O “casamento conveniente” e a situação das mulheres brancas e mestiças em São Tomé e Príncipe, nos séculos XVII e XVIII

Abstract

For various reasons, the main one being the high mortality of white settlers, from a very early age a landowning mestizo elite was able to impose itself on the São Tomé and Príncipe archipelago. This elite sought to differentiate itself as much as possible from the black population, the demographically dominant mass, for which it needed to ensure that, although threatened by “African” crossbreedings, the phenotype did not deviate too far from the European standard. This is where the “appropriate marriage” strategy comes in. At least one of the daughters, by large dowry or inheritance, should be able to attract a marriage partner of European origin, if possible, with some social status, but not necessarily. This was what we might call a “whitening” or “de-Africanization” strategy, an effort that mixed-race families had in common with the archipelago’s rare white families.