This ethnic identity arose from the sixteenth century as primarily male Portuguese settlers, often Lançados, settled in various parts of Africa, often marrying African women.
[2] In the fifteenth and sixteenth century, Portuguese traders settled in Cape Verde and along the West African coast from Senegal to Sierra Leone.
As each of these characteristics could be shared by members of adjacent African communities, identity transformations in both directions were relatively common.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth century, however, 'Portuguese' were drawn increasingly into a European discourse on identity, one based upon a priori characteristics, primarily skin color.
Forced to respond to this imposed identity, Luso-Africans continued to maintain that they were "Portuguese"; however, they also now began to define themselves negatively by reference to what they were not.