I am indebted to Eduardo Costa Dias and Peter Mark for their extensive discussions of the manuscript. I owe a special mention to Stephan Bühnen who thoroughly commented on the paper and gave a number of suggestions, which significantly improved the final version. I am particularly grateful to Paul Hair for all his valuable criticism and comments on the text. Maria de Sousa carefully revised the English and, in the process, contributed to its final presentation and title. None of the foregoing is responsible for errors and omissions the paper may have. The mission to the Gambia and Senegal and the research which made this paper possible were for the most part supported by the Centre of Portuguese Expression Literature of Lisbon University (CLEPUL), and also by the Board of Directors and History Department of the Lisbon University Faculty of Letters.

² Torrão, Maria Manuel Ferraz, “Actividade comercial externa de Cabo Verde: organização, funcionamento, evolução,” História Geral de Cabo Verde ed. Santos, Maria Emília Madeira and de Albuquerque, Luís (henceforth HGCV) (2 vols.: Lisbon, 1991–1995), 1:239et passim.Google Scholar

³ Torrão, M. M. F., “Rotas comerciais, agentes económicos, meios de pagamento,” HGCV 2:17et passim.Google Scholar

⁴ About the evolution of Santiago's trade prerogatives and limits, see Torrão, , “Actividade comercial,” 237–45.Google Scholar

⁵ da Mota, A. Teixeira, Dois escritores quinhentistas de Cabo Verde. André Álvares de Almatta e André Dornelas (Luanda, 1970), 26Google Scholar; idem., Some Aspects of Portuguese Colonisation and Sea Trade in West Africa in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Bloomington, 1978), 7.

⁶ Boulègue, Jean, Les Luso-Africains de Sénégambie, XVIe-XIXe siècles (Lisbon, 1989)Google Scholar; Brooks, George, Perspectives on Luso-African commerce and settlement in the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau region, 16th-19th centuries (Boston, 1980)Google Scholar; idem., “Historical Perspectives on the Guinea-Bissau Region, Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries” in Carlos Lopes, ed., Mansas, escravos, grumetes e gentio. Cacheu na encruzilhada de civilizações (Bissau, 1987), 25-54; idem., “Cacheu: a Papel and Luso-African Entrepôt at the Nexus of the Biafada-Sapi and Banyun-Bak Trade networks,” Mansas, 173-97; idem., Landlords and Strangers: Ecology, Society and Trade in Western Africa, 1000-1630 (Boulder, 1993); Hair, P. E. H., “Hamlet in an Afro-Portuguese Setting: New Perspectives on Sierra Leone in 1607,” HA 5(1978), 21–42.Google Scholar

⁷ Mark, Peter, “Constructing Identity: Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Architecture in the Gambia-Geba Region and the Articulation of Luso-African Ethnicity,” HA, 22 (1995), 307–327Google Scholar and “‘Portuguese’ Architecture and Luso-African Identity in Senegambia and Guinea, 1730-1890,” HA, 23 (1996), 179–96.Google Scholar Quite unintentionally (though understandably), the title was inspired by Peter Mark's 1996 paper. The inverted commas I have used on “Portuguese” do not necessarily have the same meaning as in Mark's title.

⁸ Mark, Peter, “The Evolution of ‘Portuguese’ Identity: Luso-Africans on the Upper Guinea Coast from the Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century,” JAH 40 (1999), 173–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ Other aspects have keen covered by the scholars quoted above and, among others, by da Mota, Avelino Teixeira, “Contactos culturais Luso-Africanos na “Guiné do Cabo Verde,” Boletim da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisbon 69(1951), 659–67 (this and other papers make Teixeira da Mota the pioneer of Luso-African studies on Guinea)Google Scholar; Carreira, António, Cabo Verde, formação e extinção de uma sociedade escravocrata (1460-1878) (Bissau, 1972), chapter 2Google Scholar; Santos, M. E. Madeira, “Os primeiros ‘lançados’ na costa da Giuiné: aventureiros e comerciantcs” in de Albuquerque, Luís, ed., Portugal no Mundo (6 vols.: Lisbon, 1989), 2: 25–36Google Scholar; idem., “Lançados na costa da Guiné: aventureiros e comerciantes,” Mansas, 67-78; Torrão, M. M. F., “Actividade comercial,” esp. 249–255Google Scholar; Havik, Philip J., “Women and Trade in the Guinea Bissau Region: The Role of African and Luso-African Women in Trade Networks from the Early 16th to the Mid 19th Century,” Studia 52(1994), 83–120Google Scholar; idem., “Comerciantes e concubinas: sócios estratégicos no comércio Atlântico na costa da Guiné” in A Dimensão Atlântica da Africa. (São Paulo, 1997), 165-68; da Silva, Maria da Graça Nolasco, “Subsíolios para o estudo dos ‘lançados’ na Guiné,” Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portugnesa, 25(1970), 25-40, 217-32, 399-422, 513–62.Google Scholar

