In The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, published in 1453, the Portuguese writer Gomes Eannes de Azurara (or Zurara) describes African people who were being sold into slavery. Gomes de Azurara associates lighter skin with attractiveness, saying that some of the captives were “white enough, [and] fair to look upon….” He describes others as “white enough … like mulattos” and associates blackness with ugliness: “black as Ethiops, and so ugly….” Rather than distinguish among people on the basis of language and ethnicity, as well as variants in skin color, Ibram X. Kendi points out, Azurara “blended them into one single group of people worthy of enslavement.”

Kendi locates this description within a large project of race-making that was ongoing throughout the fifteenth century as Portugal under Prince Henry the Navigator expanded globally. The justification for enslavement was supported through the creation of a hierarchy topped by Europeans. It was also buttressed by associating dark-skinned people and African heritage with animals. Azurara said that Black people utterly lacked reason and lived “like beasts … in a bestial sloth.”

Azurara also relates the impressions of a slave raider, Dinis Diaz, who took captives in what became known as Cape Verde. Diaz referred to the people as Moors, a term generally used in Europe for North Africans and Muslims, including those who resided in Iberia.