participation of Africans in many Catholic religious festivals, with their dances, processions and music, are evidence of the Africanization of Catholic rituals and syncretism in Portugal.  
Roquinaldo Ferreira and Carlos Silva Jr., using concepts such as those of the trans-imperial approach and the Afro-Atlantic community, examine the formation of such communities on the West African coast. Exploring African governors' power to dictate the terms of social and commercial interaction with foreigners, the authors discuss the diplomatic, commercial, religious and cultural exchanges that were essential to the construction of communities on the Gold Coast and the Bight of Benin and in Loango and the southern regions of the Congo. Finally, they point out that in the Atlantic coastal societies of Africa that received larger numbers of European traders there developed highly cosmopolitan and urban environments that gave rise to families and individuals specialized in the Atlantic trade; their identities reflected an intense cultural exchange, both domestically and overseas.