{{Short description|Portuguese trader and warlord in West Africa}} '''Ganagoga''' (literally, ''The Man who Speaks all the Languages'' in Biafada,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mark |first=Peter |last2=Horta |first2=José da Silva |date=2004-01-01 |title=Two Early Seventeenth-Century Sephardic Communities on Senegal's Petite Cote |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-in-africa/article/abs/two-early-seventeenthcentury-sephardic-communities-on-senegals-petite-cote/935D280FC5DA8E49F8AC562AA28EA251 |journal=History in Africa |language=en |volume=31 |pages=231–256 |doi=10.1017/S0361541300003478 |issn=0361-5413|url-access=subscription }}</ref> born '''João Ferreira''') was a New Christian who made a career as a ''lançado'' in West Africa in the decades around 1600.
João Ferreira was born in Crato, Portugal to a Jewish family.<ref name = Person>“The coastal peoples: from Casamance to the Ivory Coast lagoons”, by Yves Person. In: Niane, D.T., ed. (1984). General History of Africa Volume IV: Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century. California: Heinemann/UNESCO. ISBN 978-92-3-101710-0. page 314-5</ref> His facility with languages helped him establish himself as the principal Portuguese trader on the Gambia River, being particularly close to the lineage head of Casão. This eventually took him to the court of the ''Silatigi'' of the Denianke Kingdom, where he converted to Islam, acquired significant influence and married one of the ruler's daughters.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Toby |last=Green |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/874275291 |title=The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300–1589 |date=2011 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-01436-7 |pages=171 |oclc=874275291}}</ref><ref name = Person/>
According to the oral testimonies gathered by Teixeira da Mota, in the ''Silatigi'''s service, Ganagoga supposedly<ref group="note">Teixeira da Mota deducted Ganagoga was the leader of the ''lançados'' that occupied Bambuk but did not provide any physical evidence</ref> led a band of fellow ''lançados'' to conquer the gold-producing region of Bambuk in the last decades of the 16th century. After initial success, the Portuguese were massacred by the local inhabitants, but it is unclear if Ganagoga met his fate there as well.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Boulègue |first1=Jean |title=2000 ans d’histoire africaine. Le sol, la parole et l'écrit. Mélanges en hommage à Raymond Mauny. Tome II |date=1981 |publisher=Société française d'histoire d'outre-mer |location=Paris |isbn=2-85970-005-6|url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/sfhom_1768-7144_1981_mel_5_2_969 |chapter=Un empire peul dans le Soudan occidental au début du XVIIe siècle|page = 703-5}}</ref>
== Notes == <references group="note" />
==References== {{reflist}}
Category:Converts to Christianity from Judaism Category:History of the conversos Category:Conversos Category:Converts to Islam from Judaism