¹⁰ For a discussion on the origin and the meaning of the two words see Hair, , “An Ethnolinguistic Inventory of the Upper Guinea Coast before 1700,” African Language Review 6(1967), 54Google Scholar; Carreira, , Cabo Verde, 47–73Google Scholar; Boulègue, , Luso-Africains, 11–14Google Scholar; Brooks, , “Historical Perspectives,” 35–36.Google Scholar

¹¹ I am generally following the categories that can lie found or infered from George Brooks' papers on lançados and Luso-Africans.

¹² Stephan Bühnen, personal communication.

¹³ da Mota, Teixeira, “Contactos,” 663–64.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Brooks, , “Historical Perspectives,” 45–46Google Scholar; Mark, , “Constructing Identity,” 317Google Scholar; idem., “‘Portuguese’ Architecture,” 190.

¹⁵ On grumetes see da Mota, Teixeira, “Contactos,” 663Google Scholar; Guiné Portuguese (2 vols.: Lisbon, 1954) 2:23–25Google Scholar; Brooks, , Landlords, 136, 194–95 et passim.Google Scholar For the identification of grumetes as “Christians” see also da Mota, Teixeira, “Contactos,” 663Google Scholar; and Havik, , “Comerciantes,” 165–68Google Scholar; Havik, , “Missionários e moradores na costa da Guiné: os padres da Companhia de Jesus e os tangomãos Portugueses' no princípio do século XVII,” Studio 56, forthcoming.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Hair, , “Hamlet,” 27Google Scholar; Brooks, , Landlords, 143Google Scholar; idem., “Cachcu,” 185; Boulègue, , Luso-Africains, 17.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Fernandes, Valentim, “A descripçam de Ceuta por sua costa dc Mauritania e Ethiopia pellos nomes modernos prosseguindo as vezes alguas cousas do sartão da terra firme” in Códice Valentim Fernandes, ed. da Costa, José Pereira (Lisbon, 1997):1–115.Google Scholar This new edition corrects numerous errors of the earlier one, on which the French translation of 1951 was based; Pereira, Duarte Pacheco, Esmeraldo De Situ Orbis, ed. de Carvalho, Joaquim Darradas (Lisbon, 1991)Google Scholar; de Almada, André Alvares, Tratado Breve dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde, ed. Brásio, A. (Lisbon, 1964).Google Scholar See also, Brief Treatise on the Rivers of Guinea, text first org. by T. da Mota together with incomplete annotation, ed., English translation, introduction, and notes on chapters 13-19, by P. E. H. Hair, notes on chaps. 1-6 by Jean Boulègue (Liverpool, 1984); Donelha, André, Descrição da Serra leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde (1625), ed. da Mota, A. Teixeira, English trans, and notes by Hair, P. E. H. (Lisbon, 1977).Google Scholar

¹⁸ For a wider perception of the Portuguese presence in Guinea until the middle of the seventeenth century and the texts reflecting it, see Hair, , “Discovery and Discoveries: The Portuguese in Guinea, 1444-1650,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 69(1992), 11–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar About the Portuguese texts on Guinea of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century see Horta, José da Silva, “A representação do Africano na literatura de viagens, do Senegal à Serrn Leoa (1453-1508),” Mare Liberum 2 (1991), 209–339, esp. 213-20Google Scholar; and covering in a systematic way the sources up to the mid-sixteenth century, see Hair, , “The Early Sources on Guinea,” HA 21(1994), 87–126.Google Scholar

