Race Portuguese Thoughts on Seized Africans

The Portuguese chronicler perceived the seized Africans of the mid 15th century with great detail and consideration. The chronicler observed many aspects of the seized Africans that show their culture and their feelings. He saw the various reactions of the people as they stood in chains awaiting the next step in their unthinkable experience(s). He saw people weep; he saw them detach from reality and seem numb. The chronicler noticed the intense emotional responses from the Africans when they were separated from family and friends while led away in chains. He definitely saw many seized Africans lose their grip on reality and their sanity demonstrating hysteria and mania as reactions to their capture. These variations in their reactions show that the African people seized have the full range of...

Long before Africans were brought to America as slaves and the notorious sexual history among slaves and slave-owners commenced, there were Africans with skin that many westerners considered European. The chronicler calls some of the Africans mulattoes, which is a term used to describe blacks who are mixed with white but are just too brown to pass (as white), yet not dark enough to be considered full blown African (at first glance). There were no whites in Africa at this point in history, yet the diversity of the African people as it is more modernly imagined had always been a characteristic of the African people. As the chronicler notices…