This dissertation analyzes the wills left behind by African-born ex-slaves in nineteenth-century Salvador in order to shed light on the lives that they led in the Bahian capital upon their arrival as slaves from Africa, and upon the re-acquisition of their freedom through the alforria system. The material assets and the slave ownership of libertos are studied in depth, as well as their religiosity, and the larger world and networks within which they operated in their Brazilian lives, with a specific eye towards African agency and processes of community formation. The qualitative and in-depth study of post-mortem testaments and inventories as meaningful texts in their own right provides the opportunity to decipher the individual voices of freed Africans, as well as to acquire insight into their Bahian worlds. The relationships, affective ties, and kinship networks of libertos, as well as their efforts to exercise agency and deliberation over their own lives, and the lives of others to whom they were connected, also become evident in the process. The testaments also make it possible to acquire a deeper understanding of African cosmologies in Brazil, through the ways in which libertos understood the passage from the worldly life to the afterlife, the meanings they gave to death, to funerals and other last rites. Understandings of justice, legality, and honor also come to the forefront, while the complex context of nineteenth century Bahia (and Brazil in general) constitutes the constant backdrop against which all these discussions acquire meaning. Understanding the lives, belief systems, and connections of African libertos also has important repercussions for understanding the experiences of Africans and their descendants in slave societies all over the Atlantic World. Insights deriving from the in-depth analysis of libertos’ wills have important implications for furthering our knowledge with regards to the Atlantic slave trade, slave ownership, and enslavement, as well as processes of identity and community formation, retention, adaptation, and resistance in the African Diaspora as a whole.
©Copyright by Asligul Berktay, 2015 All Rights Reserved
On both sides of my family, I come from lineages of women kind, intelligent, caring, and strong. This dissertation is dedicated to my wonderful maternal grandmother Sevim Tanör who turned ninety in February, and to the loving memory of my paternal grandmother Yegân Berktay, who is truly missed.
i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My commitment to the African continent and to the African Diaspora goes back two decades in time, and this dissertation represents a contribution I have long been wanting to make. As in all cases where a project represents so much, I have many people to thank for its realization. Just like the freed Africans whom I have been fortunate enough to become acquainted with in this dissertation in spite of all the obstacles of time, geography, and realities of life, I have been surrounded by many people who have shaped who I am, and have provided me with an enormous net of support from all directions.
For my academic formation which has culminated in this study, I would first and foremost like to thank my dissertation director Dr. Rosanne Adderley, who from the very beginning has constituted a role model for my whole academic career through her overflowing knowledge and dedication. In spite of the many years I took in writing this dissertation, disappearing and coming back to the surface innumerable times, she has never stopped believing that I had a contribution to make and in my abilities to make that contribution, and has offered me invaluable insight and guidance. Dr. Elisabeth
McMahon has kept my passion for Africa alight, kept my fears and anxiety in check, and
ii was always available with ideas, comments, and precious assistance in filling the gaps in my knowledge, argument, and writing. Dr. Christopher Dunn has served as a constant reminder that it is possible for a person to be a great academic, and a truly wonderful and down to earth person, all at the same time. He has also made sure that while swept away in history I would not lose my perspective on today and on the amazing culture of Bahia, especially its music. Dr. Olanike-Ola Orie has been in my life the true blessing that she is in the lives of many, but she has also always made me feel that I was special and cared for. Dr. James Huck has always been present, patient, and caring, and has done absolutely everything in his possibility every step of the way, so that I could fulfill my capacity and finish what I started. At this time, I would also like to remember Dr. Holly Hanson, Dr.
Joan Cocks, Dr. Laurence Huughe, and Dr. Roberto Márquez who have contributed immensely to my personal and academic trajectory. Finally, a special thank you goes to
Dr. Harold Garrett-Goodyear, who actually got me into history during my senior year at
Mount Holyoke College. None of this could have happened without the academic and financial support of the Roger Mayer Stone Center of Latin American Studies at Tulane
University, but also the personal support of everyone who works there. The two research grants that I received from the School of Liberal Arts have also played a major role in the realization of my research. I am also thankful for having had the Arquivo Público do
Estado da Bahia (APEB) as my primary research site—an archive encompassing an incomparable source of documentary sources, as well as a personnel as helpful as their
iii work is difficult due to a great many odds constantly working against them in their endeavors.
