signare

plural signares

1. historicalA mulatto French-African woman of the island of Gorée or the city of Saint-Louis in French Senegal during the 18th and 19th centuries.

   Signare were romanticised by witnesses who encountered them as well as in historical memory. One of the French officials of the Senegal company dedcribed them collectively as tender, charming and faithful, with a certain 'sweetness' — but also 'an insurmountable urge for love and lust'.

   2009, William Foster, Gender, Mastery and Slavery

   1 more example

   To the farthest left, numbered "I" in Lamiral's caption, is the black female slave. Her body faces the viewer squarely, with her feet turned slightly toward the signare. From the waist up, the woman's body is bare, save for a strand of beads encircling her neck and crossing her torso under each breast.

   2016, Lisa Ze Winters, The Mulatta Concubine, page 127