Image 1 of 1
_SEN5337.jpg
Goree Residents Dressed as Signares, Senegalese wives of 18th-19th-century French merchants.  Signare comes from the Portuguese senhora.  Though signares reached their apogee of social status in the late 18th century, the practice of taking local wives to facilitate trading relationships probably dates back to the arrival of the Portuguese on Goree in 1444.