whole way with the aid of a walking stick, a rather slow and certainly very painful ordeal.54 At the same time he was also a good Christian, though none of his companions regarded this to be a contradiction. António Bezerra was certainly a prominent personality amongst those travelling with Carvalho, and it is a pity that more is not known about his life and views.

Joannes Bezerra Correia Pinto, also known as Caxavala Best known for his role as an interpreter and guide, Johannes or Joannes Bezerra Correia Pinto, also known as Caxavala, served in several German expeditions.55 With regard to his name and genealogy the sources are quite contradictory. According to Carvalho, Joannes Caxavala and Manuel Caxavala Silva da Costa were one and the same person,56 and he refers to him once as Lourenço’s cousin, then as his nephew and then as his brother.57 In any case, when Latrobe Bateman met him at Luluaburg in 1886, he seems to have been going by the name of Manuel Caxavala Silva da Costa.58 Caxavala was ostensibly from Dondo,59 lived with the Lunda and the Chokwe for an extended period of time and brought several caravans to Mussumba. It was supposedly he who around 1869, during Mwant Yav Muteba’s reign, led the trade caravan from Mussumba to its final destination at Quimbundo, the very caravan with which the Mwant Yav’s

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nephew travelled on his mission to bring large quantities of ivory and a live leopard to the Portuguese governor. However, the group only managed to get as far as the Kasai River, where the reigning xanama of the province, the later Mwant Yav Ambumba, suspected Caxavala— probably due to the on-going tensions with Muteba and the live leopard he happened to be transporting—of witchcraft and conspiring to murder him and so ordered the seizure of the entire caravan. Caxavala was ultimately released and managed to get as far as Quimbundo. This attack brought about the temporary closure of the Luso-African trade route to Mussumba. Caxavala later avoided this route and concentrated his activities on trade with Lubuku.60 Like António Bezerra, Joannes Bezerra also visited the Chokwe chief Congolo on the Chicapa River and, according to Wissmann, was the first Luso-African merchant to have reached the Lulua in 1874, where he presented himself as the son of a king of the white men. Thanks to his reports this important northern trade route (following the Chokwe) was also opened to Portuguese trade.61 Like Lourenço, Joannes reportedly also promoted the cultivation of rice wherever he went,62 a crop with which he had been familiar since early childhood. He was a Christian, dressed like a European, spoke Portuguese and had a knack for languages. He could read and write and was generally well-liked, being quite affable and easily making good contacts amongst the local population. During Wissmann’s time, he lived near Malanje in a village called Mieketa.63 In 1878/79 Caxavala accompanied the Germans Otto Schütt and Paul Gierow along with the Portuguese merchant Manuel António Maria Machado, who employed him as an aviado (a commercial agent), and as a guide, who knew the territory extraordinarily well. Their journey took them from Quimbundo64 to the Bena Mai on the Luachimo River. There, Caxavala was apparently dishonourably dismissed by Schütt.65 In any event, he left the caravan at Quiluata’s residence on the Luachimo, where the Lunda finally forced Schütt to retreat. It seems that he then travelled on to the Luluwa, because Silva Porto met him on 27 July 1880 near the Mishanga (a tributary of the Luebo River) in territory belonging to the Luluwa chiefs Catende, Chamufuca and Mueneputo, as he was making his way from the Mai Munene to the Kuba. Caxavala decided to wait until Silva Porto returned from the Kuba so that the two could make the journey home together.66 Caxavala was already back on the road in 1881–82 and served Paul Pogge and Hermann von Wissmann as interpreter on their journey from Lubuku to visit Mukenge on the Lulua, with whom he had already spent two years and with whom he claimed to have a special friendship.67 He

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then left Mukenge with the German explorers and made his way to Nyangwe on the Lualaba, from where he headed back to the Lulua with Pogge, the two of them finally arriving in Malanje in 1883–4.68 He then accompanied Wissmann on his Kasai Expedition to the Lulua in 1884–5. Subsequently, he and Ludwig Wolf set out from there, travelling northwards to the Kuba and the Northern Kete. The two of them managed to make their way north of the great ivory market at Kabau.69 Caxavala, who at this time was married to an Angolan woman,70 apparently remained in the vicinity of the newly established station at Luluaburg until Wissmann returned once again, since Bateman met him there in 1886. Then, in 1887 he is found once again at Wissmann’s side employed as an interpreter and guide, the latter having just embarked on his second eastwest crossing of the continent. However, once again, he did not continue to the coast, but remained with the majority of the caravan east of the Lomami River, twelve days’ journey from Nyangwe, in order to wait there for Lieutenant Paul Le Marinel, who had continued with Wissmann to Nyangwe. Caxavala then made his way back to Luluaburg with the lieutenant, where they arrived on 18 April 1887.71 He remained in the area72 and later founded the village of Katshabala north of Luluaburg on the southern edge of the Dibese Forrest. As late as 1905 there are reports of a Katschabala living here—perhaps Caxavala himself, or one of his descendants.73 It was Caxavala to whom Pogge owed important geographical and ethnological data regarding the territory along the Lulua. Since he had spent practically his whole life amongst the Lunda, the Chokwe and the Mukenge, Pogge also highly valued his agricultural and meteorological experience. He respected this Ambakista as a “dependable and intelligent interpreter”, the “only negro I know, whom I would certify as a genuine homem honrado. Thanks to his reports I am fairly familiar with the local historical circumstances.”74 Wissmann considered him to be one of the “most educated Ambakistas from Angola”, whose memory and command of languages were amazing, but to whom he attributed a certain weakness for palm wine. His considerable weight of “more than 100 kg”, however, in no way diminished his popularity amongst the women, and he did everything he could to satisfy their never-ending desire for beads and colourful textiles.75 Despite his personal benevolence Wissmann’s description reflects a certain deprecating attitude towards his beloved interpreter with which even “civilised”, i.e. Europeanized, Africans were commonly treated: “Kaschawalla was the exact translation of a black Fallstaff, only younger than our old friend. The idol most important to this Sybarite was

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his stomach, the second sleep and the third comfort; moreover, he liked to drink so much that he found himself in a state, which we in the army from sergeant downwards would call drunkenness. In this state he would rouse himself to such a degree that he would completely forget his phenomenal cowardice and would be moved to militant tirades, which in heroic poses he accompanied with such wonderful gesticulations that he with his rather weighty physique, which unfortunately revealed a rather excessive amount of accumulated fat, resembled a black Ajax. Once he sobered up he never ceased to wonder at his own antics. But Kaschawalla also had a better side. He was quite honest, a quality which when found in a Negro suffices to makes him invaluable. Furthermore, he had such an incredibly welldeveloped talent for languages that his skill was often of great service. He was endowed with a natural sense of wit, so that he always had laughter on his side and, since he spoke Portuguese well, he was a downright entertaining companion. Despite what seems to be his higher [intellectual] standing, he was wholly at the mercy of his belief in the fetish, the evil eye or the wish and its consequences, that he was careful and rather wary vis-àvis the porters for fear he might be fetishized in a decisive moment. His kindness, which to his credit is only marginally due to his abovementioned fear, was often taken advantage of. Because of his propensity to play the great gentleman and live as well as he could, he constantly found himself in a pecuniary bind. His European taste manifested itself in his pleasant appearance and the well-manneredness of his wives.”76

Undeniably positive without the least hint of negative undertones was Bateman’s characterisation of Caxavalla, which is well worth quoting. “I use the word ‘gentleman’ advisedly in speaking of this estimable man, for such he was, and as such he was thoroughly respected by all who knew him, alike for his intelligence, his solid education, and vast knowledge of African languages, as well as for his sound sense, kindly humour, benevolence, and courtesy. When one thinks of the enormous influence lying in an interpreter’s hands, the momentous issues which may hang upon the slightest turn given by him to a few brief sentences, the happiness, the welfare, the lives of hourly affected by his skill and judgement, some estimate of the responsibilities of his office may be formed. It is high praise, therefore, to say that it would be impossible to imagine a man better fitted for the position than Senhor Caxavalla.”77

Unlike most other European travellers, who never forgot to make plain that they were dealing with a mere servant and subordinate, Bateman expressly refers to him as “Mister Caxavala”, much as the slave and ivory merchant Silva Porto had once respectfully spoken of “Mister Joannes Bezerra Pinto Coelho”.78

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Conclusions Thanks to their reports and their publications, daring Europeans were heralded as the pioneers of the African interior and renowned as its discoverers. Their descriptions of African peoples, their languages and ways of life, their documentation of historical traditions and their mapping of the territory through which they travelled opened a new world to readers back home. Today these texts are invaluable sources, which provide us with information regarding the history and ethnography of western Central Africa. The most important impetus for Angolan long-distance trade was the Portuguese presence on the coast. Thanks to the trading companies established there, but also due to the support of their branch offices and outposts in the hinterland, imported goods reached the interior, and it was because of them that this trade was so dynamic and expanded at such an incredible rate. White entrepreneurs and their primary agents organised this trade, thus serving as its driving force. Similarly, the explorers, motivated largely by scientific and humanistic interests, all originally came from overseas. However, the majority of those who were employed as guides or who, in their own name, actually organised caravans into distant areas, were non-whites, largely so-called Ambakistas. It was they who generally also first tested new routes before their white employers and other white newcomers followed suit and marked their “official” opening. The Ambakistas, particularly the Bezerra family, along with the European sertanejos and the Mbangala, were regarded to be the leading experts on the Central African caravan trade. Their routes led caravans east over the Kwango into Lunda territory and to the Luba, southwest to the Zambezi to the Lui and the Kololo, and northeast to the Luluwa up to the Kuba. The long-distance trade with the Luluwa established by the Chokwe and the Ambakistas in the 1870s led to profound changes in Luluwa society. The Portuguese and explorers generally spoke of them with derision, calling them trouser-wearing niggers and half-savages. This attitude largely stemmed from the European prejudice commonly held against “mestizos”. Even the rather tolerant Herman Soyaux forgot his impartiality. “Mulattoes were always an uncanny race, and, after having had some experience with them, I kept my distance from them as much as possible. These yellow-grey half-breeds, who refer to themselves as ‘branco’ [i.e. Whites], have generally inherited nothing but the worst character traits from each of their parents: treachery, deceitfulness, cunning maliciousness,

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underhandedness, cowardice and a cheeky, impudent nature. The mulatto hates his mother because she is black, and his father because he took a black woman to be his wife.”79

The Ambakistas’ difficult position between colonial Portuguese, whose power and influence they wished to share on the one hand, and traditional Africans governed by chiefs who on the other hand provided them with the resources they needed to attain their aspirations, in fact caused them to overcompensate, and exhibit behaviour which only reinforced both latent and manifest prejudices. Many whites saw in Ambakistas little more than thieves and liars and regarded their attitude towards whites, a mixture of “submissiveness” and “impudence” to be utterly intolerable, like the entire “odious race”. The Ambakistas for their part often looked down on African “savages” Max Buchner, who in 1879–1880 travelled to Mussumba to visit the Lunda king, pointed out in his particularly sharp, polemical manner the ambivalences prevalent amongst Ambakistas, particularly what he regarded to be the negative aspects of their activities. However, he was also the first to have expressly paid tribute to their accomplishments with respect to the opening up of the African continent. It would therefore be appropriate to end this chapter with two quotations by this explorer. His verdict does particular justice to the members of the Bezerra family. “They are to be acknowledged as cultural agents, despite their many faults and foibles. One could almost say that these reviled Ambakistas are the true African Portuguese, namely when Lisbon announces again and again that so much of what is Africa was discovered by Portugal and how much of the territory was a Portuguese discovery. These select few Negroes were the first and most important support for their ‘sphere of interest’, whatever this lovely new word may mean”.80 “And these wretched Ambakistas […] played a decisive role in the success of African explorers, who in Europe come to represent their glory. […] And it is from these Ambakistas that part of what has been learnt about Africa can be enjoyed by readers as science. Almost all the names of tribes and regions, rivers, princes and customs, which in the exceedingly wide expanse of the Portuguese sphere of influence grace our books on Africa, reached the travellers who wrote about them by Ambakista transmission.” 81

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Notes 1 For more on these pombeiros, see in particular Jean-Luc Vellut, ‘Notes sur le Lunda et la frontière luso-africaine (1700–1900)’, Études d’Histoire Africaine 3, 1972, pp.108–112; but also Auguste Verbeken and M. Walraet, La première traversée du Katanga en 1806. Voyage des “Pombeiros” d’Angola aux Rios de Sena, (Institut Royal Colonial Belge: Brussels, 1953); Ilídio do Amaral and Ana do Amaral, ‘A viagem dos pombeiros angolanos Pedro João Baptista e Amaro José entre Mucari (Angola) e Tete (Moçambique), em princípios do século XIX, ou a história da primeira travessia da África central’, Garcia de Orta, Sér. Geogr. 9 (1– 2), 1984, pp.17–58. The sources also refer to Anastácio José as Anastácio, Anastácio Francisco or Amaro José. 2 In 1864 about one-third of Portuguese Angola’s white population consisted of such degredados. Jill Dias, ‘Angola’, in Valentim Alexandre and Jill Dias, eds. O Império Africano 1825–1890, Nova História da Expansão Portuguesa, ed. by Joel Serrão and A.H. de Oliveira Marques, vol. X, (Editorial Estampa: Lisbon, 1998), p. 438. 3 “Africanos, na maioria das vezes pequenos negociantes, que adoptaram o vestuário e outras características culturais dos Ambaquistas e que por isso também se denominavam ‘filhos’ dos Ambaquistas.” (Africans, mostly petty traders, who adopted the dress and other cultural characteristics of the Ambakistas, and as a result called themselves “filhos” dos Ambakistas). See Heintze, Pioneiros Africanos..., Ch. I.3 and III.1. 4 Jan Vansina ‘Ambaca Society and the Slave Trade c. 1760–1845’, Journal of African History 46, 2005, pp.1–27; Heintze, Pioneiros Africanos…, passim; Joseph C. Miller, Way of Death. Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade 1730–1830, (James Currey: London, 1988) Ch. 8; Dias, ‘Angola’, pp.363– 364; Jill Dias, ‘Changing Patterns of Power in the Luanda Hinterland. The Impact of Trade and Colonisation on the Mbundu ca. 1845–1920’, Paideuma 32, 1986, pp. 298, 303; but especially Jill Dias, ‘Estereótipos e realidades sociais: Quem eram os “Ambaquistas”?’ in Construindo o Passado Angolano: As Fontes e a sua Interpretação, Actas do II Seminário Internacional sobre a História de Angola, (Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses: Lisbon, 2000), pp. 597–623, an outstanding historical and ethnological study of this fascinating and important group. On the formation of this merchant elite from the Luanda hinterland see also Dias, ’Changing patterns of power in the Lunda Hinterland’, especially pp. 291–295; for a brief overview published somewhat earlier, see Jean-Luc Vellut, ‘Notes sur le Lunda et la frontière luso-africaine (1700–1900)’, Études d’Histoire Africaine 3, 1972, pp. 95–99. 5 A term coined by Jan Vansina referring to the ‘Lunda Kingdom’ or ‘Empire’. 6 Doc.7 dated 26 May 1770 (Portaria sobre a isenção de um Soba) and Doc.9 n.d. / 29 October 1784 / 8 February 1885 (Petição às autoridades portuguesas para participação e pedido de resolução de assuntos entre macotas e Dembos) in Ana Paula Tavares and Catarina Madeira Santos eds., Africae Monumenta—A Apropriação da Escrita pelos Africanos, (Instituto de Investigação Científica

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Tropical: Lisbon, 2002), pp. 62 and 64–65 and excerpt quoted in Ana Paula Tavares and Catarina Madeira Santos, ‘Fontes escritas africanas para a história de Angola’, Fontes & Estudos. Revista do Arquivo Histórico Nacional 4–5, 1998– 1999, p.123. 7 Doc. 32 dated 12 February 1823 (Termo de juramento de dom Jerónimo Domingos Manoel Afonso da Silva, Dembo eleito do Estado de Ndala Cabaça), in Tavares and Santos, Africae Monumenta... pp. 96–98. 8 “Joaquim Corrêa Pinto, homem Preto, natural deste Reino, porém que se trata á maneira Europea”, AHU (Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisbon), Angola, Box 102, Nr. 26, 21 October 1801. 9 AHU, Angola, Box 102, Nr. 26, 21 October 1801; see also Box 125, No. 8, n.d. Perhaps Angolan archives will yield further clues regarding Bezerra family history. 10 Here the kinship terms vary. Carvalho sometimes refers to him as a cousin, as one of António Bezerra’s nephews (passim, e.g. nephew: Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, III, pp. 293, 549, 697; II, p. 115; IV, pp. 264, 464; cousin: Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, p.48). Regarding the issue of classificatory kinship, see below footnotes 57 and 58. 11 Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, p. 48. Regarding the date, see footnote 47 below; regarding what are possibly additional members of this extensive family, cf. Tavares and Santos, Africae Monumenta—A Apropriação da Escrita pelos Africanos, Doc. 11, p.67; Doc. 36, pp. 107–109, 111–114, 116–117; Doc. 41, p. 131; Doc. 50, pp.149, 153, 155; Doc. 84, p.199. 12 According to Dias, ‘Angola’, p. 486 Portuguese firms had been active in Quimbundo since the 1840s. Carneiro, according to Henrique Augusto Dias de Carvalho A Lunda ou os Estados do Muatiânvua, dominios da soberania de Portugal, (Adolpho, Modesto & Ca.: Lisbon, 1890) p.17, established a branch office there only around 1850. His employee Saturnino de Sousa Machado later became his associate. 13 Henrique Augusto Dias de Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, 4 vols., (Imprensa Nacional: Lisbon, 1890–1894) IV, Preface; Henrique Augusto Dias de Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, (Imprensa Nacional: Lisbon, 1890) pp.101, 233, 237, see also p.701; Carvalho, A Lunda ou os Estados do Muatiânvua, dominios da soberania de Portugal, p.207. 14 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, IV, p.199. 15 Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, p. 584 (after 1857), 594 (still alive in 1874); Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, IV, p. 748 (until 1873). According to Buchner (in Beatrix Heintze, ed., Max Buchners Reise nach Zentralafrika 1878–1882. Briefe, Berichte, Studien, (Köppe: Cologne, 1999) p. 448) he had already died in 1872. 16 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, III, p. 913; IV, p. 228; Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, p. 259. 17 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, II, p. 838; although according to IV, p. 227 this occurred only in 1869. However, I regard the

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earlier date to be more likely. 1869 is the year of the great trading caravan which Muteba sent to the Portuguese governor in Luanda (see below under Caxavala). Most of the dates mentioned here are estimates anyway, since they are based on information collected much later by Carvalho. 18 Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, p. 258; Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, IV, p. 228. 19 See Beatrix Heintze, Ethnographische Aneignungen. Deutsche Forschungsreisende in Angola. (Lembeck: Frankfurt 1999), Ch. Paul Pogge; Portuguese edition; Beatrix Heintze, Exploradores Alemães em Angola (1611– 1954): Apropriações etnográficas entre comércio de escravos, colonialismo e ciência, (Caminho and Nzila: Lisbon and Luanda, in preparation). 20 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, II, p. 851 footnote; III, p. 913; IV, pp. 227–229, 232, 234, 243; Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, pp. 258–261; Carvalho, A Lunda ou os Estados do Muatiânvua, dominios da soberania de Portugal, p. 208; Henrique Augusto Dias de Carvalho, Meteorologia, climalogia e colonisação. Estudos sobre a região percorrida pela expedição comparados com os dos benemeritos exploradores Capello e Ivens e de outros observadores nacionaes e estrangeiros. Modo practico de fazer colonisar com vantagem as terras de Angola, (Typographia de Jornal: Lisbon, 1892), pp. 211–212, 334–335. 21 Two years previously Buchner only counted six bulls and one cow in Mussumba (Buchner in Heintze, ed., Max Buchners Reise nach Zentralafrika 1878–1882... pp. 209–210). Carvalho was told that the Mwant Yav Ambumba slaughtered cattle daily, depleting the stock to such an extent that upon his taking office only six head remained (Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, pp. 598–599). The wealth in cattle which is associated with Lunda thus only reflects that which dates to his predecessor’s reign. See also Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, p.34 (regarding the number 1,400 counted in Mwant Yav Muteba’s time); see also Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, III, p. 913. 22 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, II, p. 838 (600 tusks from 1862 to 1882); Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, p. 700 (here referring to a value of “quatro contos” in 25 years); Carvalho, A Lunda ou os Estados do Muatiânvua, dominios da soberania de Portugal, p. 208; Paul Pogge, Im Reiche des Muata-Jamvo, (Reimer: Berlin, 1880), p.136. 23 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, III, p.913; IV, pp.208, 228–229, 260; Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, p.623. 24 Henrique Augusto Dias de Carvalho, O Jagado de Cassange na Provincia de Angola. Memoria. (Christovão Augusto Rodrigues: Lisbon 1898), pp. 250, 254. Even if so many people really had set out from Mussumba, a number which seems somewhat inflated given the usual size of caravans travelling this route, only a small proportion of them arrived in Cassanje.

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Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, III, p. 906 (with 120 elephant tusks and one leopard); Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, pp. 590–593 (with 200 elephant tusks); Paul Pogge, Im Reiche des Muata-Jamvo, pp.162–163 (with a tame leopard). Regarding other Lunda envoys see Beatrix Heintze, Afrikanische Pioniere: Trägerkarawanen im westlichen Zentralafrika (ca. 1850–1890), (Lembeck: Frankfurt, 2002), Ch.II.7; Portuguese edition Pioneiros Africanos: Caravanas de carregadores na África Centro-Ocidental (entre 1850 e 1890), (Caminho and Nzila: Lisbon and Luanda 2004). 26 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, II, p. 646. Carvalho’s station Luciano Cordeiro was erected at 7o26’14” S and 20o16’ E and lay in the vicinity of Caungula’s residence (which had been moved several times) (see map opp. p.448). At the time, he controlled the entire area between the Cuilo and the Chicapa (Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, III, p.107). 27 Pogge, Im Reiche des Muata-Jamvo, pp.128–129. 28 Pogge, Im Reiche des Muata-Jamvo, p.196. 29 Pogge, Im Reiche des Muata-Jamvo, p.196; cf. also Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, IV, p.231. 30 Pogge, Im Reiche des Muata-Jamvo, pp.136–137, 224; see also Hermann von Wissmann, Ludwig Wolf, Curt von François and Hans Müller, Im Innern Afrikas. Die Erforschung des Kassai während der Jahre 1883, 1884 und 1885, (F.A. Brockhaus: Leipzig, 2nd edition, 1891) p. 23; Carvalho, A Lunda ou os Estados do Muatiânvua, dominios da soberania de Portugal, p. 24. 31 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, IV, pp. 206, 230–231, 269, 796; Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, pp. 261, 624. 32 Paul Gierow, ‘Die Schütt’sche Expedition. Bericht des Mitgliedes der Expedition, Herrn Paul Gierow’, Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland III, 1881–1883, p.113; Otto H. Schütt, Reisen im südwestlichen Becken des Congo. Nach den Tagebüchern und Aufzeichnungen des Reisenden. Compiled and edited by Paul Lindenberg, (Reimer: Berlin, 1881), p.134. 33 Carvalho Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, I, pp. 220–221; IV, pp. 229–232, 269; Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, pp. 258, 623–624, 702. According to a rather unconvincing claim put forth by Carvalho (Carvalho, A Lunda ou os Estados do Muatiânvua, dominios da soberania de Portugal, p.17) Bezerra had already returned to Malanje for good by 1879 and died in Luanda. However, Wissmann states that he met him in Malanje either in late June or early July of 1884 (Wissmann et al. Im Innern Afrikas. Die Erforschung des Kassai wahrend der Jahre 1883, 1884 und 1885, p.23). 34 See Henrique Augusto Dias de Carvalho, Methodo pratico para fallar a lingua da Lunda contendo narrações historicas dos diversos povos, (Imprensa Nacional: Lisbon, 1890), pp. 324–325.

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Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, IV, pp. 206–209, 230, 232; see also pp. 218, 227, 266–267, 418 and passim; see also III, pp. 492, 494, 559, 913; Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, pp. 49, 530. Illus. IV, p. 207. 36 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, III, p. 628 and Heintze, Afrikanische Pioniere: Trägerkarawanen im westlichen Zentralafrika (ca. 1850–1890), Ch. II.7; see also Rocha’s letter written to Carvalho in Carvalho, A Lunda ou os Estados do Muatiânvua, dominios da soberania de Portugal, p. 218. 37 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, IV, p. 207. 38 Ibid., p. 231. 39 Cf. Beatrix Heintze, Ethnographische Aneignungen. Deutsche Forschungsreisende in Angola, Ch. 12 of Introduction and passim; Portuguese edition: Beatrix Heintze, Exploradores Alemães em Angola (1611–1954): Apropriações etnográficas entre comércio de escravos, colonialismo e ciência; Beatrix Heintze, Pioneiros Africanos: Caravanas de carregadores na África Centro-Ocidental (entre 1850 e 1890), especially Ch. I.1 and I.2. 40 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, IV, pp. 248, 218–219, 224–25. 41 The names of some of the Ambakists who returned to Malanje with Rocha may be found in Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, IV, pp. 626–627; Carvalho, A Lunda ou os Estados do Muatiânvua, dominios da soberania de Portugal, pp. 343–346. 42 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, II, pp. 453, 485. Illus: Album da expedição ao Muatianvua, n.d. Nr. 19.3 (with his wife Maria); Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, I: 438; Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, p. 704; being carried on a stretcher: Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, II, p.5 44. 43 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, III, p. 115. 44 Henrique Augusto Dias de Carvalho, O Lubuku. Algumas oberservações sobre o livro do Sr. Latrobe Bateman intitulado The First Ascent of the Kasaï, (Imprensa Nacional: Lisbon, 1889) pp. 24–25; Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, II, pp. 189, 319; III, pp. 34, 115, 645; IV, pp. 140, 198. 45 1886 on the left bank of the Chicapa north of 9o S, previously near Quimbundo. Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, III, pp. 56, 914. During the reign of the Chokwe chief Quissengue Malia Congolo had travelled into the Luanda hinterland three times and in 1881 had guided Pogge and Wissmann to Lubuku. Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, III, pp. 395–397. 46 Carvalho, O Lubuku., pp. 10–14 and passim; Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, II, p.262; III, pp. 641–47; Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, p.104. 47 According to Buchner (in Heintze, ed., Max Buchners Reise nach Zentralafrika 1878–1882…p.359), who felt the earthquake on the Lussanzeji, it occurred during

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the night between 26–27 June, while Silva Porto, who along with his Bié caravan was staying with the Quiluata on the Luachimo at the time, records it in his journal as having taken place on 28 June (António Francisco da Silva Porto, ‘Novas jornadas de Silva Porto nos sertões africanos’, Boletim da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, 5, 1885, p.640). Carvalho’s claim that it took place in July (Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, p. 48), a date that is based solely on hearsay, is certainly incorrect. The earthquake was also felt at Congolo’s residence on the Chicapa and in Quimbundo, but not at Caungula’s residence on the Lóvua nor in Luambata (Mussumba). 48 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, I, p. 488; II, p.734; III, pp. 34–37, 193. Regarding António Bezerra, see also ibid. II, p.771. 49 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, IV, p. 776. 50 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, III, p. 117. 51 This title is accorded to mothers who have successfully given birth to twins and entails certain privileges. See Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, p.445; see also 180 (three children in fifteen months, among them one set of twins). 52 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, III, pp. 109, 426, 428, 579; IV, p. 422; Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, p. 180. 53 Carvalho, Album da expedição ao Muatianvua, Nr. 19.4. 54 Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, III, pp. 664–666, 673. 55 Paul Pogge, ‘Bericht über die Station Mukenge bis October 1883’, Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland IV, 1883–1885, p.202; Caxavala is a verified name derived from the Portuguese for Jasper (Gaspar). 56 Carvalho seems to have found this version of the name (only?) in the material of Charles Sommerville Latrobe Bateman, see Carvalho, O Lubuku., p.14. Cf. also Carvalho, A Lunda ou os Estados do Muatiânvua, dominios da soberania de Portugal, p.190: Manuel Caxavala da Silva Costa, also known as Joanes. 57 If one takes into account Lunda kinship terminology this is not as contradictory as it might at first seem: maternal first cousins were classified as brothers; nephews as sons; cousins once-removed were considered nephews (Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, pp. 87–88 footnote 1; see also 537; see also Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, III, p.750 footnote 1: Father’s sister’s son was regarded a brother. 58 Charles Somerville Latrobe Bateman, The First Ascent of the Kasaï: Being Some Records of Service Under The Lone Star, (George Philip & Son: London, 1889), p.120. In the German sources he is referred to both as Lourenço Bezerra’s nephew and as his younger brother, and even as his grandson. Pogge, Im Reiche des Muata-Jamvo, p. 162 (nephew, Lunda caravan); Gierow, ‘Die Schütt’sche Expedition. Bericht des Mitgliedes der Expedition, Herrn Paul Gierow’, p. 113 (younger brother, “guide” Kaschewalle); Schütt, Reisen im südwestlichen Becken

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des Congo, pp.145, 152 (Casavalla); Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, II, p. 851 note 1 (Joanes Caxavala, with Pogge); III, p. 649 (cousin, Manuel Caxavala da Silva Costa); 906 (nephew, Manuel Caxavala da Silva Costa, also known as Joanes, Lunda caravan, with Wissmann); Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, pp. 590–591 (brother, Caxavala, Lunda caravan); Hermann von Wissmann, ‘Von San Paulo de Loanda nach Zanzibar’, Mitteilungen der Kais. Königl. Geographischen Gesellschaft in Wien 26, 1883, p.98 (“guide” Johannes Bissera); Hermann von Wissmann, Meine zweite Durchquerung Aequatorial-Afrikas vom Kongo zum Zambesi während der Jahre 1886 und 1887. New edition, (Globus: Berlin, n.d.[1907]) pp. 210, 306 (“guide” Kaschawalla); Carvalho, Meteorologia, climalogia e colonisação. Estudos sobre a região percorrida pela expedição comparados com os dos benemeritos exploradores Capello e Ivens e de outros observadores nacionaes e estrangeiros. Modo practico de fazer colonisar com vantagem as terras de Angola, p. 42 (“guide” Johannes Biserra = Kaschawalla); Wissmann et al., Im Innern Afrikas. Die Erforschung des Kassai während der Jahre 1883, 1884 und 1885, p. 23 (grandson, “guide” Kaschawalla). To some extent this confusion resulted from the literal translation and adoption of indigenous kinship terms into the Portuguese language. Thus, António Bezerra regarded one of his nephews once-removed, for example, as his “grandson” (Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, II, pp.256, 341). Communication difficulties, particularly on the German side, may also have contributed to differing versions. That Manuel Caxavala Silva da Costa and Joannes Bezerra really were two different people is highly unlikely. A more convincing explanation would be that he was baptized twice or even several times, as Ambakistas often were eager to be. 59 Bateman, The First Ascent of the Kasaï, p.120. 60 Carvalho, O Lubuku., p. 19; Carvalho, Methodo pratico para fallar a lingua da Lunda contendo narrações historicas dos diversos povos, pp. 324–325; Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, III, pp. 512, 906; Carvalho, Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, pp. 590–591; Carvalho, A Lunda ou os Estados do Muatiânvua, dominios da soberania de Portugal, p.190; Pogge, Im Reiche des Muata-Jamvo, pp.162–163. According to Pogge several Lunda in the caravan were executed, and it was the xanama’s first wife who saved Bezerra’s nephew’s life (according to Carvalho’s version of the account it was the lucuoquexe). 61 Wissmann got this information not only from Caxavala himself, but also from Schütt (‘Bericht über die Reise von Malange zum Luba-Häuptling Mai, und zurück, Juli 1878 bis Mai 1879’, Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft I, 1878-1879, p.180), who referred to Caxavala writing: “Caxavalla, who disappeared after having set out with one of the Quioco’s [Chokwe] detachments three years before on a journey to the north, but had recently returned safe and sound, after he had reached Mukenge, a Luba chief of the Tuchilangue tribe.” Rocha told Carvalho in 1887, that the route had been open to Chokwe and LusoAfrican merchants for roughly fifteen to twenty years, i.e. since the reign of the

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Shilange chief Quiximbo. Carvalho Ethnographia e História Tradicional dos Povos da Lunda, p. 102; Carvalho, Descripção da Viagem à Mussumba do Muatiânvua, II, p. 851 Note; III, p. 645; Wissmann, Meine zweite Durchquerung Aequatorial-Afrikas vom Kongo zum Zambesi während der Jahre 1886 und 1887, p. 320. 62 The first rice to have reached Mukenge on the Lulua was supposedly brought from Nyangwe by Pogge and planted under Germano’s supervision. Pogge, ‘Bericht über die Station Mukenge bis October 1883’, p.193. 63 Hermann von Wissmann, Unter deutscher Flagge quer durch Afrika von West nach Ost. (Walther und Apolant: Berlin, 1889). According to the abridged seventh edition compiled by the author himself, (Walther & Apolants Verlagsbuchhandlung: Berlin, 1892) pp. 42, 171; Wissmann, Meine zweite Durchquerung Aequatorial-Afrikas vom Kongo zum Zambesi während der Jahre 1886 und 1887, p.210; Carvalho, O Lubuku., p. 53. It was Caxavala, to whom Mukenge dictated his letters to “Mona Puta” (Muene Mputo, King of Portugal), which Pogge then took to Malanje in November 1883 (Paul Pogge, ‘Rückreise von Mukenge bis Malange (Nov. 1883–Feb. 1884)’, Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland IV, 1883–1885, p.206). 64 During this or one of Caxavala’s earlier stays in Quimbundo a certain Hebo a Murimi is supposed to have hexed his wife. The accusation subsequently turned out to be unfounded, and Hebo was obliged to pay damages in the amount of ten pieces to the chief of Quimbundo, on whose territory the false accusation had been made (Buchner in Heintze, ed., Max Buchners Reise nach Zentralafrika 1878– 1882... p. 320). 65 Paul Pogge, ‘Briefe von Dr. Pogge [Quimbundo, 7.30.1881; Miéketta am Luele, 8.11.1881], Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland III, 1881–1883, p.147. 66 Silva Porto, ‘Novas jornadas de Silva Porto nos sertões africanos’, 1885, pp. 626, 635, 640, 641; 1886, pp. 310, 313, 315, 318, 321. 67 Pogge, ‘Briefe von Dr. Pogge’, pp.147–148. 68 Wissmann, ‘Von San Paulo de Loanda nach Zanzibar’, p. 98; Wissmann, Meine zweite Durchquerung Aequatorial-Afrikas vom Kongo zum Zambesi während der Jahre 1886 und 1887 p. 320; Wissmann et al., Im Innern Afrikas. Die Erforschung des Kassai während der Jahre 1883, 1884 und 1885, p. 205; Paul Pogge, ‘Mittheilungen aus Dr. Paul Pogge’s Tagebüchern, bearbeitet von Dr. A. von Danckelman’, Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland IV, 1883–1885, p. 240; Carvalho, O Lubuku., pp. 27, 30. Reports that Caxavala travelled with Wissmann on to the East coast, even accompanying him to Berlin, are false (Carvalho, O Lubuku., p.31). Such claims are the result of a mix-up: “Only the Mukussu boy Sankurru accompanied me to Germany” (Wissmann, Unter deutscher Flagge quer durch Afrika von West nach Ost, p.299). 69 Wissmann et al. Im Innern Afrikas. Die Erforschung des Kassai während der Jahre 1883, 1884 und 1885, pp. 23–24, 147, 205–206.

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Bateman, The First Ascent of the Kasaï, illus. p.125, the text next to it referring to “Angolese women of the better class”. 71 Wissmann, Meine zweite Durchquerung Aequatorial-Afrikas vom Kongo zum Zambesi während der Jahre 1886 und 1887, pp. 219–221, 305–306, see also pp. 117–118, 160, 210, 309–310; Bateman, The First Ascent of the Kasaï: Being Some Records of Service Under The Lone Star, p. 120. 72 See Prosper Denolf, Aan de Rand van de Dibese. Band II: Register, Académie Royale des Sciences Coloniales, Classe des Sciences morales et politiques 3(2), (Brussels, 1955), II, p.170 with reference to Volume I, pp.7 9, 81: “Katshabala Mwambwe: kapita van von Wissmann te malndi, bij Mukenga Kalamba.” I did not have access to the first volume, but it only mentions his staying with Kalamba Mukenge (Jan Vansina, written communication 21 October 2000). Denolf’s Register (pp. 170–171) lists three additional namesakes in other regions. 73 Written communication from Jan Vansina, 31 October 2000. 74 Pogge, ‘Bericht über die Station Mukenge bis October 1883’, pp. 201–202. 75 Wissmann et al., Im Innern Afrikas. Die Erforschung des Kassai während der Jahre 1883, 1884 und 1885, pp. 147, 205–206. 76 Wissmann, Unter deutscher Flagge quer durch Afrika von West nach Ost, pp. 42–43; see also pp. 68–69. 129, 152; Wissmann, Meine zweite Durchquerung Aequatorial-Afrikas vom Kongo zum Zambesi während der Jahre 1886 und 1887, p. 210. 77 Bateman, The First Ascent of the Kasaï, pp. 120–121. 78 Silva Porto, ‘Novas jornadas de Silva Porto nos sertões africanos’, 1886, pp. 313, 315, 321. 79 Herman Soyaux, Aus West-Afrika. 1873–1876. Erlebnisse und Beobachtungen, F.A. Brockhaus (Leipzig 1879), 2 parts in one volume, II, p. 347. 80 Buchner in Heintze, Max Buchners Reise nach Zentralafrika 1878–1882. Briefe, Berichte, Studien, pp.394–395. 81 Ibid., p. 389.

CHAPTER SEVEN MIGRATION AND MISCEGENATION: MAINTAINING BOUNDARIES OF WHITENESS IN THE NARRATIVES OF THE ANGOLAN COLONIAL STATE 1875–19121 ROSA WILLIAMS

In 1875 the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa was founded with the hope that it would bring a Portuguese voice to the European community of imperialist intellectuals, contribute to the development of a scientific knowledge of the colonies and scientific resources for colonial projects, and promote economic investment by the state and by private business in the colonies.2 In the same year, a law abolishing slavery in the colonies was passed in parliament amidst speeches celebrating the end of an outmoded and cruel practice. The same legislation defined all “nonproductive” Africans as vagrants, who could be forced to do non-paying “contract” work.3 Despite the continuities, which this legislation marked in practice, its form indicates a fundamental shift in colonial rhetoric. Africans were no longer defined in terms of liberty and enslavement but rather industry and idleness. They were to be committed to servitude not as a consequence of imperial might but because of colonial order. The principle of the rational organisation of an efficient and productive society framed the terms under which their labour was exploited. The leaders of the 1910 Republican revolution presented it as another turning point in the progress of the liberal project of political emancipation and the movement towards a modern capitalist and imperial state. A new Republican government embraced the rational administration of empire and introduced a new colonial system for the twentieth century.4 In response to international humanitarian criticism over “contract” labour in São Tomé,5 it promised to take seriously the task of putting an end to slavery in colonial society.6 In 1912 General Norton de Matos, later to

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become the first High Commissioner of Angola, became governor-general. He was to enjoy a little more support and success than his predecessors in his ambitious project of modernisation, which included the introduction of legislation to eliminate forced labour and measures to establish greater Portuguese sovereignty over Angola, encourage colonisation, impose taxation more effectively and improve the administration.7 The decades between 1875 and 1912 were a period of renewed Portuguese commitment to the African colonies, but also of economic and political crises and social upheaval in Angola and in Portugal. Portuguese geographers, politicians, historians and entrepreneurs struggled with ambition and disappointment, the mapa cor-de-rosa8 and the British Ultimatum,9 to advance a new, rational colonial project in Central West Africa. Portuguese parliamentary politics at this time revolved around contests between two modernising parties.10 The modernisation of the colonies reflected and reinforced the assumptions shared by the dominant political traditions in the metropole. Those Portuguese politicians engaging in the colonial project were struggling to transform Portugal itself.