¹⁹ da Mota, Teixeira, Dois escritores, 22.Google Scholar

²⁰ A great part of what we know about Almada and Douelha is in Teixeira da Mora, Dois escritores, and in his introduction to his edition of Donelha. Hair summarized Teixeira da Mota's data about Almada in the introduction to his English translation of the Brief Treatise. Some comments mainly about Almada by Baleno, Ilidio Cabral, “Pressões externas. Reacções ao corso e à pirataria,” HGCV, 2:160-61, 176–78.Google Scholar and by M. E. Madeira Santos and Maria João Soares “Igreja, missionação e sociedade,” ibid., 435, help to give a context to their activities and attitudes. The documents about Almada were published or referred to by Barcellos, Christiano José de Senna, Subsídios para a História de Cabo Verde e Guiné (Lisbon, 1899), 175-77, 190Google Scholar and, more thoroughly, by Brásio, António, Monumenta Missionaria Africana. África Ocidental, 2nd ser. (henceforth MMA) 3:428-30; 5:472–77.Google Scholar See a systematic summary of the essential data about Almada and his family by Cabral, Iva, HGCV, 2:515.Google Scholar

²¹ Opinion, personally communicated, by Fernanda Olival (Évora University) based on her work on the Order of Christ to the sixteenth/seventeenth centuries. I wish to express here my gratitude for all the data she made available for this paper, concerning the men linked in some way with the Order of Christ. In the lists of Cabo Verde archipelago officials until 1562, compiled by Domingues, Angela and Cabral, Iva [HGCV, 1:431–46)Google Scholar, no habit of Christ is mentioned. According to the long list of “vizinhos” of the Ribeira Grande (compiled by Cabral, Iva, HGCV, 2:515–45Google Scholar, which covers the period until ca. 1650), Almada was the first mulatto to receive the habit of Christ.

²² In the Iberian cultural context since the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, all the “infidels” who were neither Jews, nor Muslims were generally considered Gentiles. Hence, most Africans would be integrated in this anthropological category. See de Medeiros, François, Judaïsme, Islam et Gentilité dans l'æuvre de Raymond Lulle (PhD., Universität München, 1976), 170–77Google Scholar; Horta, , “A imagem do Africano pelos portugueses antes dos contactos,” in O Confronto do Olhar. O encontro dos povos na época das Navegações portuguesas. Séculos XV e XVI. Portugal, Africa, América (Lisbon, 1991), 43–70Google Scholar; idem., and “Representação,” 258-59.

²³ Cabral, Iva, “Ribeira Grande: vida urbana, gente, mercancia, estagnação,” HGCV, 2:270–72.Google Scholar In 1647 Almada held a post in the Santiago city council, ibid., 515.

²⁴ It is well to remember that he also was “procurador” of metropolitan traders' interests.

²⁵ Santos, M.E. Madeira, As estratégicas ilhas de Cabo Verde on a “fresca Serra Leoa”: uma escolha para a político de expanszo portuguesa no Atlantico (Lisbon, 1988).Google Scholar

²⁶ Morin, Edgar, “De la culturanalyse à la politique culturelle,” Communications 14 (1969), 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁷ For instance, the respect for the basic landlord/stranger pattern, as depicted by Brooks, Landlords.

²⁸ Ibid., 143.

²⁹ This section was forgotten in its Africanist interest; sec text and commentary in Horta, José da Silva, “La perception du Mandé et de l'identité mandingue dans les textes européens, 1453-1508,” HA 23 (1996), 81.Google Scholar The book, which basically translated into Portuguese the oriental travel accounts of Polo, Marco, di Conti, Nicolò, and Stefano, Geronimo da Santo, had a recent second addition: Marco Paulo: o Livro de Marco Paulo: o Livro de Nicolau Veneto: Carlo de Jeronimo de santo Estevam, ed. Pereira, F. M. Esteves (according to the edition of Valentim Fernandes, Lisbon, 1502), Lisbon, 1922).Google Scholar

³⁰ Not translated in Horta, “Perception.” Here I am only registering the original punctuation.

