Africans who were designated by the literature of portuguese expansion in the 15th century

Abstract

The Portuguese contact with Moors and other men from "varied nations" in Morocco in the early fifteenth century contributed to showing an unknown Africa to the Christian Europe. In order to "know more and better" about the lands of Guinea, Prince Henry would then send men who have fought by his side in Ceuta. However, the news spread throughout Europe: foreigners would offer their services to the Portuguese Court; curious people would go to Lisbon in order to follow closely the development; Gomes Eanes de Zurara composed a first history of the Portuguese feats in Guinea. In the previous years, it was written scripts and chronicles on the trips and the places reached; shedding light on the particularities of the lands and their people. At first glance, peoples looked like the same, but with a posterior contact ethnicities, settlements and kingdoms were being outlined and recognized, and finally, some Africans were appointed in reports. The present study intends to covering these short or more circumstantial reports about Africans, searching mentions to these cases which deserved distinction, and which reveal, concomitantly, the affections of Christians in writing about them.