Cassare

Short description: Type of marriage alliance

Cassare or calissare (from Portuguese casar, "to marry") was the term applied to the marriage alliances setup between European and African slave traders.[1][2] Cassare created political and economic bonds. It was a pre-European practice used to integrate the "other" from a differing African tribe. Powerful West African groups used these marriages as an alliance used to strengthen their trade networks with European men by marrying off African women from families with ties to the slave trade. Early on in the Atlantic Slave trade, these marriages were common.[3] The marriages were even performed using African customs, which Europeans did not object to, seeing how important the connections were.[4] African wives could receive money and schooling for the children they bore by European men. Wives could also inherit slaves and property from their husbands when they returned to Europe or died.[5]

Many coastal ethnic groups in Africa, such as the Ga and Fante, used this system to gain political and economic advantages.[6][7] It enabled Africans to trust strangers, like the Europeans, when dealing within their trade networks. It made the transition between stranger and trade partner a lot smoother.[8]

## See also

* Dutch Slave Coast
* Gold Coast Euro-Africans
* Mulatto

## References

1. ↑ Pernille Ipsen (2013). ""The Christened Mulatresses": Euro-African Families in a Slave-Trading Town". The William and Mary Quarterly 70 (2): 371–398. doi:10.5309/willmaryquar.70.2.0371.
2. ↑ "Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast - ProQuest" (in en). https://search.proquest.com/openview/784162fd8fd7a79e85bf905d1938229a/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=44028.
3. ↑ "Ghana - ARRIVAL OF THE EUROPEANS". http://countrystudies.us/ghana/6.htm.
4. ↑ Ipsen, Pernille (2015). Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 1, 21, 31. ISBN 978-0-8122-4673-5.
5. ↑ Ipsen, Pernille (2015). Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast. ISBN 978-0-8122-4673-5.
6. ↑ "Decrying White Peril: Interracial Sex and the Rise of Anticolonial Nationalism in the Gold Coast" (in en). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270775684.
7. ↑ "Introduction: Centering Families in Atlantic Histories" (in en). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259746228.
8. ↑ Ray, Carina E.. Crossing the Color Line: Race, Sex, and the Contested Politics of Colonialism in Ghana. Ohio University Press.

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