Standing before the Inquisition in Lisbon, Portugal in 1556, M\u00f3nica Fernandes, a woman from the coast of modern-day Ghana, was accused of casting malevolent spells and making pacts with demons. Her crime? Seeking a traditional Akan remedy for a simple cat bite.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Portuguese Inquisition\u00a0was a powerful institution tasked with identifying, investigating and punishing any belief or practice that deviated from official Catholic doctrine. The Inquisition was established in 1536 during the expansion of the Portuguese empire, one of the world\u2019s first global maritime powers.<\/p>\n
Fernandes\u2019 trial, recorded in meticulous detail by the Inquisitor,\u00a0Jer\u00f3nimo de Azambuja, offers a rare and powerful window into a 16th-century clash of cultures. It reveals how a colonial power systematically misunderstood and criminalised local customs, rebranding Indigenous knowledge as dangerous sorcery.<\/p>\n
As a\u00a0historian, I spend my time searching for connections between people across the early modern world, especially the lives of women and children within the vast Portuguese empire. While I was researching the trials of Indigenous women in colonial Brazil, a question began to form: were women in other parts of the empire, like west Africa, also being targeted for their traditional knowledge? This question led me to the archives of the Portuguese Inquisition and to a remarkable\u00a0case file\u00a0from 1556.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The file detailed the trial of M\u00f3nica Fernandes, an Akan woman from what\u2019s now Ghana. Her story opens a rare window onto the personal, human impact of colonisation. It shows how a vast imperial power operated on the ground: by misunderstanding, criminalising, and attempting to erase Indigenous ways of knowing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Recovering stories like this helps us understand a legacy of cultural suppression that continues to resonate today.<\/p>\n
A life between two worlds<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n M\u00f3nica was born to\u00a0Akan\u00a0parents. The Akan are a collection of related peoples, primarily living in modern-day Ghana and C\u00f4te d’Ivoire. Organised into matrilineal states, they had established sophisticated societies with rich cultural, religious and social knowledge systems long before the arrival of Europeans.<\/p>\n The Portuguese\u00a0first arrived\u00a0on the west African coast in the late 15th century, driven by a desire for gold. They established their authority by constructing fortified trading posts like\u00a0S\u00e3o Jorge da Mina\u00a0(now Elmina Castle) that imposed their laws and religion on the surrounding communities.<\/p>\n M\u00f3nica lived and worked in and around S\u00e3o Jorge da Mina, a place of intense cultural collision. Baptised into the Catholic faith, she existed between two worlds: the rigid, hierarchical society of the European fortress and the vibrant Akan village of Edina that surrounded it.<\/p>\n Like others, she moved between these spaces to socialise, shop and, crucially, seek medical care. It was this last activity that brought her to the attention of the Inquisition. Instead of visiting the Portuguese apothecary at the fortress, M\u00f3nica consulted a local Akan healer, an\u00a0\u0254k\u0254mfo\u0254<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0odunsinni<\/em>, to treat a cat bite. She procured an ointment, a common practice she saw as rudimentary healthcare.<\/p>\n To the Inquisitor, however, this was proof of heterodoxy, or a belief, opinion, or practice that went against the officially established doctrines of Catholicism. M\u00f3nica\u2019s choice to trust her community\u2019s medical expertise over that of the Portuguese was seen not just as a rejection of European authority, but as evidence of a pact with the devil.<\/p>\n Custom vs. crime<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The accusations against M\u00f3nica were dramatic and personal. The initial charge stemmed from a quarrel with another African woman, Ana Fernandes, who was visiting S\u00e3o Jorge da Mina from Lisbon. Witnesses claimed that after an argument, M\u00f3nica cast a spell on Ana. Weeks later, after returning to Portugal, Ana succumbed to a mysterious illness that allegedly caused the skin to peel from her face. This rumour, spread by a single witness, became the centrepiece of the case.<\/p>\n The rumour of M\u00f3nica\u2019s curse spread, prompting a formal inquiry by the Portuguese captain at S\u00e3o Jorge da Mina. It was only after this local investigation, which took months, that M\u00f3nica was officially detained and transported as a prisoner to face the main tribunal in Lisbon.<\/p>\n The Inquisitor\u2019s interest went beyond this single event, expanding to include other, more everyday practices. Witnesses interviewed at S\u00e3o Jorge da Mina also claimed M\u00f3nica conducted spells using chickens and yams. While these details were recorded as evidence of sinister rituals, they were in fact staple elements of Akan cultural life. Yams, a starchy, edible tuber, similar to a potato, were a vital food source and central to ceremonies honouring ancestors, while animal sacrifice was a common preparation for deities.