The Kongo people have been referred to by various names in the colonial French, Belgian and Portuguese literature, names such as "Esikongo" (singular "Mwisikongo"), "Mucicongo", "Mesikongo", "Madcongo" and "Moxicongo". Christian missionaries, particularly in the Caribbean, originally applied the term "Bafiote" (singular "M(a)fiote") to the slaves from the Vili or Fiote coastal Kongo people, but later this term was used to refer to any "black man" in Cuba, St Lucia and other colonial era Islands ruled by one of the European colonial interests. The group is identified largely by speaking a cluster of mutually intelligible dialects rather than by large continuities in their history or even in culture. The term "Congo" was more widely deployed to identify Kikongo-speaking people enslaved in the Americas.