My personal network of love and support have encompassed many people in the United
States, Turkey, Brazil, Portugal, and Africa. First and foremost among them is Urano
Andrade, the historian and archivist, who upon the first moment he found me lost in
APEB, took me under his wing. In addition to being a good friend who was always present and caring, he has actually made this dissertation happen with his many hours of work in the archive when I was no longer able to return to Bahia for another research trip, always being at the ready with any kind of help I may require, and even spending sleepless nights to make sure I could realize my dream. It is not at all an exaggeration to say that without him, this dissertation would not have been completed. But he has also helped me understand once more that one can be as brilliant as they are humble, and his love for historical documents constitutes an inspiration that will last forever in my life.
At a level of personal support, the recent years have shown me the true indispensability of my family. After years of thinking that the love people had for me depended on how I acted or what I achieved, in the challenging circumstances of the last few years, my family has shown me that no matter what I do, or how badly I may fail, they will love me, stand by me, and support me. My parents Dr. Fatmagül Berktay and Dr. Halil Berktay have been understanding, helpful, and patient, while they never lost their faith in both my
iv potential and my good intentions. The same was valid for my uncle Dr. Ali Tanör, who played a major role in making sure that this dissertation was completed. His support has been incomparable. Ever since 1997, Sadun Sönmez has both been a true friend and a rock to lean on. He has known when to support me, but also where to push me and not let me get comfortable with a life that did not correspond to my actual abilities. My dissertation write-up period has also sown the seeds of a new friendship with my aunt Dr.
Öget Tanör, for which I am also grateful.
On the other hand, Irene Lugo has shown me that sisterhood goes well beyond the biological family, while so many friends surrounded me with their love, support, and encouragement at different levels. I certainly cannot name everyone, but Paula Carpinelli,
Dr. Annie Gibson, Xelaju Korda, Elena Zoubanova de Jesús, Leo Oliveira, Dr. Meral
Özbek, Ramsey Tracy, Dr. Gül Ozatesler, Mireille Perzan, Lamine Ba, Mokhtar Sow,
Céline Notin, Ali Öztürk, Alex Castro, Camila Pavanelli de Lorenzi, Naomi Rohatyn,
Raudell Conte Morales, Dr. Efrosyni-Alkisti Paraskevopoulou-Kollia, Renata
Vasconcellos Nascimento, Susanne Hackett, Elsa Natália Camuamba, Firyuza Haitova,
Alexandra Mompoint Jeannot, Sarah Mariner, and Elsa Nabenge Shichilenge should certainly be named. Dr. Bahar Cömert Agouridas has provided me with many hours of patient therapy and psychoanalysis during which I slowly chased away my demons, but she also managed to make me feel special, worthy and loved. Alyrio Brasileiro, all the way from Bahia, always made sure that my orí was secure in its place, and did not go off
v wandering into depression land ruled over by my many eguns. In addition, I cannot imagine anyone being able to repeat the words “calma minha filha” more times than he did, while he sought to make sure the Orixás were always on my side.
It has been a long journey, but I have had a lot of people on my side. I am deeply grateful.
