Madragana Bat Aloandro, laterMaior orMór Afonso (born c. 1230,Faro,Algarve, Portugal), was a woman from the Algarve known as amistress to kingAfonso III of Portugal, in the 13th century, when he ended theReconquista in Portugal by takingFaro in 1249. Faro was at that time the last part of theKingdom of the Algarve still inMuslim hands, and there her father was theQadi.^[1]

She was christened in time,^[2] receiving her new name asMaior Afonso, orMor Afonso, Mor being short for Maior, a common female name in medieval Portuguese. Afonso was given her in baptism as her new patronymic, meaning "the daughter of" Afonso - and that suggests that her elderly royal lover was also her godfather, that she took his spiritual "fatherhood" when christened. Her father's name was Aloandro Ben Bekar (also known in Portuguese asAloandro orAldroando Gil after his christening).^[3]

In ancient Portuguese chronicles,Madragana was also referred to asMouroana,^[4]Mouroana Gil, andMadraganil – all of which are Christian names.^{[citation needed]}

There is some controversy regarding her ethnicity.Duarte Nunes de Leão, a Portuguese royal chronicler of the 16th century, said that Madragana was aMoor (Arab-Berber).^[5] That was disputed in the 18th century byAntónio Caetano de Sousa.^[6] She was probably aMozarab of Iberian heritage.^{[7][8][9][10]} Nonetheless, this supposed Moorish connection gave rise to a claim by Mario de Valdes y Cocom that the British royal family had African ancestry via the 15-generation descent ofCharlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wife ofGeorge III of the United Kingdom,^[11] from Madragana, giving Charlotte what the proponent described as a "conspicuously Negroid" appearance.^[12] However, it is far from clear that Madragana's family was of recent African origin,^[13] nor is it likely that, even were she North African, Madragana's negligible contribution to Charlotte's genetic makeup would have caused the Queen alone, among all of Madgarana's descendants, this number of generations removed, to display distinctive Sub-Saharan African features.^[14]

Madragana bore Afonso two known children:

• Martim Afonso Chichorro (c. 1250 – after 1313), married to Inês Lourenço de Sousa (or Inês Lourenço de Valadares) (born c. 1250).^[15]
• Urraca Afonso (born c. 1260), married twice: 1st in 1265 to Pedro Anes Gago de Riba Vizela (c. 1240–1286); 2nd c. 1275 to João Mendes deBriteiros (born c. 1250).^[16]

When passion with the King waned, Madragana was married toFernão Rei. They had at least one daughter,Sancha Fernandes. Note thatRei means 'king', inPortuguese, and soFernão Rei is believed to originally have been aservant of the king (Fernão do Rei, Ferdinand of the King).^[3]