Changing Attitudes to White Settlement The narrative that would allow the Portuguese state to be imagined as a worthy European competitor for African territory revolved around the modern white settler and his white wife. It was a new story about migration to Africa that was no longer a story about miscegenation. Still, the archetype of the Portuguese colono as an ill-educated degredado, his racial position ambiguous, persisted in Portuguese representations of the colonies and in accounts of Portuguese colonialism by others; it continues to be reproduced in much of the historical literature today. Moreover, the new narrative met new challenges: a Portuguese-speaking, literate, landowning and urban community, which shared many of its premises, was developing a critique of the colonial project. Calling themselves, for example, filhos da terra, filhos de Angola or naturais, they spoke of themselves in terms of both their civilised practices and their filial relationship with Africa, distinguishing themselves from the “corrupt” white and the “primitive” black. Yet they themselves were spoken about in terms of cultural impurity and racial mixture by administrators and settlers concerned with delineating racial boundaries and establishing a fixed white colono subject.

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In a popular history of Angola, published in 1889, the Portuguese linguist Ladislau Batalha narrates a creation story for “white Angola”, the arrival of twelve convertidas (converted prostitutes) exiled in 1594. “The introduction of women in the nascent colony was a measure of great political scope, and the reputation of that governor would be made even on this alone. It was very convenient for us to assimilate, through natural means, the right to the possession of such territories, and the only way to cause the children of the race to develop love for Angola as a homeland. The convertidas all married and gave birth to the oldest white families of the colony.” 11

In the first place, it is doubtful that anyone in nineteenth-century Angola could trace their genealogies back to these women or would seriously try to. Contemporary documents suggest that while these twelve women all married other degredados exiled from Portugal they left no descendants.12 A former governor had suggested in 1846 that the historical failure of European women to bear healthy children in Angola was fairly common knowledge.13 However, Batalha’s presentation of the “oldest white families of the colony” as of unambiguously “pure” Portuguese descent is in line with the changing perception of race as a way of constructing difference in the imagining of a Portuguese project of colonial state-formation in Angola. It provides a background story that safeguards the position of a select group of Angolan elites, while underscoring the strength of accusations of racial mixture and nepotism that allowed recent arrivals to upset the established social order. This short myth of “white” origins is a counterpoint to Batalha’s longer historical account, a familiar story of decadence and degeneration ruptured by abolition, liberalism and the modern nineteenth-century state. It provides a depiction of Portuguese settlement in Angola that suppresses the intertwined narratives of single Portuguese men travelling without white women and of the creation of new populations via a Portuguese propensity for miscegenation. In the wake of the Berlin conference, it rewrites the Portuguese claim to ancient rights over African territories as one rooted in settlement.14 It touches too on the hope that the Portuguese abroad, like these converted prostitutes remade as the great white mothers of the colony, could be cleansed rather than corrupted by settlement in colonial territory. As former prostitutes, these twelve women raise the issue of the “rotten” foundations of colonisation in Angola, yet they demonstrate the transformation of problematic populations into productive ones through migration and the maintenance of racial and cultural purity.15

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The anxieties surrounding racial difference and the threat posed by mixture are intrinsically connected to the conceptions of gender difference and gender relations. Anne McClintock notes that the development of a social evolutionist narrative in nineteenth-century Europe of successive racial types pictured as “a linear frieze of solo males” was “gendered but in such a way as to render women invisible as historical agents”.16 The model of the “family of man” figured familial relationships as external to historical transformations. However, discourses of racial purity depended above all on white mothers; imagining white settlement meant imagining white women both in the distant past and in the near future, as Batalha’s myth of origins illustrates. Still, white women were rarely represented as the active historical subjects who would transform Angola into a civilised European space. In tales of intimate transgressions of racial boundaries, black women were rendered as the passive objects of white male desire, if not erased from the story completely.17 Thus the active participation of women, and of non-literate Africans, in shaping the narratives of colonial state-formation is largely absent from my own account. It traces the plots laid out in my sources, authored by literate men who made white men, or civilised men, the protagonists of their stories. McClintock shows that the late nineteenth-century European linear narrative of social evolution considered global history a “spectacle” to be consumed and mapped by those who viewed it from the superior historical position of modernity. The archaic space of the world beyond the reach of industrial capitalism whether in the colonies or at home contained the anachronistic survival of the pre-historic. At home, distinctions of social class and gender were conceived of in terms of maturity and degeneracy; therefore the journey to the colonies was a movement backwards through time to a place that was out of time, lacking the drive of progress.18 The Portuguese experience broadly fits but also complicates McClintock’s argument about the development of European colonial knowledge. Seen from Britain or elsewhere in northern Europe, Portugal itself was commonly classified in this evolutionary historical framework as further behind on the path to modernity. Portugal was long considered to be intellectually backward and out of step with European civilisation; the Portuguese claim to membership of a Christian and civilised community was considered precarious. In The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, Charles Boxer shows that, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Portuguese were widely known in Europe as a nation of “crypto-Jews”; both Portuguese intellectuals and foreign visitors and commentators considered the Portuguese to be ignorant and indifferent to scholarly pursuits.19 This conception of Portugal and the Portuguese

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persisted into, and was perhaps even reinvigorated in, the late nineteenth century when it is found, for example, not only in British travel narratives,20 but also in the writings of Portuguese intellectuals, and particularly in the cynical writings of the group who became known as the 70s generation.21 Within a racial hierarchy, the Portuguese subject was often categorised as not quite European, not quite white. Taking on and writing back to this framework of differentiated progress, Portuguese colonial conversations are inflected with a particularly intense anxiety over the precariousness of their project, which can be read in their concern about constructing the imperial project of a modern European state and maintaining the racial position of the Portuguese colono. The papers given by the two representatives of the Portuguese scientific community at the 1900 International Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archaeology in Paris suggest that the stability of the Portuguese racial subject was all the more insecure abroad. António Aurélio da Costa Ferreira details the racial distinctions in Portugal’s population according to their cranial typologies, ranging from the Nordic and Celtic ancestry of the minhotas, the Cro-Magnon and thus, perhaps, indigenous origins of the transmontanos, the Semitic descent of the alentejanos, and the Berber pedigree of the algarvios. Peoples of the central regions of Portugal were apparently made up of variations of these racial types.22 Thus the diverse and distant histories of invasion, occupation and settlement in Portugal are written, and legible, in the racial makeup of its population. F.X da Silva Telles, the other Portuguese anthropologist to present a paper at the conference, considered the degenerative impact on the Portuguese race of settlement in Africa. A third-generation migrant’s physiognomy showed clear markers of racial degeneracy: curvature of the spine, splayed feet and the disharmony of face and skull. By this stage, he warned, the victim of degeneracy could not be saved by fresh European blood. 23 “Classifying the ethnic type of the Portuguese in tropical countries is impossible to do”,24 he stated; moving beyond a European space, the Portuguese subject is thrown into a dangerous process of regression. While it speaks of generational stages of degeneracy, his paper does not speak directly of miscegenation but rather of the progressive instability of racial type in a colonial, tropical environment. Secure racial superiority is disrupted by the silent, implicit threat of African women diluting Portuguese blood and the explicit threat of pollution from an African physical and cultural environment.

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These two papers present two co-existing models of racial difference, one which spoke of a stable hierarchy of distinct racial groups who make up the Portuguese and another which depended on a binary distinction between white and non-white, the European and the African, a boundary that was always in danger of being transgressed. A. F. Nogueira, a member of the Lisbon Geographical Society’s commission for the exploration and civilization of Africa, noted that the “savage races” of Africa were “backward but not generally degenerate.”25 Nogueira suggests that while Africans lag behind in their historical development, they are as yet untainted by the degeneracy that haunts Europeans. Africans at home in Africa are in little danger; Europeans in the tropics are vulnerable. Portuguese geographer-anthropologists described distinct “racial” groups, like those of Portugal, who made up the indigenous population of Angola: F.A. Pinto describes hottentotes, cafres and congos as advanced to varying extents along the path of civilisation. As in Portugal, different types tended to overlap, Luanda was “a babel of negro races”26, yet this blending of races was “natural”: it did not threaten the boundedness of any one original category. In contrast, the product of sexual relationships, which crossed the border of white and black, the mestiço, was volatile and failed to inhabit a racial classification of its own: “Throughout the region where the white has arrived the mestiço more or less always appears. But the experience of four centuries appears to be already sufficient to demonstrate that the mestiço does not settle. It moves either towards white or towards black.”27

Pinto’s collection of lectures does deal explicitly with the danger posed by miscegenation. Yet the dangers of transgressing racial boundaries through settlement in African spaces and through procreation with African women each revolve around the interruption and corruption of historical development. The precariousness of the Portuguese subject, conceived of in the first place as male, was both reinforced and challenged by colonial debates which heralded the coming of a fresh start, marked by the free migration of pure white male subjects and their white wives in the founding of a modern state that would replace the present moment of degeneracy and decline. Colonial “experts” agreed that the free migration of hard-working honest men and their families, would lead to the establishment of ordered and productive settlement, creating among African populations civilised needs for European products and a corresponding willingness to work.28 In these debates this was a historical turn that was always about to be reached, movement towards it slowed down by the present populations of

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Angola. While the abolition of the slave trade in 1836 and then the abolition of slavery in 1875 were to be employed again and again as markers for the end of the old way of doing things in Africa and the beginning of the modern, purposeful, civilising colonial project, this future moment of transformation is endlessly deferred. The rational way of being Portuguese in Africa that could effectively exploit the potential for national and personal economic development alongside the establishment of a modern state would be realised but had never yet been achieved.29 The residue of Angola's depraved past is not located in the figures of perpetually lazy and possibly pitiful African labourers, arrested in their historical development30 but rather in those who fail to control or to civilise them: inherently criminal degredados31 and their degenerate mestiço descendants,32 ill-equipped and ill-educated Portuguese settlers33 and morally bankrupt and politically corrupt colonial officials.34 The related tropes of decadence, miscegenation and criminality describe and account for constantly thwarted progress, personified in the existing Portuguese-speaking populations in Angola. The narrative that described modern colonialism as the establishment of white communities in foreign spaces and the reconstruction of home abroad was questioned by literate Portuguese-speaking urban journalists and petitioners who sought to define themselves as both civilised and Angolan. These writers shared many of the assumptions that underpinned colonial conversations and employed the same notions of historical rupture and the need for civilisation, while at the same time exploiting Portuguese anxieties about Portugal’s position within European modernity. Thus they appealed to liberal or republican values and the principles of a civilised modern state and pointed to the barbarism or degeneracy of Portuguese settlers and the Portuguese state. The assertion of an identity rooted in spatial rather than racial relationships can be found in the text of a petition presented to parliament by “the filhos de Angola”, protesting against poor administration and the increasing denationalisation of trade in Angola. The petitioners question a narrow racialized definition of the civilised man. They advise the small number of whites in Angola that it is in their economic interests to collaborate with the “filhos da terra, (that also have whites amongst them)”.35 To state that filhos da terra could be white imposed a distinction between a white and a European identity, terms which were usually used interchangeably. That the petitioners had to point this out to a metropolitan audience indicates that this position was somewhat precarious, that an expression of filial connection with Angola and not Portugal was racially coded.

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Journalists in Angola made use of a free press to question the structures of administration which favoured new settler populations and settled families, who maintained white identities by pointing both to their own shared faith in principles of modernity and civility and also to the illiteracy and barbarity of the Portuguese subject, both in Portugal and in Angola.36 Canny manipulation of available social identities and current political discourses can be seen in the writings of the “filho da terra” journalists in Voz de Angola Clamando no Deserto, a collection of responses to a newspaper article which claimed that assaulting a black man was less criminal than assaulting a white man.37 These articles join in the debate over the nature of Portuguese colonialism in Angola, employing the terms of a liberal civilising project to criticise the excesses of the white population. The journalists work to construct ways of imagining themselves and their origins avoiding the notions of biological and cultural purity with which a settling and settled “white” population was defining itself. One writer argues that “The black…doesn’t appear like the boorish white”, not because, “the black is not completely a man” but “because [the white], vicious, criminal, bloodthirsty, is the antithesis of the black— innocence, submission, placidity personified”.38 This author implicitly represents himself, a civilised citizen, outside this dichotomy of whites and blacks who are untamed or untouched by civilisation, corrupt or innocent. By using the terms of the debates on the colonies within Portugal, employing the conceptions of settler criminality and indigenous passivity, the author appeals to a shared faith in the principles of a “civilised” society and shared fears about controlling those who do not follow these principles. Malyn Newitt describes a transformation in the social relations in Angola in the late nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries marked by an increasing “consciousness of skin colour”. He illustrates this shift in the way in which race figured into the complaints of frustrated white planters and colonial administrators who blamed the failures of projects of economic development and social organisation on the inherent barbarism of the indigenous population.39 He also notes a “great decline in the importance of individual Africans and mestiços in public life” and the emergence of a racially differentiated wage system.40 One way to read his evidence would be to say that establishing and securing a white identity became a necessary prerequisite to gain access to positions of authority in the colonial administration and the Portuguese military and to earn a better income. Similarly, from the perspective of some of the employers of labour and the planners of the state, to become modern Angola had to become “whiter”, that is, it had to import labour from Portugal.

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Conclusions A cursory look at published and archival colonial sources reveals that the colonial hierarchy of difference in Angola was not static. Official documents and correspondence among officials variously use terms that refer to origins in or links to Africa or Europe as well as racial categories to distinguish populations. In 1879 statistical tables in the weekly Boletim Official do Governo Geral da Província de Angola only referred to race in numbering the inhabitants of hospitals according to whether they were europeu or indígena. Twenty years later these tables continued to divide hospital patients according to this binary definition but included other tables, which classified convicted criminals and school children as branco, prêto or pardo.41 This three way racial division of colonial society, and the need for it to be recorded and regulated, was beginning to become concretised in the “official mind”, existing alongside if not mapping exactly onto an unstable official dichotomy between European-ness and African-ness. A 1904 statistical form on Angolan schools distinguishes the white (branco) pupils from mestiços and prêtos. It then further divides these white children into Africanos and Europeus illustrating that spatial and racial identities were operating simultaneously and independently.42 These various statistical tables also indicate that the same people would find themselves fitting various identity categories as they moved through social spaces, which were being organised along frameworks of difference in distinct ways. On 22 February 1890, just over a month after the British Ultimatum, an extract from an “unpatriotic” article from Arauto Africano (“The African Messenger”) describing Portuguese corruption and brutality in Angola was printed in the London Financial Times. Penned by a filho da terra journalist, José de Fontes Pereira, the article had inspired angry protests by white settlers and its reprinting prompted a deeply concerned letter from the governor-general to the minister for the colonies in Lisbon. 43 In this letter the governor, Guilherme Augusto de Brito Capelo, refers to the dissident journalist and lawyer as both a mulato and as a “degenerate filho de Angola”.44 Hence, he overlaps a category of racial mixture with one that indicates filial ties with Angola. By using “degenerate” to qualify “filho de Angola”, he alludes to the menace both of inherited decline and the corrosive effects of inhabiting African space. In his official report of 1887, Brito Capelo stresses the need for a population of free Portuguese migrants to allow a fresh start for a modern Angola, paying particular attention to the need for white skilled labour for industrial development. In so doing, he makes another slippage across racial and spatial designations

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in describing the unsatisfactory factory operatives who reject the model of work presented to them both as filhos da terra and as prêto.45 Rather than engaging with the ways in which racial frameworks are produced and maintained, historians of Lusophone Africa have tended to collapse the heterogeneous populations that they encounter into two or three categories of identity which rarely reflect the ways in which people identified themselves and one another.46 To use the terms employed in these texts to discover interchangeable markers of a Creole or mixed identity or of a black or African identity would be to impose an already present racial framework rather than to examine the discursive processes within which these expressions operate. The overlapping terms, filho da terra, mulato and prêto, reveal the workings of a bipolar racial framework that defined the boundaries of white behaviour: honesty, industry and obedience. At the same time they betray anxieties about the ease with which the Portuguese abroad could find his whiteness corrupted whether by procreation with African women or simply through inhabiting African spaces. Whiteness depended on not becoming too African, on maintaining purity of race and culture. Thus, only the importation of fresh white subjects and fresh white labour would allow the construction of a Portugal abroad.

Notes 1

I am grateful for the support of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Chicago and the Tinker Foundation which provided a travel grant which made the research for this paper possible. I also thank the institutions in Lisbon where I conducted research and the staff who assisted me: the library of the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, the Biblioteca Nacional and the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino. Several people who attended the conference Struggling with the State in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa in May 2004 at the University of Chicago provided insightful comments on an earlier version of this paper. 2 Ricardo Roque, Antropologia e Império: Fonseca Cardoso e a expedição à Índia em 1895, (Imprensa de Ciências Sociais: Lisbon, 2001), pp.167; 288–289; Valentim Alexandre, ‘A Questão Colonial no Portugal Oitocentista’ in Valentim Alexandre & Jill Dias, eds., Nova História da Expansão Portuguesa: 10. O Império Africano 1825–1890, (Editoria Estampa: Lisbon, 1991), p.96; David Birmingham, Concise History of Portugal, (Macmillan: Basingstoke, 1993), p.140. 3 Alexandre, ‘A Questão Colonial no Portugal Oitocentista’, p.97; João Pedro Marques ‘Portugal e o Abolicionismo’, in O Império Africano (Séculos XIX e XX), Edições Colibri (Lisbon, 2000) pp. 53–4; Gerald J. Bender, Angola under the Portuguese: The Myth and the Reality, (University of California Press: Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1978), p.139.

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Isabel Castro Henriques, Percursos da Modernidade em Angola: Dinâmicas comerciais e transformações sociais no século XIX, (Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical/Instituto da Cooperação Portuguesa: Lisbon, 1997), p.42. 5 Henry W. Nevinson, A Modern Slavery, (Schocken: New York, 1968, first published 1906). 6 Gervase Clarence Smith, The Third Portuguese Empire 1825–1975: A Study in Economic Imperialism, (Manchester University Press.Manchester, 1985), p.12. 7 Valentim Alexandre, ‘The colonial empire’ in António Costa Pinto ed., Modern Portugal, (SPOSS: Palo Alto, CA, 1998) p.45; Henriques, Percursos da Modernidade em Angola: Dinâmicas comerciais e transformações sociais no século XIX, p.43. 8 Charles E. Nowell, The Rose-Colored Map: Portugal’s attempt to build an African empire from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, (Junta de Investigações Cientificas do Ultramar: Lisbon, 1982); Birmingham, A Concise History of Portugal, p.142. 9 Birmingham, A Concise History of Portugal, p. 145–6; for the furious popular response to the Ultimatum in Angola and Portugal, see Portugal-Africa, March 1890; Basílio Telles, ‘A reacção popular ao Ultimato inglês’ extract from his Do Ultimatum ao 31 de Janeiro in Valentim Alexandre, Origens do Colonialismo Português Moderno (1822–1891), (Sá de Costa Editora: Lisbon, 1905/1979). 10 Birmingham, A Concise History of Portugal, p.132; Rui Ramos, História de Portugal: 6. A segunda fundação (1890–1926,) (Editora Estampa: Lisbon, 1993), p.249. 11 “A introdução de mulheres na colonia nascente foi medida de muito alcance politico, e por si só constituiria a reputação d’este governador. Era muito conveniente assimilarmos, por meios naturaes, o direito da posse de taes territorios, e o unico caminho era causar que filhos de raça nutrissem amor por Angola que lhes fôsse patria. As convertidas casaram todas, e deram origem às mais antigas familias brancas da colonia.” Ladislau Batalha, Biblioteca da Povo e das Escolas. Numero 164: Angola, (Companhia Nacional Editora: Lisbon, 1889), p.13. 12 Bender, Angola under the Portuguese: The Myth and the Reality, p.51. 13 Lopes de Lima cited in Bender, Angola under the Portuguese: The Myth and the Reality, pp.51–2. 14 See Henriques, Percursos da Modernidade em Angola: Dinâmicas comerciais e transformações sociais no século XIX, pp.34–5, 39. 15 See the preliminary report of the African commission of the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa which expresses the ambition that the Portuguese colono in Angola can be as successful as the emigrant to Brazil “transforming himself from a simple proletarian into a distinguished member of his country” [transformando-se, de simples proletario, n’um benemérito do seu paiz] M.R.Gorjão, Colonisação do Sul d’Angola: Paracer e proposta da Commissão africana, (Typ. e Lyt. de Adolpho, Modesto & Companhia: Lisbon, 1886), p.12. 16 Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Context, (Routledge: New York & London, 1995), p.39.

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See Batalha’s own autobiographical account of his African adventures and vicarious experiences of the ‘dangerous love’ of African women: Ladislau Batalha, Memorias e Aventuras: Reminiscencias Autobiográficas, (J. Rodrigues & C.ª: Lisbon, 1928). 18 McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Context, pp.36–41. 19 Charles Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415–1825, (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1969), pp.274; 342–344. 20 See the following accounts of British travellers in Portugal: Oswald Crawfurd, Portugal Old and New, (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., Paternoster Square: London, 1882); Lady Catherine Charlotte Jackson, Fair Lusitania, (Richard Bentley and Son Jackson: London, 1874); Eugène E. Street A Philosopher in Portugal, (T. Fischer Unwin: London, 1903). See also Malyn Newitt, ‘British Travellers Accounts of Portuguese Africa in the Nineteenth Century’, Revista de Estudos Anglo-Portugueses, 2002, 11, pp.103–129 for a reading of Victorian travel writing on Portuguese Africa. 21 Alan Freeland, ‘”The sick man of the West”: A late nineteenth-century diagnosis of Portugal’, in T.F. Earle and Nigel Griffin eds. Portuguese, Brazilian and African Studies: Studies Presented to Clive Willis on his Retirement, (Aris & Phillips: Warminster, 1995), p.208–9. 22 António Aurélio Costa Ferreira, ‘Sur la capacité des crânes portugais’, Congrès International d’Anthropologie et d’Archéologie Préhistoriques: Compte rendu de la douzième session à Paris 1900, (Masson et Cie., Éditeurs : Paris, 1902), pp.474– 5. 23 F.X. da Silva Telles, in ‘La dégénérescence des races humaines (résumé)’, Congrès International d’Anthropologie et d’Archéologie Préhistoriques: Compte rendu de la douzième session à Paris 1900, (Masson et Cie., : Éditeurs Paris, 1902), pp.496–7 24 “La fixation ethnique des Portugais dans les pays tropicaux est tout à fait impossible.” Silva Telles, ‘La dégénérescence des races humaines (résumé)’, p.496. 25 “raças selvagens”, “atrazadas mas em geral não degredadas”. A. F. Nogueira, A Raça Negra Sob o Ponto de Vista da Civilisação da Africa: usos e costumes de alguns povos gentilicos do interior de Mossamedes e as colonias portuguezas, (Typographia Nova Minerva: Lisbon, 1880), p.9. 26 “é babel de raças negras” F.A.Pinto, Angola e Congo: Conferencias por F.A. Pinto, (Livraria Ferreira: Lisbon, 1988), p.126. 27 “Por toda a região onde tem chegado o branco appareceu sempre mais ou menos o mestiço. Mas a experiencia de quarto seculos parece ser já sufficiente para demonstrar que o mestiço não se fixa. Ou vae para branco, ou para preto.” Pinto, Angola e Congo: Conferencias por F.A. Pinto, p.127. 28 João de Andrade Corvo, ‘Dispatch and memorandum’ in Manuel Francisco de Barros e Sousa, Visconde de Santarém, ‘A statement of facts, proving the right of the Crown of Portugal to the territories situated on the western coast of Africa,

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lying between the fifth degree and twelve minutes, and the eighth degree of south latitude; consequently, to the territories of Molembo, Cabinda, and Ambriz translated into English from the original Portuguese of Visconde de Santarém also a translation of the despatch & memorandum by His Excellency João de Andrade Corvo on the above subject extracted from the Portuguese White Book, ‘ Foreign Affairs.’ Documents presented to the Cortes, 1876, (Herbert J. Fitch: London, 1877) p.48; Pinto, Angola e Congo: Conferencias por F.A. Pinto, p.300; João de Almeida, Sul de Angola: Relatório de um Governo de Distrito (1908–1910), (Typografia do Annuário Commercial: Lisbon, 1912), xiii, p.202. 29 João de Andrade Corvo, Estudos sobre as Provincias Ultramarinas: Volume I, (Typographia da Academia Real das Sciencias: Lisbon, 1883) pp.151, 152. See also Batalha, Biblioteca da Povo e das Escolas. Numero 164: Angola, p. 4; Almeida, Sul de Angola: Relatório de um Governo de Distrito (1908–1910), pp.102–3. 30 The following writers differed over the degree of the backwardness of African populations, and the chances of civilizing them, but agreed that their historical development lagged far behind Europeans: Felix Meyer, A questão do trabalho livre em Angola e o estado presente d’esta provincia, (Typographia Progresso: Lisbon, 1874) p.7; J.P. Oliveira Martins, O Brasil e os Colonias Portugueses, (Lisbon, 1880) p.261; Batalha, Biblioteca da Povo e das Escolas. Numero 164: Angola, p.44; Guilherme Augosto de Brito Capelo, Relatórios Dos Governadores das Províncias Ultramarinas: Relatório do Governo Geral à Província de Angola 1887, (Imprensa Nacional: Lisbon, 1889) p.45; Agostinho Sesenando Marques, Os Climas e as Producções das Terras Malange á Lunda, (Imprensa Nacional: Lisbon, 1889) p.110. 31 Alexandre Serpa Pinto, How I crossed Africa: from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, through unknown countries; discovery of the great Zambesi affluents, &c. translated by Alfred Elwes, (Johnson Reprint Corp.: New York, 1881/1971) p.37; Chaves de Aguiar, ‘A Pena de degredado para o ultramar’ in Africa Ilustrada, 1893, vol 1, nos 22, 23, 25 & 27; Teixeira and Sarsfield cited in Bender, Angola under the Portuguese: The Myth and the Reality , pp. 83, 89. Other contemporary European observers in Angola also remarked on the pernicious effects of the innate criminality of degredados e.g. Héli Chatelain and Oscar Lenz cited in Bender, Angola under the Portuguese: The Myth and the Reality , pp.59, 89 32 Brito Capelo, Relatórios Dos Governadores das Províncias Ultramarinas: Relatório do Governo Geral à Província de Angola 1887, p.198. 33 Brito Capelo, Relatórios Dos Governadores das Províncias Ultramarinas: Relatório do Governo Geral à Província de Angola 1887, p. 190; Marques, Climas e as Producções das Terras Malange á Lunda, p. 120; Voz de Angola Clamando no Deserto, (Lisbon, 1901). 34 J.A. de Carvalho e Menezes, Demonstração Geographica e Politica do Territorio Português na Guiné Inferior, Que Abrange o Reino de Angola, Benguella e suas Dependencias, (Typographia Classica de F.A. de Almeida: Rio de Janeiro, 1848); António Seixas, Exposição aos senhores eleitores do premeiro

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circulo eleitoral da provincia de Angola (Typographia Universal: Lisbon, 1862) pp.6, 178–9; Batalha, Biblioteca da Povo e das Escolas. Numero 164: Angola, pp.33–35. 35 ‘filhos da terra (que os há também brancos)’, Ao Parlamento: Representação dos Filhos de Angola (1893), O Parlamento, (Lisbon, 1893) p.4. 36 For examples of the range of approaches, see the conciliatory appeal for LusoAfrican Unity in O Desastre, 30 September 1889 and the call to arms to fellow Africans in Angola framed in terms of a liberal discourse of rights in O Pharol do Povo, 10 March 1883. 37 Voz de Angola Clamando no Deserto. 38 “o preto…não se parece com o branco boçal”; ”o preto não é perfeitamente um homem”; “porque [o branco], vicioso, facínora, sanguinário, é antitese do preto—a candura, a submissão, a pacatez personificadas.” Voz de Angola Clamando no Deserto, p.43. 39 Newitt notes that the Angolan planter class in general should not be labelled white, as in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century a significant number of successful plantations were African-owned. Malyn Newitt, Portugal in Africa: The Last Hundred Years, (C. Hurst & Co: London, 1981), p.158. 40 Newitt, Portugal in Africa: The Last Hundred Years, pp.167–9. For a similar argument see, among others, Aida Freudenthal, ‘A Utopia Angolense’, in Maria Santos ed., A África e a instalação do sistema colonial (c. 1885–1930), (Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical: Lisbon, 2000) p.447. Insisting more explicitly on the constructedness of racial identities, Dias makes a comparable argument about Luanda in the 1830s in the wake of the arrival of new migrants from Brazil and Portugal. Jill Dias, ‘Um questão de identidade: respostas intelectuais às transformações económicas no seio da elite crioula da Angola portuguesa entre 1870 e 1930’ in Revista Internacional de Estudos Africanos, 1984, 1, Jan.-Jun, pp.66–7. 41 Boletim Official do Governo Geral da Província de Angola 1879, (Imprensa Nacional: Luanda, 1879); Boletim Official do Governo Geral da Província de Angola 1889, (Imprensa Nacional: Luanda, 1889). 42 AHU Sala 3 Maço 3230. 43 For an account of the biography and the journalism of Fontes de Pereira see Douglas L. Wheeler, ‘An Early Angolan Protest: the Radical Journalism of José de Fontes Pereira (1823–1891)’ in Robert I. Rotberg and Ali Mazrui, Protest and Power in Black Africa, (Oxford University Press: New York, 1970). 44 AHU 1ª Repartição, 2ª Secção Pasta 10, Documento 2, 1890. 45 Brito Capelo, Relatórios Dos Governadores das Províncias Ultramarinas: Relatório do Governo Geral à Província de Angola 1887, p.45. 46 Compare the use of ‘black’, ‘white’ and ‘mestiço’ in Bender, Angola under the Portuguese: The Myth and the Reality, ‘black’, ‘white’ and ‘African’ by Penvenne, ‘Luso-African’ by Peter Mark and Joseph Miller, Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade 1730–1830, (University of Wisconsin Press: Madison, 1988), ‘assimilado’ in Wheeler, ‘An Early Angolan Protest: the

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Radical Journalism of José de Fontes Pereira (1823–1891)’ and ‘crioulo’ in Jill Dias, ‘A sociedade colonial de Angola e o liberalismo português (c.1820–1850)’ in Miriam Halpern Pereira, Maria Ferreira & João Serra eds., O Liberalismo na Península Ibérica na primeira metade do século XIX: comunicações ao colóquio, (Sá de Costa Editora: Lisbon, 1982) and Dias, ‘Uma questão de identidade: respostas intelectuais às transformações económicas no seio da elite crioula da Angola portuguesa entre 1870 e 1930’ and Marcello Bittencourt, ‘A reposta dos “Crioulos Luandenses” ao intensificar do processo colonial em finais do Século XIX’ in Maria Emília Madeira Santos ed., A África e a instalação do sistema colonial (c. 1885–1930), (Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical: Lisboa, 2000). See Jill Dias, ‘Novas identidades africanas em Angola no contexto do comércio atlântico’ in Bela Feldman-Bianco et al. eds. Trânsitos Coloniais: diálogos críticos luso-brasileiros, (Imprensa de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa: Lisbon, 2002) pp.293–320 and Freudenthal, ‘A Utopia Angolense’ for more nuanced accounts of the ways in which categories of identity were employed in contemporary Angola.

CHAPTER EIGHT ATLANTIC BRIDGE AND ATLANTIC DIVIDE: AFRICANS AND CREOLES IN LATE COLONIAL BRAZIL A. J. R. RUSSEL-WOOD1

From Cabo São Roque in Brazil to Cape Palmas in Liberia is approximately 1,770 miles. The African continent is at its closest point to the American continent in regions between 16°N and 12°S from where the greatest numbers of slaves were transported to the Portuguese colony of Brazil during some 300 years. Measured in time the passage was between 35 and 40 days; measured in cultural terms the distance between the two continents was very close. Photographs and accompanying texts in books by the late Pierre Verger attest not merely to the continuity but the virtual interchangeability of mores, rituals, and dress between inhabitants of the Bay of All Saints and the Bight of Benin. In terms of Portuguese imperial governance, exchanges between African colonies and Brazil were intense and enduring. Bishops of São Tomé often put into Salvador en route to their posting and governors-general and viceroys in Salvador were constantly preoccupied by political and economic developments in Central and West Africa and regarded Central Africa as part of their responsibilities in terms of providing an Atlantic shield against any attack which could weaken the Portuguese military position or disrupt commerce. Viceroys in Salvador maintained an extensive correspondence with the King of Dahomey. Exchange, inter-dependence, reciprocity and mutual concern characterized these relationships. Africans transported to Brazil and persons of African descent born in Brazil found a common point of reference in Africa. Although a few travelled from Brazil to Africa during the colonial period, it was the years from the mid-1830s to the 1890s that witnessed the largest numbers of africanos (African-born blacks) and Brazilian-born persons of African descent returning to Africa.2

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The historiography has reflected the closeness of this relationship. If, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Brazilian historians, sociologists and anthropologists marvelled at the strength of the African legacy to Brazil and emphasized evidence of survivals of African languages, rituals, ceremonies, and ethnic differences, more recent scholarship has turned to Africa itself as holding the key to an understanding of the African diasporas and, more importantly, of the beliefs, values, mores, and rituals, of the mentalités of African-born and of those of African descent in Brazil. The compilation of data bases about the trade has been complemented by demographic studies of the practices of slavery, of slave ownership, and of populations of slave, freed and freeborn of African-birth and Brazilian-born of African descent. This has been complemented by the reworking of hitherto underused sources, the treasures hidden in notarial registers and in inquisition records, and in private and regional archives, in Portugal and other European countries as well as Brazil, to provide qualitative monographs and articles on topics as diverse as marriage, choice of partners, religious beliefs and rituals, values, priorities and slave agency.3 These studies have underlined the inappropriateness of referring to an African diaspora when, in fact any such monolithic notion must yield to the reality that there were many diasporas, that these were in seriatum, and that they comprised not only an oceanic leg but terrestrial components on each side of the Atlantic. Several themes are constants in this revisionist historiography: ethnicity, identity, and diversity. The inexorability, duration, and volume of the slave trade provides a context for continuity and historians have been at pains to emphasize the ever changing dynamic not only of the trade but of the context in Africa and in Brazil.4 The purpose of this chapter is threefold: first, to emphasize the heterogeneity of the population of African birth and descent in Brazil as measured not only by ethnic and cultural differences of African provenance but also by circumstances peculiar to the Americas; secondly, to single out for special attention relations between persons born in Africa and transported to Brazil and persons of African descent born in Brazil (crioulos); and, thirdly, to focus on a group which has not received the attention it deserves, namely persons born in Africa. A thread running through the chapter is the quest for an explanation for the often tense relationship between Africans and Afro-Brazilians in colonial Brazil. If the waters of the Atlantic washed the shores of Africa and of Brazil, and made possible exchanges between the two continents, the ocean was also a constant reminder that it divided African-born from their descendants born

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in Brazil. The Atlantic was itself part of a dynamic of incorporation and of exclusion, of approximation but also of estrangement between peoples. The population of African descent in colonial Brazil gave evidence of a diversity attributable to circumstances peculiar to both Africa and America. Some indicators of diversity among African peoples are region(or even locality-) specific: languages and dialects, religious beliefs and value systems, family organization and kinship relations, as well as forms of political entities and leadership, social hierarchies, and commercial practices, marketing and peddling. Most relevant to our understanding of differences among persons of African birth or descent in colonial Brazil, which can be traced to African antecedents, are those of an ethnic nature, languages, belief systems, mores, rituals, occupations and skills, and social hierarchies. While Africans transported to the New World shared some general cultural features, it was more likely that such points of reference were partial or over-lapping rather than being perfect matches, that some features were limited to a small group and not accepted by others, and that rivalries and hostilities present in Africa were part of that cultural baggage which accompanied Africans to Brazil. What differentiated Brazil from other parts of the Americas was that, such was the intensity, regularity, and duration of the various slave trades to and within Brazil, and the sheer numbers of those transported (unmatched by any other single New World destination) African cultures were constantly being replenished and reinforced over three centuries. Such cultures reflected changes and an evolving dynamic internal to Africa, which would be brought to Brazil by each new cargo of slaves. The Brazilian context contributed both to creating similarities (at least nominally or perceived as such by Portuguese settlers and crown representatives) between persons of African descent but also differences. Many were attributable to the institution of slavery, as it existed in Brazil. It is often forgotten that the spatial mobility associated with African slaves (within Africa and the Atlantic crossing) was equalled—in terms of distance travelled—by some Brazilian-born slaves who travelled by land and water within Brazil. With exceedingly rare exceptions, on arrival in Brazil all African-born were categorized (and stigmatized) as slaves and, as such, had bondage in common with many persons of African descent born in Brazil. This circumstance of being born a slave or being of slave parentage and thus a base (Portuguese: vil) person, regardless of the passage of several generations and manumission since slavery, led Portuguese settlers, elected municipal officials, crown representatives, and even the king to overlook legal distinctions between slave and free, differences of pigmentation between mulattoes and blacks, and place of

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birth, and to pass or enforce legislation or impose punishments applicable to all persons of African descent.5 Many African and Afro-Brazilian slaves sought freedom and escape from brutal owners through flight. All slaves, regardless of place of birth in Africa or Brazil had the potential to gain their freedom through manumission. Manumission of a new born could be granted by an owner at baptism. For others, whether manumission was accomplished by selfpurchase or slave substitution, through the intervention of a third party, through the good will of an owner during his or her lifetime, or by the terms of a will, it determined how the former slave was viewed by other persons of African descent. Those who had bought their manumission with earnings accrued through their own labour often referred to this circumstance with justifiable pride. As was so often the case in Brazil, even freedom and slavery could be nuanced. The practice of coartação granted a slave conditional freedom, with absolute freedom only being granted once conditions mutually acceptable to slave and owner had been met. By the “law of the womb” (partus sequitur ventrem) a person of African descent was free at birth if his/her mother was free-born or manumitted. Finally, both African and Afro-Brazilian slaves could themselves be owners of slaves.6 The other side of the same coin emphasized differences. Those selfsame monarchs, viceroys, governors, municipal officials and settlers were ultra-sensitive to perceived or real differences in behaviour between Minas and Angolans, to degrees of blackness or whiteness among slaves, to which slaves were more suited to certain types of labour, and which were reputed to have a greater propensity toward flight, revolt or disorderly and criminal conduct.7 Dancing in the streets by persons of African descent or birth was officially prohibited. In Rio de Janeiro however, such activity was unofficially permitted because the majority of dancers were from Benguela and Angola and were reputed to be of peaceful disposition. Portuguese officials and colonists often drew a distinction between a person born in Africa and a person of African descent born in Brazil. They were concerned lest an African-born person of noble or royal blood, or one respected for divinatory or healing powers, would, after transportation to Brazil, enjoy a similar position of prestige, influence, authority and even power among persons of African descent. This might be exercised under the guise of god-parenthood. It was most clearly in evidence when fellow slaves cooperated in raising money to buy the freedom of a slave with these attributes. In 1719 in Minas Gerais a gubernatorial decree ruled that parish priests could only accept whites as godparents at weddings.8 This consciousness of place of birth was also reflected in the way that some

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owners, as a personal matter, favoured African or Brazilian-born slaves when deciding whom to manumit. Such a decision could be driven by business concerns, by whim or preferences, by the gender, age, and the skill level of a slave, and by prevailing demographic, commercial and economic factors. Some were time-or region-specific. Overall, Brazilianborn slaves were more likely to be manumitted than African-born and African female slaves than African males. African slave women were more likely than Afro-Brazilian slave women to earn their freedom. Brazilian-born slaves were preferred over African-born for training for specialist positions and managerial responsibilities on sugar plantations and, as such, they were more likely to be manumitted than African field hands.9 The manner in which a slave earned his or her freedom awoke varying degrees of respect or opprobrium among fellow African-or Brazilian-born and could be a point of contention. The dearth of white women in Brazil, in some regions even in the eighteenth century, led to interracial sexual couplings and offspring whose skin colour set them apart from Africanborn and from Portuguese, and could lead to multiple standards and expectations based on pigmentation. Among a lexicon of more than a hundred terms to describe such variants were some which had African frames of reference, for example de côr Fula (lit: “of the colour of the Fulah”). Words commonly used to describe skin colour were branco, pardo, and negro or prêto. Such words were “coded” in that each could carry a specific moral or physical connotation. Negro and mulato carried a derogatory connotation absent from prêto and pardo. Mulattoes were frequently the butt of abusive language by blacks and whites alike who described them as lazy, dishonest, arrogant and disloyal. Colonists in Brazil and Portuguese officials also used a lexicon based on generic usage of African locations—Guinea, Angola, Mina—to distinguish between persons of African birth and descent with disregard for the niceties of ethnographical or geographical accuracy.10 These circumstances, be they African or American, had ramifications for the physical and qualitative conditions of African-born and Brazilianborn persons of African descent in Brazil. The degree to which persons of African birth and descent were willing selectively to forego or to adapt African belief systems, values, mores and behaviours to the dominant cultural norms imposed by the Portuguese was critical to their physical, moral and spiritual well-being in Brazil. From the African perspective, the best that could be hoped for was that African-born and Brazilian-born persons of African descent themselves were agents in identifying those facets of their cultures which, for them, were non-negotiable and those .

