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Signare
Signares were black and mulatto Senegalese women who had an influence via their marriage with European men and their patrimony. These women of color managed to gain some individual assets, status, and power in the hierarchies of the Atlantic slave trade. There was a Portuguese equivalent, referred to as ''Nhara'', a name for Luso-African businesswomen who played an important part as business agents through their connections with both Portuguese and African populations. There was also an English language equivalent of women of mixed African and British or American descent with the same position, such as Betsy Heard, Mary Faber, and Elizabeth Frazer Skelton. Social and economic role Signares commonly had power in networks of trade and wealth within the limitations of slavery. The influence held by these women led to changes in gender roles in the family structure archetype. Some owned masses of land as well as slaves. European merchants and traders, especially the French and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Pépin
Anne Pépin (c. 1747–1837) was the richest and most celebrated woman on the West African island of Gorée in History of Senegal, French Senegal. Pepin’, born to a European man and African woman, was born into the Afro-European class known as Habitants (Afro-European Class), habitants. In 1786, she entered a relationship with the then-governor Stanislas de Boufflers at the same time that he moved the capital of Senegal from Saint Louts to Gorée. Pépin held the designation of ''signare,'' a prestigious social and economic designation for women who formed partnerships with European men and, as such, wielded great power. Pépin lived in the “golden age of the ''habitants,'' and her life illustrates how this class functioned as an intermediary group in Afro-European relations." Life Anne Pépin was born in 1747 to ''signare'' Catherine Baudet and Jean Pépin, a surgeon for the French East India Company. Among Anne’s five siblings was the trader Nicholas Pépin, a leading fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hope (Esperança) Booker
Hope (Esperança) Booker ( 1675 – after 1707) was a Gambian woman who rose from child slavery to become a prominent figure in the Royal African Company's sphere of trade. Booker began her life as a child slave to John Booker, who had at the time been an agent for England's Royal African Company (RAC). When John Booker died in June 1693, Hope Booker became his executrix. Shortly after, Booker dated another RAC agent named William Heath, and they married in March 1694 and had one son. After that, when William Heath died that December, an inheritance controversy arose, but the second marriage was declared lawful. In 1697, Hope Heath (formerly Booker) went back to Gambia. Her last mention in the history books dates to 1707, so her fate after that is unknown. However, Hope Heath left behind a legacy as a successful woman despite the Atlantic slave trade. Historical background Signares, or senhoras, like Esperance, were women in the African Atlantic world who lived along the S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marie Baude
Marie Baude (c. 1703-?) was a Senegambian woman who was married to convicted murderer, Jean Pinet. Despite a lack of significant evidence regarding her life, Baude's narrative embodies the intricate dynamics of the transatlantic slave trade era, from her ascent as a ''signare'', wielding influence amid the trade, to the events surrounding her husband's trial and deportation. Early life Marie Baude was born in about 1703 (1701 according to her testimony) in Joal, a city on the western coast of Senegal. Her mother is unknown and her father was a Frenchman known as ‘Sieur Baude’. Documents from the time of her life referred to her as a ‘ mulâtresse’. She married Jean Pinet in 1721, in a marriage arranged by her father. They moved to a French ''comptoirs'', on Gorée, an island off the coast. Pinet was the only gunsmith on the island leading to wealth quickly. Together, they owned slaves and lived a comfortable lifestyle. Baude was a ''signare'' working with the French in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria Albis
Victoria Albis (d. ''after'' 1777), was a Senegalese signara. She belonged to the most well known representatives of the famous signaras on the island of Gorée in French Senegal Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t .... She was an influential figure in business in contemporary Senegal. Victoria Albis was a Luso-African. She belonged to the pioneer settlers of the Luso-Africans who settled on Gorée when after the final French control of Senegal, and who formed a community of Luso-African and French-Senegalese signaras in the period of 1701-1725.The Business of Emotions in Modern History. (2023). Indien: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 110 The present Henriette-Bathily Women's Museum was built by her. Notes Sources * Gorée: the island and the Historical Museum. Abdoula ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plaçage
Plaçage was a recognized extralegal system in French slave colonies of North America (including the Caribbean) by which ethnic European men entered into civil unions with non-Europeans of African, Native American and mixed-race descent. The term comes from the French meaning "to place with". The women were not legally recognized as wives but were known as ''placées''; their relationships were recognized among the free people of color as ''mariages de la main gauche'' or left-handed marriages. They became institutionalized with contracts or negotiations that settled property on the woman and her children and, in some cases, gave them freedom if they were enslaved. The system flourished throughout the French period, reaching its zenith during the latter, between 1769 and 1803. The system may have been most widely practiced in New Orleans, where planter society had created enough wealth to support the system. It also took place in the Latin-influenced cities of Natchez and Bilo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gold Coast Euro-Africans
