“A Single Black Woman”: African Women and the Portuguese Slave Trade in Sixteenth-Century West Africa

When teaching the transatlantic slave trade, it’s surprisingly easy to overlook Africa. While we talk about the European slaving forts, such as Cape Coast Castle, on the African coast and enslaved Africans, how much do we focus on the way in which Africans shaped the slave trade? When I wrote about the transatlantic slave system, I discussed how King Afonso I of Kongo pressured the Portuguese, African slavers at Whydah manipulated European slavers, and Queen Njinga challenged the Portuguese in Angola. But as I look back at these posts, I see that they might be seen as isolated examples rather than recurring patterns. We want students to understand that throughout the more than 400 years of the Atlantic slave trade, Africans regularly shaped and influenced the patterns of trade.

In his new book, The Heretic of Cacheu: Crispina Peres and the Struggle over Life in Seventeenth-Century West Africa, Toby Green reconstructs the world of Crispina Peres, an African woman living in sixteenth-century Cacheu in present-day Guinea-Bissau. Through her life, we can better understand the influence of African women in Portuguese West African trading posts. Students often assume that European slave traders were in positions of power. The reality is that Africans, especially African women, frequently influenced how trade functioned in African ports, and Europeans adapted and responded. Crispina Peres may have been the most powerful person in town until the Catholic Church forced her to go before the Inquisition in Lisbon. Her story can help students better understand how Africans shaped the transatlantic slave system and forced Europeans to adapt.

The Atlantic Slave Trade to 1650