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which they were willing to cede in whole or in part. Syncretism was one strategy by which African cultures and mores could be maintained, in which facets of African—and European—derived cultures were melded in such a delicate balance that Europeans did not view the African component—if they recognized it at all—as being offensive. For their part, African-born and persons of African descent would have a degree of freedom to act in accordance with their own values, belief systems and customs. At stake for slaves, were not only their working conditions but also social and physical mobility, family stability, and eligibility for manumission. For a freed person of African descent (liberto, alforriado, or forro), the factors which determined social acceptability included linguistic competence in Portuguese, numeracy and literacy; participation in Portuguese institutions such as the militia and brotherhoods, spirituality as measured by regular participation in Catholic celebrations and charitable activities, achievement as measured by ownership of land, slaves, and property; occupation, financial assets, and stability as measured by marital status, period of residence in one place, and ownership of a house or shop. How each of these was “weighted”, and what role the perception of “quality of the person” played in determining whether such an individual was deemed worthy of acceptance into AfroBrazilian, Luso-Afro-Brazilian and Luso-Brazilian society was undefined, probably undefinable, and unrecorded. A phenotype based on cognitive factors, such as pigmentation, hair and physiognomy, was inadequate because of the difficulty in reaching any consensus on such factors. Genealogy was less of a consideration for persons of African descent in Brazil than for Portuguese and their descendants where it could be critical. The exception were Africans who could point to a noble or royal genealogy, a circumstance which immediately vaulted them to the head of any community of their fellow Africans in terms of respect and deference. Ascription of a racial identity to a person was conditioned by time and place. It also depended on the eye of the beholder. In colonial Brazil, skin colour and even the “accident of birth”, to use a contemporary expression for a person of slave parentage, were negotiable. A person de cor equívoca or escuro could become pardo or even be “white to all appearances” (ao parecer branco) and thus eligible to hold public office notwithstanding decrees to the contrary. The Portuguese historian, Nizza da Silva, correctly observed that “appearance had practically the same weight as being in colonial society.”11 In either case, Brazilian-born slaves and Brazilian-born free or freed persons held a substantial advantage over their African-born contemporaries.

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This was not a case of “one size fits all”. There were variations depending on time and place, on settlers’ attitudes, on local crown officials’ interpretation of what was best for the region under their jurisdiction, on the prevailing economy and labour demands, on demography and, most significantly, on the ratio of whites to blacks and, among blacks, of the ratio of slave to free, of blacks to mulattoes, and whether any single African ethnic group (nação) predominated. Place of birth was of critical importance in situating a person socially in Portugal and its overseas empire. A lexicon reflected this preoccupation. A person born and resident in Portugal was known as a reinol or natural do reino. This carried the implication that such a person was of Old Christian birth and descent and of white parentage on both sides for several generations. It did not apply to persons of Moorish descent born in Portugal, who were referred to in Portuguese legal codifications variously as mouros or escravos brancos. In fifteenth and sixteenth century Portugal, slaves of African birth or descent had been initially referred to as mouros negros. This culturally specific term with religious associations gave way to the colour-based negros or prêtos to which might be added a geographical specifier (e.g. de Guiné). There were euphemisms based on terms for variants of dark or dusky to offset the pejorative negro. The offspring of inter-racial couplings were known as mulatos (derived from mulo and the hybridity associated with mules).12 In colonial Brazil, as elsewhere in the Portuguese empire, a Portuguese-born person was known as a reinol. This term was often used in the context of charges of discrimination made by Brazilian-born who alleged that they were denied access to privileges, exemptions, or eligibility for public offices by a process which favoured Portuguese-born. Long-time Portuguese settlers in Brazil and Brazilian-born persons of Portuguese ancestry were often referred to by the generic term moradores.13 Africans arriving in colonial Brazil were described and identified in documents by region of birth, port of embarkation, nação, or language group (Congo, Mina, Angola or Gege). However, to traders and owners, “fresh-water slaves” were generically regarded as black: negros or prêtos. These terms were also used to identify persons of African descent born in Brazil and generations removed from the Atlantic passage. Thus, an Afro-Brazilian slave might be known in common parlance as Pedro Congo. Other markers referred to Afro-Brazilians by skin colour (negro, prêto, pardo, mulato) by name, by parentage, by occupation or residence or, in the case of slaves, by the name of an owner or even by the name of an estate or plantation. The designation africano was peculiar to the nineteenth century and was used in the context of African slaves on a vessel bound for Brazil and captured

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during a time of British abolitionist pressure, and the human cargo subsequently freed. The term “creole” merits discussion because its genesis and subsequent history underlines the importance of the distinction between metropolis and colony. Derived from the Latin creare and Vulgar Latin cria, and possibly a colonial corruption of the diminutive form (criadillo) of the Spanish criado, it carried the connotation of being bred or reared and thence of a servant or slave. In the 1590s criollo was used to refer to Spaniards born in the Spanish Indies. Later, in Spanish and English, it came to describe a person of European descent or of African descent born in or, more loosely, a long-time resident of the Americas. In Portuguese, crioulo referred to a person born other than in Portugal. It was more commonly used in Portuguese Africa or Portuguese America to refer to persons of African birth or descent than to whites. An Angolan slave arriving in Brazil or Portugal was identified as a crioulo de Luanda. In Brazil, the word crioulo identified that person as being born in Brazil. Mobile Afro-Brazilians might carry further identification, such as crioulo da Bahia or natural de Minas with Creole being understood and omitted as redundant. Whether used in Spanish, Portuguese, French, or English, the word “creole” was applied to persons déracinés by virtue of having been born other than in the continent of their distant forefathers or by residence in colonies of European powers in Africa, the Americas and Asia. The word became less associated with the connotation of being in service or a slave. Being of African descent or of mixed racial parentage was not inherent to the use of the term. The term was not applicable to Native Americans.14 From a metropolitan perspective, “creole” suggested a distancing or remove from the mother country in continental Europe. This remove was spatial, human, physical, moral and spiritual. In political terms, the word served to underline the distinction between metropolis and colony, between the seat of royal power and the ideal of a dependant and subservient colony. There was, indeed, the implication that inhabitants of overseas Portuguese colonies existed primarily to be of service to the mother country in the production of “creole” raw materials to support the metropolitan economy and crown interests. There was the unflattering (to Brazilian-born descendants of Portuguese colonists and to descendants of African-born slaves) subtext that persons born in such colonies did not have that surfeit of moral, physical, and spiritual qualities with which native-born Portuguese were so amply endowed. The word also expressed the very real concern on the part of Portuguese kings that colonists should not get too big for their boots and, horror of horrors, aspire to be on a par

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with their metropolitan counterparts, or that Afro-Brazilians would press for privileges or exemptions hitherto granted to Portuguese colonists and their descendants. Henry Koster, an English traveller and resident of Brazil, referred to the “jealousy, which existed between the two descriptions of white persons”, namely European and American-born, and observed: “The Europeans… look down upon the Brazilians, or rather they wish to consider themselves superior to them.” This attitude provoked continuing anti-Portuguese sentiment among Creole brancos da terra after independence. In this they were joined by blacks and mulattoes, notably in Bahia. This was not an act of nationalist solidarity against Europeans. Rather it reflected the feeling shared by some Africans and AfroBrazilians that Portuguese and Luso-Brazilians were equally guilty of prejudice and discrimination towards Africans and Afro-Brazilians.15 If, for European settlers, the distinction between reinol and crioulo was decisive, no less so was the divide between blacks born in Africa and persons of African descent born in Brazil. In each case, to be born in Portugal or in Africa respectively could bestow on that person considerable prestige in Brazil especially when a person was of noble family or, in the case of Africans, of royal lineage. African-born and Portuguese-born and Afro-Brazilians and Luso-Brazilians were acutely conscious of whether a person was born in the Old or New World. This heightened sensibility was accompanied by heavy cultural baggage, a raft of perceptions, and distinctiveness creating social tensions, which could erupt in violence. So sustained was the intensity of the slave trade over three hundred years that the presence of Africans in Brazil was not only assured but, by the eighteenth century, African-born were the single largest sector of the population. This begs the question, how many Africans were slaves and how many had earned their cartas de alforria and thus were part of the freed population. Notwithstanding the many studies of the slave trades— both oceanic and internal to Brazil—it is difficult to answer a key question: how many slaves in colonial Brazil at any given time were African-born as opposed to Brazilian-born? Data on slave imports are incomplete and late eighteenth-century censuses fail to distinguish between African-born and Brazilian-born slaves. Whether African or creole slaves predominated was location-, time-, and economy-specific. Inventories for slave holdings on sugar plantations in the northeast in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries provide conflicting data. Inheritance of estates by Religious Orders and the Company of Jesus probably skewed the slave force in favour of Creoles, making such farms atypical. In the captaincy of São Paulo, whereas in the eighteenth century

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Afro-Brazilians had predominated, from the 1770s through to the 1840s a heavy influx of Africans tilted the scales so that by 1840 Africans predominated. For the city of Rio de Janeiro in the eighteenth century and into the 1830s and 1840s, Sweet and Karasch suggest that African-born slaves predominated among the overall slave population. Reis noted that for Bahia in 1835, “a escravatura era maioritariamente estrangeira”. Whether a growing creole slave force in some places (such as Minas Gerais) and at certain times was attributable to vagaries of supply and demand in the slave trade—both oceanic and internal—or to reproduction, is difficult to determine.16 It may well be that fashions, exchange of information with fellow owners and personal experience led a prospective purchaser to prefer one to the other. To these factors can be added the calculation of a prospective purchaser as to whether the skills and acculturation present in a Creole merited the higher cost, although should an Africa have commensurate specialist skills, the purchase of an Africanborn might represent a “good buy”.17 There was also a health factor. Diseases in Brazil, to which Africans were more susceptible than Creoles, included tuberculosis and dysentery (maculo, possibly schistosomiasis mansoni, locally known as mal-de-bicho). Diseases to which Africans had a weaker defence mechanism could result in mortality rates which were high initially and decreased as the slave became “seasoned”. A prospective owner would have to take into account that there was at least a one in three chance that a slave straight off the ship would be dead within three years. Koster attributed the high mortality of slaves on plantations to impatient owners who rushed “salt-water slaves” into heavy work. He recommended “seasoning” for a minimum of 8–10 months and preferably for a full year from time of arrival.18 Africans might also be physically distinct from the general population of persons of African descent because of scars, cuts, and tattoos. Filed teeth also set Africans apart. These physical differences were documented by the German artist Johann Moritz Rugendas in drawings of African-born in rural and urban settings in nineteenth-century Brazil. African males also carried the scar of circumcision. Slaves from Angola bore the brand of the cross to show that they had been baptized and the appropriate tax had been paid to the Royal Exchequer. Slave traders added their own brands. African males and females had hairstyles distinct from Creoles. Africans and Afro-Brazilians had some cooking practices and recipes in common but there were differences resulting from the availability of foodstuffs: for example, ingredients in Angolan-made vatapá differed from those in the Brazilian version. Africans practiced dietary restrictions and observed taboos unknown to their creole contemporaries. There are eighteenth-

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century references to Angolans and slaves from the Costa da Mina following Mbundu dietary restrictions (kijila, quigila, quizila) and not eating game, fish or shellfish inter alia on pain of being cursed. Karasch has noted how slaves suffered from malnutrition, but that those following an African diet were better nourished than those exposed to a LusoBrazilian one.19 Some languages were spoken widely within a cultural area, others were regional, and others were purely local or were dialects intelligible only to those who spoke similar or cognate languages. There was the case of a Mina slave in eighteenth-century Minas Gerais, referred to as an “escravo bugre”, who was unintelligible even to other Mina slaves. Such linguistic barriers were recognized by Jesuit missionaries, who studied African languages the better to be able to preach the gospel to African slaves. Not only could limited or esoteric linguistic capability result in some Africans being ineligible for occupations which demanded knowledge of Portuguese but it denied them the essential tool of communication to alter or better their condition. On the other hand, provided an African-born’s day-to-day existence was predominantly in an African language speaking context, that person could function with but a perfunctory acquaintance with Portuguese. In 1711 a Jesuit, Antonil, used the term ladino to refer to persons of African birth, or more usually descent, who had a command of Portuguese and had adapted to LusoBrazilian culture. He expressed the view that an African brought to Brazil as an infant or a Brazilian-born slave was worth four boçais (slaves freshoff-the-boat) to an owner.20 For most Africans, other than those transported to Brazil as young children, the linguistic barrier was insuperable to a degree not experienced by Afro-Brazilians attuned to a form of Portuguese since birth. There is a long-standing tradition among immigrants to turn for support, advice, or assistance to those who have immediately preceded them or to persons born in the new land but who still wholly or partially maintain links with the land of their ancestors. In some cases, the cry for help by the newly arrived was answered but in others they became vulnerable victims of ruthless exploitation by those who had preceded them. While the intra-African phases of capture and enslavement, be it in the initial rounding up, transportation to the coast, corralling and sale, have been well documented and show the cruelty inflicted by Africans and mulattoes on the future slaves, there is minimal information on the reaction by persons of African descent already in Brazil to Africans at the time of disembarkation in Brazilian ports and in the immediate aftermath. Mattoso has referred to “senior slaves” engaged in this process of the

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adaptation, “resocialization” and integration of salt-water slaves into AfroBrazilian as well as Luso-Brazilian mores, behaviours and cultures. However, the only reference I have found took the form of a royal order of 1702 in which the king recommended to the governor-general that ladinos, persons of African descent who had become acculturated through residence in Brazil but who still had a command of native African languages, be used as interpreters and catechists for salt-water slaves. This proposal was rejected by the archbishop of Salvador and by prelates of the religious orders and does not appear to have been discussed by the secular authorities. Karasch has an excellent description of slave arrivals in Rio de Janeiro in the early nineteenth century, but there is no reference to an African or Afro-Brazilian presence in this process other than in shaving the heads and beards of the newly arrived. This action could have been taken for reasons of personal hygiene but, according to Marcos Magalhães de Aguiar, the cutting of someone’s hair or beard was a very strong symbolic act associated with humiliating or dishonouring that person. In the case of a newly arrived African such an act could have been a reminder that henceforth he would be subject to the control and whims of an owner.21 In fact, it is more likely that, after purchase, owners and overseers would have intervened to prevent any such association until such time as they had asserted their own authority and power over their new acquisitions. There is ample reason to believe that, on a one-to-one basis, Africans and Afro-Brazilians worked alongside each other amicably and that there was social interaction, sexual coupling and stable personal relations between persons of each group. Africans and Afro-Brazilians, both slave and free, worked in commerce, marketing, agriculture, mining, ranching, construction, porterage and in the artisan “mechanical trades”, shared challenges and took advantage of opportunities. Female slaves, regardless of place of birth, were primarily engaged in domestic contexts (cooking, fetching water, cleaning, laundering, starching and ironing clothes, as seamstresses and weavers, and in looking after the children of their owners), as licensed or illegal peddlers or sellers (negras de tabuleiro) of cooked foods and drinks. They might also be concubines, mistresses or prostitutes. Occupation was often linked to skills. On plantations Creoles were more likely to be working in the “big house” or in managerial positions and African slaves as cane cutters or in menial and sometimes dangerous tasks. However, there were instances of African slaves becoming mestres de açúcar. Africans (especially males) often did not acquire the skills required to give them access to specialized occupations and as a result they tended to be used for heavy labour such as porterage or

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transportation. One skilled occupation in which male slaves (especially Angolans) were prominent was that of barber-surgeons (barbeiros), while some female slaves became licensed midwives. A comparison of occupations of free and freed Africans and Afro-Brazilians in Bahia and Minas Gerais shows little variation between the two groups.22 Moreover, both Africans and Afro-Brazilians resorted to flight and were present in quilombos.23 Nevertheless there are references in documentation as diverse as municipal records, notarial registers, crown and vice regal correspondence, and gubernatorial decrees, in the archives of brotherhoods of persons of African descent, and in travellers’ accounts to attest to tension between the two groups. Part of this was attributable to differing expectations by owners of their slaves. Creole slaves were expected to meet higher standards of loyalty, obedience, and responsibility. Koster noted that creole slaves “bear the yoke of slavery with impatience” and that their discontent was aggravated by the high visibility of free and freed Creoles, who served as a constant reminder of their own servile status. He continued: “The Africans do not feel this [discontent], for they are considered by their creole brethren in colour, as being so completely inferior, that the line which by public opinion has been drawn between them, makes the imported slave feel toward the Creoles as if they had not been originally of the same stock”.

Some Creoles of African descent despised Africans as primitive and untrained in the ways of the New World. The word boçal referred to a “salt-water slave” or an African slave “fresh-off-the-boat”. It was used by white slave owners in Brazil to characterize newly arrived slaves as being devoid of language skills in Portuguese and of culture, rough and clumsy and, by extension, stupid.24 When used by Creoles of African descent to refer to African slaves it carried much the same negative connotation but also that (from an Afro-Brazilian perspective) the newly arrived slaves were primitive. In the mouth of an Afro-Brazilian, the term boçal revealed the divide, which Afro-Brazilians saw (or reassured themselves existed) between themselves and the new comers and was an expression of the Creoles’ wish to distance themselves from Africans. Koster distinguished between creole blacks and creole mulattoes. He referred to “creole negroes” as a “numerous and valuable race of men…. a tree of African growth which has thus been transplanted, cultivated, and much improved by its removal to the New World”. He considered them “handsome persons, brave and hardy” who felt no uncertainty as to their

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identity because “creole Negroes stand alone and unconnected with any other race of men.” This “impossibility of being mistaken for members of any other cast” had the effect of uniting creole blacks. However, Koster ascribed to free or freed mulattoes an ambiguity as to their identity “because of their connection with men who are in a state of slavery, and that many persons even of their own colour are under these degraded circumstances”. He concluded that mulattoes “always have a feeling of inferiority in the company of white men.”25 Unspoken was the possibility that, whereas on grounds of colour, mulattoes might feel inferior to whites but superior to Africans and to creole prêtos, some of their antipathy toward creole blacks and Africans could be attributable to the mulattoes’ realization not only that their position was ambiguous in racial terms and even as regard legal status but also that there was no single culture or language which they could call their own and which would have given them a cultural identity. Unambiguous was the fact that they were American-born. Linguistic shortcomings could make Africans objects of derision for Afro-Brazilians. This was part of a broader pattern of antagonism by AfroBrazilians towards Africans. Afro-Brazilians took steps to lessen their being mistakenly identified as Africans. Afro-Brazilian slave women consciously dressed themselves, adopted hair styles, and wore jewellery not merely as indicators of status but also to distinguish themselves from African women. In early nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro, crioulas and mulatas wore mantillas to set themselves apart from African slaves.26 There were examples of overt antagonism and public stigmatization by Afro-Brazilians of Africans as being untrustworthy.27 This attitude of Afro-Brazilians was shared by settlers and Portuguese officials and was directed not only against African persons but against any object, ritual, or practice overtly African. That Africans spoke a variety of languages, and even Arabic, made Portuguese and Luso-Brazilians feel threatened and apprehensive, which could lead to a disproportionate level of response. Two groups of Africans, in particular, caused mixed reactions among Afro-Brazilians and colonists of Portuguese descent. These Africans must be considered in the context of a Brazil which was a place where different cultural traditions, rituals and skills converged. The line between mediation, communication, and healing was blurred but persons with these capabilities or skills were highly esteemed. Africans, Afro-Brazilians and even Portuguese sought out their services or intervention. While there were creole diviners and healers (calundeiros), Africans were held in higher regard. Diviners who could use their powers to request intervention by a god and even the presence of a god or goddess at a ceremony, and

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healers whose modi operandi were based on spirit or human possession, were vulnerable to being stigmatized as malevolent feiticeiros practising witchcraft and came to the attention of the Inquisition as doing the work of the Devil. In the area of technical knowledge, Africans with knowledge of mining and metallurgy were especially prized. However, African slaves versed in gold mining and metallurgy were suspected of debasing gold dust and coins and were duly punished by the civil authorities, who nevertheless ascribed to them special powers in finding gold.28 Relations between Africans and Afro-Brazilians raise a set of largely unanswered questions. Was this antagonism towards Africans more keenly felt by free or freed Afro-Brazilians than by their slave contemporaries born in Brazil? Did Afro-Brazilian slaves have antipathy towards African slaves, or did the circumstance of being slaves create bonding, regardless of place of birth? What role did gender play in such relationships? Did Afro-Brazilian slave women have empathy for African slave women? To what factor or combination of factors should the historian attribute the preference for endogamy among Africans in the choice of a marriage partner? That tensions, and even antagonism, existed between Africans and Afro-Brazilians, and that these were played out in their public and in their private lives and spaces, there is no doubt. Two European travellers to early nineteenth-century Brazil commented perceptively on the relationship between Creoles and Africans. The French botanist Auguste de Saint-Hilaire wrote of his conversation with an African slave who remarked that creole women despised blacks from Costa da Mina and that the feeling was reciprocated. Creoles tended to marry Creoles rather than contracting mixed marriages. Koster noted the existence of a “line which by public opinion has been drawn” between Africans and Creoles.29 The written record substantiates place of birth as setting Africans apart from Afro-Brazilians but further research is necessary in order to weigh place of birth against such physical factors as age, colour and gender, and cultural factors such as religion, language skills and ethnicity, and to tease out the various components in the antagonism and antipathy between AfroBrazilians and Africans. This distrust and antagonism was played out in an institutional framework. Most officers and probably the preponderance of soldiers of the regiments of the Henriques, were Afro-Brazilians: some had been born free, others manumitted. The five persons of African descent who distinguished themselves against the Dutch in Pernambuco and Salvador, and were awarded knighthoods in the Order of Christ and Order of Santiago, were all born in Brazil. In late colonial Salvador, officers of the Henriques were integrated into an Afro-Brazilian elite which included

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members of governing bodies of black and mulatto Catholic brotherhoods and the more prominent black and mulatto artisans. To be a soldier in a militia regiment, or certified in a “mechanical trade” and thus eligible to practice one’s trade in one’s own shop, or an elected member of a brotherhood (which included female participation and office-holding), bestowed social prestige on that person among his/her contemporaries of African descent. In Minas Gerais, tradesmen were well represented among the soldiers in pardo militia regiments. Africans were not formally excluded by decree or statute, but such formal exclusion would have been redundant. The social reality was that they were far less likely than were Creoles to have the requisite qualifications to make them eligible and, if they were eligible, they did not have access to the social network in the Afro-Brazilian community whose support and trust they would have needed to become full participants in guilds or militia companies. In fact, in 1756 the Creoles of the regiment of the Henriques in Salvador petitioned the king protesting the establishment of a regiment of the Henriques in Pernambuco. This was because the Pernambucan regiment was made up of Minas whom the Creoles disparagingly referred to as being an “infecta nação” and untrustworthy. Even in collective cultural activities—participation as singers, instrumentalists or even conductors in choral groups or at celebrations to honour a crown judge or governor—and which involved musical divertissements and even operas, the performers were usually mulattoes or Creoles.30 The absence of a support network, and of skills which would have facilitated integration, had other ramifications. The proclivity for, and incidence of, flight was higher among African than Afro-Brazilian slaves. The motivation varied. Africans were more likely to flee as individuals and not as family groups as was often the practice of Creoles seeking to preserve a relationship or the integrity of a family unit. Africans were especially prone to flight during the brutal “seasoning” period when they would be subject to severe punishment to break their independent will until they showed obedience and conformed to an overseer’s or owner’s wishes. However, Africans’ incidence of success was substantially lower for reasons already discussed: lack of language skills; lack of familiarity with prevailing customs; and lack of contacts to give them access to information, a support network, and “safe houses”. The absence of a support system was critical. There was no guarantee that they would be accepted into a quilombo other than as slaves. Africans might form a short-lived and small calhambola but here again their lack of “savvy” made them more vulnerable to capture than Creoles.

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Lack of acculturation, lack of skills, and lack of familiarity with ‘the system’ also led to Africans being less likely than Afro-Brazilians to be manumitted. Place of birth was but one factor in a highly complex series of considerations which included the occupational context, gender, age, and health of a potential manumittee. In the cities and towns of colonial Brazil, the fact that they were largely unskilled made African males less useful to an owner. This could lead owners to rent them out as escravos de ganho. One activity in which African male slaves were prominent was in porterage: teams (cantos) of four or six slaves were hired out as a work gang. Contemporary iconography records them carrying enormous barrels suspended from poles born on their shoulders. Among African women in urban and rural settings in Brazil, the combination of skills derived from their multiple roles in Africa—reproduction, responsibility over all domestic matters, planting and harvesting of crops, marketing, and membership of women’s trading societies—made them not only desirable for labour but also, at the behest of an owner, for marketing activities to which some brought experience of leadership, organization and skills in negotiation. The seamy side of such activities by female slaves was that they might be forced by an owner to engage in prostitution or in contraband and black market activities. When arrested by municipal authorities, owners feigned ignorance of such irregularities. By the unsupervised nature of their domestic duties, female African slaves had greater opportunities than their male counterparts to interact with AfroBrazilian slaves in definable locations such as the fountain, well or river when getting water, in areas designated for washing clothes, and in the market place. As such, they had greater potential access to information and were part of an informal African and Afro-Brazilian communication network which could be invaluable to them in acquiring the wherewithal to make an offer to an owner but also in negotiation over manumission. Be they male or female, African slaves faced major challenges in colonial Brazil. Some were attributable to their “outsider” status vis-à-vis the Afro-Brazilian slave community and to the fact that they had fewer integrative institutions and vehicles available to them. The strong bond, known as malungo, which developed among slaves transported on the same vessel may also have served to isolate Africans from other persons of African descent in the colony.31 Yet to be determined is the degree to which slaves newly disembarked in Brazilian ports became part of a group of forced immigrants of African birth who, regardless of ethnic or tribal origins, formed a common bond between themselves separate from the Brazilian macrocosm which included Afro-Brazilians as well as Portuguese and Luso-Brazilians.32 Historians are uncertain how Africans

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identified themselves prior to transportation to the New World, what changes in the way that they saw themselves or in relation to others may have occurred during the passage, and how they identified themselves or were identified by others after disembarkation in a Brazilian port.33 Religion has the potential for providing a physical and spiritual meeting place not only for like-minded persons but for those from disparate ways of life. For Africans and Brazilian-born persons of African descent, religion provided solace and strength. The sacred town of Ile-Ife was the ceremonial centre for the Yoruba religion, which gave a religious and cultural identity to hundreds of thousands of Africans transported from Central Africa to Brazil. Others were adherents of Islam. And still others were adherents of a variety of African traditional religions. Some Africans, notably in Congo and in Angola, had been exposed to some form of Christianity, but to see these as being specially selected for transportation to America requires a leap of faith.34 Mass baptisms in Africa prior to embarkation did not bestow an instant understanding of Christian dogma, beliefs, or rituals. In fact, they probably caused fear or total confusion in recipients. The intensity of the trade guaranteed the continuation of this sorry state of affairs. African slaves who had come to Brazil as children or who wished publicly and spiritually to affirm their commitment to Catholicism might choose as adults to be baptized. Owner indifference and oversight led to a failure to baptize many Brazilian-born slaves.35 Regardless of whether an African indigenous religion, Islam or Christianity was exclusively present, or co-existed in the same person in equally strongly held but distinctive faiths, or in syncretic formulations or reformulations, religion was inalienable from African cosmology, rituals, cultures, kingship and lineages, and permeated into value systems and behaviours.36 The African component of religious rites and beliefs in Brazil, and the degree to which these were forerunners of candomblé and other African and Afro-Brazilian religions, remains speculative prior to the late eighteenth century, as does the degree of participation of Africans in rituals and ceremonies exclusive to them. An inquisition record of the 1680s refers to African religious rites in Bahia and there are documented cases for the second half of the eighteenth century, in places as remote from each other as Recife (Pernambuco) and Itaubira (Minas Gerais), of clandestine worship by Africans of African deities with African rituals and in accordance with African beliefs, and with African priests or priestesses in houses specifically dedicated to such practices.37 First generation Americans, namely creole children of slave parents both of whom were African-born, were more likely than African-born persons to be touched by the

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Catholicism. Even more was this likely to be the case of offspring of mixed marriages in which one partner (slave, free or freed) was AfroBrazilian. Whether exposure to Catholicism led to an understanding and adherence, which was substantive or nominal, depended on the individual circumstances. One such individual was Catarina Gonçalves de Miranda, an African-born slave who had been manumitted and lived in the hamlet of Pinheiro in Minas Gerais. In 1774, already well advanced in years, she pressed charges of slander against a pardo lieutenant who had publicly called her a whore, thief, and witch (feiticeira). Of these insults, that which most offended her was to be called feiticeira, because this was tantamount to questioning her faith as a Catholic.38 For Catarina, as for many Africans in Brazil, her Catholic faith was very precious to her, but for the Brazilianborn pardo lieutenant she was African and thus associated with witchcraft. In the colonial period there is no indication that Africans differed from other persons of African descent in their veneration of Our Lady of the Rosary and Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte and saints such as Santa Efigênia, São Benedito (St. Benedict the Moor), Santo Elesbão, Santo Antônio de Catagerona, São Balthazar, and São Gonçalo. Some saints may have resonated more than others with African beliefs and were simply incorporated by Africans in Brazil as yet another charm to bring good fortune and ward off evil whereas Creoles would have been less likely to see an image other than as a Catholic saint. Some saints themselves were associated with persecution and physical duress and thus were thought to be made empathetic to the conditions of slaves in Brazil.39 Our Lady of the Rosary came to be associated by Africans with Iemanjá, goddess of the sea. The words “reverence” and “veneration” may be inappropriate to describe an embrace by Africans of such saints and even of the Virgin Mary, which not merely bordered on the physical but was carnal and even sexual. In Portugal there were precedents for this carnalization and even sexualisation in the veneration for, and depiction in carved statues of, Nossa Senhora do Leite and of Nossa Senhora do Ó. This veneration was tantamount to the inclusion of a saint within the African family with human character traits and physical attributes, strengths and shortcomings. To see black saints on an altar in a chapel of a brotherhood of AfroBrazilians purely in terms of their being painted black is to miss entirely that these statues transcend iconographic or physical depiction. For their worshipers they are not remote or ethereal but readily accessible. Actions, words, and deeds which were sacrilegious, blasphemous, or tantamount to verbal acts of desecration when viewed from a strictly Catholic perspective, become less symptomatic of rejection of or attack on Christianity when considered in what might almost be a familiar but

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definitely profane context which co-existed with the sacred. In colonial Brazil, persons of African descent—regardless of place of birth, legal standing or skin colour—were motivated to establish brotherhoods whose statutes and functions were closely modelled on those in Portugal. Dominican missionaries promoted the veneration of Our Lady of the Rosary and the Crown was supportive of the creation of brotherhoods of blacks in Portugal. As John Thornton has shown, a Christian component to religion was present in the Kongo and elsewhere at an early date. Some Africans may have been aware of brotherhoods created by Catholics for spiritual and charitable ends because there was a brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary in São Tomé in 1526 and elsewhere in Portugueseinfluenced Africa by the end of the sixteenth century.40 Brotherhoods were instruments for both integration and exclusion of Portuguese and LusoBrazilians or of Africans and Afro-Brazilians. At least thirty-five brotherhoods were dedicated to Our Lady and different saints venerated by individuals of African birth and descent in colonial Brazil. Some brotherhoods were local whereas others had affiliates colony-wide. In the captaincy of Minas Gerais alone at least sixty-two branches of Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos have been identified.41 Some, notably those of Our Lady of the Rosary in Minas Gerais, admitted all persons of African birth and descent, free, freed, and slave, and also whites. In Salvador, brotherhoods of the Rosary varied between inclusiveness and exclusiveness.42 Other brotherhoods of persons of African birth or descent were more exclusive and had ethnic, social and even economic criteria for admission. Some excluded slaves. Some admitted members along colour lines—pardos, mulatos, and negros—but with cultural overtones and distinguishing between Africans and crioulos. Other brotherhoods limited their membership to African-born or to Brazilian-born. The statutes of the Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of Blacks in Iguaraçu admitted only blacks, while acknowledging that these could be African-or Brazilian-born. The brotherhood dedicated to Our Lady of Guadelupe, established in Olinda in 1627 admitted only pardos. These could be slave or free but, ipso facto, African-born were effectively excluded. Still other brotherhoods required potential members to meet ethnic or linguistic requirements. In Salvador the Brotherhood of Senhor Bom Jesus das Necessidades e Redenção was limited to Gege (from Dahomey) and the Brotherhood of Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte to Nagô (as Yoruba speakers were known in Bahia) of the Ketu nation. In Cachoeira in the Bahian Recôncavo the Confraria do Senhor Bom Jesus dos Martírios had a pronouncedly Gege membership. Congos might have one church,

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Angolans another, and Afro-Brazilian blacks yet another.43 Or all three groups might have their own altars or chapels within the same church. These examples of the degrees of inclusiveness or exclusion do not answer the specific question of whether or not there were instances of the creation of brotherhoods in colonial Brazil by Africans and exclusively for an African-born membership. My inclination would be to believe that there were not. Instead, more common was the practice of allocating administrative positions between Africans and Creoles with the proviso that only free-born or manumitted persons could serve on the governing board (mesa). Election to the mesa of the Brotherhood of St. Anthony of Catagerona in Salvador was limited to Creoles and blacks born in Angola. For Minas Gerais, Kiddy has noted the “high presence” of crioulos in leadership positions in brotherhoods. Not only did such brotherhoods provide opportunities for leadership by persons of African descent but they also served as a cushion to decrease tension between different sectors of the population of African birth and descent in colonial Brazil and not least of which was between Africans and Afro-Brazilians. Furthermore, in brotherhoods of Africans and Afro-Brazilians, to a markedly higher degree than was the case in their white counterparts, women were prominent numerically and had considerable influence.44 Exclusivity did lessen the potential for conflict between different factions, be these based on differences of skin colour, language, ethnicity, place of origin, or legal status. Relations between branches of the Brotherhood of Nossa Senhora das Mercês, an often exclusive bastion of crioulos, and branches of the Brotherhood dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, which usually had a liberal admissions policy, could be tense. Vila Rica was exceptional in having two branches of each brotherhood within the town. There were various schisms between the two branches of the Mercês and between the branches of the Mercês and the more established and prestigious Brotherhood of the Rosary. In 1763 the Mercês de Baixo expelled two female slaves on the grounds that their admittance had contravened a statute forbidding membership to anybody from Guinea and Luanda. This was the opening salvo in a contentious and protracted dispute with the Brotherhood of the Rosary of the Alto da Cruz, also in Vila Rica. In their petitions to the Crown, brothers of the Mercês insisted on identifying themselves as crioulos. In this, they were setting themselves apart not only from Africans but also pardos, the latter sometimes being admitted as brothers.45 The Brotherhood of the Mercês in Sabará refused admission to all Africans (Etíopes) and restricted membership to “crioulos de cor preta nacionais do reino e conquista de Portugal”. It admitted males who were natives of the Island of São Tomé on the grounds of being

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“similar to us” and African-born women.46 The Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of Blacks (Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Prêtos) in the diamond mining encampment of the Tijuco numbered both Creoles and blacks as members. In 1771, after using words “less than decent, calling this brotherhood one of negroes” the creole brothers forsook the Brotherhood of the Rosary and incorporated themselves as the Brotherhood of Nossa Senhora das Mercês. Their request to return to the chapel of the Rosary was denied by the blacks “because inevitably, either because of hatred or strong feelings of animosity they could never be united and there would be continual wrangling between us Blacks and those creoles”. The statutes of Nossa Senhora das Mercês did allow for admission of “all quality of individuals, even black slaves natives of the Coast of Guinea”. This was challenged by creole members but they were over-ruled by the local magistrate (ouvidor) who judged in favour of the admission of blacks. The creole Brotherhood of the Perdões in Vila Rica was also the object of magisterial displeasure for opposing the admission of African-born. Other branches of Mercês were more flexible in their admissions policies as brothers but did insist on members of the governing body being crioulos. Such admissions policies varied by period and location.47 These actions by the creole brothers, and their evident intent to distance themselves from Africans, can also be seen from a different perspective, namely, the cloak of Catholic orthodoxy in which they swathed themselves and their rejection of any association with, or the remotest taint of, what for them (Afro-Brazilians) had become pagan beliefs or rituals practised by Africans whom they now regarded as primitive. In 1765 the Confraria do Senhor Bom Jesus dos Martírios of the town of Cachoeira in the Bahian Recôncavo made a petition to the Mesa da Consciência e Ordens in Lisbon requesting approval of its statutes. This request was opposed by the ecclesiastical authorities in Salvador, who alleged that the African-born brothers of the Gege nação “have been plucked out of the paganism existing in Africa and always have a propensity for the superstitious”. Some fifteen years later, this time in Recife, similar charges of profane practices were levied against black brotherhoods, whose membership was heavily Mina. It was alleged that some brothers—concurrently with the festival of Our Lady of the Rosary—were secretly worshiping pagan deities with rites more associated with African traditional religions than with Catholicism. It is not clear whether the outrage was provoked by desecration of the festival in honour of Our Lady, and thus also an affront to the brotherhood of which they were members, or to the fact that they were engaging in the worship of

