Signare

[2] There was also an English language equivalent of women of mixed African and British or American descent with the same position, such as Betsy Heard, Mary Faber, and Elizabeth Frazer Skelton.

European merchants and traders, especially the French and the British, would settle on coastal societies inhabited by signares in order to benefit from the increased proximity to the sources of African commerce.

The earliest of these merchants were the Portuguese and were given the name "lançados" because "they threw themselves" among Africans and would establish relationships with the most influential signares who would accept them in order to obtain commercial privileges.

The signares reputation for wealth became well-known, exemplified in an account from Preneau de Pommegorge, a French explorer who had been living in West Africa for 22 years until 1765.

He wrote in his account that "the women on the island (Saint-Louis) are, in general, closely associated with white men, and care for them when they are sick in a manner that could not be bettered.

Bibiana Vuz de França's confrontation with the Portuguese Crown represents the strength of the signares in the time period and Portugual's growing inability to control the people.

In a written account, he said that the Wolof women "far surpass the Europeans in every respect", and he compared their "loose, light, easy robe" to the what the "female Grecian statues attired".

[6] Once married to European men, women helped them handle many of their trading affairs and transactions, and gained economic and social stature in the community themselves.

When the man got on the boat to go back to Europe, signares would scoop up the sand where his last footprints were and put it in a handkerchief, which they would hang on her bedpost it until he returned.