³¹ “Das Ethyopias quantas som e atee onde se estendem. Ethyopia he huu comuu vocabulo de muytas prouincias, das quaes a primeira se começa cm a vossa Guinee, no Cabo Verde, seguindo a costa do mar atee o estreyto do Mar roxo, todas estas prouincias se chamam Ethyopia em a escriptura, porem cada hua destas tem alguu outro sobrenome. Ca ho Ptolomco chama a vossa Guynee Ethiopia austral. Em esta Ethiopia do Cabo verde atce o ryo de Casamansa som todos fanados…,” Fernandes, Marco Paulo, fol. A iiij^r.

³² da Mota, Teixeira, Some Aspects, 17Google Scholar; idem., “Un document nouveau pour l'histoire des Pails an Sénégal pendant les XVème et XVIème siècles,” Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa 24(1969), 783-84.

³³ Pereira, Pacheco, Esmeraldo, 1/27, 605.Google Scholar

³⁴ de Andrade, Francisco, “Relação,” MMA, 3:97–107Google Scholar; Coelho, Francisco de Lemos, Duas descrições seiscentistas da Guiné, ed. Peres, Damião (Lisbon, 1990).Google Scholar Coelho was one of the “Portugais du XVIIe, mi-marchands mi-marins, sillonnant sans relâche par les rios [of Guinea],” de Morses, Nize Izabel, “La Petite Côte d'après Francisco de Lemos Coelho (XVIIe siècle),” BIFAN 35B(1973), 240.Google Scholar

³⁵ Coelho, Lenios, “Discripção da Costa de Guine e Situação de todos os Portos e Rios della, e Roteyro para se Poderem Navegar todos sens Rios…1684” in Duas descrições, 95.Google Scholar

³⁶ “… ethiopia es nombre comun a nuichas prouincias pobladas de negros. E començando a In parte mas occidental la primera es guinea que dizen cabo verde e siguiendo la costa dela mar fasta el estrccho del mar bermejo todas aquellas prouincias se llaman ethiopias. E los desta Ethiopia de guinea fasta casa mansa son dela seta de mahomad …” Santaella, Rodrigo, Cosmographia breve introdutoria en el libro de Marco Paulo, Sevilha, Juan Varela, 1518, f. I Aii^vGoogle Scholar, the text abbreviations are solved. I am quoting the second edition by way of the exemplar in the Biblioteca Nacional, Lisbon, as I could not consult the British Museum exemplar of 1503. To Santaella references see de Andrade, A. A. Banha, Mundos Novos do Mundo: Panorama da difusāo, pela Europa, de noticias das Descobrimentos Geográficos Portugueses (2 vols.: Lisbon, 1972), 1:365–66.Google Scholar

³⁷ “O que em geral se pode diser por parte dos ncgros que neste Guiné, chamado Cabouerde, se uendem e compram…” MMA, IV, 190.Google Scholar

³⁸ ”…que cousa hé este Cabouerde, quanto ás Ilhas, e quanto á terra firme …”; “Esta parte de Africa que os Portugueses propriamente chamaõ Guiné começa no Rio Çenagá e corre pella costa té o Cabo Ledo ou Serra Lyoa …” MMA 4:159, 162.Google Scholar

³⁹ Almada, Tratado, v.g. 25, 77; Donelha, Descrição, v.g. f.1, 84/85.

⁴⁰ On this subject see M. M. F. Torrão, “Rotas.”

⁴¹ See Brooks, , Kola Trade and State Building: Upper Guinea Coast and Senegambia, 15th-17th centuries (Boston, 1980), 9–15Google Scholar; idem., “Cacheu,” 192-94. About Francisco Pires de Carvalho and his account, see Thilmans, Guy and Moraes, N. I., “Le Routier de la côte de Guinée de Francisco Pirez de Carvalho (1635),” BIFAN 32B(1970), 343–69.Google Scholar

⁴² For the different and changing meanings of “Serra Leoa” see Hair, , “The Spelling and Connotation of the Toponym ‘Sierra Leone’ Since 1461,” Sierra Leone Studies 18 (1966), 43–58.Google Scholar

⁴³ Almada, , Tratado, 22–31.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Ibid., 75.