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pagan deities.48 These examples show that brotherhoods, whose membership was predominantly or exclusively of Africans or along ethnic lines, were more vulnerable to charges or perceptions of being suspect in terms of Catholic orthodoxy. So far this chapter has focused on the population of persons of African birth and descent. That this was not monolithic has been emphasized by reference to fault lines between different groups and with special attention to the importance of continent of birth. This has provided the opportunity to highlight the importance of a sector of this population, the African-born, which has not been as closely studied as it deserves. This study has shown that relations between Africans and Afro-Brazilians ranged from open antagonism and hostility to varying degrees of cooperation. Africans and Afro-Brazilians worked out a modus operandi, based on recognition that there was a degree of inter-dependence and that mutual tolerance was essential if they were to coexist. However, there are indications that, among the millions of Africans transported to Brazil over three centuries, some were not signatories, as it were, to this unwritten and unspoken pact of mutual understanding and convivência. Whether it was in reaction specifically to Afro-Brazilians, to Luso-Portuguese, to slavery, to deprivation, poor health, ennui and hopelessness, or a sense of isolation, Africans found ways to withdraw. They fled; they lost the will to live and slowly wasted away; they committed suicide by drowning, hanging, poisoning, and swallowing their tongues. A mother might kill herself and her unborn child to spare the child from a life of slavery. Drowning and hanging from a tree might reflect African beliefs associated with being united with ancestors. One cause of death was banzio or nostalgia for their homeland.49 There were also Africans who opted for life. Perhaps they realized that there was another way to assuage their banzio and fulfill the desire to “go home” to Africa. They chose another form of withdrawal. They rejected assimilative pressures and consciously opted to remain separate from, rather than to be integrated into, the general population of persons of African descent. This minority opted to live, as far as was possible in colonial Brazil, by a set of shared principles based on African values and belief systems and in accordance with customs, behaviours, and personal relationships in a cultural context which was African albeit in an American setting.50 Such a decision lay with the individual. For some, the desire to remain separate from the general population of persons of African descent may have been born of the hostility of Afro-Brazilians towards them. For others, so devastating was separation from natal kin that they were too traumatized to confront the challenge of creating new relationships and a

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network of fictive kin.51 For still others it may have been a response to what they perceived to be insurmountable barriers to integration into a society of persons of African (Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Luso-Brazilian) descent in the colony or hopelessness imposed by the circumstance of being slaves and lacking the instruments to gain their freedom. Some may have recognized the stark reality that a letter of manumission afforded no guarantee of survival or bettering of their condition. And, for some, the decision was the fruit of a conscious rejection of the New World and a decision to continue to live, as far as was possible in Brazil, in the manner to which they had been accustomed: namely, according to African and not creole (Luso-Brazilian, Afro-Brazilian, or Afro-Luso-Brazilian) values, belief systems, personal relationships, and in their dress and patterns of behaviour. The ramifications of this decision played out in various ways. Some Africans used strategies or practised behaviours which underlined how they saw themselves as apart from the population of persons of African descent in Brazil. Language and naming practices are clear indications as to how such persons identified themselves and also how they wished to be identified by others. Use of African languages was a consciously made individual decision but public statement as to how Africans distinguished themselves from Afro-Brazilians. So too was their use of African names in addition to names imposed on them by overseers or owners. Mothers gave African names to their children. The ritual exchanges of gifts, or the Kongo practice of exchanging snuff, between Africans in Brazil also emphasized their distinctiveness. Some used the gesture of greeting associated with Kongo (right hand raised and palm exposed; left down and palm concealed). Others carried this “crossroads gesture” or a cross painted red and black as a talisman. Portuguese and Africans alike had a propensity for carrying on their bodies or wearing around their necks little pouches (bolsas de mandinga) whose contents were regarded as bringing good luck or protecting the wearers from physical or spiritual harm. Amulets worn by Africans were talismans. Some had religious importance associated with traditional African religions or might contain verses from the Koran and Islamic prayers. While the external appearance of bolsas did not distinguish Africans from Afro-Brazilians, the contents might do so. Dress and ornamentation was no less a form of communication than language. African women dressed themselves and ornamented their bodies in ways which set them apart from Afro-Americans. However, unlike the spoken language, which immediately and readily identifies the speaker by origin or culture, dress and ornamentation have the potential to be a coded medium of communication understood only by those to whom it is specifically

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addressed and usually of the same cultural area. The knotting of a headscarf was a marker indicating, for those privy to the code, the status of a woman (single, married, and widowed). For Central Africans, the combination of colours of beads worn around the neck could indicate of which orixá she was the “daughter”. There is less evidence to show that African men adopted a dress or wore bodily decorations, which would serve as cultural markers. Paintings by Carlos Julião, miniatures by Guillobel, and engravings by Rugendas depicted African artefacts, baskets and mats, cuisine, string and percussion instruments, and Africans engaged in song and dance and various occupations.52 This is a timely reminder that, while some practices and behaviours were peculiar to Africans, others were shared by all persons of African descent. The distinction lies in the intent. Whereas for Afro-Brazilians, such practices or behaviours could be the fruit of collective memory or of traditions handed down across several generations and which had taken on iconic or symbolic status, for Africans these were intensely personal markers associated with self-identity and expressions of a decision to create their own cultural space apart from other persons of African descent in a New World. The theme of intention merits further enquiry, and nowhere more so than in the context of overt resistance. Slave uprisings in Bahia between 1807 and 1835 were characterized by the high representation of African-born slaves and correspondingly low participation by AfroBrazilian slaves. Did the motivation among African slaves derive from resistance to the institution and practices of slavery, to a desire for flight, or to a rejection of creole culture in general and the assertion of their vision of themselves as Africans?53 This last points needs elaboration. As there was no single African diaspora, neither was there a single monolithic Africa but one in constant change, reformulation, and revision. Recently, James Sweet has emphasized how Africans used African ritual practices and beliefs and has explored “core beliefs” in the context of religious practices54. While there was permeability between belief systems and organizing principles, for example a sense and practice of hierarchy present in social and political life, in lineage, and in rituals and which transcended ethnic and linguistic differences and was common to more than one cultural areas in Africa, the discussion here is limited to three specific aspects of African society and culture. The first is respect. In Africa respect was accorded to political elites, to religious leaders, to rainmakers, to healers, and to diviners. Seniority, as measured by a variety of criteria, was also central to African political cultures. One such criterion was age. The elderly enjoyed positions of leadership and authority based on their position in age-based hierarchies. Two other criteria were the

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principle of precedence and authority bestowed on first comers to a region. Respect could also be accorded to occupation, with persons working in metal crafts in general and as blacksmiths, in particular in West and Central Africa, enjoying a special status. The second concerns kinship. In Africa, kinship was an instrument to acquire authority and gain resources. African societies reflected a seemingly endless number of reproductive and kinship forms of excruciating complexity. Great importance was given to family formation and to kinship based on affinity as much as consanguinity. Women played important roles for their reproductive capabilities of increasing the lineage, extending kin networks, and contributing to the wealth of a leader as measured by dependents and those who owed service. The third concerns the submergence of the individual to the interests of the group. Thus kinship prescribed the roles and expected behaviour for each individual to benefit the group. Many religious beliefs and practices were oriented as much to the whole society as to the individual. Both magic and witchcraft could be used legitimately or illegitimately depending on whether the motivation lay in the public interest or self-interest. Both found expressions in ritual: animal sacrifice to strengthen bonds between humans and deities; initiation ceremonies to celebrate entry into adulthood with increasing communal responsibilities; and the wearing of amulets to ward off evil spirits, solve communal problems, or provide invulnerability for an individual in battle. These three characteristics of African societies, cultures, and values were not so evident among Afro-Brazilians55 Creoles set a great store by kinship networks, but they could not appreciate the devastation experienced by an African on being torn from the cocoon of natal kinship.56 Is it possible that an explanation for differences and antagonisms between Creoles of African descent and Africans in colonial Brazil may lie in deeply rooted and deeply held convictions and principles present in Africa and not in the Americas? In other words, there was a disconnect. If, for Africans arriving in Brazil, these were inherent to their very ethos, for Afro-Brazilians such tenets were a more distant memory and, with subsequent generations, increasingly part of an orally transmitted history. Generational change is central to this hypothesis. The discussion has focused on that generation of persons born in Africa and transported to the New World. No reference has been made to the next generation, namely their offspring born in Brazil. This is, in part, attributable to demographic data for what was—even in the latter part of the eighteenth century— largely proto-statistical. While there are references to Creoles of African descent, only exceptionally is it possible to establish whether an AfroBrazilian in question is American-born in the first, second or later

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generations. Registers of births or marriages, letters of manumission, wills, and notarial records of purchases, sales or transfer of ownership of properties, or formal complaints against erstwhile business partners, family members or neighbours provide occasional insights. A compelling public expression of private intent is the selection of a partner in marriage. This raises the question as to whether in colonial Brazil an African consciously selected as a partner another African-born rather than an Afro-Brazilian. There were circumstances which militated against such an option. The sex ratio in the oceanic trade has been estimated variously at 2:1, 3:1 or 3:2 in favour of males over females. Thus, the greater the volume of the trade at any time, the greater the disproportion between males and females and the less likely the prospect of an African finding an African female for marriage. In the various intraBrazilian trades, Africans predominated. However, the vagaries of the trades did have an impact on the numerical relationship between African and creole slaves in the population in any given region and thus influenced the process of selection of a partner. Manolo Florentino and José Roberto Góes have convincingly suggested that there is a correlation between a taxa de masculinidade and a taxa de africanidade. This varied by period, by region, between rural and urban areas, by the fluctuations in the prevailing economy, and even in accordance with the size of the slave holdings of an owner. Over the colonial period there were instances of a 90 per cent male predominance among some slave holdings (for example in the mining areas in the first third of the eighteenth century) and, on the other hand, a narrowing of the sexual ratio to a sexual equilibrium among slaves with the same owner. For Minas Gerais, Mariana Dantas has traced demographic changes occurring in slave holdings in Sabará: data for the years 1750–75 show that African male slaves (aged 15–60) predominated; that there was a gender ratio favouring males over females of 7:1; and that male children under 15 and females under 14 made up less than 1 percent of African slaves. She finds an emerging presence of Brazilian-born slaves in the same period among whom the gender ratio was 3:1 and children made up 58 percent of such slaves. By the end of the century, Dantas uses inventories, which show that, a significant increase among African-born slaves notwithstanding, the gender ratio between African-born slaves remained about the same. There was a large percentage increase among Brazilian-born slaves but, in this group, males outnumbered females by a mere 2 percent. The captaincy of São Paulo followed a different trajectory. From 1777 to 1829 there was an enormous influx of African slaves. The result was a substantial increase in the ratio of male to female slaves which distorted the age and sex ratios for Africans.57

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The availability of an African-born partner was, to a large degree, a matter of chance and, demographically, the chances of finding such a partner were lessened by the small pool of female African-born slaves. Even if an African partner were to be available, there was no guarantee that an owner would approve such a union. Furthermore, it was common practice for an owner deliberately to have slaves of different provenanceAfricans of different ethnic groups or Africans and Creoles. This militated against Africans finding a potential partner from the same cultural area in Africa from among slaves in a household. It is difficult to assess what role, if any, the following considerations played in the choice of a partner. Experience showed that African women were more susceptible to diseases present in Brazil than were their creole counterparts. There is evidence to suggest that slave women were more likely, than were free or freed women of African descent, to have children out of wedlock, but here again there is no study of whether such slave women were African or creole. Moreover, illegitimacy carried no stigma. Generally, it has been thought that creole women bore their first child at about age 20 whereas Africans bore their first child 2 years later. New information suggests that these ages should be revised with creole slave women bearing their first child between 14 and 17 years old and Africans between 16 and 19 years. In the case of Africans such a child was likely to have been born out of wedlock and prior to “marriage”. There was also the matter of age at first marriage. Koster suggested 17–18 for men and 14—15 for girls. Could it have been that potential creole partners for an African were already “spoken for”?58 There were also cultural factors. Cultural traditions carried over from Africa—prolonged periods of lactation, sexual abstinence for a proscribed period after childbirth, taboos preventing marriage or sexual intercourse with certain kin and other factors—could result in longer intervals between successive births and thus a lower birth rate among African women than their creole contemporaries.59 There was one powerful circumstance which did argue for the selection of a partner in marriage who was from the same cultural area. This was communication. Dom Pedro de Almeida, governor (1717–21) of the captaincy of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, made three acutely perceptive observations: first, that there was a greater incidence, among slaves arriving in the mining areas than elsewhere, of slaves who had already reached adulthood; secondly, that these were drawn from a variety of language groups, which challenged easy linguistic interaction; and, thirdly, that as adults they did not have the same facility as children to learn a new language. Minas Gerais was demographically atypical in the earlier part of the eighteenth century, but the general inference holds true, that Africans

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sought sexual partners and partners in marriage from among fellow Africans with whom they shared at least one language in common and that there are examples of couples in which each partner was a slave and of African birth and who had stable relationships.60 This makes all the more important and tantalizing the records for four parishes in Rio de Janeiro from the mid-eighteenth century to the end of the colonial period.61 Of 78 married slave couples whose children were baptised in the parish of São José between 1751 and 1758, in 64 cases each partner was African. In 55 of these marriages, each partner was from the same cultural area in Africa. In the 14 marriages in which one partner was a non-African (crioulo, pardo, cabra), in 9 cases the Brazilian-born partner was male. A sample of 129 marriages between slaves registered in the parish of Nossa Senhora da Candelaria between 1751 and 1761 shows that in 93 instances groom and bride were African. In 73 of these 93 marriages, each partner came from the same cultural area of Africa. Of the 36 marriages in which an African did not marry an African, in one case the partner was white and in all other cases partners were Afro-Brazilians (crioulo or pardo). Lest this be regarded as an urban anomaly, a sample (1763–1770) of 22 slave marriages in the rural parish of São Salvador do Mundo de Guaratiba, showed that in 19 instances bride and groom were Africans and from the same cultural area. Only in three marriages was a partner Brazilian-born. These limited data would appear to support the hypothesis that African slaves tended to take as partners in marriage other Africans of like legal status and from the same cultural area of Africa. A sample of 545 marriages in the parish of Engenho Velho between 1764 and 1828 led Mary Karasch to highlight the “high degree of assimilation and conversion attained by some African slaves” as evidenced by the number of Africans who had gained their freedom and subsequently married. These freed Africans tended to select as partners in marriage African women who had also gained their freedom (forras) and who were of the same cultural area or nação as the groom. In short, these limited data suggest that not only did Africans prefer to be endogamous in their choice of a marriage partner, seeking out a fellow African rather than an Afro-Brazilian but, wherever possible, they selected as a partner an individual from their own cultural area in Africa and with similar linguistic skills. While I have suggested that one or other partner was the agent in taking this decision, this does not exclude from consideration the strength of community pressure. The membership of brotherhoods in colonial Brazil shows how strong was the sense of community and identity between persons of different African groupings (Angolan, Costa da Mina, nagô, jeje). These various groups could have exerted pressure on one of

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their number to select as a partner in marriage a person of the same ethnic or linguistic group.62 The data also suggest that, whereas to be creole and either born free or liberto might be seen as a combination likely to increase the pool of potential sexual or marriageable partners, this pool did not include Africans. That language compatibility between prospective partners was a major concern in the selection process does not lessen the cultural dimension which has been succinctly stated by Sweet in addressing the matter of intent: “…the evidence from the parish records suggests that ‘marriage’ was just one more way of crystallizing African ethnic and national alliances, perpetuating shared understandings of kinship, child rearing, and so on”.63

Quite so. The decision by an African to marry an African was taken consciously. It was an affirmation by each party of his and her adherence to African core principles. Since procreation was central to such core values and principles, this decision also reflected the shared intent to bring up any offspring, albeit creole by circumstance of place of birth, in accordance with African rather than American values. It was not only Africans who felt an urge to preserve African rituals. In a slave community in Bahia Brazilian-born mulatto women assumed leadership roles in the celebration of calundús as a manifestation of Central African beliefs, religious rituals and spirit possession, using African musical instruments, and an African language.64 Was African community or parental pressure such that children, who were first generation Creoles by birth but Africans by nurturing and culture, themselves selected as their partners in marriage persons also of African birth? If so, did the same pressures lead subsequent generations to show a sustained preference for persons of African birth rather than Creoles as partners? In his Compendio Narrativo do Peregrino da America (1728), the Portuguese Nuno Marques Pereira referred to the quijila as being passed from generation to generation: “Quizila is an explicit pact which these peoples make with the devil. The human partner derives some physical benefit from this agreement, such as good fortune in war, in hunting, in farming, etc……. This quizila, or pact, by tradition passes to the sons and daughters, to the grandsons and granddaughters, and their descendants. However, since they were not parties to the original pact, for them it is implicit rather than explicit”.

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Here, Pereira was referring to Africans from Angola and the Costa da Mina transported to Brazil and their descendants, and illustrating the intergenerational nature of such beliefs or superstitions, although as a good Catholic, Pereira took pains to note that baptism and confession could free descendants from any such pact. Was this community pressure effective only on the first generation of creole offspring, or also on further generations when self-identity as a Creole and Brazilian-born may have come to predominate over considerations of ethnicity derived from African antecedents? This question remains unanswered although, tantalizingly, Karasch comments that African freedmen in Brazil, in default of an African freedwoman, would choose as a partner “blacks or children of African parents”.65 This brings the discussion full cycle and highlights the dilemma of the historian. Whereas the historical record contains fragments of evidence that support a thesis that African behaviours, practices, and rituals existed in a creole society, documentary sources are woefully lacking when it comes to values, core beliefs, and guiding principles.

Conclusion In the historiography on peoples of the African diasporas in the Americas the heterogeneity of such diasporas is often discussed in terms of tribal, ethnic, linguistic and cultural differences. This chapter has suggested that to these and other differences must be added the critically important circumstance of continent of birth. To be born in Africa or in Brazil exposed an individual to a totally different context. In the African case to the fore was a strong religious component which itself provides evidence of a diversity of religions, each of which had its own belief systems, rituals, and ceremonies. Polytheism and monotheism co-existed. Complex and varied forms of kinship were equally omnipresent. There were unwritten but prescribed expectations as to behaviour and to the role of the individual in a community. There were organizing principles, value systems, and priorities which guided individuals and whole communities. There were Afro-Brazilians who, for their own physical well-being and even survival had to accommodate themselves to beliefs, practices, and rituals, to the Portuguese language, to European forms of family structures, and to expectations of behaviour which were European rather than American. Whatever beliefs and values Afro-Brazilians may have held, whatever their feelings of joy and sadness, whatever aspirations they entertained, if these deviated too much from the gamut of expectations held by the Portuguese, or if they were expressed or voiced in a manner or

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language alien to Portuguese eyes or ears, such beliefs, values, emotions, hopes and fears had to be held secretly or expressed clandestinely or not at all. Peculiar to Brazil was a form of slavery unknown in Africa and which was accompanied by a starkly legal distinction between slaves and nonslaves. In Brazil skin colour could stigmatize even free or freed individuals as descendants of slaves. Regardless of the degree to which some Africans became acculturated, or Creoles could create an Afro-Luso-Brazilian culture or even an Afro-Brazilian culture, there were to persist stark differences between the Old World and the New World. For Africans, the volume of a slave trade which was as constant in its massive volume as it was enduring and whose numbers so clearly outnumbered any Portuguese emigration to Brazil meant that persons of African birth or descent were in a majority in many regions of the colony throughout the colonial period. Of these a large proportion was always made up of Africans “fresh-off-the-boat”. Series of waves of displaced humanity ensured the constant presence in Brazil of a population for whom Africa was their birthplace and not merely a memory. It also ensured that this population remained as “the other” for some AfroBrazilians and that this sentiment would be reciprocated. Self-evidently, Africans had beliefs, values, rituals and taboos, languages and practices which were African and many of which set them apart from AfroBrazilians. Portuguese institutions, Catholicism, language, laws and decrees, social organization and, above all, the institution of slavery, its implementation and its many ramifications which left no person in colonial Brazil untouched, served further to create distance between Africans and Afro-Brazilians. All Africans in Brazil had been moved in spatial terms but in other regards some remained Africans. In Brazil, the physical and cultural space Africans and Afro-Brazilians occupied was frequently not of their own choosing. Sometimes, they created a shared physical and cultural space. Sometimes, each created its own space.66 The circumstance of place of birth served both to unite and to divide persons of African descent in the New World as it had in the Old World.

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Notes 1

I wish to acknowledge my debt and my thanks to Professors Philip Morgan and Ronald Walters for sharing their knowledge of Atlantic and American history with me and to Professors Sara Berry, Philip Curtin and Igor Kopytoff who directed me to readings in African history. 2 Pierre Verger, Flux et reflux de la traite des nègres entre le golfe de Bénin et Baia de todos os santos du dix-septième au dix-neuvième siècle, (Mouton: The Hague, 1968); Note sur le culte des Orisa et Vodoun à Bahia: la Baie de tous les saints au Brésil et l’ancienne Côte des Esclaves en Afrique, (Mémoire de l’Institut Français d’Afrique Noire: Dakar, 1957) and (Swets and Zeitlinger: Amsterdam, 1970); A.J.R. Russell-Wood, ‘A projeção da Bahia no império ultramarino português’, Anais do lV Congresso de História da Bahia: vol. 1, Instituto Geográfico e Histórico da Bahia/ Fundação Gregório de Matos (Salvador, 2001), pp.81–122; Kim Butler, Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won. Afro-Brazilians in PostAbolition São Paulo and Salvador, (Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, 1998), pp.142–45 passim; and essays in Kristin Mann and Edna G. Bay, editors, ‘Rethinking the African Diaspora. The Making of a Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil’, special issue of Slavery and Abolition, April 2001, 22, 1. 3 An overview of this historiography is in A.J.R. Russell-Wood, Slavery and Freedom in Colonial Brazil, (Oneworld Press: Oxford, 2002), pp.6–21. See also Russell-Wood, ‘Brazilian Archives and Recent Historiography on Colonial Brazil’, Latin American Research Review, 36, 1, pp.75–105 and the historiographical epilogue to his Libertos e Escravos no Brasil Colonial, (Editora Record: Rio de Janeiro, 2005). 4 Mary C. Karasch, ‘Central African Religious Tradition in Rio de Janeiro’, Journal of Latin American Lore, 1979, 5,2, pp.233–53; Mary C. Karasch, Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1850, (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1987); Joseph C. Miller, Way of Death. Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730–1830), (University of Wisconsin Press: Madison, 1988); John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1680, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1992); A.J.R. Russell-Wood, ‘The African Background to the History of Portuguese America’, Colóquio, Construção e Ensino da História de Africa. Actas, (Linopazas: Lisbon, 1995), pp.109–24; Paul E.Lovejoy, ‘The African Diaspora: Revisionist Interpretations of Ethnicity, Culture and Religion under Slavery’, Studies in the World History of Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation, 2, 1997, pp.1–23; Michael A. Gomez, ‘African Identity and Slavery in the Americas’, Radical History Review, 1999, 75, pp.111–20; James H. Sweet, Recreating Africa. Culture, Kinship and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441–1770, (University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 2003). 5 Russell-Wood, Slavery and Freedom, pp.40–41, 52, 67–9; on vileza see also Russell-Wood, ‘Charles Boxer’s use of literary sources for the study of race relations in the State of Brazil and Maranhão’, Portuguese Studies, 21, 2005, especially pp.170–71.

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For examples of slave owners of slaves, see Kathleen J. Higgins, “Licentious Liberty” in a Brazilian Gold-Mining Region. Slavery, Gender, and Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Sabará, Minas Gerais, (Pennsylvania State University Press: University Park Pa, 1999), pp. 40–41; Karasch, Slave Life, pp.343–44. 7 C.R. Boxer, The Golden Age of Brazil, 1695–1750, (University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962) pp. 4–5, 46–7, 153–54. For contemporary physical and moral stereotyping of slaves by African place of origin, see André João Antonil, Cultura e Opulência do Brasil por suas drogas e minas, French translation with critical commentary by Andrée Mansuy, (Institut des hautes études de L’ Amérique Latine: Paris,1968), book 1, chap. 9; Henry Koster, Travels in Brazil, 2 vols, (Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown: London, 1817) vol 2, pp.252–56; see also Gerald Cardoso, Negro Slavery in the Sugar Plantations of Veracruz and Pernambuco, 1550–1680. A Comparative Study, (University Press of America: Washington, DC, 1983), pp.30, 44–45. For criminality by identifiable ethnic groups, gender and civil status in selected regions of Minas Gerais in the eighteenth century, see Marcos Magalhães de Aguiar, Negras, Minas Gerais: Uma história da diáspora Africana no Brasil colonial. Ph.D dissertation, Departamento de História da Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas da Universidade de São Paulo (São Paulo, 1999), pp.105–25. 8 Decree of 28 November 1719, Arquivo Publico Mineiro, Secretaria do governo (hereafter APMSG), vol.4, fols.238–39; Luís dos Santos Vilhena, Recopilação de notícias soteropolitanas e brasilicas, 2 vols (Salvador, 1922), vol 1, p.135. 9 Stuart B. Schwartz, Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society. Bahia, 1550–1835, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1985), p.331െ2, 410; and Schwartz, ‘The Manumission of Slaves in Colonial Brazil: Bahia, 1684– 1745’, The Hispanic American Historical Review, 1974, 54, 4, pp.603–35; Karasch, Slave Life, pp.335–62; Higgins, “Licentious Liberty”, pp.145–74; Magalhães de Aguiar, Negras Minas Gerais, chap. 1. American-born slaves were preferred over African-born for training for specialist positions and managerial responsibilities on sugar plantations. As such, they were more likely to be manumitted than field hands: Schwartz, Sugar Plantations, pp.156–76, 330. For a bibliographical overview, see Russell-Wood, Slavery and Freedom in Colonial Brazil, pp.xvii–xxvi and pp.27–49. 10 For contemporary assessments of mulattoes, see Antonil, Cultura e opulência, bk. 1, chap. 9; Vilhena, Recopilação de notícias, vol.1, pp.46 and 139; and the 1765 comment by the interim governors of Bahia cited by Carlos B. Ott, Formação e evolução étnica da Cidade do Salvador, 2 vols, (Prefeitura Municipal: Salvador, 1955, 1957), vol.2, pp.111–14. 11 “o parecer tinha praticamente o mesmo peso que o ser na sociedade colonial” in Eliana M. R. Goldschmidt, Convivendo com o pecado na sociedade colonial paulista, 1719–1822, Annablume (São Paulo, 1998), p.10. I am indebted to my colleague Bill Rowe for his insights into the interplay between genealogy and phenotype.

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A. C. de C.M. Saunders, A Social History of Black Slaves and Freedmen in Portugal, 1441–1555 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1982), pp. xii–xiii. 13 The term emboaba was used by paulistas to refer to anyone not a paulista. This included persons from Portugal and the Atlantic islands. Taunay was inconclusive on the etymology. A recent ascription is to the Tupi mbo’aba signifying “aggressor”. Citing the Codex Costa Matoso (1749–52), Boxer wrote (Golden Age, p.62, n.2): “my own preference is for the eighteenth century sources which define emboaba as meaning a bird with feathered legs, whence the term was applied in derision to the newcomers from Europe and the coast who wore protective covering for their legs and feet.” See “emboaba” in Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa, (Editora Objetiva: Rio de Janeiro, 2004). 14 On africano see Mieko Nishida, Slavery and Identity. Ethnicity, Gender and Race in Salvador, Brazil, 1808–1888, (Indiana University Press: Bloomington & Indianapolis), pp.16–17. See ‘crioulo’, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea da Academia das Ciencias de Lisboa, (Academia das Ciencias/Editorial Verbo: Lisbon, 2001); ‘Criole’, Oxford English Dictionary; and ‘crioulo’, Dicionário Houaiss. For discussion of this lexicon, see Karasch, Slave Life, pp.4–10. 15 Koster, Travels in Brazil, vol.2, p.203. See Maria Graham’s comment (1821): “The European Portugueze are extremely anxious to avoid intermarriage with born Brazilians…” Journal of a Voyage to Brazil and Residence there during part of the years 1821, 1822, 1823, (Longman: London, 1824), p.126. On colonial birth being an impediment, see C.R.Boxer, Portuguese Society in the Tropics. The Municipal Councils of Goa, Macao, Bahia, and Luanda, 1510–1800, (University of Wisconsin Press: Madison and Milwaukee, 1965), pp.64, 87–8, 94. For the situation in Bahia, see João José Reis, Rebelião escrava no Brasil. A história do levante dos Males, 1835. 2nd ed., (Editora Brasiliense: São Paulo, 1987), pp.40–53. 16 Sweet, Recreating Africa, pp. 24–29. Creole predominance on clerical plantations persisted into the nineteenth century: Koster observed that the labour force of some 100 slaves on the Benedictine plantation of Jaguaribe was all creole, Travels, vol.2, p.263. For Minas Gerais, see Laird W. Bergad, Slavery and the Demographic and Economic History of Minas Gerais, Brazil, 1720–1888, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1999), p.130 passim; Francisco Vidal Lima and Herbert S. Klein, Slavery and the Economy of São Paulo, 1750–1850, (Stanford University Press: Stanford, 2003), pp.133–57; Mariana L. R. Dantas, Black Townsmen: A Comparative Study of Persons of African Origin and Descent in Slavery and Freedom in Baltimore, Maryland, and Sabará, Minas Gerais, 1750–1810, Ph.D dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 2003, pp.126–36; James H. Sweet, ‘Manumission in Rio de Janeiro, 1749–54: An African Perspective’, Slavery and Abolition, 2003, 24, 1, pp.55–58; Karasch, Slave Life, p.8; Reis, Rebelião escrava, pp.14–17. 17 Katia M de Queirós Mattoso, To Be a Slave in Brazil, 1550–1888, (Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, 1986), pp.63–81; Bergad, Slavery, pp.160–220.

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Koster, Travels in Brazil, vol. 2, p.276; Karasch, Slave Life, pp.131–32, 146–84; Dauril Alden and Joseph C. Miller, ‘Out of Africa: The Slave Trade and the Transmission of Smallpox to Brazil, 1560–1830’, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 1987, 18, 2, pp.95–224. 19 Maurice Rugendas, Voyage pittoresque dans le Brésil, Traduit de l‘allemand par Mr. le Golbery, (Mulhouse, Engelman & Cie: Paris, 1853); Karasch, Slave Life, p.224; Sweet, Recreating Africa, pp.34–5. Koster, Travels in Brazil, vol. 2, pp.238–39; on diet and taboos, see Nuno Marques Pereira, Compêndio narrativo do peregrino da América [1728]. 7th edition, (Academia Brasileira de Letras: Rio de Janeiro,1988), vol. 1, pp.155–56, and, on the etymology of quizila, see Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa. 1st reprint with revisions, (Editora Objetiva, Lda.: Rio de Janeiro, 2004); Sweet, Recreating Africa, pp.175–6; and Karasch, Slave Life, pp.138–45, 230–31. 20 Russell-Wood, Slavery and Freedom, pp. 80–1, 115, 130; Sweet, Recreating Africa, pp.198–99; Antonil, Cultura e Opulência, book 1, chap.9. 21 Such initiatives were in the religious context, Russell-Wood, Slavery and Freedom, pp.80–1, 130–31. Karasch’s description is for Rio de Janeiro, Slave Life, pp.36–44. Mattoso is referring to the ‘seasoning’ phase, Being a slave, p.90, as too is Karasch, Slave Life, pp.219–21; Magalhães de Aguiar, Negras Minas Gerais, p.141. 22 Nicolau, a creole slave, was in charge of the Benedictine plantation of Jaguaribe. The friars approved his freeing his wife and children but his offer of two slaves to replace him so that he too could be freed was rejected on the grounds that he was indispensable to the smooth operation of Jaguaribe. Koster, Travels, vol. 2, pp.266–67. Barbeiros were ambulatory and some had permanent employment. Licences stated “que ele possa sangrar, sarjar, lançar venosas, e sanguessugas”, Russell-Wood, Fidalgos and Philanthropists. The Santa Casa da Misericórdia of Bahia, 1550–1755, (University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968), p.280. See Karasch, Slave Life, pp.202–3. Maria Beatriz Nizza da Silva, História da família no Brasil colonial, (Nova Fronteira: Rio de Janeiro, 1998), pp.173–4; Dantas, Black Townsmen, pp.173–179, 309–15. 23 Palmares counted a “heterogeneous creole population”. R. N. Anderson, ‘The Quilombo of Palmares: A New Overview of a Maroon State in SeventeenthCentury Brazil’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 1996, 28, 3, p.565. 24 Antonil, Cultura e opulência do Brasi, livro 1. 25 Koster, Travels, vol. 2, pp.261–62, 216–17, and 208–9. Mattoso, To be a Slave, pp.93, 204–209. See ‘boçal’ in Dicionário Houaiss. My colleague Ronald Walters brought to my attention the current term “FOB” (“Fresh-off-the-boat”) with a similarly derogatory connotation. See http: //www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fob. 26 Karasch, Slave Life, p.222–3. 27 Horácio Gutiérrez, ‘Crioulos e africanos no Paraná, 1798–1830’, Revista Brasileira de História, (São Paulo-ANPUH), 1988, 8, pp.161–88.

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There was a similar reaction to the speaking of Roma by gypsies forbidden by law (1647), by municipal edict and viceroys, see Russell-Wood, Fidalgos and Philanthropists, p.243. This fear was also reflected in official reticence to arm slaves, see Higgins, “Licentious Liberty”, pp.192–95. For reaction to African ‘magic’ in Portugal, see Didier Lahon, ‘Inquisição, pacto com o demônio e “magia” Africana em Lisboa no século XV111’, Topoi, 2004, 5, 8, pp.9–70. For Brazil, see Karasch, Slave Life, pp.262–67; Laura de Mello e Souza, O diabo e a terra de Santa Cruz. Feitiçaria e religiosidade popular no Brasil colonial, (Companhia das Letras: São Paulo, 1986), pp.157–83, 194–273, 371–78; and Sweet, Recreating Africa, pp.19–75. For an acid comment on the popularity of nocturnal meetings where calundus and feitiços were taught and practised and the failure to reveal such participation in the confessional, see Gregório de Matos, ‘Queyxa-se a Bahia por seu bastante procurador’, Obras completas, (Editôra Janaína: Salvador, 1969) vol. 1, pp.15–16. On Minas’ knowledge of gold, see the observation made by a reinol: ‘Os Negros Minas naturaes dos reinos de Tombuo Bambui são pela maior parte os milhores mineiros das minas do ouro do Brazil, e tal vez fossem os q ensinarão aos Portuguezes’, Biblioteca Pública Municipal do Porto, Códice 464 apud Julieta Scarano, Devoção e escravidão, (Companhia Editora Nacional: São Paulo 1976), p.107; Russell-Wood, ‘Technology and Society: The Impact of Gold Mining on the Institution of Slavery in Portuguese America’, The Journal of Economic History, 1977, 37, 1, pp.59–83; Boxer, Golden Age, p.175. 29 Auguste de Saint-Hilaire, Voyage dans les Provinces de Rio de Janeiro et de Minas Geraes. 2 vols, (Grimbert et Dorez: Paris, 1830); Koster, Travels, vol.2, p.262. 30 Francis A. Dutra, ‘A Hard-Fought Struggle for Recognition: Manuel Gonçalves Doria, First Afro-Brazilian to Become a Knight of Santiago’, The Americas, 1999, 56, 1, pp.91–113; H. Kraay, ‘The Politics of Race in Independence-era Bahia: The Black Militia Officers of Salvador, 1790–1840’, in Afro-Brazilian Culture and Politics: Bahia, 1790s–1990s, ed. H. Kraay, (M.E. Sharpe: New York, 1998), pp.30–56; Dantas, Black Townsmen, p.311. Patricia Mulvey, ‘Black Brothers and Sisters: Membership in the Black Lay Brotherhoods of Colonial Brazil’, LusoBrazilian Review, 1980, 17, 2, p.264. Francisco Curt Lange referred to “mulatismo musical” (p.129) in his ‘A música barroca’, in História geral da civilização brasileira. A época colonial, tomo 1, volume 2, (Difusão Europeia do Livro: São Paulo, 1960), esp. pp.127–44; Russell-Wood, ‘Patronage and Expressions of the Baroque in Colonial Brazil’, in Opulence and Devotion. Brazilian Baroque Art, Catherine Whistler ed., (Ashmolean Museum: Oxford, 2002), esp. p.27. I am not here referring to what Karasch describes as “theatrical dances”, Slave Life, pp.247– –250. 31 Koster noted “and this term is much regarded among them”, Travels, vol 2, p.251. 32 This line of argument is suggested by Monica Schuler: “From the beginning the immigrants, regardless of ethnic origin, decided to become part of a large, all-

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African or all-immigrant group separate from the Jamaican macrocosm which included Afro-Jamaicans as well as Europeans”. In “Alas, Alas, Kongo”: A Social History of Indentured African Immigration into Jamaica, 1841-1865, (Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 1980), p.65. 33 Russell-Wood, Slavery and Freedom, pp.xxxiii–iv. 34 John Thornton has examined Christianity in Africa in numerous seminal books and essays: ‘The Development of an African Catholic Church in the Kingdom of Kongo, 1491–1750’, Journal of African History, 1984, 25, 2, pp.147–67; Africa and Africans, pp.235–62; ‘Perspectives on African Christianity’, in Race, Discourse, and the Origin of the Americas: A New World View, Vera Lawrence Hyatt and Rex Nettleford eds, (Smithsonian Institution Press: Washington and London, 1995), pp.169–98; The Kongolese Saint Anthony. Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684–1706, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1998). An effective synthesis is in Sweet, Recreating Africa, pp.109– 15. I am indebted to Jacob K.Olupona for allowing me to read the manuscript of his forthcoming Ile-Ife: The City of 201 Gods. Michael A.Gomez, BlackCrescent. The experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas, (Cambridge University Press: New York, 2005), esp. pp.91–7 35 Antonil, Cultura e Opulência, bk. 1, chap. 9; Sweet, Recreating Africa, pp.197– 202; Higgins, “Licentious Liberty”, pp.121–28. 36 Conversation with Jacob Olupona, 9 March 2005. 37 Robert C. Smith Jr., ‘Décadas do Rosário dos Pretos. Documentos da Irmandade’, Arquivos (Directoria de documentação e cultura, Prefeitura de Recife) 1945–51, lV–X: 1–2, p.148; Pierre Fatumbi Verger, Orixás. Deuses Iorubás na África e no Novo Mundo, (Editora Corrupio Comércio: São Paulo; Círculo do Livro: Salvador, 1981), p.26; Sweet, Recreating Africa, pp. 208–9; Roger Bastide, The African Religions of Brazil. Toward a Sociology of the Interpenetration of Civilizations, Helen Sebba trans., (Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 1978), pp. 275–81, passim. 38 “Suposto fosse de gentio da Guiné, contudo, depois que teve a felicidade de ser conduzida à terra de Cristandade e receber o Santo batismo, e por ele ficar filha da Santa Madre Igreja, se tem portado como católica, fazendo muito por em tudo mostrar que o é, cumprindo com o preceito de ouvir missa, e como os mais não faltando à fé da religião.”; from Magalhães de Aguiar, Negras Minas Gerais, pp. 147–9. 39 For saints venerated by Africans and Afro-Brazilians, see Patricia Mulvey, ‘Black Brothers and Sisters: Membership in the Black Lay Brotherhoods of Colonial Brazil’, Luso-Brazilian Review, 1980, 17, 2, pp.253–79; Fritz Teixeira de Salles, Associações religiosas no ciclo do ouro, (Universidade de Minas Gerais: Belo Horizonte, 1963) end tables; Karasch, Slave Life, pp.84, 269–70, 280–84. Karasch (p.272) makes the point that “many nineteenth-century saints had attributes compatible with Central African values”, and extends this to include images of the dead Christ, of the Holy Spirit and even the devil; see also Willy de Craemer, Jan Vansina, and Renée C.Fox, ‘Religious Movements in Central Africa:

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A Theoretical Study’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1976, 18, 4, pp.458–75. 40 On brotherhoods of blacks in Portugal, see António Duarte Brásio, Os pretos em Portugal, (Agência Geral das Colónias: Lisbon, 1944), pp.73–104; A. C. de C. M. Saunders, Social History of Black Slaves and Freedmen in Portugal, 1441–1555, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1982), pp.150–56; Boxer, Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, 1415–1825, (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1963), p.16; see also Patricia A. Mulvey, ‘The Black Lay Brotherhoods of Colonial Brazil: A History’, Ph.D dissertation, City University of New York, 1976, pp. 283–303. 41 Caio Boschi, Os leigos e o poder: irmandades leigos e política colonizadora em Minas Gerais, (Editora Ática: São Paulo, 1986), p. 187; for a corrective, see Magalhães de Aguiar, Negras Minas Gerais, p.238, n.6 and pp. 380–81; Teixeira de Salles, Associações Religiosas; Karasch, Slave Life, table 3.9 and pp.83–7; Mulvey, ‘The Black Lay Brotherhoods of Colonial Brazil’ and her ‘Slave Fraternities in Brazil: Their Role in Colonial Society’, The Americas, 1982, 39, pp.39–68. 42 Elizabeth W. Kiddy, ‘Ethnic and Racial Identity in the Brotherhoods of the Rosary of Minas Gerais, 1700–1830’, The Americas, 1999, 56, 2, pp.223, 232–44; Higgins, “Licentious Liberty” pp.103; For a more restrictive policy in Salvador, see Carlos Ott, Formação e evolução étnica da Cidade do Salvador. 2 vols., (Prefeitura Municipal: Salvador, 1955, 1957), vol.1, p.65; in Salvador the Compromisso of 1686 of the Rosary “dos pretos da praia” admitted (Chap. 4) “Toda a pessoa de qualquer callidade que seja”, Archive of the Basílica de Nossa Senhora da Conceição da Praia, Salvador; as too (“toda a pessoa de qual quer qualidade, e sexo que seja, tanto liberto, como escravo”) did the Rosary “dos homens pretos” instituted in Salvador in 1685 (“tendo ja sido pela Sé”) in its “reformed” Compromisso of 1820, chapter 3 (Archive of the Venerával Ordem Terceira do Rosário, Salvador). In each case, annual elections were held for a juiz of Angolans and juiz of crioulos. There is no reference to the admission of whites. These statutes are published in A. J. R. Russell-Wood, Society and Government in Colonial Brazil, 1500–1822, (Ashgate Publishing: Aldershot, 1992), appendix, pp.1–5. 43 Russell-Wood, ‘Black and Mulatto Brotherhoods in Colonial Brazil: A Study in Collective Identity’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 1974, 54, pp.567–602; Bastide, African religions, p.119. 44 Manuel S. Cardozo, ‘The Lay Brotherhoods of Colonial Bahia’, The Catholic Historical Review, 1947, 33, 1, pp.12–30. Slaves could hold elected office, see Scarano, Devoção e escravidão, p.112; Kiddy, ‘Ethnic and Racial Identity’, pp.241–43; on women, see Magalhães de Aguiar, Negras Minas Gerais, pp.257– 258. 45 Marcos Magalhães de Aguiar, Vila Rica dos confrades. A sociabilidade confrarial entre negros e mulatos no século XVlll. M.A. dissertation, Departamento de história, Universidade de São Paulo, 1993, pp.296–302.

