The Islamic Almoravides Empire, which united Spain, North Africa, and Senegambia under its political dominance, was founded during the eleventh century on an island in the Senegal River. Some of the slaves embarked for Louisiana were brought to Goree from the captiverie at Bissau on the upper Guinea coast. But there was a heavy Mande overlay to the culture of upper Guinea due to influence of waves of conquerors , immigrants and refugees displaced from the north. The Mandinga, founders of the Mali Empire,were well established on the Upper Guinea coast when the Portuguese arrived during the mid-fifteenth century. Both the proportions of particular African nations present in early Louisiana and conditions in Africa as well as in Louisiana molded the formation of African-Creole culture.
Names have a great symbolic meaning touching the most profound levels of feelings of identity.
The slaves of French Louisiana very often kept their African names, many of which were Islamic. African names abound in the lists of slaves and in judicial records. Those old Africans who survived into the 1760s and 1770s still had African names, and some of their children born in Louisiana also had African names. During the Spanish period, many newcomers, especially those from Senegambia, kept African names as well. There were only three generations of slaves brought into Louisiana and born during the period of French rule.