"Set in the pre-colonial Guinea Bissau region, Silences and Soundbytes deals with the largely ignored roles women - and men - played as traders and brokers in Afro-Atlantic trade settlements emerged after first contact in the fifteenth century. Largely based upon unpublished archival material, the book traces the evolution of these riverine settlements and their populations until the military occupation by Portugal in the early twentieth century. It holds that the formation of settlement communities that operated the relay trade along the region's many rivers between the region's hinterland and the coast created opportunities for enterprising and well-connected women. "