CHAM

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“The late-medieval nature of the islands at their foundation thus underwent a cultural upheaval that began with a process of constructing a certain idea of the “Other”. This European de-centring took on an indirect expression in the form of objects rather than people. Indeed, in the relationship between East and West, the acknowledgement of difference was not so much characterised by the interaction of people, as of “material civilisation” arriving at the Azores from distant places. If most people arriving at the Azores were from the European continent, and predominantly Portuguese, the African continent also contributed a small number of forced settlers of various ethnicities, who were generally called Guineans – as geographically erroneous as that is! Among the ample nomenclature relating to slaves in the Azores, we find the unusual designation Negrita (which is, despite appearances, not simply a diminutive, and was never used concerning enslaved Africans).”