“From these Jews married to black women in process of time proceeded mostly that brood of mulattos at this day inhabiting the island. Most of them boast of being descended from the Portuguese; and their constitution is by nature much fitter to bear with the malignity of the air.” (For a full account of this matter see the History of Portugal by Faria y Sousa, p. 304.)
San Tomé is now very flourishing, on account of its soil being suited to cocoa and coffee, and there are to-day there plenty of full-blooded Portuguese; but the old strain of Jewish mulattos still exists and is represented by individuals throughout all the coast regions of West Africa. Moreover, these mulattos secured in the seventeenth century a monopoly for Portugal of the slave trade in the Lower Congo, and I largely ascribe the prevalence of customs identical with those mentioned in the Old Testament that you find among the Fjort tribes to their influence, although you always find such customs represented in all the native cultures in West Africa (presumably because the West African culture is what the Germans would call the urstuff), but I fancy in no culture are they so developed as among the Fjorts.[94]
TRADE GOODS FOR CONGO AND CABENDA, 1700.
“Blue bafts, a piece containing 6 yards and of a deep almost black colour, and is measured either with a stick of 27 inches, of which 8 sticks make a piece, or by a lesser stick, 18 inches long, 12 of which are accounted a piece, Guinea stuffs, 2 pieces to make a piece, tapseils have the same measure as blue bafts.
Nicanees, the same measure.
Black bays, 2½ yards for a piece, measured by 5 sticks of 18 inches each.
Annabasses, 10 to the piece.
Painted callicoes, 6 yards to the piece.
Blue paper Slesia, 1 piece for a piece. Scarlet, 1 stick of 18 inches or ½ a yard is accounted a piece.