Gold Coast Euro-Africans were a historical demographic based in coastal urban settlements in colonial Ghana, that largely arose from unions between European men and African women from the late 15th century – the decade between 1471 and 1482, until the mid-20th century, circa 1957, when Ghana attained its independence from the United Kingdom. In this period, different geographic areas of the Gold Coast were politically controlled at various times by the Portuguese, Germans, Swedes, Danes, Dutch and the British. There are also records of merchants of other European nationalities such as the Spaniards, French, Italians and Irish, operating along the coast, in addition to American sailors and traders from New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Euro-Africans were influential in intellectual, technocratic, artisanal, commercial and public life in general, actively participating in multiple fields of scholarly and civic importance. Scholars have referred to this Euro-African ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anna Colas Pépin
Anna Colas Pépin or ''Anne-Nicolas "Annacolas" Pépin'' (1787–1872), was a Euro-African ''signare'' businesswoman.Lorelle Semley, To be Free and French: Citizenship in France's Atlantic Empire' She belongs to the most famous examples of the signares of Gorée, but has often been confused with her paternal aunt Anne Pépin. She was the daughter of Nicolas Pépin (1744–1815) and Marie-Thérèse Picard (d. 1790), married François de Saint-Jean and became the mother of Mary de Saint Jean (1815–1853), wife of the first Senegalese member of the French Parliament, Barthélémy Durand Valantin (1806–1864): the famous painting made by Édouard Auguste Nousveaux could depict either Anna Colas Pépin or her daughter. Pépin was described as a leading and influential member of the Signare community, and invested in land and buildings on Gorée in cooperation with the French authorities. As a leading member of the local elite, she famously received François d'Orléans, Prince of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cassare
''Cassare'' or ''calissare'' (from Portuguese ''casar'', "to marry") was the term applied to the marriage alliances, largely in West Africa, set up between European and African slave traders; the "husband" was European and the wife/concubine African. This was not marriage under Christian auspices, although there might be an African ceremony; there were few clerics in equatorial Africa, and the "wives" could not marry since they had not been baptized. Male monogamy was not expected. As such, concubinage is a more accurate term. The multinational Quaker slave trader and polygamist, Zephaniah Kingsley purchased the Wolof princess, Anna Kingsley, who had earlier been enslaved and sold in Cuba, after being captured in modern-day Senegal. ''Cassare'' created political and economic bonds. The name is European, and reflects similar relationships of Portuguese men, who were the first explorers of the west African coast. But it antedated European contact; selling a daughter, if not for c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morganatic Marriage
Morganatic marriage, sometimes called a left-handed marriage, is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which in the context of royalty or other inherited title prevents the principal's position or privileges being passed to the spouse, or any children born of the marriage. The concept is most prevalent in German-speaking territories and countries most influenced by the customs of the German-speaking realms. Generally, this is a marriage between a man of high birth (such as from a reigning, deposed or mediatised dynasty) and a woman of lesser status (such as a daughter of a low-ranked noble family or a commoner).Webster's Online Dictionary . Retrieved 2008-07-10. Diesbach, Ghislain de. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crispina Peres
Crispina Peres (c. 1615 – after 1670) was a " Senhora" slave trader, natural from Geba, nowadays Guinea-Bissau. Crispina Peres belonged to a lineage of African women traders, who operated in some of the main ports of the West African region, such as Guinguim, Farim, Cacheu and Geba. She actively participated in trade networks connected to regional and international routes. Crispina's main business was exchanging products from European traders for human beings. Portuguese and local traders sold these people to different parts of the Americas and Portugal. Operating her business from Cacheu, Crispina Peres was intrinsically connected to the slave trade and the Atlantic World between 1640 and 1668. Etymology Crispina Peres is a Christian baptismal name given by her parents when she was baptized in Geba. She inherited her last name from her father, Rodrigo Peres Baltazar, a native of Terceira Island. Life Crispina Peres was born in c.1615, in Geba. She was the daughter of Is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caty Louette
Caty Louette or ''Cathy Louët'' (c. 1713 – d. ''after'' 1776) was a '' signara'' and businessperson from the African continent.Mark Hinchman, Portrait of an Island: The Architecture and Material Culture of Gorée ...' She is one of the more noted profiles of the signare community of Gorée. Caty Louette was the daughter of the Frenchman Nicolas Louët, an official of the French East India Company, and his African signare-mistress Caty de Rufisque of Gorée. Her mother was perhaps the first Gorée-signare who is documented. Louette became the signare-consort of the Frenchman Pierre Aussenac de Carcassone, an official of the French East India Company Compagnie des Indes () may refer to several French chartered companies involved in long-distance trading: * First French East Indies Company, in existence from 1604 to 1614 * French West India Company, active in the Western Hemisphere from 1664 t .... Caty Louette has been described as one of the most successful and prominent profi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Rossignol
Anne Rossignol (1730–1810), was a famous ''signare'' businesswoman and slave trader. Born on Gorée, she emigrated to Saint-Domingue in 1775, where she became one of the three richest free coloured businesswomen in the colony, alongside Zabeau Bellanton in Cap-Français and Jeanne-Genevieve Deslandes in Port-au-Prince. She emigrated to Charleston, South Carolina during the Haitian Revolution, and has been called the first free African to have emigrated voluntarily and freely to America. Life Anne Rossignol was born as the daughter of the Frenchman Claude Rossignol and the African ''signare'' Madeleine-Francoise of Gorée. She accompanied her father and his legal French wife to France as a child in 1736. In the documents, she was referred to as her father's natural mulatto daughter. Gorée She returned from France to Gorée on an unknown date. By birth she belonged to the privileged Afro-France signare community of Gorée: her sister Marie-Therese became the sister-in-law of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
