The Heretic of Cacheu: Crispina Peres and the Struggle Over Life in Seventeenth-Century West Africa

In 1665, Crispina Peres, the most powerful trader in the West African slave trafficking port of Cacheu, was arrested by the Inquisition. Her enemies had conspired to denounce her for taking treatments prescribed by Senegambian healers: the djabakós. But who was Peres? And why was the Portuguese Inquisition so concerned with policing the faith of a West African woman in today's Guinea-Bissau?

In The Heretic of Cacheu, award-winning historian Toby Green takes us to the heart of this conundrum, as well as into the atmosphere of a very distant setting. We learn how people in seventeenth-century Cacheu built their houses; styled their clothes; healed themselves from illness; and worshipped, worked, and had fun. Through Green's narrative, the haunting realities of the growing slave trade and the rise of European empires emerge in shocking detail. By the 1650s, the relationships between Europe, West Africa, and the Americas were already old and tangled, with slaving ports, colonies, and military bases interweaving over many generations. But Cacheu also profoundly challenged this dynamic. It was globally connected to places ranging from China and India to Brazil and Colombia, and women such as Crispina Peres ran the town and challenged the patriarchy of empire.

For the first time, through surviving documents recording Peres's case, The Heretic of Cacheu lets readers experience the reality of this unique place and time through a remarkable act of historical recovery.