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Magalhães de Aguiar, Negras Minas Gerais, pp.254, 261. “esta Separação indeCorosamente Compalavras menos deSentes dizendo Ser esta hua irmde. De Negros”…”nesesariamente por odio oupor Paixão Senão unirião eaveria entre Elles pretos e aquelles Crioullos Continuadas discordias”, Aires da Mata Machado Filho, Arraial do Tijuco: Cidade Diamantina. 2nd ed., (Sao Paulo, 1957), pp.80, 247; also Julita Scarano, Devoção e escravidão. A Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos no Distrito Diamantino no Século XVlll, (Companhia Editora Nacional: São Paulo, 1976) pp.9–10). See also Magalhães de Aguiar, Negras Minas Gerais, pp.261–263. 48 “…são tirados do paganismo da Africa e sempre lhes fica uma propensão para coisas supersticiosas”, Mariza de Carvalho Soares, Devotos da cor. Identidade étnica, religiosidade e escravidão no Rio de Janeiro, século XVlll, (Civilização Brasileira: Rio de Janeiro, 2000) p.169; Sweet, Reconstructing Africa, p.208–9; Mulvey,’Black brothers and sisters’, p.261. For further examples of African religious rituals, including Égúngún, and records of measures against friars and clerics in Pernambuco in the 1760s who were frequenting houses where Minas were performing African religious rituals, see Russell-Wood, Slavery and Freedom, pp.xxxiv–xxxv and 98–99. 49 This is based on Karasch’s succinct description (Slave Life, pp.316–20) of suicides in Rio de Janeiro in the nineteenth century, but is equally relevant to other regions at an earlier period. Two centuries earlier, Antonil had referred to slaves fleeing from punishment. He continues: “... ou se matarão per si, como costumam, tomando a respiração, ou enforcando-se, ou procurarão tirar a vida aos que lha dão tão má, recorrendo (se fôr necessario) a artes diabólicas”, Cultura e Opulência, Bk.1, chap. 9. 50 This part presents new materials in support of a hypothesis advanced in 1994 at a colloquium in Lisbon and published as ‘The African Background to the History of Portuguese America’, Colóquio, Construção e Ensino da História de Africa. Actas, (Linopazas Lisbon, 1995), pp.109–24. An expanded manuscript titled ‘Back to Africa: The Case for the Centrality of African History to Understanding the African Diaspora in Colonial Brazil’ was published in translation as ‘Através de um prisma africano: uma nova abordagem no estudo da diáspora africana no Brasil colonial’, Tempo, 2001, 6,12 (Dept. of History, Universidade Federal Fluminense), pp.11–50. 51 Sweet makes the excellent point that new data on the slave trade “demonstrate that Africans were not always arriving in the Americas in heterogeneous ‘crowds’. Rather, many were arriving in coherent cultural groupings that shared much in common”. He describes the process of becoming “African” as an “American phenomenon” (creolisation) and a “collective ‘African’ identity replacing ethnic identities. Recreating Africa, pp.115–117 and note 40. The potential existed, notwithstanding one partner being African-born, for slaves to create an extended family, see Manolo Florentino and José Roberto Góes, A Paz das Senzalas. Famílias escravas e tráfico atlântico, Rio de Janeiro, c. 1790–c. 1850, (Civilização Brasileira: Rio de Janeiro, 1997), pp.81–102 and note 24. 47

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Karasch, Slave Life, pp.225–26, 273–4. João José Reis, Rebelião escrava no Brasil. A história do levante dos males. 2nd ed., (Editora Brasiliense São Paulo, 1987), pp.64–83, 169–96 passim. 54 “core beliefs” (pp.2, 103, 117) “shared core cultural beliefs” (p.7), “African religious principles (p.101), “certain core beliefs and practices”(p.103) Sweet, Recreating Africa, especially chapters 4–8; Russell-Wood, ‘The African background’, “many shared common cultures and values” (p.115), “shared cultural birthright” (p.122); “suggest that scholars of African diasporas in the Americas would be well served by examining some aspects of the Afro-American (in its broadest sense) experience—leadership, plurality and diversity of power, production and commerce, kinship and domestic arrangements, religious beliefs and practices, and identity—in the context of Africa” (p.120). 55 Russell-Wood, ‘The African background’, pp.111–15; Karasch, Slave Life, p.268. Koster observed: “respect which is paid to old age is extremely pleasing to witness. Superannuated Africans, upon the estates, are never suffered to want any comforts with which it is in the power of their fellow-slaves to supply them”, Travels. Vol.2. 56 Sweet, Recreating Africa, pp.32–3; for a less devastating appraisal see Maria Inês Cortês de Oliveira, ‘Viver e Morrer no meio dos seus’, Revista USP, 1996, 28, pp.174–93; see also Manolo Florentino and José Roberto Góes, A Paz das Senzalas, (Civilização Brasileira: Rio de Janeiro, 1997), pp.81–102. 57 The demographics of the Middle Passage favoured males over females by a ratio of 2: 1 or 3: 2: Robert Conrad, World of Sorrow. The African Slave Trade to Brazil, (Louisiana State University Press: Baton Rouge: 1986), pp.7–11; Schwartz, Sugar Plantations, pp.346–53; Reis, Rebelião escrava, pp.16–19; Bergad, Slavery, pp.102–115; Florentino and Góes, A Paz das Senzalas, pp.61–71, 147–9, 152–4; Dantas, Black Townsmen, pp.129–34, 275–78; Luna and Klein, Slavery and the Economy of São Paulo, pp.133–57. 58 Bergad, Slavery, pp.131–59; Karasch, Slave Life, pp.146–84; Russell-Wood, Slavery and Freedom, pp.118–19; Schwartz, Sugar Plantations, pp.353–59; 388– 89; Florentino and Góes, A Paz das Senzalas, pp.134–5; Koster, Travels, vol.2, p.264. 59 Florentino and Góes, A Paz das Senzalas, pp.135–38; Sweet, Recreating Africa, pp.65. 60 APMSG, vol. 4, fol. 234v; Sweet, Recreating Africa, pp.36–7. 61 Sweet, Recreating Africa, pp. 44–48; Karasch, Slave Life, tables 9.4 and 9.5, pp.291–94. Data from parishes in the Bahian Recôncavo confirm findings that West Africans were more likely to marry endogamously than Central Africans, that Africans married Africans, that often marriages were between Africans from the same cultural area, and that Afro-Brazilians preferred to marry Afro-Brazilians, Schwartz, Sugar Plantations, pp.391–2; see also Florentino and Góes, A Paz das Senzalas, pp.147–59. While my discussion focuses on marriages in which each partner is a slave, there is evidence from the nineteenth century that endogamy also 53

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prevailed among libertos: see Maria Inês Côrtes de Oliveira, O liberto: o seu mundo e os outros, Salvador, 1790–1890, (Corrupio: São Paulo, 1988). 62 Luiz R. B. Mott, ‘Revendo a história da escravidão no Brasil’, Mensário do Arquivo Nacional, 1980, 127, p.25. 63 Sweet, Recreating Africa, p.44. 64 Sweet, Recreating Africa, pp.218–9. 65 Nuno Marques Pereira, Compêndio narrativo do peregrino da América, vol. 1, pp.156; Karasch, Slave Life, p.294. 66 As of the 1830s there is evidence that there existed in Rio a community of African Minas from Bahia. For this and discussion of distinct communities of creoles or of Africans and Crioles, see Karasch, Slave Life, p.5.

CHAPTER NINE PIRATES, MALATA, AND THE BETSIMISARAKA CONFEDERATION ON THE EAST COAST OF MADAGASCAR IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ARNE BIALUSCHEWSKI1

The East coast of Madagascar has a complex history, which is closely related to its diverse geomorphology. The region is characterized by a narrow coastal strip, split into small segments by numerous rivers rushing down from the eastern mountain range. A dense tropical rain forest and coastal marshlands hindered travel, and during the rainy season from January to March communications were frequently halted altogether. The physical setting of the eastern littoral did not favour the emergence of large political groupings. The northern part in particular was populated by unruly demes living in villages and hamlets under chiefs, who were called filoha. As a result of the fragmentation, there remains a considerable cultural variation from one region to the next, particularly differences in dialect, in ritual, in cultural practice, and in material culture.2 Historical as well as archaeological evidence suggests that the indigenous population was often engaged in conflict and warfare. The East coast of Madagascar has only a few natural harbours, and all of these harbours are located in the North and in the extreme South. Almost the whole central part of the East coast was inaccessible in the age of sail. In 1503 the Portuguese sailor Diogo Fernandes Pereira was the first European who visited the North-east of Madagascar. Beginning in the late sixteenth century Dutch and occasionally English vessels called at Antongil Bay, one of the best anchorages of the region. In general crosscultural relations turned out to be difficult, and on various occasions violent encounters occurred. In 1665 the French set up three outposts on the North-east coast to purchase provisions for their colony of Fort

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Dauphin, situated at the South-eastern tip of the island, but these installations had to be evacuated after only four years.3 As in other parts of Madagascar, conflicts with the indigenous population and high mortality rates among the Europeans led to the failure of all colonial ventures.

The Establishment of the Pirates in Madagascar In 1641 the Dutch began to dispatch vessels to Madagascar to trade for slaves. Ships from Mauritius and Batavia called at Antongil Bay, but the voyages were organized in a haphazard fashion. Towards the end of the seventeenth century the focus of trade shifted to the North-west coast where Swahili traders had established a market for slaves.4 At about the same time an increasing number of slavers from the English colonies in North America made their way halfway around the globe to Madagascar. In order to facilitate the acquisition of slaves, Frederick Philips, a prominent merchant from New York, sent a party of seven men to Sainte Marie to establish a trading post. Sainte Marie is a small and narrow island lying some ten miles off the North-east coast of Madagascar. On the western side of the islet, near the southern end, there is a deep bay with a narrow entry, which forms an excellent harbour. In addition to this attraction, the isolation of Sainte Marie prevented its inhabitants from getting dragged into the frequent wars that were waged in mainland Madagascar. According to a visitor, there were only some 500 indigenous people living on the island.5 Under the guidance of a certain Adam Baldridge, the men from America built a hut on a hill at some distance from the harbour. However, most members of the company died within a few months, and by 1692 only Baldridge and a boy referred to as his “apprentice” were still alive. They soon formed an alliance with the population of Sainte Marie by redeeming some wives and children who had been abducted by a rival deme. Baldridge further deepened his relations with the indigenous people by marrying a local woman. Nevertheless, he did not integrate into Malagasy society, and suspicion was never completely overcome. The most visible sign of the segregation was a small fort that Baldridge built over the years. In 1696 he had an encampment with two or three huts as well as seven or eight guns, and a year later an eyewitness reported that “Baldridge had set some Stoccadoes about his own houses to keep off the Negroes and had twelve or fourteen small Guns.”6 For a few years slavers from the colonies flocked to the trading post where Baldridge acted as Philips’s agent and served as an intermediary between the merchants and the Malagasy. However, he never managed to

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set up a profitable trade in slaves. The indigenous population of the Northeastern littoral was probably not used to selling slaves to outsiders. It appears that captives taken in interclan raids were usually ransomed back to their families. The trading post in Sainte Marie soon attracted English pirates from the New World. Around 1685 a few pirate vessels had left their traditional hunting ground in the Caribbean to search for greener pastures, which they found in the Arabian Sea. The prime target for pirate attacks was a richly laden pilgrim fleet that sailed annually from Surat in India to Mocha and Jeddah on the Red Sea. The poorly defended fleet was one of the richest prizes in eastern seas, constituting a magnet for every sailor seeking a life of wealth and prosperity.7 All pirates who plied the Indian Ocean sooner or later visited Sainte Marie. Here they found a safe haven with ample supplies of meat, fruit, and drinking water. On Sainte Marie pirates careened and repaired their vessels, they recovered from scurvy and the strains of shipboard life, and they traded spoils for provisions, naval stores, ammunition, and other commodities. Most supplies came from Barbados, Boston, and especially New York, where overseas merchants quickly discovered new business opportunities and provided the pirates with the desired wares.8 For a few years the islet served as a crucial juncture between legal trading ventures and outright piracy. Since pirate crews required large amounts of provisions, they relied heavily on foodstuffs that needed to be procured on the spot. Baldridge helped the pirates to purchase ample supplies of rice, yams, and cattle from the indigenous population. In exchange the Malagasy received manufactures, coinage, brass, beads, and dyed textiles looted from Indian prizes.9 It appears, however, that material exchange did not go hand in hand with cultural exchange. There were probably very few contacts between pirates and the indigenous population. All documented transactions were carried out by Baldridge. It seems that pirates rarely traded directly with the Malagasy. There was even one documented incident when some inhabitants of Sainte Marie killed eleven pirates who had previously abused their women and stolen cattle.10 This incident, which presumably stands for many similar but unrecorded cross-cultural encounters, indicates that the pirates had failed to develop respect for the indigenous population. Around the turn of the century the commercial network of piracy collapsed. At that time the pirates began to suffer from a lack of suitable vessels. In tropical waters wooden hulls steadily disintegrated beneath the crews’ feet. For some time the pirates could replace leaky ships with new

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ones from the American colonies but by the end of the century it must have become obvious that piracy in the Arabian Sea was not a profitable venture anymore. As only very few vessels returned with the desired treasure to the New World, no more ships were fitted out for the Indian Ocean. Furthermore, in the latter half of 1698 the governor of New York, Lord Bellomont, cut off all trading links to Madagascar.11 Due to a lack of supplies and seaworthy vessels, the emphasis of pirate activity shifted from the open seas to the East coast of Madagascar. In 1699 the pirates fortified the harbour in Sainte Marie. They probably feared that the Royal Navy would dispatch vessels to Madagascar to destroy the pirate settlement. Furthermore, it was getting more difficult to acquire foodstuffs on the tiny island. As a result of these changing circumstances, the marauders abandoned the entrepôt. Some tried to get back to America, others sought refuge on mainland Madagascar.12 In 1703 two English naval vessels cruised on the East coast and off Sainte Marie. The sailors spotted a few men fleeing inland, but they found no indication of any ongoing pirate activity.13 In 1705 the governing council of the Cape Colony summarized several reports on conditions in Madagascar. It was estimated that as many as 830 pirates remained in the various coastal regions where they enjoyed the protection of local rulers. A few years later a French visitor estimated that there were still 400 pirates living in Madagascar.14 Even though these figures are certainly inflated, there can be no doubt that a considerable number of the marauders had taken refuge with the indigenous population. The peaceful integration of a number of pirates into Malagasy society was the result of a remarkable transition. It appears that, at the time of the abandonment of Sainte Marie, when entire pirate crews landed in mainland Madagascar, cross-cultural relations were marked by conflicts and violent clashes. A visitor learned that the pirates used to rob foodstuffs on the North-east coast. According to his account, pirates committed atrocities against the indigenous population, burning their houses or destroying them with their guns in case they did not provide the robbers with provisions.15 After having lost their vessel, a gang of pirates supposedly set up a small fortification to defend themselves against hostile locals. It was reported that “they liv’d most dissolute and wicked Lives, stealing away, and ravishing the Wives and Daughters of the Natives, living by this Means, in a State of continual War.”16 Such a pirate camp may have existed on the beach near present-day Soanierana Ivongo, in the area facing Sainte Marie, where archaeological fieldwork has unearthed bottle fragments, stoneware, and gunflints from the late seventeenth or early

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eighteenth century. At this stage bloody encounters between stranded pirates and the indigenous population seem to have been regular occurrences on the East coast. However, in the first decade of the eighteenth century a fundamental change occurred, when an increasing number of pirates began to form alliances with the Malagasy. Without the prospect of further raids in the Indian Ocean, most crews dispersed and the men sought refuge in various settlements along the coast.17 During this period Europeans and the indigenous population gradually overcame cultural differences and learned to profit from each other. The Malagasy gained access to material wealth and advanced manual skills, while the pirates found a refuge far away from the rule of law. It seems that only at this stage did the marauders develop respect for the indigenous people and began to accept their traditions, customs, and values. The fact that pirates appeared as individuals or in small groups ready to abandon at least part of their cultural identity was crucial to the integration of these outsiders into Malagasy society. Many sailors who had given up piracy married local women. In fact, it became customary that Europeans were offered female members of the ruling families as wives. These wives were called vadinebazaha.18 For the indigenous population the establishment of marital ties to outsiders was a means to get access to a sophisticated material culture and develop further beneficial contacts with Europeans. Of course, the martial skills of the pirates, proven in numerous skirmishes, were also highly appreciated in the belligerent environment of eastern Madagascar. Entering into alliances with Malagasy demes gave the Europeans a distinctive role. Some retired pirates subsequently lived as village chiefs in small coastal communities.19 Both those who settled in Madagascar and others who formed temporary unions with indigenous women during briefer stays in the island fathered numerous children who were to be known as malata20. Within only a short period several malata attained a prominent position in Malagasy society in the northern sections of the East coast. The intermarriage pattern also brought respect and prestige to the families who managed to establish kinship ties to powerful strangers. As a result of their relations with Europeans, some women advanced their social status and acquired wealth and influence within their communities. However, it is quite easy to overestimate the impact of these new alliances on the East coast as a whole. Many villages and hamlets in this region, particularly those distant from Sainte Marie, were probably not affected by any kind of interference from outsiders until well into the eighteenth century. The results of archaeological survey show that there were few

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changes in the pottery tradition and little evidence for trade, social differentiation, or a developed settlement hierarchy.21

The Betsimisaraka Confederation Pirates, nevertheless, had a lasting impact on the material culture of some villages on the North-eastern littoral. At several places archaeologists have excavated imported artefacts, particularly fragments of bottles, datable to the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.22 There is even linguistic evidence that connects the material culture of a few coastal communities with the pirates. Various items, such as large jars, have names that can be traced back to English origins. Furthermore, around Manompana and on Sainte Marie there is a distinctive boatbuilding tradition of small barks with clinker-built hulls, multiple masts, and booms with triangular sails.23 This is certainly a European style, which may go back to the age of the pirates. However, the cultural transfer was not of major significance, and there is no evidence for a widespread diffusion of innovation. The relative wealth that the pirates brought into the region attracted the powerful Tsikoa from the south who frequently raided their northern neighbours. In the first decade of the eighteenth century many families had to leave their ancestral lands and fled into safer regions in the North. Around 1712 disparate groups living on the narrow stretch of coast between the Bay of Antongil and the area facing Sainte Marie began to organize themselves against the Tsikoa. Their leader was a young malata named Ratsimilaho, who was said to have been the son of an English pirate known as Tamo, or Tom, and the daughter of a chiefly family that had previously been expelled from their lands. It appears that the prospect of reclaiming ancestral lands with the possible support of Europeans enabled Ratsimilaho to assemble a cohesive force.24 In the following years this so-called Betsimisaraka confederation gradually gained control of the primary ports. Eventually, in 1716, Ratsimilaho’s army conquered Fenoarivo, the capital of the Tsikoa, who became known as the Betanimena during the war, and laid the foundation to his subsequent rule of North-east coast. A study of the decisive battle reveals that the military success of the Betsimisaraka was brought about by a strategy that took advantage of the inflexibility of traditional Malagasy warfare. Instead of laying siege to Fenoarivo until the Betanimena surrendered, Ratsimilaho divided his forces in a way never before witnessed in indigenous conflicts. While some musketeers prevented the defenders from manning their posts,

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other troops took the defence lines in an assault.25 Shortly thereafter the entire town was in the hands of the Betsimisaraka. Surviving evidence indicates that pirates had close ties to Ratsimilaho’s army. An archaeological site, which is thought to be a former military camp of the Betsimisaraka contained artefacts that must be attributed to Europeans, and a tomb near Fenoarivo contained a musket from the early eighteenth century.26 According to a Malagasy narrative, pirates generally avoided direct engagement in combat. The men were said to have supported the Betsimisaraka exclusively by selling them muskets. An attempt of the Betanimena to get access to a shipload of firearms supposedly turned out to be a trap, which further weakened their military stand.27 The conflicts on the East coast of Madagascar were attentively watched by the French colonists in Bourbon, today Réunion. A visitor to the island learned in 1716 that pirates “have the Command of the Natives for 60 or 70 Leagues along the Shore.”28 The aggregated evidence suggests that Ratsimilaho’s military success owed more to strategic skills that the pirates had brought into the region than to the introduction of firepower. Muskets indeed served status or ritual purposes and were often carried as ornaments rather than as deadly weapons. Pirates and their offspring clearly played a significant role in the formative period of the Betsimisaraka, but very little is known about the social structure of the confederation in this early phase. It seems reasonable to assume that many pirates died within a few years after they had settled in Madagascar so that, although the malata continued to exert considerable influence in various coastal communities, their number probably remained relatively small and they never formed a cohesive group.29 Moreover, beneficial contacts with other Europeans did not materialize for quite some time. The Betsimisaraka did not manage to set up a flourishing trade in slaves for firearms until well after the close of the war. The East coast of Madagascar was virtually cut off from the colonial markets, as very few, if any, slave vessels steered for this part of the island. Encounters with pirates had led to the loss of a number of trading vessels around the turn of the century, so in the following years slavers avoided this region.30 In 1716, after having conquered Fenoarivo, Ratsimilaho tried to secure peace with the Betanimena by leaving the port of Tamatave to their king Ramañano. The peace, however, broke down within a few months, and Ratsimilaho took Tamatave, forcing Ramañano into an inaccessible area further south. In the course of the war the Betsimisaraka confederation became the most powerful force on the East coast. Nevertheless, its unity continued to rest on the shoulders of Ratsimilaho. In order to secure his

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power, Ratsimilaho contracted alliances with several ethnic groupings of the region, such as the Antatsimo and the Bezanozano. Furthermore, Ratsimilaho married a Sakalava princess.31 At that time the two Sakalava kingdoms that had emerged on the western side of the island were the most powerful political entities in Madagascar. After the war the Betsimisaraka remained essentially a confederation of autonomous demes rather than a united kingdom. Ratsimilaho does not seem to have assumed the divine and absolute powers of African style of kingship as practised in western Madagascar. He probably acted as a paramount chief among a number of grand chiefs, filohabe, with rather independent habits. Keenly aware of the strong centrifugal tendencies within his kingdom, Ratsimilaho secured his leading position on the East coast by compensating the relatives of various chiefs who had been killed in combat. Furthermore, he allowed the Betanimena to buy back relatives taken during the hostilities. Last but not least, he took the sons of several filohabe as hostages to his court but allowed them to participate in the administration of the kingdom.32 Although Ratsimilaho aimed to develop interrelationships, which generated larger alliances of populations in eastern Madagascar, his authority was based on his charisma and his former achievements rather than a powerful deme. After Ratsimilaho had consolidated his power, the sovereignty of the Betsimisaraka confederation was threatened by the trading interests of the French who had established colonies in the Mascarene Islands of Bourbon and Mauritius, the latter renamed Isle de France after its abandonment by the Dutch in 1710. Between 1719 and 1723 the newly-formed Compagnie des Indes introduced coffee as a staple crop. The plantations prospered, and within a few years an enormous demand for servile labour emerged. In 1724 the Compagnie des Indes began to ship slaves from Madagascar to the Mascarene Islands. During the following quarter-of-a-century the French steadily increased their purchases of slaves to expand plantation production.33 In order to feed the ever-growing population, the French also had to import rice and beef in large quantities. This development, of course, had a major impact on the indigenous communities of eastern Madagascar. Almost nothing is documented about the origins of the slaves until the second half of the eighteenth century. It seems likely that the powerful Betsimisaraka chiefs initially raided the settlements of rival demes in the hinterland for slaves. When the demand for slaves rose some filoha began to organize slaving expeditions to the central highlands. Most expeditions started and terminated in the capital Foulpointe where a vibrant market for slaves emerged. Foulpointe offered one of the best anchorages along the

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entire East coast, so most vessels from the Mascarenes called at this port.34 Smaller centres primarily profited from the export of rice and cattle, as the traders were always looking for new sources of supply where the price was comparatively low. During this period the economic structure of the most accessible parts of North-eastern Madagascar began to undergo a fundamental change. The lucrative trade opportunities fostered specialization for export and slowly transformed local subsistence economies into market production. When French traders came to Madagascar to purchase slaves and foodstuffs, several Betsimisaraka chiefs seized the opportunity to accumulate wealth and influence. As in other parts of Africa, the spoils of external trade were distributed among clients to generate and maintain ties of political allegiance. Firearms, imported by the thousands, were not only used for protection and attack but also as symbols of power and social status. Unlike the West coast, where Sakalava kings kept strict control over the trading relations with Europeans, overseas trade on the East coast was in the hands of local chiefs. According to a visitor, some of the brokers who dealt with French slavers were malata. They maintained regional networks of suppliers and arranged shipments of slaves to overseas merchants.35 It seems that some Malagasy chiefs were keenly aware of their powerful position in the slave trade. When the Compagnie des Indes tried to circumvent indigenous brokers in Antongil Bay, for example, a Malagasy force attacked, killing 17 Frenchmen.36 Until mid-century Betsimisaraka chiefs administered the slave and food exports in a relatively coordinated fashion. After Ratsimilaho’s death in 1750 the kingdom was divided. His son Zañahary became king of the coastal strip of mainland Madagascar and Betia, Ratsimilaho’s young daughter, became queen of Sainte Marie. Born in or around 1735, Betia was used to dealing with Europeans from an early age. A sailor learned from a French trader that “while it was death for any one of [Zañahary’s] Subjects to be free with his Sister Betty, who is said was a very pretty Girl, he thought himself honour’d when they or any other white men were familiar with her.”37 In 1750 Betia was under the influence of a French agent named Gosse. As a consequence of this relationship, Betia allowed the Compagnie des Indes to establish a colony in Sainte Marie. Yet in the same year, allegedly after having desecrated Ratsimilaho’s tomb, Gosse was assassinated by some locals. Although a French investigation found Betia not guilty of participating in the murder, her position between the indigenous population and the Compagnie became very precarious. Eventually, in 1753, Betia had to cede Sainte Marie to the French.38

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Zañahary continued to reside in Foulpointe, but his power and authority waned considerably during his reign. In 1756 the Compagnie des Indes dispatched a régisseur des traites to Foulpointe. This agent was responsible for maintaining good relations with Betsimisaraka chiefs, convincing them to supply slaves and foodstuffs to French merchants, setting uniform trading prices and practices, and regulating conflicts between the trading parties. At about the same time a number of French traders from the Mascarenes took up residence in the major port towns. Since trading within the politically fragmented East of Madagascar was usually based on kinship and personal relations, traders were often obliged to conclude a blood brotherhood, the practice of fatidra, with their indigenous suppliers. Other traders married or arranged temporary unions with Malagasy women to facilitate the commercial transactions. Some women were said to have conducted all business transactions for their partners. In exchange for tying strangers into their communities and smoothing difficult relationships with local leaders, Malagasy women generated personal income and prestige. In Tamatave, for example, women virtually ran the local economy.39 They set up comprehensive trading networks and controlled the export trade until the late nineteenth century. During the second half of the eighteenth century the Betsimisaraka confederation gradually disintegrated. In the absence of a charismatic leader several chiefs started to fight each other. Among the victims of these emerging conflicts was Zañahary, who was killed in 1767.40 The disarray was intensified by the interference of French agents who speculated that feuds and regional wars would turn out to be a new source of slaves. As a result of this intervention, however, the trading environment at Foulpointe began to deteriorate. Malagasy chiefs tried to drag French traders into their hostilities, and prisoners were often retained as ransom in exchange for members of the own kin who had been captured or might potentially be captured. Furthermore, the markets in the interior became unreachable.41 At the same time that a trade liberalization was leading to an increasing demand of slaves, it was getting more difficult to purchase slaves on the East coast of Madagascar. Around 1795 the Betsimisaraka, with the support of Sakalava warriors, opened a new chapter in the history of the slave trade in the Indian Ocean and began to raid the Comoro islands as well as the coast of Mozambique for slaves.42 It is probably no coincidence that most Malagasy sailors who participated in these raids came from Sainte Marie and the nearby coastal villages of mainland Madagascar. It seems a reasonable assumption that the pirates had established a maritime tradition in this area.

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Conclusions In Madagascar, as in other parts of Africa, strangers have been associated with power and powerful things. Beginning in the early eighteenth century Europeans and their offspring exerted considerable influence on the political development of the East coast of Madagascar. Interactions with outsiders were critical to both the formation of the Betsimisaraka confederation and its dissolution in the second half of the eighteenth century. In the period under study no lasting centralized institutions or other trappings and mechanisms of state administration were created. The sons and daughters of the ruling malata, the zanamalata, retained much political power, but no royal lineage was effectively founded. Towards the end of the eighteenth century French traders and their Malagasy wives produced a new generation of malata, sometimes called creoles.43 Although the coastal communities were increasingly dominated by outsiders, the malata of mixed origin have continued to play a socially prominent role in eastern Madagascar until the present day.

Notes 1

The author would like to express his gratitude to Henry T. Wright for providing valuable information on archaeological fieldwork in Madagascar. Part of the research has been made possible by a Library and Archives Fellowship from King’s College London. 2 Pierre Vérin, Madagascar (Karthala : Paris, 1990), pp. 51–67. 3 Archives Nationales, Paris, T 1169, fls.19–48, memorandum of François Martin, c. 1668; Gabriel Dellon, Relation d’un voyage des Indes orientales (Claude Barbin: Paris, 1685), pp.58–70. 4 James C. Armstrong, ‘Madagascar and the Slave Trade in the Seventeenth Century’, Omaly sy Anio, 1983–84, 17–20, pp.222–29. 5 British Library, Oriental and India Office Collections (hereafter OIOC), E/3/52, no. 6352, information of a lascar, 15 December 1696; National Archives, London (NA), Colonial Office (CO) 5/1042, fls.212–14, deposition of Adam Baldridge, 5 May 1699. 6 NA. CO 391/10, fls.216–17, information of John Finlinson, 17 February 1698; NA. CO 391/11, fls.85–86, information of John Blacon, 9 August 1698. 7 Ashin Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, c. 1700–1750 (Manohar: Wiesbaden, 1979), pp.94–122; Michael N. Pearson, Pilgrimage to Mecca: The Indian Experience (Marcus Weiner: Princeton, N.J., 1996), pp.141– 66. 8 Jacob Judd, ‘Frederick Philips and the Madagascar Trade’, New-York Historical Society Quarterly, 1971, 55, pp.357–58; Cathy Matson, Merchants and Empire:

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Trading in Colonial New York (Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 1998), pp.62–64. 9 Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague (hereafter ARA), Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) 4043, fls.420–24, report of Jan Coin, 20 November 1699. 10 NA. CO 323/2, fls.388–91, deposition of Samuel Perkins, 25 August 1698. 11 Robert C. Ritchie, Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass., 1986), pp.172–75. 12 NA. HCA 1/53, fls. 109–10, examination of Samuel Burgess, 28 August 1701; Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms. Rawlinson A. 270, no. 1, examination of John Browne, 17 June 1702. 13 The British Library (hereafter BL), Sloane Ms. 3674, fls.16–18, log of HMS Scarborough, 15 to 23 November 1703; NA. ADM 52/280, pt.7, journal of George Shelvocke, 19 to 27 November 1703. 14 ARA. VOC 4051, fls.122–39, Willem Adriaan van der Stel to Heren XVII, 28 March 1705; Centre des Archives d’Outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence (hereafter CAOM), Série colonies C5A 1, no. 31, memorandum of Godefroy de La Merveille, 1712. The latter account referred to a voyage in the year 1708. 15 Alexis Rochon, Voyage à Madagascar et aux Indes orientales (Prault: Paris, 1791), pp. 153–54. 16 Robert Drury, Madagascar: or, Robert Drury’s Journal During Fifteen Years Captivity on that Island (W. Meadows: London, 1729) p436. Some literary scholars have dismissed this lengthy account as a semifictional narrative written by Daniel Defoe, but no historian of Madagascar seriously disputes its authenticity. 17 New York Public Library, Records of the Compagnie des Indes Orientales 6, ‘Mémoire pour Madagascar’, c.1705. 18 Jean Valette, ‘Notes sur une coutume betsimisaraka du XVIIIe siècle: les Vadinebazaha’, Cahiers du Centre d’études des coutumes, 1967, 3, pp.49–55. 19 BL. Sloane Ms. 3674, fl.18, log of HMS Scarborough, 23 November 1703; Guildhall Library, London, Ms. 3041/3, no. (i), Thomas Bowrey, ‘A Discription of the Coast of Affrica from the Cape of Good Hope to the Red Sea’, 1708. 20 In pre-colonial Madagascar the term malata was used to describe descendants of European men and indigenous women. The word probably derived from the English mulatto and was introduced in the late seventeenth century when seafarers began to settle in East-coast communities. 21 Henry T. Wright and Fulgence Falony, ‘L’évolution des systèmes d’occupation des sols dans la vallée Mananara au Nord-Est de Madagascar’, Taloha, 1992, 11, pp.47–60. 22 Pierre Vérin, Les échelles anciennes du commerce sur les côtes nord de Madagascar (Service de reproduction des thèses, Université de Lille: Lille, 1975), pp.896-99. 23 Henry T. Wright, personal communication, 14 July 2004. 24 John Mack, Madagascar: Land of the Ancestors (British Museum: London, 1986), pp.43–44.