⁴⁵ See M. E. Madeira Santos, “Igreja e socicdade em Cabo Verde nos séculos XVI-XVII,” Lecture given in the Academia Portuguesa da História (to be published in the Academy Anais), which deals with the biological and cultural métissage of the Cabo-Verdian clergy—defined not as a syncretism, but as an interpenetration within which the clerics partook in two cultures (European and African)—suggested to me the socio-cultural approach of these Cabo-Verdian writers representing a case of cultural duality.

⁴⁶ da Mota, Teixeira, “Origem da casa indígena rectangular no litoral da “Guiné do Cabo Verde,” Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguese 7(1952), 157Google Scholar; idem., “Introduction” in Donelha, Descrição, 54/55. In previous papers he hesitated both as regards the north and the south limits, understandably I would say. See from da Mota, Teixeira: “Contactos,” 659–60Google Scholar; idem., “Importância dos antigos documentos geográficos Portugueses para o estudo etnológico das populações oeste-africanas,” in II Conferência Internacional dos Africanistas Ocidcntais Actas (4 vols.: Lisbon, 1952), 4:396Google Scholar; idem., “O Centro de Estudos da Guiué Portuguesa. História e perspectivas,” Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa 10(1955), 654, 656.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ “Distrito” or administrative region, a concept which tends to substitute the idea of “limit” (of the island's intervention on the coast). On this change see Cohen, Zelinda, “Administração das ilhas de Cabo Verde e seu distrito no segundo século de colonização (1560-1640),” HGCV, 2:191–206.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ See the document quotation and commentary in da Mota, Teixeira, “Introduction,” in Donelha, , Descrição, 18/19.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Ibid., Descrição, v.g. 98/99, 102/03, 108/09, 110/11, 128/29.

⁵⁰ Ibid., 134/35

⁵¹ Ibid., 138/39.

⁵² Ibid., v.g. 146/47-148/49, 162/63.

⁵³ Ibid., 108/09-110/11, 130/31, 166/67.

⁵⁴ Ibid., 160/61.

⁵⁵ I am grateful to Maria João Soares, researcher of the Centro the Estudos de História e Cartografia Antiga (Instituto de Investigaçãe Cientifica Tropical, Lisbon), with whom I have discussed some of these evidence for a possible mulatto origin of Donelha.

⁵⁶ Almada, Tratado, v.g. 2, 10, 23.

⁵⁷ Ibid., 60, 68, 71, 73, 75, etc.

⁵⁸ Ibid., v.g. 102-03, 115.

⁵⁹ His strong patriotism and Portuguese self-identifying representation leads him, sometimes, to a wider Portuguese perspective of “our” interests, as when beyond “our Guinea,” he also writes, for instance, “our India” ibid., 109.

⁶⁰ “a quinta parte é Etiópia Infirior [sic] on Grande, da qual Vossa Alteza somente possui o comércio”; D. P. Pereira, Esmeraldo, Book I, chap. 5, 545.

⁶¹ Horta, , “Representação,” 290.Google Scholar

⁶² Almada, , Brief Treatise, 73Google Scholar; idem., Tratado, 70.

⁶³ Ibid.

⁶⁴ I follow here Hair's translation of the text of Almada's Tratado, which publishes the variant of the Lisbon manuscript, which I insert in the body of the text. See Brief Treatise, 75. The italics of the sentence are mine.

⁶⁵ Donelha, Descrição, mainly 118/19, 120/21. Álvares, M., Ethiopia Menor e Descripção Geographica da Provincia da Serra Leoa, manuscript at the Sociedadc de Geografia de Lisbon, Res. 3, E-7, fol. 76.Google Scholar See as well Hair, P. E. H., ed., An Interim Translation of Manuel Alvares S. J., “Etiópia Menor e Descripção Geografica da Província da Serra Leoa” [c. 1615] (Liverpool, 1990)Google Scholar; Horta, , “Perception,” 81–82.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Bühuen, Stephan, “Brothers, Chiefdoms, and Empires: on Jan Jansen's ‘The Representation of Status in Mande’,” HA 23 (1996), 113–14n8.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ On this subject see the maps of Western Africa published by da Mota, Teixeira, Guiné, 2: 24Google Scholar; Rodney, Walter, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545-1800 (New York, 1980) 5, 73Google Scholar; and Brooks, , Landlords, 17.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ See Almada, Brief Treatise, v. g. 63, 66 (Tratado, 60-61, 63).

