Afro-Portugal in the 16th Century

The above two images, one a street scene in Lisbon, Portugal's bustling capital dating back to the early 16th century, and the second a focus on the lower left of the former image, depict the racial diversity of Portugal's capital. I have read that by the end of the 15th century, about 10% of Lisbon's population were enslaved and formerly enslaved African-descended people. Moreover, as this article indicates, Jews were still a sizable minority in the city at the time, with two Jewish men carrying off a drunken or incapacitated black male. Nearby stands a black women, carrying a pot of water or something else on her head, her arms stretched as if in protest. The artist who portrayed this scene near the docks of Lisbon, likely Flemish, clearly was struck by the bustling streets and, most likely, the ethnic and racial diversity of the area. Non-Muslim African slaves in Iberia during this period were mocked for their language but their dances and musical ability impacted Spanish and Portuguese music as well as literature. This period of Afro-Europe's history, under-acknowledged despite its tremendous impact on later relations between black and white in the Americas, reveals a lot of early Iberian racial prejudice and negative views of the small, but visible African minorities already living in the peninsula. Also of interest is the possible dancing couple, a black man and a white woman, as well as the black man on horseback, indicating that not all black slaves and freedman were not socially integrated or lower-class.

Black Musicians in Lisbon, 1522

Slave cooking