African Presence in Portugal: People and Things Within Material, Social, and Power Relations

ABSTRACT

The first reference to the presence of sub-Saharan Africans in Portugal was made in 1444 CE when several enslaved individuals entered the country through Lagos, Portugal. From that moment onward the amount of people and things arriving to the country originating in sub-Saharan Africa increased. Burials, ivories, and pottery provide evidence of the cultural contacts between Europeans and Africans in Portugal. This article analyzes the available information about the presence of African populations and material culture in Portugal, their cultural significance, and roles in the context of social networks in the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries. These subjects entail debates about the impact of different agents in the construction of identities and their impacts in establishing and maintaining cultural relations.

KEYWORDS:

• Africans
• Portugal
• archaeology
• material culture
• burials

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to the Department of Culture of the Loures township and Academia de Ciências of the Lisbon Museum, as well as to our colleagues Ana Raquel Silva, Carlos Boavida, Francisca Alves-Cardoso, Florbela Estêvão, João Luís Cardoso, Marina Lourenço and Raquel Granja. The authors also express gratitude to Cláudia Manso, Miguel Almeida and Guilherme Cardoso for the photographs.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tânia Manuel Casimiro

Tânia Manuel Casimiro graduated in History and Archaeology in NOVA University of Lisbon, took an MA in Artifact Studies at University College of London and returned to NOVA for her PhD finished in 2011. She is currently an assistant research and lecture at NOVA University of Lisbon. With over 200 papers and books her research focuses on the early modern period and contemporary global contacts of people and objects. On a more theoretical level, she deals with frameworks concerning how individuals and things relate and interact in the formation of identities, and how can they reflect globalized and glocalized ontologies.

Francisco Curate

Francisco Curate (PhD) is a biological anthropologist. He is currently an assistant researcher at the Research Centre for Anthropology and Health (Department of Life Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Coimbra) and teacher at the Superior School of Technology (Polytechnic Institute of Tomar). He is the author of several articles in the fields of bioarchaeology, paleopathology, and forensic anthropology and has been researching human skeletal variation, bone health, bone loss, and physical trauma in past populations.

Nathalie Antunes-Ferreira

Nathalie Antunes-Ferreira (PhD) is a biological anthropologist and archaeologist. She has been an Assistant Professor at the Instituto Universitário Egas Moniz since 2004, currently teaching Biological and Forensic Anthropology. She is the coordinator of the Biology and Human Identification Department at the Laboratory of Forensic and Psychological Sciences Egas Moniz and a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Center Egas Moniz. She is a coordinator and trainer in extra-curricular training activities, namely in the area of Biological and Forensic Anthropology. Her research includes the fields of forensic anthropology, bioarchaeology, paleopathology, and funerary anthropology.