⁶⁹ Brooks, , Landlords, 323.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Hair, , “Hamlet,” 27.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Brooks, , Landlords, 324–25.Google Scholar

⁷² Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (Lisbon), Chancelaria da Ordem de Cristo, L” 10, fl. 135—pension chart (“carta de tença”), Lisbon, 20.3.1598, Sebastião Fernandes is mentioned as “morndor no Cabo Verde,” which does not necessarily mean he was a Santiago resident, but only that he had the privileges of a “morador” or simply that he lived in the Guinea coast (doc. of 1607 in Brásio, , MMA, 4:295Google Scholar: “reside na Costa de Guiné”); the pension chart mentions the capture of an English caravel, which had arrived to the Sierra Leone peninsula port (baptized by the Portuguese “porto do Salvador”), the killing of some English, and the arrest of two Portuguese of the same caravel, who were taken by Sebastião Fernandes to the Ribeira Grande prison in Santiago. The award (“mercê) of the habit was granted by the king in 1593. In an earlier document (“Carta d'abito [habit chart] a Sebastião Fernandez,” 23.1.1598, Ibid., fl. 347-47^v) the king refers to him as “cavaleiro fidalgo de minhn casa” (knight of my house) and mentions the papal dispensation of his “blood purity” to receive the habit. The need of a dispensation by the pope is a strong evidence of his New Christian origins (or eventually “Moorish” ones). The career of Sebastião Fernandes Cação in the Guinea Coast can be followed in the documents published by Brásio, , MMA, 4–5, passim.Google Scholar

⁷³ See Gama, Orlando, “Do Senegal à Serra Leoa (1580-1656). Espaço e Estratégia, Poder e Discurso” (M.A., Universidade de Lisboa, 1997), forthcoming.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Almada, , Tratado, 2–3 (prólogo)Google Scholar; Donelha, Descrição, f.1; Lemos Coelho, “Descrição da Costa da Guiné desde o Cabo Verde athe Serra leoa com Todas Ilhas e Rios que os Brancos Navegam … 1669,”;” idem., “Discripção … 1684” in Duas descrições, 3-4, 91-95.

⁷⁵ Donelha, , Descrição, 148/49.Google Scholar On this meaning of “sandeguil” as a political title (satigui or silatigni), see Teixeira da Mota, ed. Donelha, 301n255.

⁷⁶ Donelha, , Descrição, 108/09.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ About Barros's description of Senegambia integrated in the First Decade of his Asia, see da Mota, Teixeira, “D. João Bemoim e a expedição portuguesa ao Senegal em 1489,” Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa 26(1971), 67–72Google Scholar, and Daveau, Suzanne, “Une ancienne technique agricole soudanaise” in 2000 ans d'histoire africaine. Le Sol, la Parole, et l'Écrit. Mélanges en hommage à Raymond Mauny (Paris, 1981), 445–49.Google Scholar Daveau (ibid., 449) states that Barros transmitted “sans aucun doute l'opinion d'un informateur bon connnisseur de l'agriculture des populations du pays ouolof…”

⁷⁸ After having finished and presented the first version of this paper, I read a number of articles of P. E. H. Hair I had not seen before, published in the Africana Research Bulletin (henceforth ARB) that the author generously gave me access to. In some of them I found passages which show a perspective very similar to the one I have been trying to develop in this paper. For example, “[about the references of Bartomeu André's letter to several aspects of the “Serra Leoa” region … I they must represent the common knowledge and oral traditions of the Cape-Verde-Islands trading community,” Hair, , “Sources on Early Sierra Leone: (8) Bartolomeu André's letter, 1606,” ARB, 6/3(1976) 39–40.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ See Rema, Henrique Pinto O. F. M., História das missões católicas da Guiné (Braga, 1982), 63.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ See da Mota, Teixeira, “Apêndice I: António Velho Tinoco e a sua viagem à Guiné (1574)” in Donelha, , Descrição, 332/36.Google Scholar