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ii-vi List of Tables ix List of Maps x Introduction. Setting the Necessary Stages for Understanding Nineteenth-Century Libertos’ Wills in Bahia I. Main Theses 1 II. Post-Mortem Testaments as Documentary Sources 3 III. Why Salvador? 11 IV. The Physical and Population Characteristics of Nineteenth-Century Salvador 16 V. The Complexities of the Brazilian Nineteenth Century 21 V.I. The Century of Rebellions and Wars 22 V.II. The Muslim Uprising on 1835 30 V.III. Abolition of the Slave Trade and Emancipation from Slavery 33 VI. Liberto identity: Why study freed Africans as a specific group? 36 VI.I. Reconstruction of Kinship and Personal Networks 41 VI.II. Ethnicity 45 VII. Beyond Ethnicity: In Defense of Africanness 50
Chapter 1. Africanness, Agency, and Deliberation: Libertos and the Building of Personal/Kinship Networks and Communities in Bahia 53 I. Introduction 53 II. A World that Primarily Revolved Around Other Africans 64 III. The Extended Biological Family – Its Existence and its Limitations 89 IV. Compadrio or Godparentage 98 V. Exceptions to, and Complications within, “a World of Africans” 121 V.I. Complications Regarding Marriages and Partnerships among “Peers” 121 V.II. Close Bonds between Former Masters and Slaves Eternalized in Libertos’ Wills 128 V.III. Other Notable Exceptions 134 VI. Conclusions 139
Chapter II. The Material Possessions and Living Arrangements of Libertos 141 I. Introduction: Post-Mortem Testaments and Inventories; Understanding the Wealth of African Libertos 141 II. The Living Arrangements of Libertos 155 II.I. African Life in Salvador’s Urban Parishes 155 III. The Material Assets Owned by Libertos 169 III.I. Moradas (Houses and Plantations) 169
vii III.II. Legal limitations to Liberto ownership of Land and Real Estate; Patterns of Residence and Real Estate Ownership 178 III.II.1. Urban Living Patterns in the Testaments of Libertos 180 III.II.2. Semi-rural or Peri-urban Living Patterns in the Testaments of Libertos 190 III.III. Furniture and Other Household Goods 210 III.IV. Currency and Precious Metals 218 IV. Conclusions 237
Chapter III. Freed Africans who Owned Slaves. A complicated but Naturalized Component of Life in a Complex Slave Society 239 I. Introduction 239 II. Bahian Exceptionalism and Non-Exceptionalism 243 III. Professions and Work Arrangements 249 IV. Slave Ownership in the Testaments of African Libertos 255 IV.I. The Alforria Priorities of Freed Africans 264 IV.II. Enslaved African Partners as the General Norm 273 IV.III. Concerns of Justice, Honor, and Gratitude 284 IV.IV. The Ethnic Dynamics Present in Liberto Slave Ownership 292 IV.V. Protecting Family Members Or Other Kin (Including One’s Slaves) 298 IV.VI. Complicated Calculations and Selectivity with Regards to Libertos’ Slaves 307 IV.VII. Differences in the Degree of Commitment to Slave Ownership 316 IV.VIII. The “Precarious Nature of Freedom” and the Terrifying Prospect of the Praça 323 VII. Conclusions 329
Chapter IV. The Religiosity of Freed African Testators. Concerns with Death and the Afterlife, Faith-based Fictive Kinship Networks and Communities 335 I. Introduction 335 II. The Centrality of Death and of the Soul 345 III. Searching for Understandings of Faith in Libertos’ Testaments: Methodologies 350 IV. Tracking Religiosity in Libertos’ Wills 355 IV.I. Baptism and its Ties to Religious and Communal Identities 364 VI.2. Repeated Evocations of Faith and Elaborate Pleas for One’s Soul 370 V. Irmandades as Centers for Social and Political Visibility, and for the Formation of African Communities and Kinship Networks 378 VI. Irmandades and Ethnicity 382 IV. Irmandades and Candomblé Terreiros 399 IV. The Fear and Discrimination Associated with Clear Non-Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Salvador 402
viii VII. Living According to Catholic Precepts, and Especially Holy Matrimony: Concerns of Honor, Dignity, and Justice 406 VIII. The Possession of Religious Objects 418 IX. African Religions and Creolization Processes 425 X. Conclusions 429
Conclusions 434
Appendix A. Nineteenth-Century Freed African Testators in Salvador in Chronological Order 448 Appendix B. Tables Presenting the Gender and Ethnic Breakdowns of the Liberto Testators 455 Appendix C. A Brief Critical Overview of the Existing Historical Literature on the Everyday Life of Africans and their Descendants in Brazil and in the African Diaspora as a Whole 456 Appendix D. The Ethnic Dynamics of Nineteenth-Century Bahia 467
Bibliography 479
ix LIST OF TABLES