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Gerald M. Berg, ‘The Sacred Musket: Tactics, Technology, and Power in Eighteenth-Century Madagascar’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 27, 1985, pp.266–67. The historical site has been recently discovered by Robert E. Dewar, Chantal Radimilahy, and Henry T.Wright. 26 Gérard Dandoy, ‘Découverte archéologique à Fénérive-Est’, Bulletin de Madagascar 18, 1968, pp.464–66. 27 Rochon, Voyage à Madagascar, pp.164–65. 28 NA, C 108/416, ‘Remarks on Madagascar in order to make an advantageous Settlement’, 1716. One league is three nautical miles. 29 Yvette Sylla, ‘Les Malata: cohésion et disparité d’un groupe’, Omaly sy Anio 21–22, 1985, pp.19–28. 30 ARA, VOC 4052, fls.17–18, report of Robert Coleson, 31 March 1706; OIOC, E/1/1, no. 192, Charles Robertson to East India Company, 7 September 1709; Eric J. Graham, A Maritime History of Scotland, 1650–1790 (Tucwell: Edinburgh, 2002), pp.88–89. 31 BL. Add. Ms. 18129, fls.93–141, Nicolas Mayeur, ‘Histoire de Ratsimilahoe, roi de Foulepointe et de Betsimiçaracs’, 1806. The account was compiled from notes taken between 1762 and 1768. Mayeur drew on conversations with Zañahary, Ratsimilaho’s son, and numerous locals. It is important to note that the narrative contains some fantastic elements that are evidently intended to glorify Ratsimilaho’s personal qualities. 32 Ibid. 33 Philippe Haudrère, La Compagnie française des Indes au XVIIIe siècle (Libraire de l’Inde: Paris, 1989), pp. 292–97; Hai Quang Ho, Contribution à l’histoire économique de l’île de La Réunion, 1642–1848 (L’Harmattan: Paris, 1998), pp.107–16. 34 Jean-Michel Filliot, La traite des esclaves vers les Mascareignes au XVIIIe siècle (Orstom: Paris, 1974), pp.128–39. 35 Guillaume Le Gentil de La Galaisière, Voyage dans les mers de l’Inde, fait par ordre du Roi, à l’occasion du passage de Vénus, sur le disque du Soleil (Imprimerie Royale: Paris, 1781), pp.526–30. 36 CAOM, C4 3, no. 12, Bertrand François de La Bourdonnais to directors of Compagnie des Indes, 20 November 1739. 37 BL. Add. Ms. 33765, fol.18, memorandum of Charles Noble, 1756. 38 CAOM, C5A 1, no. 40, treaty of cession, 15 July 1753. Betia later became mediator between the Compagnie and Malagasy chiefs. In 1775 she was Christianized and took the name Elizabeth Marie Sosobie. 39 Gwyn Campbell, ‘The Structure of Trade in Madagascar, 1750–1810’, International Journal of African Historical Studies 26, 1993, pp.135–37; Dominique Bois, ‘Tamatave, la cité des femmes’, Clio 6, 1997, pp.63–76. 40 CAOM, C5A 2, no. 35, Pierre Poivre to ministry, 30 November 1767. 41 Pier M.Larson, History and Memory in the Age of Enslavement: Becoming Merina in Highland Madagascar, 1770–1822 (James Currey: Oxford, 2000), pp. 62–65.

Pirates, Malata, and the Betsimisaraka Confederation

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Malyn Newitt, The Comoro Islands: Struggle against Dependency in the Indian Ocean (Westview Press: London, 1984), pp.21–24. Pirates based in Sainte Marie seized many Portuguese vessels and maintained close ties to Delagoa Bay in the south of Mozambique, where some traded ivory and, to a lesser degree, in slaves. Most vessels captured by pirates in this region were small and involved in coastal traffic. Unfortunately, Portuguese records contain little information because their trading post in Mombasa was under attack from the Arabs in the closing years of the seventeenth century. The largest prize ever taken, the Nossa Senhora do Cabo, fell into the hands of pirates off the Island of Bourbon, currently La Réunion, in April 1721. Some pirates retired thereafter, settling on Bourbon and on the east coast of Madagascar. 43 Manassé Esoavelomandroso, ‘The Malagasy Creoles of Tamatave in the Nineteenth Century’, Diogenes 111, 198, pp.50–62.

CHAPTER TEN PORTUGUESE IMPACT UPON GOA: LUSOTOPIC, LUSOPHONIC, LUSOPHILIC? TEOTÓNIO R. DE SOUZA

While it is not so difficult to identify and analyse the linguistic (lusophonic) and non-linguistic (lusotopic) influences of the Portuguese in Goa, it is much more difficult and touchy to deal with the issue of the lusophilic presence.1 On this topic Dr Sérgio Mascarenhas, the delegate of the Fundação Oriente in Goa, recently wrote, “this is a hot issue, with pro-Portuguese and anti-Portuguese groups often at loggerheads. But there is none in Goa who really stands up as a Portuguese Goan or a Luso-Goan. It is so very different in Ceylon, Malacca and elsewhere. Lusophilia is certainly there, but hidden or under cover. It comes up from time to time as per conveniences.”2

This is the situation described by an ethnic Portuguese in Goa today. Orlando Ribeiro, a renowned geographer whose recently published Goa em 1956: Relatório ao Governo refers to “mestiçagem espiritual” in Goa, appropriated an expression coined by Gilberto Freyre—who had been on a Salazar-sponsored visit to Goa in 1951—which defined lusotropicalismo as “unidade de sentimento e cultura”, meaning a common heritage of feelings and culture.3 Orlando Ribeiro’s academic credibility and relatively high degree of impartiality and critical perspective makes his observations about the lusotopic, lusophonic and lusophilic impact of the Portuguese in Goa of special significance.4 “Unlike elsewhere where the Portuguese, attracted by the coloured females had produced very quickly a mestiço population (população mestiçada), the rigidity of the caste system in Goa forced the Portuguese to produce only a new caste of descendentes. Albuquerque’s dream of creating a Luso-Indian population, as insistently recommended by D. Manuel, vanished very early. Only a few women, whose caste condemned

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them to low social status, sought to marry these foreigners to gain upward social mobility.” “Unlike in Brazil, where so many illustrious and humble families proudly acknowledged their Portuguese origin and mixed descent; unlike in Cabo Verde, whose creole population feels very close to us, because of their old African slave-ancestors who shared the blood of their white masters, the Goans have preserved the purity of their caste, but yet reveal a surprising degree of assimilation of our habits and living style. Here we have only a spiritual miscegenation (mestiçagem espiritual). It is hard to believe though that no Portuguese blood runs in the veins of the rural aristocracy of Salcete or the old Christian families of Margão.” “Meantime, it is surprising to note the meagre presence of the Portuguese language among the Goan Christian population. Only the educated inhabitants speak the Portuguese language correctly and fluently, and not rarely with remarkable eloquence. Many families in Margão use the Portuguese language to converse among themselves. But they invariably use Konkani with their servants, just as it happens with the generality of the village population. However, during feast celebrations, in the roadside conversations, in the dramatic performances, it is not difficult to pick up Portuguese words, like pai, mãe, família, casamento, sacramento, which reveal the deep influence of Portuguese language upon day-to-day lives of the people.”5

Orlando Ribeiro then sounds what must have come as a shocking piece of news to his home Government and to all those who at home entertained a mythical image of the capital of their erstwhile empire in Asia as sung in their national epic. However, he prepares the Portuguese reader to swallow the bitter truth: “My intimate being and my way of going about force me to be very frank and not to hide those aspects which are less pleasant, or to avoid those aspects which hurt our national feelings. I think that it is good to face the hard reality, however painful it may be to us. It is only in this way that we can avoid ambiguities, illusions and hesitations, and can know for sure upon whom we can depend and what should be the ground for our decisions.”6

He continues: “I have known reasonably well the adjacent Islands and have a small book written on Madeira; I have visited all the Portuguese territories in Africa, starting from Mozambique, and have studied better Guinea and the islands of Cape Verde; I have spent four months in Brazil and observed its

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Nevertheless, Orlando Ribeiro admits that he encountered intelligent Goans at every step, and he never saw the kind of uncouth behaviour (boçalidade) that he was accustomed to see among the Portuguese at home. He goes on to describe how the traditional Goan Hindu society avoided beef and pork in their diet, and looked with suspicion at travel overseas as a safeguard of their caste purity. A Portuguese was kept at a distance, particularly by women who dared not even look at him. He was a pacló, meaning uncouth (boçal), who only spoke nonsense (só diz asneiras), and knows nothing of Hinduism. This was the popular image to scare the children and women as a “man-eater and women-molester.”8 “Unlike in Portuguese Africa, where expressions Metrópole and metropolitano are used with some discretion, in Goa it is common to hear the binary use of Province / Portugal and Goan Christian / Portuguese. That is how Portugal and the Portuguese are mentioned by Goans who share our language and customs, but not our feeling of patriotism. Pátria for a Goan is his Goa, not Portugal, and it is in Goa that they want to experience their freedom and their privileges. The Hindus in general and many Goan Christians as well, entertain ideas of closer relations with India and autonomy for their land.”9

To end, here is what Orlando Ribeiro had to say about Goan lusophilia or the absence of it: “Twenty-three years ago I had gone on a boat-cruise to our Atlantic islands, and I remember the affection and warm welcome that was accorded to the Portuguese by the African populations. My longer visits to Guinea, Cabo Verde and Sao Tome confirmed that experience. In Goa it is different. The predominant relationship is of distance and suspicion, when it is not an outright or camouflaged antipathy.”10

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What went wrong with Lusophilia? Goa was the first territory in Asia where the Portuguese claimed full sovereignty after they had reached Calicut in 1498. Afonso de Albuquerque saw Goa in his strategy for the empire as the “key to the whole of India” (chave de toda a Índia), as he described it in a letter he wrote to his king in December 1513.11 A year later he was reporting about the grand success of his policy of mixed marriages. In a letter dated 4 November 1514, he told the king: “In the eyes of the people of India, we have come to settle down, because they see our men planting trees, putting up houses of stone and lime, marrying and having sons and daughters.”12

Satisfied with his early achievements and progress of his policy he even wrote to the king with great enthusiasm: “In Goa you may order and do whatever you wish” (Goa, podeis nela ordenar e fazer tudo o que quiserdes). That is what the Portuguese thought they could do, but the results were not what they wished. Not even the return of the “terribil” could possibly help. At the start the Portuguese had met with generous collaboration by the native Hindu population. The initiative and cooperation of Timoja (or Timmayya) in the capture of Goa had played its part in the policy of strategic accommodation adopted by Afonso de Albuquerque towards the Hindu population of Goa. The Portuguese chronicler João de Barros has recorded the first encounter of Afonso de Albuquerque with Timoja in the following terms: “When Afonso de Albuquerque heard these things from Timoja, he listened very carefully, and could hardly believe they were coming from the mouth of a gentile, because he sounded more like a messenger of the Holy Spirit.”13

Several other prominent Goan Hindus, who had been deprived of their lands by the Turks, had descended from the Ghats region, where they had taken refuge, to complete the job of decimating the Muslims who were trying to escape. These Hindu leaders and their militia vied with each other to hunt down the Muslim forces that were in occupation of their land and to present their chopped heads to the new Portuguese masters for collecting prize rewards. It is even recorded in the payment receipts issued by the Treasurer of Afonso de Albuquerque that several Goans were playing in his military band. There is also ample documented evidence of

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many native women willing to satisfy the sexual needs of, or to accept matrimonial alliance with, the Portuguese soldiers, probably to break away from their traditional social oppression. For instance, when the Portuguese were thrown out of Goa after their first capture of the city and were having a hard time in surviving in their ships without fresh supplies of food, the natives of Divar and Chorão islands, and those who had their daughters married to the Portuguese, were doing their best to assist. “That was the best and most timely help the Portuguese received”, João de Barros tells us.14 Goa witnessed a brief period of construction of a Luso-Indian community as a result of Albuquerque’s policy whereby Portuguese men, many of them exiled convicts, married “fair and good looking” (alvas e de bom parecer) captive Muslim and Hindu women of low caste, giving rise to a social group of casados or married settlers. Unlike what is called the imperial policy of “divide and rule”, the Portuguese had adopted a more catholic policy. They preferred to “multiply and dominate”. However, the sexual appetite of the Portuguese was not always satisfied within the bounds of Christian marriage. Afonso de Albuquerque wrote to the king: “Some of your men are tired of sleeping with the Christian women and are seeking Hindu women.”15 These were the kolvontam (bailadeiras) of the Hindu temples, and others who lived as prostitutes. Fr. Gonçalo Martins, a Jesuit procurator of missions in Goa in the mid-seventeenth century, got the bright idea of purchasing the island of Cumbarjua, in the neighbourhood of the capital, and making it the haven of prostitution. He charged a fee that brought in revenues for the Society of Jesus.16 The minutes of the pastoral visitations of the Archbishops of Goa refer frequently to prostitution in the villages where the Portuguese had their military bases, such as in Rachol and Tivim. Other documents reveal frequent cases of prostitution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In 1858, the Secretary of the State addressed a memo to the President of the Health Board describing the gravity of the problem of venereal disease among the Portuguese military personnel in Goa. Dr. Germano Correia studied the intensity of prostitution in Goan colonial society and relates it to the military expeditions to Goa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.17 It is in this context of the sexual behaviour of the Portuguese soldiers that one should interpret the native reactions referred to by Orlando Ribeiro and expressed in some folk songs that warn women to watch out against bearded “paklé” that roam at late hours of the night (“Êdê ratiché pakle bonvtai khaddache…”), or try to peep through the key-hole. He is further informed that the lady he was trying to look at was a widow, not a young girl (“Teka ek paklo choita

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burkan ghalanu tonddu … Arê paklea choinala re, cheddum tem bailu randdu).18 The composer seems to have forgotten, or not known, that the Portuguese had enacted legislation in the late seventeenth century inviting the poor Portuguese to marry rich local widows, despite the prevailing native tradition against widow-remarriage. Obviously there were hardly any takers and, despite the limited marital or extra-marital Luso-Indian activity, the instances that have been cited are sufficient to indicate that the process of Luso-Indian miscegenation was a trickle, but yet an on-going process throughout the four and a half centuries of Portuguese colonialism. The community of casados, though small, was the main support of the structures of the Portuguese colonial society. They controlled the militia, the municipal organization and the charity organization known as the Holy House of Mercy (Santa Casa de Misericórdia). All these were positions of prestige and power as long as the Portuguese had their hold and the natives did not have other alternatives. The need to care for the orphan daughters and widows of the Portuguese men who died in the wars of conquest and overseas expansion had led to an imperial strategy of supplying white women to the Portuguese soldiers in Goa and elsewhere in the empire. While full statistics are hard to come by, Timothy Coates has given a fairly good picture of the numbers and circumstances that brought convicts, orphangirls and women from “recolhimentos” (asylums for prostitutes) to different parts of the empire.19 Silva Correia’s História da Colonização Portuguesa da Índia was a first large-scale effort to gather archival documentation to trace the origins of Luso-Indian society, particularly its female component made up largely of the orphan girls from Portugal.20 Charles Boxer expressed some reservations about the consistency of the data collected by this Goan doctor-anthropologist of mestiço descent.21 Silva Correia left several other studies of an anthropological nature, aimed partly at proving the racial purity and the high level of fertility of the women of the social group to which he belonged but both his numbers and fertility claims have been questioned by Boxer in the light of other contemporary official and missionary evidence. In his recently published M. Phil. dissertation, Ricardo Roque has thrown some more light on the “selective anthropology” of Silva Correia.22 According to Boxer, in the late nineteenth century there were no more than 2,500 descendentes in Goa, and from my knowledge, on the eve of the Portuguese loss of Goa in 1961, there were fewer than one hundred families of descendentes. Almost all of these moved out of Goa fearing reprisals from the local society which they had never treated with respect. This is an issue that is crucial to an understanding of what lies behind the observations of Orlando Ribeiro

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and to an explanation of what went wrong with “lusophilia” and, consequently, with “lusophony” as well.

Colonial Superiority and Lack of Cultural Respect and Reciprocity Timmaya’s offer of help was very useful in the capture of Goa. Timmaya knew the political set-up that prevailed in India and in Goa and had his own ambition to become a jaggirdar under a new sovereign lord, the Portuguese. He could hardly have imagined the New Order that the Portuguese established with a direct command based in far-away Lisbon. He was soon disillusioned, and so were the Portuguese. From “a messenger of the Holy Spirit”, Timmaya became a nuisance and was quickly replaced with another more pliant collaborator. The continued presence of the Portuguese colonial regime in Goa in a small enclave that was limited to the four provinces of the Old Conquests till the later eighteenth century, left a lasting impact upon the local social and cultural lives of the native population. By the middle of the seventeenth century these four provinces were coerced into converting to Christianity, with pressures and allurements, but the results were not achieved without some show of resistance, and even some sporadic outbursts. The Third Provincial Council in 1585 admitted with annoyance that “almost all the temples that had been demolished in our territory, have been rebuilt with the same names and dedicated to the same deities” in the territories just outside the Portuguese jurisdiction in Goa.23 The changes of names and dress were the external and visible signs of the new social order while the rupture provoked in the traditional family structure, the traditions of inheritance, and the village community organization had a far-reaching effect. The threats of the Inquisition, the decrees of the Provincial council and the State legislation favouring Christianity, all contributed to weakening the traditional social relationships, replacing several older questionable disharmonies with new ones that were more in tune with the colonial interests and the life-style of the colonizers. The “lusotopic” impact through architecture, dress, sculpture, music, culinary style and diet, entered the Goan society, affecting the Christian and the non-Christian sections of the society in different degrees. However, some of this cultural impact could be considered as “christianotopia romana” rather than “lusotopia”.24 This is because a large and influential proportion of the missionaries that worked for the Portuguese Padroado Real in Asia were of diverse European ethnicities,

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predominantly Italians and Germans. This was particularly true of the composition of the Jesuits in Asia. Neither of these two national groups were fanatical about the imposition of western culture on the Asiatic. Roberto di Nobili and Matteo Ricci stand out as paradigms of cultural tolerance and adaptation. However, whatever the differences of attitudes among the missionaries, the Portuguese missionary drive in Goa was not seen by all sections of the population in the same way. For many Goans of higher caste, it was an opportunity to collaborate profitably with the new rulers, even though there were more conservative elements among the converts to whom a change in the habits of food and dress, as demanded by the Church and Inquisition, was not acceptable. There were many such Goans who preferred to go into exile in the neighbouring territories of Kanara and Malabar. A Jesuit visitor, who travelled through Kanara in the second half of the seventeenth century, calculated as 30,000 the number of Goans, chiefly Hindus, who had migrated to that region to escape the religious and other pressures in Goa. It was among these communities of emigrants in Mangalore that appeared the proverbial saying “Who dare say that the Portuguese are not in Goa?” (Goeam firngi na mhunno khoim?). It was a rhetorical question, which did not require an answer from the Goans who had experienced the heat of the conversion drive in Goa and had run away from there. The expression implied sarcasm and criticism aimed at those who stayed behind, hoping to resist the Portuguese control and pressures, the “lusotopic” and “lusophonic” impact. The Portuguese missionaries had manifested great interest in learning the language of the locals, not only the Marathi language that was used for religious texts and rituals, but also the spoken language of the people, namely Konkani. This missionary effort was seen in the boys’ school attached to the College of St Paul, which trained the Jesuit candidates in the East. The initiative of setting up that school came from none other than St. Francis Xavier, who saw the need for training native interpreters who could accompany and assist the Jesuit missionaries in their endeavours in the East. In 1563, the boys’ school had 645 pupils, and some years later the register showed 800 boys of various ethnic origins.25 It was during this initial phase that several books were composed and published in Konkani to train the missionaries, and as manuals of devotion for the converts. However, this missionary zeal had grown dimmer in the latter half of the seventeenth century. The trend had reversed. There was missionary pressure upon the state administration to enact legislation that would force the natives to learn and speak the Portuguese language under penalty of not being allowed to celebrate their weddings in the Church, or not having their sons ordained as priests. The attempts were fruitless, because the

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natives were already used to liturgy in the local language and had no great interest in hearing sermons in Portuguese. Practically till the end of the Portuguese colonial presence in Goa the total of those who could speak and understand the Portuguese language did not exceed 3 per cent of the population, and this was the case at a time when primary education in Portuguese was made compulsory. The compulsory education did not raise the level of literacy and, as noted by Mariano Saldanha, it only succeeded in creating “a unique class of illiterates who could read and write, a strange breed in the history of education.”26 The need to migrate to British India and the dependence of Goans upon the remittances of the emigrants proved beyond doubt the futility of learning the Portuguese language with any degree of seriousness. The socio-political relationship of dominance and subordination formed the essence of the colonial regime, and it is but natural that some sectors of the native population should have expressed their unhappiness about it from time to time. The Konkani language, spoken by nearly 90 per cent of the population, was regarded pejoratively as the language of the “criados”. The Goan elites who spoke Portuguese at home always spoke Konkani to their household servants. The resistance to the colonial domination came from native priests who were sons of the rural population and had great influence over them. By their seminary training they were the most important carriers of “lusophony” to the interior and distant places of the Portuguese Padroado.27 However, these same priests had been experiencing a sort of racist discrimination when it came to promotions. The white clergy dominated the church with their ethnic and political links with the colonizers. Even though Portuguese colonialism is often proclaimed by the Portuguese to have been non-racist, racial discrimination was never entirely absent. As the natives adapted themselves to western ways and proved their competence, or even their superiority, as compared to many Portuguese who served in the East, references to colour and patriotism became increasingly necessary for the Portuguese from the eighteenth century onwards. This was noticeable in the attitude of the white friars and the mestiços (descendentes) who felt threatened in their careers, and invited nationalist reaction from the natives. The Franciscan friars resented and resisted the pressure of the native clerics who wanted to take over the control of their parishes in Bardez with the backing of the Archbishop Fr. Ignacio de Santa Thereza in 1724–28. By 1705 the number of native clerics is estimated as 2,500.28 One cannot help noting the overtly racist language utilized by the friars on that occasion against the native clerics:

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“All these black priests (with the exception of some by miracle) are by their very nature ill-natured and ill-behaved, lascivious, drunkards, etc. and therefore, most unworthy of receiving the charge of the churches”.

They continued their accusations: “It must be pointed out in the fourth place that these natives naturally hate the Portuguese and all ‘white-skinned’ people, and their hate is directed more against the parish priests, because these live in their villages and watch keenly their behaviour. That is why white priests and religious are a burden to them.”29

The motives that caused the mestiços to behave arrogantly and to manifest racist tendencies were not very different from those of the friars. Under Pombal’s reforms, the equality of social status for colonial natives had been decreed but the viceroy in Goa had issued an ordinance that put a finger on the wound. It said: “the pride that dominates in this part of the world is the chief reason for the misery of these natives…. By Portuguese I also mean mestiços, and these suffer more from the diabolic vice of pride that the Europeans proper.”

In 1739 the Marathas conquered the Northern Province of India where the descendentes owned vast resources and enjoyed opportunities to parade their self-importance. They were forced to take shelter as refugees in Goa. Something similar had happened earlier when the Dutch had taken over Malacca, Ceylon and Cochin. For the wealth they had lost they sought to make up with control of the militia and a display of “lusophonic” and “white skinned” patriotism, behaving with insolence towards the Goan natives. The above-mentioned decree had to warn them against calling the natives “negros” (niggers) and “cachorros” (dogs) under penalty of fines and punishment.30 The discontent among the native clerics had seen outbursts from time to time. In mid-seventeenth century it was Bishop Matheus de Castro Mahale from Divar, who entered into an alliance with Bijapur and the Dutch in 1654, and tried to instigate people from inside Goa to oust the Portuguese and put an end to their spiritual domination of the Goans. The second major incident took place in 1787, the “Pinto Conspiracy”, in which Goan priests joined a few Goans serving in the military and some others to attempt to end the Portuguese rule in Goa. The conspiracy was denounced and resulted in summary executions, forced labour and the exile to Portugal of most of the priests who failed to escape, where they

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were kept under house arrest for years on end, without any judicial hearing.31 The arrival of liberal institutions and the printing press at the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century gave the Goan natives new opportunities for training and for self-expression. The unwillingness of the descendentes to do the same, rather than rely upon their heavy-handed tactics and patriotic slogans, made their situation untenable following military reforms that abolished the militia. It was then that the social tensions between the descendentes and the natives reached new heights. A Goan priest, Francisco Xavier Álvares, who edited the weekly Brado Indiano, was ferocious in his criticism of the Portuguese Church in the service of the colonial regime. The priest even left the Roman Church to be consecrated as Bishop Mar Julius I of the Antiochian Orthodox Church.32 The proclamation of the Republic reduced the discrimination experienced by the Goan Hindus for a brief period, but very soon the policies of the Estado Novo, and particularly the Acto Colonial in 1930, reduced the natives of the colonies to downgraded citizens as “assimilados” and “indígenas”. That was seen as the climax of “lusophonic” arrogance. The degree of “assimilação” was measured largely in terms of capacity to master the Portuguese language. Goans, who in increasing numbers earned their bread and exercised civilian and ecclesiastical jobs of responsibility and prestige in British India, desired to learn English and had little use for the Portuguese language. Goans had begun to experience “lusophony” as a tool of colonial exploitation rather than as a lusophilic bond. Since 1830, and particularly after the establishment of the Institute Vasco da Gama in 1870, there had been a spurt of literary productions in the Portuguese language by talented Goans working as journalists, historians and poets. The two volumes of Literatura Indo-Portuguesa, edited by Vimala Devi and Manuel Seabra and the more recent work of Aleixo Manuel da Costa,33 provide us with information about some hundreds of Goans who cultivated the Portuguese language (and also English, French and Marathi) with great success. The tradition did not die even in the worst times after Goa’s liberation. The journal of the Institute Menezes Bragança (the old Institute Vasco da Gama renamed in 1961) continued as Boletim do Instituto Menezes Bragança and included essays in the Portuguese language up to 1999, when it was replaced with Govapuri as a reaction to the latest commemoration of Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India. It could be said that the failure of “lusophony” in Goa and the limited lusophilic ambiance was caused largely by Portuguese inability to

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maintain a cultural dialogue of mutual respect, without utilizing the Portuguese language to marginalize the others in their own home ground. This process did not start and end in the recent times of the Estado Novo and Salazar is not to be blamed for the behaviour of the Portuguese down the centuries. The Goan folksongs and proverbs are not a product of the Salazar period. They represent a sedimentation of centuries-long experiences and feelings of discontent of the Goan natives to the point of saying in one of them: “never say a snake is too small to harm, or a Portuguese is our friend. Both are to be equally distrusted.” (Sorop mhonncho nhoi daktto, ani pakló mhonncho nhoi amnchó).34

Notes 1

As a Goan, born and brought up in Goa for nearly half a century, before and after the end of the Portuguese colonial regime, my life experiences and my thirty years or so research efforts as a historian of Goa, entitle me to respond with some confidence to the questions posed in the title of this paper. The expression ‘Lusotopic’ refers here to ‘Lusotopie’, made popular in the academic world by Michel Cahen and Dejanirah Couto through their annual seminars and publication of proceedings in Paris and Bordeaux since 1994. I had the opportunity of participating in the Paris session of 1996 and the Goa session of 1999. The issues related to our theme were discussed during both these seminars and the published proceedings provide excellent source material. Lusotropicalisme: Ideologies colonials et identités nationales dans les mondes lusophones (Karthala: Paris, 1997). 2 Private letter to the author. 3 Teotónio R. de Souza, Gilberto Freyre na Índia e o ‘Luso-Tropicalismo Transnacional’ (CEPRSA: Lisboa, 2000), p.1. 4 Goa em 1956: Relatório ao Governo (Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses— henceforward CNCDP: Lisbon, 2000), pp.82, 119. Orlando Ribeiro was in Goa from 8 October 1955 till 27 February 1956. 5 Orlando Ribeiro, op. cit. pp.49–50. 6 Ibid., p.65. 7 Ibid., p.64. 8 Ibid., p.92, 96. 9 Ibid., p.119. 10 Ibid., p.132. 11 Catarina Madeira Santos, “Goa é a chave de toda a Índia”: Perfil político do Estado da Índia (1550–1570) (CNCDP: Lisbon, 1999), p.105. 12 Arquivo Português Oriental, ed. A.B. Bragança Pereira (Tipografia Rangel: Bastorá, 1936), Tome IV, Vol. 1, p.842. 13 João de Barros, Décadas da Ásia, II (Livraria Sam Carlos: Lisboa, 1973), p.429. 14 Ibid. pp.131–2.

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Cartas de Afonso de Albuquerque, ed. A. Baião (Livraria Sá da Costa: Lisbon, 1942), p.40. 16 Teotónio R. de Souza, ‘Gonçalo Martins: A Jesuit Procurator, Businessman and Diplomat in the Estado da India’, Mare Liberum, 1993, 5, July, pp.119–128. 17 A.C. Germano da Silva Correia, Prostituição e Profilaxia Anti-venérea (Tipografia Rangel: Bastorá, 1938). 18 Teotónio R. de Souza, ‘Lusofonia e Lusotopia no Oriente: O caso do Folclore goês’, Revista Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Nº1, Lisbon, pp. 109– 116. 19 Timothy Coates, Convicts and Orphans: Forced and State–Sponsored Colonizers in the Portuguese Empire, 1550–1755 (Stanford University Press: Stanford, CA, 2001). 20 A.C. Germano da Silva Correia, História da Colonização Portuguesa na Índia, 6 vols (Agência Geral das Colónias: Lisbon, 1948–58). 21 C.R. Boxer, Mary and Misogyny (Duckworth: London, 1975), pp.63–84. 22 Ricardo Roque, Antropologia e Império: Francisco Cardoso e a expedição à Índia em 1895 (ICS: Lisbon, 2001), pp. 319–324. 23 Arquivo Português Oriental, vol IV, ed. J.H.Cunha Rivara (AES Reprint: New Delhi, 1992), p.123. 24 Teotónio R. de Souza, ‘Some contrasting visions of luso-tropicalism in India’, Lusotropicalisme: Ideologies colonials et identités nationals dans les mondes lusophones, eds. M.Cahen & Dejanirah Couto (Paris, 1997), pp.377–387. 25 Teotónio R. de Souza, ‘O ensino e a missionação jesuita na Índia’, A Companhia de Jesus e a Missionação no Oriente (Brotéria/Fundação Oriente: Lisboa, 2000), pp.117–132. 26 M. Saldanha, ‘A lingua Concani: as suas conferências e a accão portuguesa na sua cultura’, Boletim do Instituto Vasco da Gama (Tipografia Rangel: BastoráGoa, 1953). Offprint. 27 Teotónio R. de Souza, ‘A lingua portuguesa em Goa: As dificuldades da sua implantação’, Língua e Cultura (Sociedade da Língua Portuguesa: Lisboa, 2000), pp. 64–78. 28 Teotónio R. de Souza, ‘The rural economy and society in Portuguese India: Colonial reality v/s Stereotypes’, Vasco da Gama e a Índia, Vol 2 (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation: Lisbon, 1999), pp.101–107. 29 Biblioteca Nacional (Lisboa), Cod.179: Memórias e documentos para a história eclesiástica na Ásia, 1728–1729, fls.11–13v: “Todos estes clérigos negros (exceptuando alguns como por milagre) são ex sua natura mal inclinados e mal procedidos, lascivos, bebados, etc…. e por isso incapacissimos de que se lhes entregue a administração das Igrejas…. Deve-se notar em 4o lugar ser em estes naturais natural o ódio e antipatia à gente Portuguesa e a tudo o que hé pelle branca, sendo este mais excessive e entranhável a respeito dos párocos, porque como estes vivem e residem nas aldeias, e entre os naturais são atalayas vigilantes que poem todo o cuidado, assim em lhes investigar os seus designios, como em

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notar-lhes as suas obras (…) faz-se-lhes muito pesado o terem parocos brancos e Religiosos.” 30 Arquivo Historico Ultramarino (Lisboa), Cod.446, fls.75–75v: “a soberba que domina nesta parte do mundo, é a causa originária do abatimento destes mizeráveis naturais… chamo também Portugueses aos mestiços porque nestes ainda mais que nos mesmos Europeos reina mais aquelle luciferino vício.” 31 Teotónio R. de Souza, ‘Christianity and Cultural Conflict in Goa: 16th to 19th Centuries’, Congresso Internacional de História: Missionação portuguesa e encontro de culturas, vol IV (Universidade Católica Portuguesa: Braga, 1993), pp.383–93. 32 Ibid. 33 Aleixo Manuel da Costa, Dicionário de Literatura Goesa, 3 vols (Instituto Cultural de Macau & Fundação Oriente: Macau, 1997). 34 S.R. Dalgado, Florilégio dos Provérbios Concanis (Imprensa da Universidade: Coimbra, 1922), p. 246.

CHAPTER ELEVEN THE PORTUGUESE PROVINCE OF THE NORTH: “CREOLE” POWER GROUPS IN URBAN CENTRES AND THEIR HINTERLANDS, C.1630–1680 GLENN J. AMES

Introduction The Portuguese Province of the North long played a vital geo-political and economic role in the history of the Estado da Índia. The social, economic and cultural dynamics of the fortified littoral cities of Diu, Damão, Baçaim and Chaul in the century and a half between 1535 and 1680 reflect much about the Portuguese presence in India and the Asian trade during that period.1 After providing a brief overview of the development of “the North”, this chapter will first examine why these settlements were so vital to the efficient functioning of the Estado da Índia, and then look at the challenges confronting these towns their hinterlands during the period c.1600–1680, in particular the multifaceted threat embodied in the arrival of the Dutch (VOC) and English (EIC) Companies in the East. The chapter will also examine the role that “the North” played in the streamlined Estado da Índia of the late seventeenth century, which resulted from the rehabilitation campaign undertaken after 1668 by the Prince Regent, Dom Pedro, and in particular the viceroy, Luís de Mendonça Furtado. Finally, it will look at the important role played in this process by what might be described as the “Creole” population in Portuguese India and particularly “the North”.

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The Acquisition of the Province of the North The Portuguese acquisition of its Province of the North resulted from several factors. First, the rising power of the Mughal Empire, beginning with Humayan (1508–1556), and the threat that power represented to extant Muslim sultanates like Gujarat, greatly assisted the Portuguese cause. Second, the strong allure that the rich trade of the Gulf of Cambay region in textiles, horses, and other lucrative products exerted on the Portuguese Crown also played a role. Third, the notable increase in Portuguese military power in the Indian Ocean basin during the second and third decades of the sixteenth century facilitated the process of conquest. Finally, there can be no doubt that the traditional ties of the region with the hajj traffic to Mecca through ports like Surat and Diu also caught the attention of the crusading spirit of the Portuguese Crown, especially in an age of increasing militancy on the part of the Church.2 In seeking to acquire additional fortified bases for the Estado da Índia, the Portuguese had utilized the time-honoured, albeit generally efficient, strategy summarized in the maxim “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. By 1522 the Portuguese had been rewarded with coastal settlements and fortresses at Cochin, Cannanore, and Cranganor. By that time, they had already made several attempts to obtain a settlement at Diu, perhaps the most important port on the Gulf of Cambay. In fact, they had been encouraged in this by the Sultan Muzaffer Shah II (1511–1526) who sent an envoy to Goa in 1512 in an effort to halt Portuguese attacks on his lucrative trade. Yet, the shrewd governor of Diu, Malik Ayaz, who had a strong vested interest in preventing the Estado from acquiring this prized possession, had resisted the efforts of Almeida (1509), Albuquerque (1513), and Diogo Lopes de Sequeira (1521).3 The years following Malik Ayaz’s death in 1522, however, witnessed the consolidation of Portuguese power in the North. This process had indeed begun in 1521, when Malik Ayaz had failed to stop the construction of a Portuguese fort at Chaul. The arrival of the governor Nuno da Cunha in 1529, with firm orders from Dom João III to reduce Diu once and for all, began an escalation of the warfare with Gujarat that witnessed the sacking of Surat and Baçaim between 1531 and 1533. In the midst of Sultan Bahadur’s warfare in the mid-1530s against the Rajput states of Chittor and Mandu as well as against Humayan, a treaty of December 1534 formally ceded Baçaim and its surrounding territories, including Bombay, to the Portuguese. Diu, however, proved elusive. However, by September 1535 Humayam’s continuing success forced Bahadur finally to grant permission to the Portuguese to build a fort at Diu

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in return for their military assistance against the Mughal emperor. Bahadur and his successors quickly discovered, much to their chagrin, that once entrenched inside the fort on the island of Diu, the Portuguese could not be easily dislodged. In fact, over the next thirty years, they withstood successive sieges and attempts to displace them by Bahadur in 1537, and by Sultan Mahmud II (1537–1554) and Khwaja Safar first in 1538–1539 and then in 1546 when D. João de Castro relieved the heavily pressed Portuguese garrison. Exploiting the political infighting in Gujarat following the murder of Mahmud II in 1554, the Portuguese finally took control of the entire island of Diu and all of its considerable customs revenues (1555). Thereafter, Diu would not be seriously attacked by land until 1961.4 Damão was the final piece of the Province of the North obtained by the Portuguese in 1557–1558 from the most powerful noble in Gujarat at that time, `Imad-ul-mulk. `Imad-ul-mulk had made this grant to relieve the growing exactions of the Portuguese coastal fleets on his shipping. Like Baçaim, Damão was located in the extreme south of the sultanate, territory beyond the effective central control of the Sultan. As Michael Pearson pointed out long ago, according to the Persian sources Damão was a muzafat or appendage of the sultanate not part of its mulk or land. In fact, the Portuguese paid tribute or chauth to another local rajah not the Sultan. Moreover, by that time, the sultanate of Gujarat was in decline and frequent court intrigues and rifts within the nobility made Akbar’s (1542– 1602) conquest of Gujarat in 1572–1573 relatively easy. Thereafter, Gujarat became a subah of the Mughal Empire. In 1573, Akbar and the Portuguese signed a treaty leaving the Estado da Índia in possession of Damão. Akbar also promised not to harbour the Malabar “pirates” and, in return, he was given one free cartaz for an annual voyage to the Red Sea. In essence, by asking for this free cartaz, the great Akbar and his successors, Jahangir, Shah Jehan, and Aurangzeb, implicitly recognized the Portuguese claim to be masters of the seaborne trade of Gujarat.5 Now that the Portuguese had achieved a degree of control over the rich Gulf of Cambay trade, the question was: how would they exploit the power they possessed in the Province of the North?

