[^0]
[^0]:    2 For the most recent estimates on the number of Africans exported across the Atlantic Ocean, see Eltis and Richardson, 2008, pp. 3-68; 2010; and Eltis et al., 2008.  
intermediaries who had knowledge of Indigenous languages and cultures to establish commercial networks, which facilitated the exchange of their products for African commodities, including captives. Many of the local intermediaries were women, with whom incoming merchants established commercial and intimate relationships (Brooks, 2003, pp. xxi, 217; Candido, 2013b, pp. 136137). Through these relationships, expatriate males accessed the personal and commercial logistics necessary to newcomers, such as an established household that provided accommodation, food and care during illness, as well as access to trade networks that increased their participation in the transatlantic slave trade. Meanwhile, these women enhanced their prestige by marrying incoming Portuguese and Brazilian traders, who facilitated their access to foreign goods for personal consumption and commercialization. The most successful of these female traders became known in Angola as donas, a term that originated from the title granted to noble and royal females in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), which was subsequently adopted in overseas possessions to designate women of high socioeconomic status who adopted the European culture ( Da Silva Pereira Oliveira, 1806, pp. 172-173).