<\/p>\n What the Portuguese Inquisitor labelled\u00a0feiti\u00e7os<\/em>\u00a0(witchcraft or charms) was, for M\u00f3nica and her community, simply\u00a0aduro<\/em>\u00a0(medicine) and\u00a0amammer\u025b<\/em>\u00a0(custom). The trial documents painstakingly list her heterodoxical activities, but in doing so, they inadvertently preserve a record of the very cultural knowledge the Inquisition sought to destroy. M\u00f3nica\u2019s case becomes a catalogue of everyday Akan practices, seen through a distorted colonial lens.<\/p>\n A defiant accused<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Throughout months of imprisonment and interrogation, M\u00f3nica was pressed to confess to witchcraft. She consistently refused. In Akan culture, the concept of\u00a0bayie<\/em>\u00a0is sometimes translated as \u201cwitchcraft\u201d, but it specifically refers to acts of acute spiritual wickedness or illness. M\u00f3nica\u2019s actions did not fit this category. She was treating a physical ailment, a cat bite.<\/p>\n M\u00f3nica\u2019s refusal to accept the label of \u201cwitch\u201d was therefore not simple denial. Her defence was based on a clear cultural distinction, one she clung to despite her limited Portuguese. When she insisted that she had committed no crime because \u201call the black men and women of Mina did it too\u201d, she was not admitting to collective guilt. She was trying to explain that her actions were customary medicine, not malevolent spiritual work.<\/p>\n She understood the difference between her own system of knowledge and the crime of which she was accused, and she refused to conflate them.<\/p>\n The verdict and legacy<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Ultimately, M\u00f3nica was found guilty of witchcraft, but the Inquisitors deemed her actions \u201cminor\u201d. She was given the light sentence of a period of religious re-education in Lisbon to study Christian doctrine. M\u00f3nica secured her release by demonstrating good Christian behaviour, but was forbidden from returning to her homeland.<\/p>\n M\u00f3nica\u2019s light sentence was relatively uncommon but unlikely to have been the first instance of re-education. It is possible that women from other Portuguese colonial territories also suffered similar fates, but many records have been lost due to the\u00a0Lisbon Earthquake\u00a0(1755) and the deliberate destruction of the\u00a0Goa Inquisition\u00a0cases which also took in east Africa.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t know what happened to her after her release. But her story, buried in the archives for over 450 years, remains deeply relevant. It is a powerful, personal account of how colonialism operated not just through military force, but through displacement and the deliberate suppression of local knowledge. M\u00f3nica\u2019s trial is a stark reminder that the branding of Indigenous practices as \u201cmagic\u201d or \u201csuperstition\u201d was a tool used to assert dominance and erase entire ways of knowing the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Standing before the Inquisition in Lisbon, Portugal in 1556, M\u00f3nica Fernandes, a woman from the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa","category-ghana"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop.avif",926,521,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop-150x150.avif",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop-300x169.avif",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop-768x432.avif",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop.avif",640,360,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop.avif",926,521,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop.avif",926,521,false],"wpucv-grid-three":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop.avif",360,203,false],"wpucv-grid-two":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop.avif",600,338,false],"wpucv-grid-one":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop.avif",800,450,false],"wpucv-classic":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop.avif",302,170,false],"wpucv-classic-small":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop.avif",150,84,false],"wpucv-galary":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop.avif",400,225,false],"covernews-slider-full":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop.avif",926,521,false],"covernews-slider-center":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop-800x500.avif",800,500,true],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop.avif",926,521,false],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop-540x340.avif",540,340,true],"covernews-medium-square":["https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250901-66-mtaoop-400x250.avif",400,250,true]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor Author"]},"category_info":"Africa<\/a> Ghana<\/a>","tag_info":"Ghana","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3036"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3051,"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3036\/revisions\/3051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eandelmagazine.com\/eandelmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}