⁸¹ See Hair, , “Introduction,” in Almada, , Brief Treatise, 3–5.Google Scholar

⁸² Ibid., 5. The case of Barreira is emblematic: “He had only been in the mission for a period of a little, over one year, and had only very limited experience of the Guinea mainland. His information came from Cape Verde Islands traders, and especially from a manuscript account of the mainland by one of these, André Alvares de Almada, part of which was to be summarized and later printed in the official Jesuit narrative of the mission.” Hair, , “Heretics, Slaves and Witches—as seen by Guinean Jesuits c. 1610,” Journal of Religion in Africa 28(1998), 142n22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸³ As mere examples, other names could be presented in similar situations: Sebastião Fernandes Cação and Bartolomeu André, in letters of Barreira, Manuel Alvares and other texts in Jesuit co-authorship; Henrique Vaz de Lugo relating to the Fulbe section of the same Barreira's description, the latter being an especially interesting case: firstly, he was a Cabo Verdean, very probably Luso-African, probably born, as Almada was, in one of the powerful Santiago families (he possibly was an illegitimate son of Fernão Fiel de Lugo); secondly, he asked the king to be granted a habit of a military order (we do not know which one) but, as would frequently happen with mulattos and other petitioners with “blood default,” he only received a post in Santiago as a reward for his services. In the words of the Conselho de Portugal, he was an “expert in Guinea things and particularly of the Fulos and Jalofos land” (apud da Mota, Teixeira, “Document nouveau,” 788Google Scholar); thirdly, these services consisted in a mission into the Fulbe polity of Fuuta Tooro (“Grão-Fulo empire”), whose report we do not know, but we have an approximate mirror in Barreira's description.

⁸⁴ Havik, “Missionáries”. As Hair has already stated: “It is true that the Jesuit mission devoted much of its energy to the conversion of African kings and their relatives, but at each point the Jesuits operated within an Afro-Portuguese presence, within a web of commercial and cultural ties centered on the Cape Verde Islands” “Hamlet,” 36. On this topic see also Santos, /Soares, , “Igreja,” 444.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ For a reconstitution of the list of Barreira's informers see Teixeira da Mota, “Document nouveau” and Moraes, N. I./Thilmans, Guy, “La description de la côte de Guinée du père Baltasar Barreira (1606),” BIFAN 34B(1972), 21–24Google Scholar, giving the general profile of each one.

⁸⁶ Barreira, Baltasar, “Description of the Islands of Cape Verde and Guinea, 1 August 1606,” in Hair, P.E.H. ed., Jesuits Documents on the Guinea of Cape Verde and the Cape Verde Islands, 1585-1617 (Liverpool, 1989), 13/f.1.Google Scholar See the original Portuguese text in MMA, 4:159.

⁸⁷ Ibid.

⁸⁸ On the contrast between the former and Barreira see da Mota, Teixeira, Dois escritores, 22–26.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Boulègue, , Le Grand Jolof (XIIIe-XVIe siècle) (Paris, 1987), 156 (referring to Almada and Donelha as sources for the history of the Jolof and Fuuta Tooro).Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Heintze, Beatrix, “Written Sources, Oral Traditions and Oral Traditions as Written Sources. The Steep and Thorny Way to Early Angolan History,” Paideuma, 33(1987), 263–87.Google Scholar

⁹¹ According to Boulègue, Jean, “La Traite, l'Etat, l'Islam. Lcs Royaumes Wolof du XVème au XVIIIème Siècle” (Thèse d'état, Université de Paris I-U.E.R., 1986), 215ffGoogle Scholar; Grand Jolof, 156ff. For a different interpretation of the Fulbe migrations of the fifteenth century, see Kane, Oumar, “Le Fuuta-Tooro des Satigi aux Almaami (1512-1807)” (Thèse d'état, Université de Dakar, 1986), 116–67, 177-78n28.Google Scholar

⁹² Donelha, , Descrição, 157/59 (the italics are mine).Google Scholar

⁹³ Most recently, Teixeira da Mota, “Document nouveau”; Boulègue, Grand Jolof; and Oumar Kane, Fuuta Tooro, in partial disagreement with Mota and Boulègue.

