Paper short abstract:

This paper questions the accuracy of considering “race” a determinant factor in early Afro-Portuguese relationships. The role of contrasting Western African representations is emphasized. Jewish communities of Portuguese and Luso-African descent are a case in point both in Senegal and Amsterdam.

Paper long abstract:

In the historiography of the early Portuguese Empire in Africa, the concepts of "race" and "race relations" are frequently presented to explain Afro-Portuguese relationships. This approach disregards the absence of a modern concept of "race". Recent scholarship has acknowledged that until the 18th century the definition of "race" ("raça") by Portuguese authorities was not associated with any presumed intrinsic "racial" inferiority of people of African descent but rather with religion and slave origins. The attitude of the same authorities towards "race" differed depending on the social context of the "colonial" spaces in question. This paper intends to replace the predominant approach of the History of Empires, focused on a European 'problématique', by stressing the African counterpart. In the Western African context, as well as in the increasingly creolized Cape Verde society, being "Black" and being "White" was not a question of skin color but of social status. Jewish communities in northern Senegambia (founded c. 1606) and their connections with the United Provinces communities contribute to an understanding of the relevance of this African-born representation of identity. In the early 17th century, Jews of African descent were acknowledged as full members of the Portuguese Jewish communities in Guiné and in Amsterdam. A "racial thought" approach to the relationship involved is misleading.