The Heretic of Cacheu: Crispina Peres and the Struggle Over Life in Seventeenth-Century West Africa

Tells the extraordinary story of seventeenth-century West African slave trader Crispina Peres to explore the shifting, sophisticated world in which she lived. In 1665, Crispina Peres, the most powerful trader in the West African slave-trafficking port of Cacheu, was arrested by the Portuguese Inquisition. Her enemies had conspired to denounce her for taking treatments prescribed by Senegambian healers, the djabakós. But who was Peres? And why was the Inquisition so concerned with policing the faith of a West African woman in today's Guinea-Bissau? In The Heretic of Cacheu, award-winning historian Toby Green takes us to the heart of this conundrum, immersing us in the atmosphere of an otherwise distant setting. We learn how people in seventeenth-century Cacheu built their houses; styled their clothes; healed themselves from illness; and worshipped, worked, and played. Green renders the haunting realities of the growing slave trade and the rise of European empires in shocking detail. By the 1650s, the relationships between Europe, West Africa, and the Americas were already old and tangled, with slaving ports, colonies, and military bases having intermingled over many generations. But Cacheu also profoundly troubled this dynamic. It was globally connected to places ranging from China and India to Brazil and Colombia, and women such as Crispina Peres ran the town and challenged the patriarchy of empire. For the first time, through surviving documents recording Peres's case, The Heretic of Cacheu lets readers experience the reality of this unique place and time through a remarkable act of historical recovery.

About the Author :
Toby Green is professor of precolonial and Lusophone African history and culture at King's College, London. A fellow of the British Academy, he is the author of The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300-1589 and, most recently, A Fistful of Shells, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Review :
"[This] painstakingly researched study recreates a world in which slavery was a significant but widely disavowed part of everyday life."-- "History Today" "A remarkable book of rare distinction. Working across a range of Inquisition sources, languages, and spatial locations, Green reveals the human emotions of daily lives governed by politics, fears, betrayal, treachery, promiscuity, affairs, revenge, cruelties, imprisonment, and religious confessions. This is a substantial contribution to knowledge and our understanding of the social history of Africans and Europeans in seventeenth-century West Africa."-- "José Lingna Nafafé, author of Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Seventeenth Century" "A rich microhistory centering on the life story of a fascinating African woman, this is a compelling, well-researched book that will make seventeenth-century African history accessible to any reader."-- "Mariana P. Candido, author of Wealth, Land and Property in Angola" "A stunning global history of West Africa, The Heretic of Cacheu weaves together the tragic histories of the Inquisition and the Atlantic slave trade. Drawing on archival research from three continents and presenting transformative new arguments in a profoundly moving narrative, with this new tour de force, Green confirms himself as the most innovative historian, writer, and thinker of his generation."-- "Ana Lucia Araujo, author of Humans in Shackles" "This book is more than a biography of a great West African settlement. It is also about how Cacheu held the keys to prosperity and progress for generations of Atlantic traders. As in his previous works, Green has given agency to the people of the West African Coast, particularly to Crispina Peres."-- "Hassoum Ceesay, director general, National Centre of Arts and Culture, The Gambia"