⁹⁴ da Mota, Teixeira, “Document nouveau,” 817.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ The last important synthesis of the problem by Luís de Albuquerque is relatively consensual, and confirms the year of 1460 and the name of Antonio da Noli. See “O descobrimento das ilhas de Cabo Verde,” HGCV, 1:39.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Boulègue, , Grand Jalof, 159.Google Scholar See Donelha, , Descrição, 130ff.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ “Donelha a plaqué le récit légendaire sur un épisode réel mais de portée éphémère.,” Boulègue, , Grand Jolof, 149n16.Google Scholar See ibid., 147, and Kane, Fuuta Tooro, 117, for identifications of “Geremeo”.

⁹⁸ Teixeira da Mota, ed. Donelha, 285n220; Boulègue, , Grand Jolof, 59, 166.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Boulègue, , Grand Jolof, 147.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Ibid., 166.

¹⁰¹ da Mota, Teixeira, “Introduction,” 35.Google Scholar

¹⁰² Almada and Donelha “both wrote on the basis of what was common knowledge among Cape-Verde-Islands traders.” Hair, , “Early sources. (3) Sandoval (1627),” ARB 5/2(1975), 84.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ Boulègue explicitly admits this possibility.

¹⁰⁴ Donelha, , Descrição, 159.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ Almada, , Tratado, 54.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Donelha, , Descrção, 131 (emphasis mine).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ Briefly, at that time Jolof expansion policy, supposedly aimed at conquering Fuuta Tooro (in Donelha's account the Siin and Fuuta occur only as intentional war targets of the Buurba, mentioning as “the first war” the one made with “Geremeo”) would have caused the contemporary migration of the Fulbe, the Dulo Demba invasion being part of it. Oumar Kane, with whom I had the opportunity to discuss this matter, points out and underlines the passage of Da Mosto (voyage of 1455) in which the name of a contemporary Buurba, “Zucolino” (Cukuli or Cukli), is mentioned, according to him to be identified with Cukli Njiklaan, who appears in the traditional list of Buurba. Hence, Da Mosto would be an independent source which would confirm his statement (see Kane, , Fuuta Tooro, 116–18.Google Scholar) However, according to Boulègue (Grand Jolof, 148-49), this identification is not chronologically possible, and he suggests other hypothetical identifications of Da Mosto's Cukuli, to more or less the same period. The most likely one in his opinion is that Cukuli—in his view Cukuli Mbooj—would not be the conqueror of the Nammandiru/Geremeo (and supposedly, in Kane's view, of Fuuta Toro), but his predecessor.

¹⁰⁸ I thank Oumar Kane fur bringing this theme to my attention.

¹⁰⁹ Donelha, , Descrição, 123.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ On the meanings of “Jonais” in Almada and Donelha's accounts see, among others, Boulègue, , Grand Jolof, 147.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ Donelha, , Descrição, 136/37.Google Scholar

¹¹² Ibidem.

¹¹³ Teixeira da Mota, ed. Donelha, 285/87n220. According to the former “stories which Donelha links together and presents as continuous history … represent in fact events which were not in fact in close chronological sequence.”

¹¹⁴ See Donelha, , Descrição, 100/19Google Scholar; Almada, Tratado, chaps. 16-18. On the Mane invasion see Hair's annotation in the former edition and in the Brief Treatise.

¹¹⁵ da Mota, Teixeira, “Introduction,” 20/21.Google Scholar

¹¹⁶ See Baleno, , “Povoamento e formação da sociedade,” HGCV, 1:150.Google Scholar

¹¹⁷ See de Albuquerque, Luís, “Descobrimento,” 39.Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ Santos, Madeira/Soares, , “Igreja,” 453–57.Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ Almada, , Tratado, 1964, 1–2Google Scholar; Yoro K. Fall, “L'oralité africaine dans les textes portugais des XVe-XVIe siècles: implications dans le renouvellement des méthodes de la recherche historique,” unpublished lecture given to the Colóquio Internacional “Construção e Ensino da História de Africa (Lisbon, 8.6.1994).Google Scholar Yoro K. Fall's statements were taken from my notes in listening to his lecture. I gratefully acknowledge Yoro Fall for introducing me to this subject.

¹²⁰ Almada, , Tratado, 1964, 1 (translation mine).Google Scholar