The Importance of the Province of the North The fortified cities of the Province of the North performed four main functions for the Estado da Índia: economic, geopolitical, social and religious. Economically, the rich trade of the Gulf of Cambay region provided handsome custom revenues. Pearson has estimated the total value

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of sea trade in the Gulf in 1571 as Rs.8,00,00,000 or c.53,000,000 xerafins, a figure, which rose to perhaps Rs.10,00,00,000 or c.66,000,000 xerafins by 1644, with Surat generating perhaps a tenth of that revenue. In 1555, the first complete year of full Portuguese control of the custom house at Diu, the Crown received nearly Rs.2,40,000 or 160,000 xerafins in revenues.6 Diu, Damão, Baçaim and Chaul also formed an important part of the larger economic structure of the empire during this period. The Province of the North became a crucial component of the fleet and cartaz system that evolved during the early sixteenth century. As early as 1512, the Portuguese had 50 ships plying the Indian Ocean basin, by the 1520s this figure had risen to perhaps 80; by the late 1560s to nearly 100; and in 1620 there were 65 ships based in Goa.7 To enforce Portuguese pretensions in the Gulf of Cambay, two small fleets were usually sent out from Diu; one sailed west to compel shipping from the western ports of the sultanate to call at Diu; the other cruised the Gulf itself to escort the shipping from the port of Cambay. By the 1560s the cafila or caravan system was also becoming entrenched within the country-trading network of the Estado da Índia. Fleets of merchant ships, sometimes several hundred at a time, would be convoyed to Goa from the ports of the Province of the North with textiles and other goods that would be embarked on the naus of the Carreira da Índia. Usually two or three cafilas left Goa each year for the north with stops at Chaul, Baçaim, Damão, and in the seventeenth century at Surat, on the way to Cambay carrying troops for the garrisons and supplies for the religious houses there.8 The economic value of the cities of the Province of the North for the Estado da Índia can be gauged by data from the extant orçamentos (budgets) for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These reveal that throughout this period Diu, Damão, Baçaim and Chaul generated significant revenues for the Estado. As Tables 11–1 to 11–3 show, this was certainly the case even during the turbulent mid-years of the century. At a time when the Estado was confronted by heavy losses to the VOC and serious challenges from the EIC and Colbert’s Compagnie Royale des Indes Orientales Goa and the Province of the North continually generated vital revenues for the Crown. In 1571, the 574,380 xerafins produced by these cities constituted 69.6 per cent of the Crown’s revenues in the Estado da Índia. In 1634, the 579,115 xerafins from these same cities represented 48.9 per cent of the total and by 1680, when the fallout from the struggle against the VOC had settled, 677,282 xerafins were generated, a jump of nearly 17 per cent. This figure constituted 92.5 per cent of the revenues in the little studied orçamento for that year which survives in the

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Historical Archive of Goa (HAG). Even though Mozambique, then being run under the auspices of the semi-private Junta, was probably generating c.200,000 xerafins a year, it would not be too radical to state that by 1680 the Portuguese had been able to retain what, in terms of state revenue, was by far the most valuable of their possessions in the East.9 Geo-politically, it had always been vital to maintain control over the cities of the Province of the North. The combination of European fortification techniques, slave labour, and the ability to reinforce and reprovision by sea had made Diu, Damão, Baçaim and Chaul virtually immune from conquest by Indian powers. Yet, the arrival of the VOC and EIC in Indian waters in the years after 1600, with increasingly powerful fleets, altered this state of affairs, and significantly complicated matters for the Estado da Índia. The loss of the vital entrepôt of Hormuz to a combined Persian land force and English fleet in 1622 certainly signalled this unwelcome reality for Goa. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that the most serious losses for the Estado da Índia took place after the “defenestration” of Lisbon in December 1640, not before. 10 In the midst of the imperial triage in Brazil, Africa, and Asia that confronted D. João IV and Dona Luisa de Gusmão between 1640 and 1663, Malacca (1641), Muscat (1650), Ceylon (1638–1658), and Cochin, Cannanor and Cranganor (1662–1663) had been lost. Yet, the Province of the North survived this onslaught thanks to its impressive fortifications and the relatively stable relations between Goa and Agra, which prevented any combined sea and land attack on these cities. Socially, the cities in the Province of the North were multicultural enclaves, heavily tied to the existing trading connections between the region and East Africa, the Mughal Empire, and the Red Sea. As the English physician for the EIC, John Fryer, noted in the mid-1670’s “English, Portugueze, Topazes, Gentues, Moors, Cooly Christians, most Fisherman” all lived “confusedly” within the burgeoning town of Bombay. Much the same mix was true of Diu, Damão, Baçaim, and Chaul, “famous Cities belonging to the Portugals.”11 The controversial French physician, Charles Dellon, provided a detailed description of Damão in early 1673, after leaving the employ of the Compagnie Royale des Indes and beginning his short-lived freelance travels. “This City was built by the Portuguese, who remain in possession of it to this day; it is about 20 Leagues from Suratte, and 80 from Goa, it is not very large, but strong and neatly kept.”

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For Dellon, the wealth created from the extensive trade of the region, and the richness of the surrounding countryside was well-reflected in the architecture. “The Houses are all handsome Buildings, and the Churches very Magnificent; especially the Parish Church, and the Chappel of the Charitable Society. Besides which, there are 4 others.”

However, the historical legacy of geopolitical and military struggles in the region remained ingrained in the society. According to Dellon, “the Inhabitants of Damão are looked upon as the best Horse Men in the Indies, they having once defended themselves with great bravery against an Army of the Great Mogul, consisting of 40,000 Men, who had besieged the place. This Government is one of the most considerable the Portuguese are Masters of in these parts.”

Dellon’s account reflects a good deal of objectivity considering the fact that in August 1673 he was arrested by agents of the Inquisition in Damão. After five months in a “dark and stinking dungeon” with forty other prisoners, he was transferred to Goa in January 1674. Dellon spent the next two years in the cells of the Inquisition before taking part in the autoda-fé of January 1676.12 On Christmas Eve 1673, another Frenchmen, the Abbé Carré, visited Dellon in his cell at Damão. Carré was a special courier for Colbert charged with delivering dispatches to the commander of the large French fleet under Jacob Blanquet de La Haye, then operating in Asian waters, informing the admiral of the outbreak of hostilities in Europe against the Dutch.13 Carré’s description of Damão was, for the most part, similarly laudatory. “The town of Daman is situated in latitude 20 [degrees] N and is three days journey from Surat. It lies on the seashore. The country is fertile and delightful, abounding in food, fruit, and all that is pleasant in life.”

According to Carré, it was “a most agreeable place, and formerly was so coveted by the kings and princes of the East, as an epitome of the delights of India, that the Great Mughal twice sent armies of 200,000 men against it; but they could do nothing, as the place is well finished and fortified.”

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In the view of the French cleric, Damão was the “most symmetrical [fortress] that the Portuguese possess in India.” It was “surrounded by strong walls with several fine ramparts, each protecting one another. All this is encompassed by a large moat.” All the streets were “large,” and there were “four principal gates, with ramparts which correspond and defend one another.” Its buildings are not high, but are well constructed of hewn stone.” Like Dellon, Carré was impressed by the “many fine churches, including a cathedral.” At the same time, the French cleric’s account of Damão also pointed out that the moat of the town “which was formerly filled at high tide,” was then “nearly blocked up on the land side.” Moreover, there were so “few priests now that there are not enough to serve the churches; and the two outside the town—viz. Our Lord of the Remedies and Our Lady of Augusta—have no services from want of clergy.”14 Given Colbert’s systematic and impressive campaign to break into the Asian trade during the 1660s and 1670s, it is not surprising that various agents of the Compagnie Royale des Indes Orientales, as well as royal agents of Louis XIV, left such descriptions of the important cities of the Province of the North in their travel accounts. In fact, in the midst of formal negotiations with the Prince Regent, Dom Pedro, in 1669–1671 toward forming an anti-Dutch alliance in Asia, Colbert sought the concession of one of the cities of the North.15 Since Charles II had recently received a grant of Bombay as part of his wedding dowry and in return for assisting the Estado against the attacks of the Dutch, why should the French not receive a similar concession from the Portuguese Crown? The acquisition of one of these heavily fortified cities would certainly have helped the French Company in its quest to carve out a significant trade in the Gulf of Cambay region. However, no such grant was ever obtained from Lisbon.16 The cities of the Province of the North were important bases for the missionary effort which had gathered momentum with the arrival of the Jesuits (1542) and the establishment of the Inquisition in Goa (1560). The figures for 1634 contained in António Bocarro’s Livro das plantas de todas as fortalezas, cidades e povoaçoens do Estado da Índia Oriental reflect the traditional commitment of the Crown to entrenching the Roman Catholic faith in India under the auspices of the Padroado Real. Within the walls of Baçaim, the houses of worship included the Sé Cathedral, the church of Nossa Senhora da Vida, and the Augustinian hermitage of Annunciada. Outside the city walls to the north, one could find the hermitage of São Lazaro, the freguezias of São João, Nossa Senhora dos Remédios, Nossa Senhora das Mercês, and the Calvário of the

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Franciscans. To the east, the churches of Nossa Senhora da Graça and São Thomé, and another church belonging to the Jesuits which had been erected over the years of Portuguese control. To the Cathedral in Baçaim, the king annually paid 800 xerafins to support the activities of the Vigário, 4 beneficiados, 2 moços de choro, a tezoureiro, 4 cantores, and a tangedor. He paid another 72 xerafins for candles and other altar expenses. The Crown’s additional religious expenses at Baçaim included 968 xerafins for provisions (mantimentos) for the Franciscan convent, 3,600 xerafins for the Franciscans and Jesuits, 336 xerafins to the Dominicans, and 600 xerafins to the Augustinians. It is interesting to note that the agricultural richness of the hinterland surrounding Baçaim, where the Portuguese casados had significant landholdings, and the revenues it produced were also, by royal decree, used to subsidize the activities of the Archbishop of Cranganor (5,000 xerafins) and the Jesuit fathers in Japan (600 xerafins). Therefore, approximately 12,000 xerafins were spent on religious activities in 1634 or approximately 20 per cent of the total of 58,895 xerafins spent in that year, a not insignificant sum.17 How effective had the Portuguese been in their conversion activities in the Province of the North? According to Carré’s account, at one time these clerics had “flourished and worked marvels for the salvation and conversion of the infidels and Hindus in this country.”18 By the 1670s such successes were much harder to come by. According to Bocarro, in 1634– 1635, there were probably 75 Jesuits, 91 Franciscans, 47 Capuchins, 49 Augustinians, and 64 Dominicans operating in the cities and surrounding areas of the Province of the North. As for the number of converts or casados prêtos or prêtos Christãos in the “North”, Diu had 100, Baçaim had 600, Chaul had 50, and as for Damão, Bocarro states only that there were “alguns prêtos christãos” for a total of roughly 770 Christians living within the jurisdiction of the Estado da Índia in the “North”.19 This was hardly an impressive number, and according to Bocarro, in the area around Damão Christianity was languishing “because they are Hindus and Moors who have great hatred for our holy Catholic faith, and because of this none of them convert.” As for the number of Portuguese casados in the cities of the Province of the North, Bocarro states that in mid-1635 there were 400 in Damão, 400 in Baçaim, 200 in Chaul, and 59 in Diu for a total of 1,159.20 According to these figures, therefore, there were approximately 326 Catholic clergy in those possessions administering to the spiritual needs of c.2,000 “white” and “black” Christians, or 1 priest for every 6 Christians. In fact, these figures for the North seemingly confirm the lamentation of the governor, António de Mello de Castro, in January 1666:

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Chapter Eleven “Among the great miseries that have existed for many years in this State of India, none is of less weigh than the multitude of Religiosos that there are in it, because they are rich, they are making themselves Masters of everything, and those that are poor, sustain themselves with the alms of those that are even poorer than themselves.”21

These figures indirectly confirm one crucial aspect of the social and economic reality of the Province of the North, the vital role played by Hindu, Jain, and to a lesser degree, Muslim merchants in the trade of the region. As Michael Pearson, G. V. Scammell, and Teotónio de Souza pointed out more than twenty years ago, given the paucity of Christian subjects in those cities, indigenous capital and trading networks played a crucial role in the economy of the Estado da Índia in general and the lucrative Gulf of Cambay in particular given the paucity of Christian subjects in those cities.22 There can be little doubt that Portuguese reinois and casados alike sought to exploit those indigenous connections for both their own personal advantage and perhaps more indirectly the interest of the Crown.23

The Revival of the Estado da Índia and the War with Oman In the crucial decades of the 1660s and 1670s, as Colbert sought to undermine Dutch commercial power by breaking into the Asian trade, the Portuguese Crown was confronted by a number of crucial decisions in its foreign policy. The most immediate foreign policy decision which confronted the Prince Regent was whether or not to join Colbert’s alliance against the Dutch in Europe and Asia, an alliance which by May 1670 already included Charles II and England. Despite the best efforts of the French lobby in Lisbon and what must have been a strong temptation to embrace the alliance as a means to revenge the losses of Malacca, Ceylon, and Cochin, the Prince Regent wisely decided to decline this proposal. Instead he began a sustained campaign to reform the Estado da Índia, spearheaded by the viceroy Luís de Mendonça Furtado, the first count of Lavradio, from 1671–1677.24 Among the gravest challenges confronting Lavradio upon his arrival in Goa in May 1671 were, first the rising sea power of the Omani Arabs, second the economic threat to Crown revenues engendered by the anti-Hindu laws which had been passed in Goa since c.1550, and third the need to maintain a viable colonial population in the face of increased European competition in India. All of these issues were manifested most acutely in the Province of the North.

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The rise of the Omani Arabs under the Ya’rubi line of Imans had begun with Nasir ibn Murshid (1624–49), who unified much of Oman around himself. By the end of his reign Muscat, the most important Portuguese fortress in the region, was under periodic siege. His successor ibn Saif al-Ya’rubi (1649–79) had not only captured Muscat in 1650, but thereafter succeeded in maintaining a formidable fleet of warships that for the first time since 1509 represented an indigenous Indian Ocean force which could effectively challenge the sea power of the Europeans. Saif alYa’rubi engaged the Portuguese in a naval war for the remainder of his reign in the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea, and along the Swahili coast of Africa.25 The Portuguese Province of the North received special attention in this warfare. Bombay was attacked in 1660–1661 and in response, the viceroy, João Nunes da Cunha, had sent a formidable fleet of 9 ships, 246 guns, 374 sailors and 1780 soldiers under D. Francisco Manuel to exact revenge and attack Muscat in 1667. The following year the Omani fleet and troops sacked Diu, devastating the town and carrying off a notable amount of booty. As the governors pointed out nearly a year later, the devastation caused to Diu was such that regular trade had still not been reestablished, alfandega receipts were virtually non-existent, and the apparent ease with which the Omanis had sacked the place had given encouragement to other enemies of the Estado. In the words of the governors, a prompt remédio was needed, given the fact that Diu was “the principal fortaleza in India.”26 Significantly, the response of the Goa hierarchy to this stinging defeat was both prompt and effective. The very able António Paes de Sande, then vedor-geral da fazenda, had been sent north to assess the damage and to propose a course of action to rehabilitate the region. The Treasury Council in Goa, meanwhile, handed down a series of decisions, which facilitated the economic recovery of Diu and which included an assento which cut the usual custom duty rate by half for the next six years.27 Over the next twenty years, this naval warfare continued. In August 1669, a large fleet of nine ships under D. Jerónimo Manuel had inflicted a crushing defeat on ibn Saif al-Ya’rubi’s fleet off Ras Mussendom near Hormuz. As the governors Corte-Real and Mello de Castro informed Lisbon: “the natives [on that coast] did not eat fresh fish for many days because of the dead corpses that fouled the seas and the beaches [there].”28 The following year, D. Jerónimo Manuel had returned to the Gulf region with another large fleet of seven ships de alto bordo. He defeated the Omani fleet off Qishm and returned to Goa with several lucrative prizes. As the governors informed Lisbon in October 1671:

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Chapter Eleven “The Omanis remain so broken by the encounter they had with our fleet near the island of Queixome, that they gathered the little that remained to them at Muscat, not even sailing this past summer, a great occasion, by which we continued the Straits voyage that promises, not only credit, but also great advantages.”29

Yet, in response ibn Saif al-Ya’rubi had sent a fleet to attack Mozambique in 1670, an action that was only deterred by the effective actions of Gaspar de Souza Lacerda and the fortuitous arrival of the vice regal fleet of Mendonça Furtado.30 After taking power in Goa, Lavradio sent a fleet of ten ships to the Straits in March 1672. By May of that year, the renascent naval power of the Portuguese in the region had convinced the governor of Mecca, Sayeide Hasan, to sign a treaty that allowed the Portuguese to bring goods to Mecca without fear of attack, with the ships from the ports of the Province of the North, including Diu, Damão, and Chaul, paying only a 3 per cent customs duty, and Mello de Castro’s fleet being exempt from taxes. The captain-general was also paid a lump sum of 10,000 silver patacas [1=c.320 reis].31 In 1673, João Correa de Sá took a fleet of nine ships to the Straits, which obtained a new farman from the Shah of Persia which reconfirmed the longstanding claim of the Estado to half the custom revenues at Bandar Kung.32 By 1676, the Omanis had recovered sufficiently from their earlier mauling to send another high seas fleet of twelve ships against Diu. It is emblematic of the revival of the Estado at this time that Lavradio was well prepared for any such attack. Despite numerous other demands, the viceroy had seen to the defence of the vital Province of the North, by sending the capable Manoel de Mello as capitão-mor with an eleven ship squadron. This force, operating in concert with the fleet of the North based at Diu, had been more than enough to repel the Omani attack.33 Overall, then, the threat from the Omanis had been met during these years, the port cities of the North had been secured and their trade to the Straits region stabilized. One reflection of that stabilization is that the Crown’s share of the customs revenues at Bandar Kung in 1680 was 44,000 xerafins, a sum nearly equal to revenues generated by Diu and Chaul for that year.34

The “Creole” Population of the Estado da Índia What role did the “Creole” population of the Province of the North play in the reformation campaign of c.1668–1680? The term “Creole”, as it has been defined in the historical literature for Latin America, may not have particular relevance for colonial India during the pre-1800 period.35 However, in Asia the term can be extended to include both the castiços

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(those born in Asia to Portuguese parents) as well as the mestiços (of Portuguese and Indian parentage) and mulattoes (of Portuguese and African parentage). The question of whether or not to include the casados is more difficult, although this group of fidalgos, nobles, and soldiers from the Reino, who had settled and married in India, had perhaps the most clearly defined agenda for promoting the interests of the colony through institutions like the municipal councils, in stark contrast to the reinóis sent from the metropole to administer them.36 While enjoying blood ties to the elites in Portugal and Portuguese Asia, these groups, especially the children of the casados, had nonetheless traditionally been viewed with a good deal of suspicion, as had the Creoles in Latin America. The castiços were “generally ill-behaved and not to be trusted.” The mestiços and mulattoes had usually received even more scorn. In the 1540s, the hiring of four mestiços out of seven new clerks had completely “astonished” a Crown official. While a century later, the viceroy, Count of Linhares, had informed the Crown that more Portuguese men were needed in Diu “since most of the soldiers there are almost blacks.”37 The governor of Macao, writing to the viceroy in 1651 about reinforcements, had asked for reinóis and black slaves instead of “puny Eurasians from India who were useless as soldiers.” In 1545 the Crown had formally forbade “the sons of Portuguese born in those parts” from enlisting as soldiers. Despite the protests of the town council of Chaul, a large degree of European blood was still required to enlist as late as 1634. Mestiços had to appear with a birth certificate from their parish priest affirming that they were either the sons or grandsons of European born Portuguese.38 Nevertheless, given the high mortality rates among the reinóis it was clearly impossible to exclude the mestiços and mulattoes from military service. Nevertheless down to c.1665 it was common for reinóis to receive special consideration in receiving the most important appointments in the military, judicial, and religious hierarchy in the Estado da Índia.39 Given the intense competition in the Indian trade during the late seventeenth century, especially in the area surrounding the Province of the North, was it possible to continue such elitist policies? Above all, how did Lavradio seek to maintain the viability of the colonial structure of the North in the face of the economic opportunity and religious and cultural freedom emanating from Bombay? While most of what follows is somewhat speculative, it seems probable that the reformation campaign of the 1660s and 1670s was crucial for the retention of both the indigenous merchants and the “Creole” population (however it is defined) within the confines of the Estado da Índia in general and the Province of the North in

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particular. Moreover, the Portuguese hierarchy in Lisbon and Goa made substantial efforts in this period to temper not only the religious zealotry of the past but also the cultural elitism and favouritism toward the reinóis. A crucial problem in maintaining the integrity of the colonial population of the Estado da Índia was the huge exodus of indigenous merchants from Goa and the North occasioned by various anti-Hindu laws, particularly the law of March 1559 on the forcible conversion of Hindu orphans.40 Children whose father alone had died were being taken along with the family’s property. Not surprisingly, increasing numbers of Hindu merchants, whose capital played a vital role in the economy of the empire had sought asylum in the lands of the Reis Vizinhos or, after 1665, in the new English enclave of Bombay, located in the midst of the Province of the North.41 After 1668 the EIC skilfully exploited the freedom of worship in Bombay to attract such merchants to the city.42 It is significant that Mendonça Furtado and the Prince Regent, Dom Pedro, appreciating the importance of Hindu merchants to the economic vitality of the Province of the North and the Indian possessions in general, sought to correct such abuses. An important Junta held on the issue in Goa in 1678, significantly sought to curb the abuses of the religiosos relating to this law.43 While it is difficult to gauge the economic impact of this reform, it is significant that the tobacco renda in Baçaim in the orçamento (budget) of 1680 had risen to 52,800 xerafins.44 This impressive sum suggests that the mass exodus of Hindu merchants from the North may have been stemmed in the years immediately following 1678. It is at least certain that tobacco had become a huge and lucrative commodity in the trade of the North, especially when compared with 1634 when the tobacco renda for Baçaim had yielded only c.20,000 xerafins.45 The Crown and its imperial servants may have also sought to mend their ways with respect to the “Creole” population in the Province of the North. After all, given the allure of rival enclaves like Bombay, it was vital to retain the services of this segment of the population in order to staff Crown offices, to serve in the fleets and garrisons and to utilize their local connections to bolster the imperial and private trade. Moreover, these “Creole” groups constituted a sizable portion of the populations of Diu, Damão, Chaul and Baçaim. In 1634, there had only been c.1,060 casados in the North. According to Bocarro this included c.400 in Damão.46 In November 1672, the Abbé Carré informs us the town was almost solely “inhabited by Christians, both Portuguese and mesticoes.” Nevertheless, “one [could] hardly find 200 men who bear arms.”47 Clearly, given such a population decline, something had to be done to accommodate this segment of the colonial population in the North. It is important to

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remember, as Boxer originally pointed out, that, even though this group may have been outnumbered by Portuguese soldiers from the yearly fleets, they had greater influence in the colonial hierarchy since they were permanent residents in the cities and because they generally lived far longer than the recently arrived Portuguese recruits.48 So, how did the government in Goa seek to improve its relations with the “Creole” population? Unfortunately, at this point the task becomes much more difficult given the vagaries of the manuscript sources in Lisbon and Goa. The fundamental problem, and one which has frustrated historians beginning with C.R. Boxer, is the inability to distinguish clearly in the documentation between reinóis, casados (although these individuals are sometimes identified as such), converted Hindus who took Portuguese names (although these individuals sometimes have the additional term Brahmin after their names), and castiços and mestiços also with Portuguese names. Nevertheless, it is likely that Mendonça Furtado sought to cultivate good relations with the “Creole” population in the North during this critical period by offering them access to positions in the armadas, the garrisons, the bureaucracy, and perhaps even the economic institutions of the Estado whenever legally and politically feasible. In some cases during the 1660s and 1670s, the Crown and its viceroys in Asia may have sacrificed the traditional privileges of the reinóis in favor of interests that were linked more closely to the casados, castiços, and mestiços. A few examples will illustrate this trend. First, from c.1661–1685, the Crown appointed as governors or viceroys men who had strong family connections, and usually long previous service, in Asia and who were more sympathetic to the priorities and needs of the “Creole” groups in the Estado.49 At times such men were even willing to defy explicit Crown orders in seeking to defend what they considered to be the best interests of the “colony”. The clearest examples of this trend were perhaps the careers of António de Mello de Castro and Luís de Mendonça Furtado. In 1663, Mello de Castro, following a long and acrimonious debate on the Goa Council of State, appointed a casado instead of the distinguished reinol, Dom Pedro de Lencastre, for an important post in Mozambique.50 Earlier Mello de Castro, in perhaps the most famous example of defying royal orders of the entire seventeenth century, had refused to hand over the island of Bombay to the English fleet under the Earl of Marlborough. In doing so, Mello de Castro at least in part, was motivated by his desire to uphold the overall strategic interests of the Estado and the particular interests what might be defined as those of “Creole” landowners in Bombay.51

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It can even be argued that in 1672 the Prince Regent and the Concelho Ultramarino began to rein in the interests of the fidalgo reinóis by seeking to declare free trade on the East coast of Africa for all Portuguese subjects, a harsh repudiation of the traditional contracto system which had rewarded the well connected reinóis captains at the expense of the casados, mestiços, and other lesser Portuguese subjects.52 Although Mendonça Furtado had himself argued against the implementation of such a system, instead of pushing for a semi-private Junta do Comércio, the viceroy’s compromise solution was eventually established for Mozambique. This abolished the contract system but instead allowed the traditional trade from the Province of the North to East Africa, dominated by indigenous and casado merchants, to remain largely unchanged.53 The Livros das Monções in the Historical Archives in Goa and the caixas of unbound documents at the AHU are filled with complaints by casados, and even town councillors at Goa, at the injustice of appointing newly arrived reinóis to key military and administrative offices at the expense of seasoned veterans and their offspring in Asia. However, a quick look at the Livro do Homenagens from the HAG shows that from January 1668 to July 1677, 115 appointments had been made to fill the vacancies that had resulted in the various fortresses of the Estado. Of these, only 58 (50 per cent) had been clearly identified as fidalgos or nobles. With respect to the 38 vacancies in the forts of the Province of the North, only 16 (c.46 per cent) were nobles.54 At first glance, these numbers suggest a tempering of the traditional elitism in office holding in favour of rewarding casados, soldados, and perhaps even castiços, who married Crown orphans.55 Yet, as C.R. Boxer noted many years ago, “unofficial prejudices, as nearly always, ran much deeper and lasted much longer than the changing official attitudes concerning race relations.”56 While this was undoubtedly true, at least there are signs that, as in many other areas during the 1660s and 1670s, the Portuguese elite in Lisbon and Goa was at least willing to embrace official change as a means of rehabilitating their once great Asian empire after decades of decline. The cultural elitism of the sixteenth century had perhaps even given way to a more practical recognition of the need to retain the support of all segments of the colonial population if the empire was to survive the challenges of the late seventeenth century.57 This was no mean achievement.

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Notes 1

For the sake of this chapter I have defined the Province of the North to include all of the fortresses obtained from the sultanate of Gujarat during the mid-16th century. 2 For general background on the region and the Portuguese presence in India during the early 16th century, M.N. Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat: The Response to the Portuguese in the 16th Century (University of California Press: Berkeley, 1976) and The Portuguese in India (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1987); C.R. Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415–1825 (Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1969); W.H. Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar (Macmillan: London, 1920) and From Akbar to Aurangzeb: A Study in Indian Economic History (Macmillan: London, 1923); Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700 (Longman: London, 1993); F.C. Danvers, The Portuguese in India, 2 vols. (W.H. Allen & co., Limited: London, 1894); R.S. Whiteway, The Rise of Portuguese Power in India, 1497–1550 (Archibald Constable & co: Westminster, 1899); and G.D. Winius and B.W. Diffie, Foundations of Portuguese Empire, 1415–1825 (University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 1977). For published contemporary accounts of Afonso Albuquerque, The Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque, by his son Afonso Braz de Alboquerque, edited by W. de G. Birch, 4 vols., (Hakluyt Society: London, 1875–1883); Duarte Barbosa, The Book of Duarte Barbosa: An Account of the Countries Bordering on the Indian Ocean and their Inhabitants. Written by Duarte Barbosa and Completed about the Year 1518 A.D., translated and edited by M.L. Dames, 2 vols. (Hakluyt Society: London, 1918–1921). 3 Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat, pp.67–73; Danvers, Portuguese in India vol. I, pp.117–352; and Whiteway, Rise of Portuguese Power, pp.179–200. 4 On the final stages of the campaign to take Diu and the actions to hold it, Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat, pp. 73–83; Danvers, Portuguese in India, vol. I, pp.353–487; Whiteway, Rise of Portuguese Power in India, pp.201– 319; and Subrahmanyam, Portuguese Empire in Asia, pp.74–78. 5 On the taking of Damão, Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat, pp. 82–84; and Danvers, Portuguese in India, vol. I, p.511–24. 6 Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat, pp. 23, 82. 7 For the 1512 figure, Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, 7 vols., (Typographia da Academia Real das Sciencias: Lisbon, 1884–1935), vol. III, pp.350–51; for the 1520s, R.J. de Lima Felner, ed. Subsidios para a história da India Portuguesa (Typographia da Academia Real das Sciencias: Lisbon, 1868) pp.21–25; Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo [ANTT] Corpo Cronológico [CC] 1–30–36; ANTT São Vicente [SV] XI, 12v.–15v.; for the 1560s, Manuel de Faria e Sousa, Asia Portuguesa 6 vols., (Civilização: Lisbon, 1945–47) vol. IV, pp.27–28, and for 1620, Historical Archives of Goa [HAG], Panjim, India, Livros das Monções do Reino [MR] 22B fls.453–55; discussed in Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat, p.45. 8 Ancillary cafilas, of course, completed the trading nexus of the empire based at Goa. The cafila to Kanara brought much needed rice to Goa from Barcelore,

228

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Mangalore, and Honnavar. Shipping from Melaka, China, Siam, the Coromandel and Bengal met up with a third convoying fleet near Cape Comorin and after a stop at Cochin proceeded to Goa. Among others on the basic seaborne economic connections that developed in the Estado da Índia, Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat, pp.35–49; and Subrahmanyam, Portuguese in India, pp.55–79. 9 For the Orçamento of 1571, Biblioteca da Ajuda [BA] 51–VII–32 fos. 2v. –40v. This budget has been edited and published by Artur Teodoro de Matos as O Orçamento do Estado da Índia 1571 (Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses: Lisbon, 1999). The numbers for 1630 and 1634 are from Anthony Disney, A Decadência do Império da Pimenta (Edições 70: Lisbon, 1981); and the still unpublished Orçamento of 1680 is found in HAG Codex 2316 fls. 5–27. 10 For a discussion of the historiographical trends on these losses, Glenn J. Ames, ‘The Estado da Índia, 1663–1677: Priorities and Strategies in Europe and the East’, Revista Portuguesa de História, 1987, 22, pp.31–46; and Renascent Empire? The House of Braganza and the Quest for Stability in Portuguese Monsoon Asia (Amsterdam University Press: Amsterdam, 2000), pp.1–13. 11 William Crooke, ed., A New Account of East India and Persia, being Nine Years’ Travels, 1672–1681, 3 vols., (London, 1909–1915), vol. I, pp.159, 172. 12 For Dellon’s works, Relation d’un voyage des Indes Orientales, 2 vols. (Claude Barbin: Paris, 1685) published as A Voyage to the East Indies (D. Browne: London, 1698) and the more famous Relation de l’Inquisition de Goa (Paris, 1687, and many later editions). For his description of Damão see Voyage to the East Indies, part II, pp.182–84. A.K. Priolkar provided large sections of Dellon’s Relation de l’Inquisition de Goa from the 1812 Hull edition in his The Goa Inquistion (A. K. Priolkar: Bombay, 1961). For a recent overview of Dellon’s experiences, Glenn J. Ames, ‘The Perils of Seeking a Multi-Cultural View of the East Indies: Charles Dellon, His Travels and the Goa Inquisition’ in Glenn J. Ames and Ronald S. Love, eds., Distant Lands and Diverse Cultures: The French Experience in Asia, 1600–1700 (Greenwood Publishing Group: Westport, 2003), pp. 163–79. 13 On Colbert’s campaign, C. W. Cole, Colbert and a Century of French Mercantilism, 2 vols. (Columbia University Press New York, 1939); Glenn J. Ames, Colbert, Mercantilism and the French Quest for Asian Trade (Northern Illinois University Press: DeKalb, Ill., 1996); L. Pauliat, Louis XIV et la compagnie des Indes Orientales de 1664 (Calmann Levy: Paris, 1886); and Dernis, Recueil et collection des titres, etc. concernant la Compagnie des Indes Orientales, 2 vols, (Antoine Boudet: Paris, 1755–56). 14 Bartelémy Carré, The Travels of the Abbé Carré in India and the Near East, 1672 to 1674, translated by Lady Fawcett and edited by Charles Fawcett, 3 vols. (Hakluyt Society: London, 1947–48), vol. I, pp.166–68. Carré first visited Damão in November 1672 (vol. I, pp.166–72) and then returned in December 1673 (vol. III, pp.748–67).

The Portuguese Province of the North

15

229

For Colbert’s instructions to Saint-Romain and the quest for at least one fortified city, Lettres, instructions, et mémoires de Colbert, edited by Pierre Clément, 7 vols., (Imprimerie Impériale: Paris, 1861–82), vol. II/2, pp.456–59. For Colbert’s later letters to Saint-Romain on these negotiations, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris [BNP] Manuscrits Cinq Cents Colbert [CCC] 204 fls.131–33, 10/VI/1669; fls.133v–34v., 11/VI/1669; fls.278v.–82, 27/X/1669; fls.312–13v., 21/XI/1669; and fls. 330–31, 7/XII/1669. For Saint-Romain’s letters to Colbert on these negotiations, Archives des Affaires Etrangères [AAE], Paris, Correspondance Consulaire [CC] B1–644 fls. 103–05v., 30/XII/1669; fls. 119–20, 4/II/1670. Also Saint-Romain to Louis XIV, B1–644 fl. 98v., 15/IV/1670; and fl. 111, 22/I/1670. 16 On these negotiations in Lisbon, Glenn J. Ames, ‘An Elusive Partner: Portugal and Colbert’s Projected Alliance, 1669–1672’, Revista Portuguesa de História, 1993, XXVIII, pp.33–57. The only fortified city the French would obtain during the crucial years of Colbert’s Asian offensive was that of San Thomé on the Coromandel Coast, taken by storm in July 1672. On the defeat of Colbert’s Asian fleet of 1670, Ames, Colbert and the French Quest, pp.109–85. 17 António Bocarro, Livro das plantas de todas as fortalezas, cidades e povoações de Estado da India Oriental, in A.B. de Bragança Pereira, ed., Arquivo Portugues Orienta (Tipografia Rangel: Bastorá, 1937–38) vol. IV, 2, Part 1, pp.174–84. 18 Carré, The Travels of the Abbé Carré in India and the Near East, vol. I, p.167. 19 Bocarro, Livro das Plantas, pp.103–206. Subrahmanyam utilized Bocarro’s figures in his Portuguese Empire in Asia pp.221–24 but rather inexplicably stated that Bocarro did not provide a number of ‘black’ casados for Diu when in Livro das plantas, vol IV, 2, part 1, p.115 he stated “afora estes cazados portuguezes e seus escravos tem a cidade de Dio cem casados pretos christãos.’ 20 Bocarro, Livro das plantas, vol. IV, 2, part 1, pp.103–206. 21 HAG MR//35 fl. 149–49v, Mello de Castro to Afonso VI, 28/I/1666. 22 For this standard refrain in the historiography of the 1970s and 1980s, Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat; Coastal Western India, and ‘Indigenous Dominance in a Colonial Economy: The Goa Rendas, 1600–1670’, Mare LusoIndicum, 1972, 3, pp.61–73; Teotónio de Souza, Medieval Goa: A Socio-Economic History (Concept Publishing Company: New Delhi, 1979), and ‘Glimpses of Hindu Dominance of Goan Economy in the 17th Century’, Indica, 1975, XII, pp.27–35; G.V.Scammell, ‘Indigenous Assistance in the Establishment of Portuguese Power in Asia in the Sixteenth Century’, Modern Asian Studies, 1980, 14, pp.1–11, and ‘Pillars of Empire: Indigenous Assistance and the Survival of the Estado da India, ca. 1600–1700’, Modern Asian Studies, 1988, 22, pp.473–489. 23 Glenn J. Ames, ‘The Goa Rendas and the Case for Indigenous Dominance in the Economy of Portuguese Monsoon Asia, 1600–1700’, in Ilaria Zilli, ed., Fra Spazio e Tempo: Studi in Onore di Luigi De Rosa, (Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane: Naples, 1995), vol. I, p.1–12 24 Ames, ‘The Estado da India, 1663–1677: Priorities and Strategies in Europe and the East’, pp. 31–46, and Renascent Empire pp.176–181.

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Glenn J. Ames, ‘The Straits of Hurmuz Fleets: Omani-Portuguese Naval Rivalry and Encounters, c.1660–1680’, The Mariner’s Mirror, 1997, 83, 4, pp. 398–409 and the manuscript sources cited therein. 26 On the sacking of Diu, HAG MR/35 fl. 3, Governing Council to Pedro, 7/I/1669, and MR/34 fls. 284–84v., Governing Council to Pedro, 26/I/1670. 27 HAG Assentos do Conselho da Fazenda [ACF] 11 fls. 229–29v., 18/III/1669. 28 On the formation and activities of this fleet, HAG MR/34 fls.275–77v., Governing Council to Pedro, 28/I/1670; MR/34 fls. 303–03v., Governing Council to Pedro, 28/I/1670; and ACF 11 fls.216, 219v., 224v.–25, Assentos of the Treasury Council of 29/I/1669; 20/II/1669; and 1/III/1669. 29 On the 1670 fleet. HAG MR./34 fls.278–79v, Governing Council to Pedro, 28/I/1670; ACF Assentos of the Treasury Council fls.37 and 39v., 31/X/1670 and 3/XI/1670. For the quotation, Arquivo Historico Ultramarino [AHU], Lisbon, Documentos avulsos relativos a India [DAI] Box 28, Document 212, Corte Real to Pedro, 6/X/1671. 30 HAG MR/37 fl. 1, Pedro to Mendonça Furtado, 7/III/1672. 31 HAG MR/36 fl. 451, Mendonça Furtado to Pedro, 23/I/1672. For details on Mello de Castro’s fleet and the treaty signed in Mecca, HAG MR/36 fl. 451; MR/37 fls. 113–13v., Mendonça Furtado to Pedro, 24/VIII/1672; HAG ACF/12 fls. 115v.–17v., Assentos of the Treasury Council, 24/II/1672; AHU DAI/29 Document 129, Consulta of the Overseas Council with a Copy of the Treaty, 25/VIII/1673. For Mendonça Furtado’s views in the scant utility of the agreement, his letters to Pedro found in HAG MR/37 fls. 171–72v., 15/IX/1672; MR/39 fl. 28, 4/XII/1674; and MR/41 fl. 66, 12/I/1677. 32 For details AHU DAI/29 Document 171, Consulta of Overseas Council, 28/II/1674 with letters from João Correa de Sá from Bandar Kung, dated 29/V/1673 and 6/VII/1673. 33 For details on the 1676 attack on Diu, HAG MR/40 fl. 237, and P.S.S. Pissurlencar, ed., Assentos do Concelho do Estado, 1618–1750 (5 vols. Bastorá, 1953–57), vol. IV, pp.244–52, Consulta of the Goa Council of State, 28/III/1676 and supporting documents. 34 HAG Codex 2316 fl.27. 35 For example, D.A. Brading, The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State, 1492–1867 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1991). 36 On the casados utilizing the municipal councils, Boxer, Portuguese Society in the Tropics, pp.12–40; and Subrahmanyam, Portuguese Empire in Asia, pp.225– 26. By 1634, according to Bocarro, Asian Christian converts or cristãs prêtas were sometimes being included with the casados. 37 ANTT Documentos Remetídos da India [DR] XXII, 97 XXXI, 249, and ANTT CC 1–83–30 cited in Pearson, Coastal Western India, p. 42. 38 Boxer, Portuguese Seaborne Empire, pp. 302–03. 39 Boxer, Portuguese Seaborne Empire pp.304, and A Índia Portuguesa, pp.13–38.