Table 1.1. References to Relationships of Godparentage p. 100 Table 2.1. Libertos who indicated parishes in their testaments p. 156 Table 2.2. Breakdown of the Parishes Indicated by Libertos in their Testaments p. 157 Table 2.3. Liberto Ownership of Houses p. 174 Table 2.4. Ownership of Moradas (or Dwellings) by Libertos p. 176 Table 2.5. Specific Kinds of Moradas Identified (including vegetable or fruit gardens) p. 176 Table 2.6. Ownership of Furniture and Household Goods p. 211 Table 2.7. Money Owned by Libertos p. 219 Table 2.8. The Debts of Libertos p. 220 Table 2.9.a. Ownership of Jewelry and Precious Metals by Libertos p .222 Table 2.9.b. Specific Kinds of Jewelry and Precious Metals Identified p. 222 Table 3.1. References to Liberto Professions p. 253 Table 3.2. Slaves owned by Libertos p. 258 Table 3.3. The Gender Breakdown of Libertos’ Slaves p. 258 Table 3.4. Alforrias Offered by Libertos to their Slaves p. 268 Table 3.5. Alforria Conditions and Prices of Libertos’ Slaves p. 268 Table 3.6. Alforria and Sale Prices of Libertos’ Slaves p. 269 Table 3.7.a. Number of Slaves whose Alforria Prazos were Set p. 269 Table 3.7.b. Number of Slaves for Whom the Specific Prazos Are Known p. 270 Table 3.8. Specific Arrangements Made Concerning the Freedom of Libertos’ Slaves p. 270 Table 3.9.a. The Basic Breakdown of Libertos’ Slaves into Brazilian and African Born p. 294
Table 3.9.b. The “Nations” of Libertos’ Slaves as Specified in their Wills p. 294 Table 4.1. The Importance of Religiosity for Libertos p. 357 Table 4.2. Direct References to the Ritual of Baptism in Libertos’ Wills p. 365 Table 4.3. Direct References to the Places of Baptism in Libertos’ Wills p. 366 Table 4.4. Irmandade Membership among Libertos p. 387 Table 4.5. The Breakdown of the Irmandades Specified in Libertos’ Wills p. 388 Table B.1. The Gender of the African Libertos p. 373 Table B.1. Libertos Divided by their African “Nations” p. 373 Table B.1. The Ethnic Breakdown of Libertos p. 373
x LIST OF MAPS
Map I.I. Salvador in Relation to Africa and the Rest of the Americas p. 12
Map 1.2. Salvador at the time of the Malê Revolt p. 23
xi
INTRODUCTION
SETTING THE NECESSARY STAGES FOR UNDERSTANDING NINETEENTH-CENTURY LIBERTOS’ WILLS IN BAHIA
I. Main Theses In this dissertation, I study the testaments or wills put into writing by African-born ex- slaves in Salvador da Bahia during the nineteenth century in order to gain a better understanding of the lives that they led in the city after their arrival as slaves from Africa, and upon the acquisition of their freedom through the alforria system, through which enslaved people could acquire their freedom in Brazil.1 While studying these testaments,
I first provide some general quantitative data that is relevant to the specific subject in question, while I also offer tables that take my whole sample into account.2 Later, I move on to a detailed textual analysis of thirty-three wills and three inventories from different moments in the nineteenth century, which I perceive to be illustrative of points and ideas of significance. I also refer to ten additional wills and a civil case to a lesser extent. Such an analysis provides important insights into the day-to-day existence led by libertos3 in
1 The alforria arrangements knows as “unconditional” alforrias were the rare cases where slave owners chose to liberate their slaves, either during their lives or at the time of their own deaths, without any conditions attached. The more common practice of “conditional” alforrias required that the enslaved individuals pay for their own freedom, at a fixed valor (price) within a prazo (time frame) that were decided upon by their owners.
2 The numbers in all tables have been rounded up to their closest full percentage.
3 “Liberto” in the nineteenth century, everywhere in Brazil, referred to someone who had been a slave, and then liberated him/herself from slavery. While “forro/a” had previously been a common term used for libertos in previous periods, it was not very much in usage by the time period in question. On the other hand, “livre,” “homem livre,” or “mulher livre” almost always referred to Black people who had already
1 Bahia, and thus contributes to the long line of scholarship which has focused on the daily lives of Africans and their descendants in the Americas.4 Libertos’ wills shed light upon subjects as diverse as their material possessions and occupations, their living arrangements and the specific ways in which they decided to store their wealth. From this perspective, while Africans could opt to have land and real estate as their primary material assets, they chose to own wealth in slaves in the majority of the cases. The testaments also provide us with significant insight regarding the religiosity of freed
Africans, of how they brought Roman Catholicism together with African-derived religions in their everyday lives. They are reflective of the ways in which the libertos understood the passage from worldly life to the afterlife, and the ways in which they sought to shape both their own lives upon their deaths, as well as the lives of those who had been part of their personal networks upon their own deaths. They also point to the importance of faith to the communities and kinship/personal networks that freed Africans created for themselves in Salvador. The wills demonstrate that freed Africans inhabited a world that was dominated primarily by other Africans like themselves. They also go on to show that this world encompassed dynamics that were highly complex and nuanced, which in many ways was in line with the complex and fluid nature of urban slave societies in the Americas.
been free in Brazil. From the perspective of race and place of birth, on the other hand, “crioulo” referred to Brazilian-born Blacks, and “mulato” (mixed-race) and “pardo” (tan) implied different levels of race mixture. “Cabra” indicated a person who was somewhere in between a Black person and a “mulato.” “Preto” or Black, was almost invariably used in the nineteenth century to refer to African-born individuals in Brazil. All these different terminologies are encountered in the documents under study in this dissertation.
4 See Appendix C for a short critical summary of the relevant historiography.
2 II. Post-Mortem Testaments as Documentary Sources The Brazilian archives can be somewhat disappointing when it comes to the task of uncovering the realities of the daily lives and kinship networks of Africans and their descendants. One does not encounter the wealth of journals or personal letters that offer such rich and invaluable sources of documentation, for example for the British and
French Caribbean.5 It becomes an arduous task to look for individual voices behind the walls of legality and officialdom, as well as the limits that were clearly set by the
Ecclesiastical-State apparatus as to what could be included in these and what not. Yet, once you get past the formulaic phrases that are part of every testament, it is possible to gain valuable insights into the lives, worldviews, attachments, fears and concerns of libertos. Their personal networks become alive, and the agency they constantly sought to exercise within their lives becomes apparent. In addition, since Brazilian inheritance laws stipulate the division of material assets among legal heirs, libertos’ testaments cover individuals from all walks of live, including the humblest of households. This makes the effort necessary for filling in the blanks between official discourse and the voices of freed
Africans highly worthwhile.
There already are historical studies of slavery in Brazil that have made use of testaments as primary sources. Some of these have even concentrated on libertos, such as the works of Kátia de Queirós Mattoso and Maria Inês Côrtes de Oliveira6, in spite of not making
5 Richard Graham makes the same argument when he writes about “the relative absence of diaries and personal letters among Brazilians […]” in Feeding the City: From Street Market to Liberal Reform in Salvador, Brazil, 1780-1860. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010: 6.
6 See the book length study by Maria Inês Côrtes de Oliveira. O liberto: o seu mundo e os outros (Salvador 1790-1890). São Paulo: Editora Corrupio, 1988.
3 any distinction between the African and the Brazilian-born. But the majority of historians have used these documents primarily to provide quantitative data on the population of freed people in Salvador. Mattoso and Oliveira have also studied a small sample of testaments, as well as inventories, in greater detail with the objective of furthering our knowledge of the social structure of Bahian society, primarily also in the nineteenth century. There have been numerous critiques of Mattoso’s approaches, and especially of her focus on the wealth of specific—sometimes exceptional—individuals. In her article
“Testamentos de escravos libertos na Bahia no século XIX” for instance, Mattoso offers detailed analyses of wills belonging to libertos who had “made it” from both economic and social perspectives. They had amassed considerable fortunes and accordingly gained in social position.7 In addition, the concentrated and limited nature of her sample has made it hard to reach reliable conclusions. But Mattoso’s analysis has constituted the basis for many other studies, and many Bahian historians as well as Brazilianists8 have used findings successfully in specific contexts. The seminal study conducted by Maria
Inês Cortês de Oliveira under the direction of Kátia Mattoso looked at both the Brazilian- born and African-born liberto populations as a single group, without making the necessary distinctions as they apply to their experiences. But Oliveira’s book is essential for understanding liberto life in both Bahia and Brazil, and covers an extremely wide
See also the articles by Kátia Mattoso, “Testamentos de escravos libertos na Bahia no século XIX: uma fonte para o estudo de mentalidades” and “Para uma história social seriada da cidade do Salvador no século XIX: os testamentos e inventários como fonte de estudo da estrutura social e mentalidades,” published in the volume that brought together several of Mattoso’s works: Da revoluçāo dos alfaiates à riqueza dos baianos no século XIX: itinerário de uma historiadora. Eds. Soares, Arlette, and Rina Angulo. Salvador: Corrupio, 2004.
7 Kátia Mattoso. “Testamentos…”: 248-60.
8 See for example the works by Richard Graham, B.J. Barickman, João José Reis, Stuart B. Schwartz referred to in this dissertation for scholars who make significant use of Mattoso’s findings.