The Portuguese Province of the North

40

231

According to this decree, Hindu children who were left “without father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, or other ascendant lineals and are not of an age at which they can have understanding and judgment, as soon as the last of such relatives is dead” were to be put in charge of the Judge of the Orphans and handed over to the Jesuit College of St. Paul to be “baptized, educated and indoctrinated” in the Catholic faith. The Pai dos Christãos was charged with ferreting out Hindu orphans, if necessary by force. On the powers of the Pai dos Christãos, especially as they related to D. Sebastião’s decree on the taking of Hindu orphans. Priolkar, Goa Inquisition, pp.127–40; Boxer, Portuguese Seaborne Empire, pp.75–78; and J. Wicki, O Livro do Pai dos Christãos, (Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos: Lisbon, 1969). 41 . Glenn J. Ames, ‘Serving God, Mammon, or Both? Religious vis-à-vis Economic Priorities in the Portuguese Estado da India, c.1600–1700’, Catholic Historical Review, 2000, LXXXVI, 2, pp.193–216 and the manuscript sources cited therein. 42 A June 1671 petition that Mendonça Furtado received. This petition signed by 35 of the leading gentio merchants of Baçaim. This document listed the problems with the rendas and alfandegas in the rich Province of the North due to the “oppression that we are presently enduring.” This exodus was of “such rigor” that this port whose tobacco tax-farm “in other times was 3,000 xerafins per year, today yields to the English more than 13,000 and it may soon reach 24,000, and after yielding in our time less than 3,000, and that port is improving itself every day for merchants, since they are safe from the insults we suffer.’ HAG MR/36 fls. 25959v., Petition of the Hindu Merchants of Baçaim to the Viceroy Luis de Mendonça Furtado, 19/VI/1671. On the ability of the English to exploit religious freedom to entrench themselves and their economic power at Bombay at this time, Glenn J. Ames, ‘The Role of Religion in the Transfer and Rise of Bombay, c.1661–1687’, The Historical Journal, 2003, 46, 2, pp.317–40 and the manuscript sources cited therein. 43 Ames, ‘Serving God, Mammon or Both’, pp. 211–16. The relevant manuscript documents include HAG MR/42 fls. 133–78; and MR/43 fls.208–09. 44 . HAG Codex 2316 fls.15–16. 45 Bocarro, Livro das plantas vol. IV, 2, part I, p.178. 46 Bocarro, Livro das plantas, vol. IV, 2, part I, pp.103–206. The breakdown was 400 in Damão, 400 in Baçaim, 200 in Chaul and 59 in Diu. 47 Carré, The Travels of the Abbé Carré in India and the Near East, vol. I, p.168. 48 According to Boxer, Portuguese Society in the Tropics pp.28–30 there were c.1800 head of households in Goa in 1540. 49 On the background of these Viceroys, Ames, Renascent Empire? pp. 39–57 and the manuscript sources cited therein. 50 On this dispute, Pissurlencar, Assentos do Conselho do Estado, vol. IV, pp. 133– 34 discussed in Boxer, A Índia Portuguesa, pp.27–28.

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On the reasons for Mello de Castro’s actions regarding Bombay, Ames, ‘The Role of Religion in the Transfer and Rise of Bombay’, pp. 317–40 and the manuscript sources cited therein. 52 On D. Francisco de Lima in Mozambique, Ames, Renascent Empire? pp. 183– 84; AHU DAI Box 25, Document 27, 16/IX/1661; Document 28, 16/IX/1661; Box 25A, Document 59, 27/II/1663; AHU Codex 208 fl. 291v., Queen Regent to Mello de Castro, 7/IV/1662; HAG MR/30 fls. 141–41v., Mello de Castro to Afonso VI, 29/I/1664; and Petition of Lima to Afonso VI, MR/31 fl. 219, 28/XII/1664. 53 On the Junta for Mozambique, Ames, ‘An African Eldorado? The Portuguese Quest for Wealth and Power in Mozambique and the Rios de Cuama, ca.1661– 1683’, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 1998, 31, 1, pp.91– 110, and Renascent Empire? pp.183–204. 54 HAG Codex 1258, Livro de Homenagens, 3 for these years. 55 For example, Timothy J. Coates, Convicts and Orphans: Forced and StateSponsored Colonizers in the Portuguese Empire, 1550–1755 (Stanford University Press: Stanford, Calif., 2001) especially pp.141–163. Many of these Crown orphans were given lands in the Province of the North as dowries. 56 Boxer, Portuguese Seaborne Empire, p.303. 57 On the shifting nature of the European empires in the late seventeenth century, see Ames, ‘Issues of War and Peace: A Comparative Analysis of the Trading Strategies in the Indian Ocean, 1600–1700’, presented at the 118th Meeting of the American Historical Association, Washington, DC, January 2004 and currently being revised for publication.

Melaka

34,472

42,545

22,794

9,010

762,937

60,000

105,013

27,860

819,546

Diu

Damão

Baçaim

Chaul

Total

+56,609

+18,840

+82,219

+17,455

108,328

218,533

801,992

23,575

115,097

49,103

101,028

321,923

+4,275

+7,585

+1,974

+6,612

-87,309

-16,441

-1,366

+3,084

-33,685

-16,350

-749

-24,821

(b)1630

960,172 -158,180

19,300

107,512

47,129

94,416

409,232

25,578

18,763

39,104

36,017

54,387

29,112

78,724

(e)1630

1,185,264

53,687

122,469

53,519

45,094

304,346

21,256

7,717

42,500

37,561

40,774

23,190

67,125

(r)1634

1,115,454

17,271

58,895

35,537

81,527

339,424

25,578

16,097

35,291

15,487

70,092

74,241

21,797

120,952

(e)1634

+69,809

+36,416

+63,574

+17,982

-36,433

-35,078

-4,322

-8,380

+7,209

-15,487

-32,531

-33,467

+1,393

-53,827

(b)1634

731,828

19,579

161,274

89,240

30,773

359,579

21,110

(r)1680

454,663

25,515

75,853

49,168

54,130

211,845

25,124

(e)1680

233

+271,164

-5,936

+85,421

+40,072

-23,357

+147,734

-4,014

(b)1680

* For 1571, this category includes Ormuz, Açarim, Onor, Barcelor, Mangalor, Cannanor, Chale, Cranganor, Coulão and Maluco.

457,240

238,707

142,800

Goa

9,137

+53,874

183,956

Others*

130,082

17,397

2,332

38,037

42,188

-22,782

+37,510

- 20,312

Mombaça

22,782

20,700

Mozam

Cochin

3,000

58,210

Colombo

23,312

(r)1630

28,363

(b)1571

Jaffna

(e)1571 53,903

(r)1571

Maskat

Fortaleza

Table 11–1: Revenues and Expenditures of the Estado da Índia, c.1571–1680 (in Xerafins)

The Portuguese Province of the North

Chapter Eleven

234

Table 11–2: Customs Revenues at Diu and Goa, c.1555–1680 (In Xerafins, pardaos de ouro=6 tangas or 360 reis, pardaos de prata=5 tangas or 300 reis) Diu Goa

1555 160,000

1571 142,800 118,000

1634 45,094 120,000

1680 30,773 ca. 130,000

Table 11–3: Percentage of Total Official Revenues for the Estado da Índia produced by the Province of the North, c.1571–1680

Diu Damão Baçaim Chaul Total Goa Combined Goa, PdN

1571 Amount 142,800 60,000 105,013 27,860 335,673 238,707 574,380

% 17.4 7.3 12.8 3 40.5 29.1 69.6

1634 Amount 45,094 53,519 122,469 53,687 274,769 304,346 579,115

% 3.8 4.5 10.4 4.5 23.2 25.7 48.9

1680 Amount 30,773 89,240 161,274 36,416 317,703 359,579 677,282

% 4.2 12.2 22 5 43.4 49.1 92.5

CONTRIBUTORS

Glenn J. Ames was Professor of Portuguese and French History at the University of Toledo. His publications include Colbert, Mercantilism and the French Quest for Asian Trade (1996); Renascent Empire? The House of Braganza and the Quest for Stability in Portuguese Monsoon Asia (2000); Vasco da Gama: Renaissance Crusader (2005); and The Globe Encompassed: the Age of European Discovery (2006). He died in 2010 aged 55 years. Luís Batalha is a social anthropologist and associate professor at ISCSPUL in Lisbon. Among other things he has published The Cape Verdean Diaspora in Portugal: Colonial Subjects in a Postcolonial World (2004) and co-edited Transnational Archipelago: Perspectives on Cape Verdean Migration and Diaspora (2008). Arne Bialuschewski teaches Atlantic History at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. He has published extensively on cross-cultural relations involving non-state actors such as pirates and slave traders in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. His current project is a book about the relations between buccaneers and various indigenous groups in Central America in the seventeenth century. Toby Green is Lecturer in Lusophone African History and Culture at King's College London. His chapter in this book came from his research on New Christians in Cape Verde for his PhD, which he was awarded by the Centre of West African Studies, Birmingham University, in 2007. His books include The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300–1589 (CUP). Philip J. Havik received his PhD in Social Sciences from Leiden University, The Netherlands. He is Senior Researcher at the Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical (IHMT/UNL), and Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (FCSH/UNL) of the Universidade Nova in Lisbon. His multidisciplinary research centers on public and international health, tropical medicine, colonial administration, post-colonial states, economic development, female entrepreneurship and

236

Contributors

cultural brokerage, with a special focus on Portuguese speaking Africa and Guinea Bissau in particular. Beatrix Heintze was researcher and editor at the Frobenius Institute (Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main) from 1969 to 2004 and is still associated with this institute. Her historical and anthropological publications, as well as edited texts and studies in historical method, centre on the Portuguese influenced parts of western-central Africa. Her recent publications include Pioneiros Africanos: Caravanas de carregadores na África Centro-Ocidental (2004), Angola nos Séculos XVI e XVII (2007) and A África Centro-Ocidental no Século XIX (c. 1850–1890) (2014). She has also published three biographical books on German resistance against the Nazi regime. She is a corresponding member of the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa. José Lingna Nafafé is Lecturer in Portuguese and Lusophone Studies at the University of Bristol. He completed his PhD at the University of Birmingham where he lectured in the Department of Political Science and International Studies. His academic interests embrace a number of interrelated areas, linked by the overarching themes of the Lusophone Atlantic African diaspora, slavery and wage-labour, race, religion and ethnicity and Luso-African migrants’ culture and integration in Europe. He has been awarded a British Academy grant to undertake research on the integration of African migrants in Europe. He is currently writing a book on: Beyond Wilberforce’s Experiment in Abolitionism: Unfree Labour and the Market. Malyn Newitt taught at the universities of Rhodesia and Exeter where he became Deputy Vice Chancellor. From 1998 until he retired in 2005 he was the Charles Boxer Professor of History at King’s College London. A specialist in Portuguese colonial history, he is the author of Portuguese Settlement on the Zambesi, Portugal in Africa, São Tomé and Príncipe with Tony Hodges, History of Mozambique, East Africa (Portuguese documents in translation), A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion and War, Revolution and Society in the Rio de la Plata. A.J.R.Russell-Wood was Herbert Baxter Adams Professor of History at the Johns Hopkins University. He was introduced to the Portuguese seaborne empire by Charles Boxer who mentored his study of the Portuguese chroniclers of Asia while he was undergraduate at the University of Oxford. Among other works he is author of Fidalgos and Philanthropists: The Santa Casa da Misericórdia of Bahia, 1550–1755

Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire

237

(1968), The Black Man in Slavery and Freedom in Colonial Brazil (1982); World on the Move: The Portuguese in Africa, Asia, and America, 1415– 1808 (1992). He died in 2010 aged 70. Gerhard Seibert graduated in Cultural Anthropology from Utrecht University, the Netherlands, in 1991, and earned a Ph.D. in Social Sciences at Leiden University, Netherlands, in 1999. Until 2008 he was post-doctorate fellow at the Instituto de Investigação Científico Tropical (IICT), Lisbon, Portugal, and from 2008-2014 a researcher at the Centro de Estudos Africanos / ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (CEA / ISCTE-IUL). Since 2014 he is Professor of Anthropology at the Universidade da Integração Internacional da Lusofonia Afro-Brasileira (UNILAB) in Brazil. He is the author of Comrades, Clients and Cousins. Colonialism, Socialism and Democratization in São Tomé and Príncipe (Leiden: Brill 2006). Teotonio R. de Souza was the Founder-Director of the Xavier Centre of Historical Research (Goa 1979-1994); Ph.D guide in History (Goa University) 1986-1994; Fellow of the Portuguese Academy of History (since 1983); Head and Chair, Department of History, Universidade Lusófona, Lisboa (1999-2014). A regular columnist for Herald daily and The Goan weekly in Goa since 2008 and 2013 respectively. Bibliographical references at: https://grupolusofona.academia.edu/TeotonioRdeSouza; https://pt.scribd.com/teodesouza; http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9397-1433 Rosa Williams is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for African Studies, University of the Free State, South Africa. She received her PhD in history from the University of Chicago. Her current research focuses on medicine, migration and colonial state formation in Mozambique. Her recent publications include “Luso-African intimacies: conceptions of national and transnational community”, in Eric Morier-Genoud and Michel Cahen (eds.) (2013) Imperial Migrations: Colonial Communities and Diaspora in the Portuguese World, London: Palgrave, 2013. 265 – 285.

INDEX

`Imad-ul-mulk, 214 Acevedo, Juan de, 17, 18 Acto Colonial, 208 Africanos, 118, 135, 142 Afro-Brazilian(s), 9, 14, 143, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 158, 160, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 170, 173 Afro-Luso-Brazilian(s), 147, 165, 173 Agueyra, António Andrade de, 57 Aguiar, Marcos Magalhães de, 153 Akbar, 214 Albuquerque, Afonso de, 198, 201, 202, 213 Ale, 62 All Saints, Bay of, 142 Almada Negreiros, António Lobo de, 87 Almada, André Álvares de, 51, 53, 59, 62, 63 Almada, Dulce, 77 Almeida, António de, 84, 88 Almeida, Dom Francisco de, 213 Almeida, Dom Pedro de, 169 Althusser, Louis, 50 Alvarenga, Rosa Carvalho de, 39 Álvares, Francisco Xavier, 208 Alvarez Prieto, Manuel, 18 Alvarez, Manuel, 17, 18 Amador, Rei, 83 Ambaca, 102, 103, 108 Ambakistas, 9, 12, 15, 103, 104, 106, 108, 109, 114, 116, 117, 124 Ambumba, Mwant Yav, 107, 108, 109, 110, 113 Amselle, Jean Loup, 45 amulets, 58, 165, 167 Andrade, Francisco de, 62, 63

Andrade, Gaspar de, 61, 62 Andreza, Simão, 84 Angola crypto-Jews in, 17, 18 ethnic groups in, 132 forced labour in, 128 German expeditions in, 107, 112 Jews in, 21 population of, 103, 111, 113, 132, 133, 134, 135 press in, 11, 134, 135 white settlement in, 129, 130, 132, 133 Angolares, 13, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, see also maroons Angolares, language of, 92, 96 angolas/angolis, 86, 94 Antatsimo, 191 anthropology, 88, 203 Antongil Bay, 184, 185, 192 Antonil, André João, 152, 181 antrobiologia, 88 Arabic, 155 Arabs, Omani, 220, 221 Araújo e Azevedo, Lucas Pereira de, 85 Arauto Africano, 135 assimilados, 208 assimilation, 2, 11, 30, 44, 49, 72, 85, 170, 199 Atlantic islands, 4, 23, 200 Atlantic Ocean, 15, 16, 36, 143, 144, 148 Augustinians, 219 Aurangzeb, 214 Auto da Fé, 17, 19, 217 Ayaz, Malik, 213 Baçaim, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 218, 219, 224

Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire badiu, 79 Bahadur, Sultan, 213, 214 Baldridge, Adam, 185, 186 Banco Nacional Ultramarino, 87 Banhus, 62, 63 baptism, 25, 57, 145, 172 Baptista e Silva, João, 86 Baptista, Pedro João, 102 Barbados, 186 Bardez, parishes of, 206 Barros, João de, 201, 202 Barros, M., 53 Batalha, Ladislau, 129, 130 Batavia, 185 Bateman, Latrobe, 112, 114, 115 beads, 114, 166, 186 Beafadas, 56 Bellomont, Lord, 187 Benguela, 145 Benin, Bight of, 31, 142 Berbeçin, 62 Berlin Conference, 129 Bertrand-Bocandé, M., 63 Betanimena, 189, 190, 191 Betia, 192 Betsimisaraka, 13, 15, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194 Bezanozano, 191 Bezerra de Lisboa, António, 9, 104, 105, 110, 111, 112 Bezerra Pinto, António, 104 Bezerra Pinto, Lourenço, 104 Bezerra, Agostinho Alexandre, 105 Bezerra, António de Barros, 57 Biafadas, 58 Bié, 111 Bijagos, 62 Bijapur, 207 Bioko, 90, 96, see also Fernando Pó Blanquet de La Haye, Jacob, 217 Bocarro, António, 218, 219, 224, 229 bolsas de mandinga, 165 Bombay, 213, 216, 218, 221, 223, 224, 225 Boston, 79, 186

239

Boulègue, Jean, 35 Brado Indiano, 208 Brava (Island), 76, 79 Brazil, 3, 4, 6, 13, 14, 15, 23, 29, 30, 31, 33, 40, 75, 89, 91, 97, 104, 140, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 154, 155, 156, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 167, 168, 169, 170, 172, 173, 178, 199, 216 Breuilly, J., 51 British India, 7, 206, 208 British Ultimatum, 128, 135 Brito Capelo, Guilherme Augusto, 135 Brooks, George E., 28, 35, 41, 50 Brotherhood of Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte, 161 Brotherhood of Nossa Senhora das Mercês, 162, 163 Brotherhood of Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos, 161 Brotherhood of Our Lady of Guadelupe (Olinda), 161 Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary, 161 Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary (Minas Gerais), 161 Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of Blacks (Iguaraçu), 161 Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of Blacks (Tijuco), 163 Brotherhood of Senhor Bom Jesus das Necessidades e Redenção, 161 Brotherhood of St. Anthony of Catagerona (S. Salvador), 162 Brotherhood of the Mercês (Sabará), 162 Brotherhood of the Perdões (Vila Rica), 163 Brotherhood of the Rosary, 162 Brotherhood of the Rosary (Salvador), 161 Brotherhood of the Rosary of the Alto da Cruz, 162

240 Brotherhood of the Senhor Bom Jesus dos Martírios, 161, 163 brotherhoods, 9, 14, 147, 154, 157, 161, 162, 163, 170, 180 Brucama, 61, 62 Buba, 50, 64 Buchner, Max, 107, 110, 117 Buguendo, 62 Bullom, 59 Cabo São Roque, 142 Cacheu, 12, 19, 20, 22, 26, 36, 37, 38, 50, 53, 54, 57, 64 Cachoeira, 161, 163 cafila(s), 215 Calabar, 94 Caldeira, Arlindo Manuel, 41, 43, 94 Calicut, 201 Cambay, 213, 214, 218, 220 Cambunje, 105 Caminha, Álvaro de, 93 candomblé, 159 Cannanor, 213, 216 Cão, Dom Gaspar, 85 Cape Colony, 187 Cape Palmas, 142 Cape Verde islands, 96 Capela, José, 41 Capuchins, 219 caravan trade, 116 Caribbean, 33, 72, 78, 186 maroon comunities in the, 97 Carneiro & Machado (trading company), 105, 107, 109, 110 Carnero, Francisco Rodriguez, 18, 19 Carré, Abbé, 217, 218, 219, 224 Carreira da Índia, 215 Cartagena, 16, 18, 20, 26 Inquisition in, 17, 18, 20, 26 Carvalho, João Pereira de, 57 casados, 7, 202, 203, 219, 220, 223, 224, 225, 226, 229 Casamance, 60, 62 Casamance, King of the, 62 Cassanga, King of the, 63

Index Cassanje, 104, 107, 111, 120 caste, 7, 15, 198, 200, 205 Castelo-Branco, Fernando, 89 castiços, 222, 223, 225, 226 Castile, 37 Castile and Aragon, 16 Castro Henriques, Isabel, 94 Catende, 113 cattle, 106, 120, 186, 192 Cazembe, 104 Ceylon, 198, 207, 216, 220 Charles II of England, 218, 220 charms, 58 Chaul, 212, 213, 215, 216, 219, 222, 223, 224 Cheque, Sebastião Francisco, Ndembu Caculo Cacahenda, 104 Chimane, 106, 108, 109, 110 Chokwe, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 116, 122, 124 Christianity, 4, 16, 27, 34, 37, 55, 56, 58, 66, 159, 160, 179, 204, 219 Church, 5, 8, 11, 25, 39, 205, 206, 208, 213 circumcision, 56, 64, 151 coartação, 145, see also manumission Cochin, 207, 213, 216, 220 Coelho, Francisco Adolfo Lemos de, 56, 72 coffee, 86, 191 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 215, 217, 218, 220 College of St Paul, 205 Compagnie des Indes, 191, 192, 193 Compagnie Royale des Indes Orientales, 215, 218 Concelho Ultramarino, 226 concubinage, 33, 39, 45, 56 Congo, 22, 37, 88, 94, 148, 159 Congolo, 111, 113, 122, 123 Conrad, Joseph, 10 converso, 26 convertidas, 129

Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire convicts, 202, 203, see also degredados Correa de Sá, João, 222 Correa, Pedro, 19 Correia da Rocha, Manuel (Calucâno), 108, 109, 110 Correia Pinto, Joannes Bezerra (Caxavala), 104, 107, 112, 113, 114, 115 Correia Pinto, Joaquim, 104 Correia Pinto, Lourenço Bezerra (Lufuma), 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113 Correia, Aurélia, 39 Costa Ferreira, António Aurélio, 131 Costa Oliveira, Jorge Eduardo da, 89 Costa, Aleixo Manuel da, 208 Costa, Paulo, 89 cotton, 84, 106 Cranganor Archbishop of,, 219 Creole societies, 9, 12, 13, 14, 50, 64 crioulo da Bahia, 149 crioulo de Luanda, 149 crioulos, 143, 161, 162, 163 cristãos novos, 16, 21, 22, 23, see also New Christians crypto-Jews, 18, 20, 22, 26, 130 Cunha Matos, Raimundo José, 86, 87, 95 Cunha, Nuno da, 213 Dahomey, 94, 142, 161 Damão, 212, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 222, 224 Dantas, Mariana, 168 Dapper, Olfert, 58 degredados, 33, 103, 118, 129, 133, 139, see also convicts Dellon, Charles, 216, 217, 218 descendentes, 7, 15, 198, 203, 206, 207, 208 Devi, Vimala, 208

241

Dias de Carvalho, Henrique, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110 Dipp, Hugo Tolentino, 25 disease, 6, 9, 33, 43, 86, 151, 169, 202 Diu, 212, 213, 215, 216, 224 divination, 58 diviners, 155, 166 Dominican(s), 161, 219 Dondo, 112 Donelha, André, 51, 55 dowries, 33 dress, 6, 11, 14, 24, 105, 109, 113, 142, 155, 165, 166, 204, 205 Duarte, Sebastian, 19 Dutch East Indian Company (VOC), 212, 215 East India Company (EIC), 212, 215, 224 education, 7, 115, 206 Elmina, 94 Engenho Velho, parish of, 170 England, 37, 58 Eni Mesquita de Samara, 40 Espinoza, António de, 19 Estado da Índia, 7, 11, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 219, 220, 223, 224 Estado Novo, 208, 209 ethnic group, 12, 95, 148 ethnicity, 9, 13, 143, 156, 162, 172 Ethno-sociological Brigade, 88 European expansion, 2 Eyzaguirre, Pablo B., 89 Farim River, 62 Faro, André de, 59 feiticeiros(as), 156, 160, see also witchcraft Fenoarivo, 189, 190 Fernandes Pereira, Diogo, 184 Fernandes, Valentim, 51, 52, 55, 59 Fernando Pó, 90, 91, 96, see also Bioko Ferraz, Luís Ivens, 92 Ferreira Paulo, Leopoldina, 88 Ferreira, Fuão, 59 Ferreira, Roquinaldo, 41

242 fidalgos, 223, 226 filho(s) da terra, 11, 51, 128, 133, 134, 135, 136 filho(s) de Angola, 128, 133, 135 filoha(be), 184, 191 firearms, 111, 190 Florentino, Manolo, 168 Fogo (Island), 76, 79 Fontes Pereira, José de, 135 forros, 3, 82, 84, 92, 95 Foulpointe, 191, 193 France, 4, 37 Francês, Álvaro Gonçalves, 20 Franciscan(s), 59, 206, 219 free trade, 226 fresh-off-the-boat slaves, 152, 154, 173 fresh-water slaves, 148 Freyre, Gilberto, 90, 198 Froude, James Anthony, 6 Fryer, John, 216 Fundação Oriente, 198 Furtado de Mendonça, Heitor, 23 Gabun, 91 Gama, Vasco da, 4, 208 Gambia River, 62 Garfield, Robert, 89 Gege, 148, 161, 163 Gengenbach, Heidi, 42 Gierow, Paul, 108, 113 Goa Archbishop of, 202 Inquisition in, 204, 205, 217, 218 Góes, José Roberto, 168 Gold Coast, 31 gold mining, 156 Golungo, 104, 105, 109, 110 Gorée, 38 Graça, Joaquim Rodrigues, 105 Granada, 17 Greef, Richard, 87, 88 Guerreiro, P. F., 52, 57 Guillobel, 166 Guinea Jews in, 55

Index Guinea coast, 21, 30, 31, 34, 35, 36, 38, 41, 54 Gujarat, 213, 214 Gulf of Guinea, 82, 90, 91, 93, 96 Gusmão, Dona Luisa de, 216 Hagemeijer, Tjerk, 93 Hahn, Emily, 1 Hair, P.E.H., 50 hairstyles, 151 half-caste, 10 Hasan, Sayeide, 222 Henriques, regiment of the, 156, 157 Hindu laws against, 224 Hindu(s), 7, 200, 201, 202, 205, 208, 219, 220, 224, 225 Hindus laws against, 220 Hodges, Tony, 94 Holm, John, 74, 77, 78 Hormuz, straits of, 216, 221 horses, 213 Hospital Real de Todos-Santos, 52 Humayan, 213 Hümmerich, Franz, 52 Iemanjá, 160 Ignacio de Santa Thereza, Archbishop, 206 Iguaraçu, 161 Ile-Ife, 159 Indian Ocean, 15, 186, 187, 188, 193, 213, 215, 216, 221 Institute Vasco da Gama, 208 intermarriage, 7, 13, 30, 32, 33, 35, 39, 43, 64, 176, 188 Isaacman, Allen, 33, 41 Islam, 55, 159, 165 Isle de France (Mauritius), 191 ivory, 106, 107, 108, 111, 113, 114, 115 Jahangir, 214 Jalofs, King(dom), 55 Japan, 219 Japan(ese), 1 Jeddah, 186

Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire Jesuit(s), 21, 30, 152, 202, 205, 218, 219 João II, Dom, King of Portugal, 51, 54 João III, Dom, King of Portugal, 213 João IV, Dom, King of Portugal, 216 José, Anastácio, 102 Julião, Carlos, 166 Junta das Missões Geográficas e de Investigações do Ultramar, 88 Junta do Comércio, 226 Kabau, 111, 114 Kalany (River), 106, 107, 108, 109 Kanara, 205 Karasch, Mary, 170 Kasai, 107, 114 Kasai (River), 107, 110, 113 Kete, 104, 111, 114 Kiddy, Elizabeth W., 162 Kimbundu, 105 Kimpa Vita, Beatriz, 37 kinship, 10, 12, 36, 37, 39, 41, 42, 104, 144, 167, 171, 172, 188, 193 Kongo, 161, 165 Konkani, 7, 199, 205, 206 Koster, Henry, 150 Kriston, 11, 35, 36, 38, 44 Kuba, 104, 113, 114, 116 Kwango, 111, 116 ladino, 152 Languages African, 64, 73, 74, 77, 115, 143, 152, 153, 165 Creole, 6, 13, 15, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 92, 93, 100 European, 5, 74, 78 Latin America, 36, 45, 222, 223 lavandeiras, 32 Le Marinel, Paul, 114 Liberia, 142 Lima, 16, 17, 18, 19, 26 limpeza de sangue, 33 Lobata, João, 93 Lockhart, James, 40

243

Lopes de Lima, José Joaquim, 87, 88 Lorenzino, Gerardo A., 92 Luanda, São Paulo de, 21, 22, 26, 32, 42, 88, 104, 107, 132, 162 Luba, 106, 110, 116 Lubuku, 107, 111, 113 Lucas, Carlos Brandão, 89 Luluaburg, 112, 114 Luluwa, 102, 104, 107, 113, 116 Lunda Commonwealth, 104 court, 106, 108 expedition, 105, 111 society, 110 Luso-African(s), 9, 11, 30, 31, 35, 41, 43, 50, 102, 103, 104, 113 Luso-Brazilian(s), 147, 150, 152, 153, 155, 158, 161, 165 Luso-Indian, 7, 198, 202, 203 Macao, 33, 223 Machado, António Maria, 113 Madagascar slave trade from, 185, 186, 190, 191, 192, 193 Madeira, 3, 74, 75, 199 Mahmud II, Sultan, 214 Maio (Island), 76 Malabar, 205, 214 Malacca, 198, 207, 216, 220 Malanje, 12, 105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 112, 113, 114, 121, 125 malata, 188, 189, 190, 192, 194, see also zana-malata Malfante, 56 Mangalore, 205 Manila, 33 Manompana, 189 Manuel I, Dom, King of Portugal, 16, 55 Manuel, Francisco, 221 Manuel, Jerónimo, 221 manumission, 13, 14, 144, 145, 147, 158, 165, 168, see also coartação Marathas, 207 Marathi, 205, 208

244 Margão, 199 Mark, Peter, 35, 50 maroons, 15, 92, 93, 97, see also Angolares Marques, Jorge, 90, 96 Martins, Gonçalo, 202 Masatamba, King, 60, 61, 63 Mascarenhas, Sérgio, 198 Mauritius, 185, 191 Mbangala, 104, 107, 110, 116 Mbundu, 152 McClintock, Anne, 130 Mecca, 213, 222 Mello de Castro, António, 219, 221, 225 Mello, Manoel de, 222 Mendes Corrêa, António Augusto, 88, 96 Mendez de Dueñas, Garci, 20 Mendez, Juana, 17 Mendez, Rui, 20 Mendonça Furtado, Luís de (Conde de Lavradio), 212, 220, 222, 224 Mercês de Baixo, 162 Mesa da Consciência e Ordens, 163 Mesa, Juan Rodriguez, 20 mestiço(s), 53, 56, 132, 133, 134, 135, 198, 203, 206, 207, 223, 225, see also mulato(s) mestizos, 102, 116 métissage, 43, see also miscegenation Mexico, 16, 33, 40 migration, 128, 129, 132 militia(s), 14, 147, 157, 201, 203, 207 Miller, Joseph, 41 Minas Gerais, 145, 151, 152, 154, 157, 159, 161, 162, 168, 169 Miranda, Catarina Gonçalves de, 160 miscegenation, 11, 15, 32, 33, 35, 39, 43, 73, 128, 129, 132, 133, 199, 203, see also métissage Misericórdia, Santa Casa de, 203

Index missionaries, 204, 205, see also Dominican(s), Franciscan(s), Jesuit(s) mixed race groups, 41 mocambo, 95, 96 Mocha, 186 mouriscos, 8 mouros, 8, 69 mouros brancos, 148 mouros negros, 148 Mozambique, 4, 6, 31, 41, 42, 44, 102, 193, 199, 216, 225, 226, 236 MPLA, 11 Mughal Empire, 213, 214, 216 Mukenge, chief of the Shilange, 111, 113 mulato(s), 135, 136, 146, 148, 161, see also mestiço(s) mulatto(es), 13, 15, 30, 31, 32, 35, 36, 51, 116, 144, 146, 150, 154, 157, 171, 223 Muni (River), 91 Münzer, J., 52 Murdoch, H. Adlai, 73 Murshid, Nasir ibn, 221 Muscat, 216, 221, 222 Muslim(s), 38, 200, 201, 202, 213, 220 mussumba, 105, 109 Mussumba, 108, 112, 117 Mussurungos, 88 Muteba, Mwant Yav, 105, 107, 109, 112 Muzaffer Shah II, Sultan, 213 nação, 148, 157, 163, 170 nação (New Christians), 21 ñara, 39, 40 nation (New Christians), 21 Nazzari, Muriel, 40 Ndembu, 104 necromancies, 58 Netherlands, 4, 16, 37 Neves, 84, 85 Neves, Carlos Agostinho das, 90, 91 New Christians, 4, 8, 22, 38, 55, see also cristãos novos

Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire New York, 185, 186, 187 Newton, John, 58 Nigeria, 90 Nizza da Silva, Beatriz, 40, 147 Nobili, Roberto di, 205 Noéji, Mwant Yav, 105 Nogueira, A. F., 6, 132 Nolasco da Silva, Maria da Graça Garcia, 52 Norton de Matos, General, 127 Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte, 160 Nossa Senhora da Candelaria, 170 Nossa Senhora das Mercês, 218 Nossa Senhora do Leite, 160 Nossa Senhora do Ó, 160 Nunes da Cunha, João, 221 Nunez da Costa, Antonio, 18 Nuno/Nunez (River), 62 Nyangwe, 114 Olinda, 161 Oman (Gulf of), 221 Omani attack on Diu, 222 on Mozambique, 222 orixá, 166 orphans, 224, 226 Otto Schütt, 108 Ottoman Empire, 16 Our Lady of the Rosary, 160, 161, 163 Padroado Real, 204, 218 Pantoja, Selma, 41 Paz Pinto, Blas de, 18 Pearson, Michael N., 214, 220 Pedro, Dom, Prince Regent, 212, 218 Penaforte e Oliveira, Manuel de Deus, 86 Pereira, Nuno Marques, 171 Peres, Crispina, 12, 37 Perez, Manuel Bautista, 19 Pernambuco, 156, 159 Persia, Shah of, 222 Peru, 17, 33 Philippines, 31, 33 Philips, Frederick, 185

245

Pinto Conspiracy (Goa), 207 Pinto, Rosário, 86 Pires, Mateus, 83 Pogge, Paul, 106, 108, 110, 113 Pombal, Marquês de, 207 pombeiros, 35, 102 Pope, 54 Portugal expulsion of Jews from, 4, 55 expulsion of Muslims from, 55 Republican revolution in, 127, 208 Preto, Luís, 21 Priore, Mary del, 40 prostitutes, 129, 153, 202, 203 prostitution, 40, 158, 202 Qishm, 221 Queixome, 222 Quenum, 25 quilombos, 93, 97, 154 quimbari, 104 Quimbundo, 105, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112, 113 Quimbundo, dialect, 88 Quinamo, 59 Quiximbo Cassongo, 111 Rachol, 202 racial degeneracy, 10, 12, 129, 131, 132, 133, 135 racial hierarchy, 131, 132, 135 racial purity, 128, 129, 130, 134, 136, 203 Rajput states, 213 Ramañano, King, 190 Ratsimilaho, King, 189, 190, 191 Recife, 159, 163 Red Sea, 186, 214, 216 reinol/reinóis, 7, 148, 150, 223, 224, 225, 226 religion, 4, 14, 55, 56, 57, 58, 156, 159, 161, 236 Réunion (Island), 190 Ribeiro, Orlando, 198, 199, 200, 202, 203 Ricci, Matteo, 205 rice, 106, 113, 186, 191, 192

246 Rio de Janeiro, 145, 151, 153, 155, 170 Rodney, Walter, 35, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59 Rodrigues, Isabel Fêo, 41 Rodriguez de Acosta, Antonio, 20 Rodriguez de Acosta, Francisco, 20 Rodriguez de Acosta, Juan, 20 Rodriguez de Solíz, Francisco, 18 Rodriguez Duarte, Juan, 20 Romano, Heitor, 89 Roque, Ricardo, 203 Rosário, Manuel, 85 Royal Navy, 187 Rugendas, Johann Moritz, 151, 166 S. Tomé contract labour in, 82, 84, 95 Sá Nogueira, Rodrigo de, 73, 75, 76 Sabará, 162, 168 Sackur, Amanda, 41 Saif al-Ya’rubi, 221 Sainte Marie, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 192, 193 Saint-Hilaire, Auguste de, 156 saints, cults in Brazil, 160 Sakalava, 191, 192, 193 Salazar, António de Oliveira, 198, 209 Salcete, 199 Saldanha, Mariano, 206 salt, 84, 86 salt-water slaves, 151, 153 Salvador, Archbishop of, 153 Samba, 106 sampadjudo, 79 Sande, António Paes de, 221 Santa Cruz dos Angolares, parish of, 83, 84 Santiago Island, 22, 62, 76, 79, 80, 156, 178 Santillana, Diego de, 18 Santo Antão Island, 76 São José, parish of, 170 São Nicolau Island, 76 São Paulo, captaincy of, 150, 168, 169

Index São Salvador do Mundo de Guaratiba, parish of, 170 São Tomé and Príncipe, 5, 31, 82, 92, 95, 97, 236 São Vicente Island, 76 Sarup, M., 50, 64 Scammell, G. V., 220 Schütt, Otto, 113 Seabra, Manuel, 208 Sebba, Mark, 79 Senado da Câmara, 4 Sephardi diaspora, 4, 12, 55 Sephardic Jews, 4, 16 Sequeira, Diogo Lopes de, 213 Sete Pedras, 87, 88, 89, 91, 95 Seville, 20 Shah Jehan, 214 Sierra Leone, 41, 51, 53, 56, 59, 62 Silva Cardoso, Júlia da, 39 Silva Correia, A. C. Germano da, 203 Silva Porto, António da, 111, 113, 115 Silva, Baltazar Lopes da, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77 slave labour, 38, 216 slave mortality, 151 slave revolt, 83 slave trade abolition of, 129, 133 from Guinea Coast, 35 in and from Angola, 103, 111 in and to Brazil, 143, 144, 150, 151 Soanierana Ivongo, 187 Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, 72, 127 soldados, 226 Songo, 110 Souza Lacerda, Gaspar de, 222 Soyaux, Herman, 116 Spain expulsion of Jews from, 4, 16 Spain, expulsion of Jews from, 55 St. Louis, 38 Stamm, Anne, 41, 42

Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire Stevenson, R. L., 6 Stockler, Francisco, 84 Stoler, Ann Laura, 43 sugar industry, 83 mills, 85, 87, 88, 93 plantations, 4, 91, 150 sugarcane liquor, 106 Surat, 186, 213, 215, 217 Surinam, 97 Swahili coast, 221 Sweet, James H., 151, 166, 171 syncretism, 14, 147 Tamatave, 9, 190, 193 tangomãos, 35, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 61, 63, 64 tax(es), 54, 56, 222 evasion, 4, 30, 40 taxation, 128 Teixeira da Mota, Avelino, 53, 54 Teixeira, Manoel Roiz, 21 Tenga, 105, 107, 109 Tenreiro, Francisco, 83, 88, 89 textiles, 114, 186, 213, 215 Third Provincial Council of Goa, 204 Thornton, John, 25, 96, 161 Tijuco, 163 Timoja, 201 Tinhorão, José Ramos, 25 Tivim, 202 tobacco, 106 renda, 224 tongas, 82, 95

247

Trindade, parish of, 86 Trudgill, Peter, 78 Tsikoa, 189 Upper Guinea, 31, 35, 41, 50 Vansina, Jan, 94 Vaz de França, Bibiana, 38 Veiga, Manuel, 76 Verger, Pierre, 142 Vila Rica, 162 Viterbo, S., 53 Voz de Angola Clamando no Deserto, 11, 134 Wissmann, Hermann von, 108, 113, 114 witchcraft, 37, 38, 40, 112, 113, 156, 160, 167, see also feiticeiros(as) Wolf, Ludwig, 114 women as heads of households, 9, 32, 33 brokerage by, 37, 42, 43, 236 Shangani, 42 slave, 8, 14, 86, 146, 155, 156, 169 Xavier, St. Francis, 205 yams, 186 Yola, 62 Yoruba, 159, 161 Zaire (River), 88 Zambézia, Donas de, 32, 39 Zañahary, 192, 193 zana-malata, 194 Ziguinchor, 63 Zimba, Benigna, 41