4 range of subjects, some of which are quite similar to those discussed in this dissertation, since she concentrated on the trajectory of moving from enslavement to freedom, as well as on understanding death as a central referent in the lives of freed men and women.9 The work of Kathleen Higgins in Sabará, Minas Gerais,10 also frequently referred to in this dissertation, perhaps comes closest to my analysis of post-mortem testaments. This is because while testaments constitute just one among the variety of sources Higgins uses in her analysis of slave and liberto life, she is the historian that offers the greatest amount of close textual analysis when engaging with the voices that can be discerned from post- mortem wills.11 Also with regards to Minas Gerais, Eduardo França Paiva also understands testaments as an important site for resistance on the part of both enslaved and freed people.12 Finally, João José Reis also speaks about testaments as documents of great significance in order to understand the centrality of death to Brazilian society in the nineteenth century, as well as a major instrument of self-assertion.13
9 One major difference is that I do not focus to the same extent on family structures, since I understand the biological family to be the weakest element in the context of the formation of identity and personal/kinship networks in Brazil. This is not to say that Cortês de Oliveira has a simplistic approach to these, on the contrary. However, she insists on the liberto family much more than I do.
10 Kathleen J. Higgins. “Licentious Liberty” in a Brazilian Gold-Mining Region: Slavery, Gender, and Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Sabará, Minas Gerais. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999.
11 Younger Brazilian scholars in formation such as Mabel Macedo d’Haese Borges have used testaments for societal analyses of Brazilian slave society in contexts as different as that of São José dos Pinhais in the state of Paraná. Macedo d’Haese Borges has taken the population of the vila as a whole in her analysis, and looked at contexts and questions ranging from family ties to material assets, religiosity to migration, slavery to freedom. Mabel Macedo d ́Haese. “Última Vontade: Testamentos em São José dos Pinhais na segunda metade do século XIX.” Honors Thesis. Universidade Federal do Paraná, 2006.
12 Eduardo França Paiva, Escravos e libertos nas Minas Gerais do século XVIII: Estratégias de resistência através dos testamentos. São Paulo: Anna Blume, 1995.
13 João José Reis. “O cotidiano da morte no Brasil oitocentista.” História da vida privada no Brasil. Império: a corte e a modernidade nacional. Eds. Novais, Fernando A., and Luiz Felipe de Alencastro. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1997.
5
Kátia Mattoso, however, has also understood post-mortem testaments and estate inventories as some of the most important sources for a history of mentalities vis-à-vis the people who made up the main societal category of people in nineteenth-century
Bahia: that of slaves and libertos.14 She states that in spite of the generalized analphabetism of the Bahian population, each testament still functions as a mirror into the life and last wishes of the testators. In this context, the wills would be written down by escrivões or scribes, who could use the model texts or directly put down the dictations of the testators. Often, what took place was somewhere in between, with model texts being infused with a personal voice. They would then be subsequently registered by the tabeliões or notaries public. While common people could have also composed testaments and later register these at the notary, I have not encountered a single such case among my documents. The majority of the libertos could not read or write, and model samples of wills facilitated the process for them, especially since they had to contain certain formulaic statements. To ascertain that we can make a case for at least limited liberto voices in their wills, I have compared the writing styles of the different official scribes in
Salvador in the nineteenth century, and have concluded that no case can be made as to individual choices, preferences, inclusions on the part of the escrivões. This has led me to further accept libertos’ wills as manifestations of their own voices, agency, and selectivity.15 In spite of their obligation to contain certain formulaic paragraphs and
14 Kátia Mattoso. “Testamentos…”: 225-226.
15 The list of official scribes for the year 1855 in Bahia can be found in: Camillo de Lellis Masson. Almanak Administrativo, Mercantil, e Industrial da Bahia, para o anno de 1855. Bahia: Typ. De Camillo de Lellis Masson & C., 1854.
6 sentences, they often go well beyond fixed or stereotyped formulae, and work almost as mini life stories.16 This is why I also believe that these testaments provide important micro-histories for understanding liberto lives, as well as in many ways a microcosm of the lives by Africans and their descendants in nineteenth-century Salvador. Also, similarly to Mattoso, I accept testaments to be invaluable sources for the understanding of values, worldviews, and cosmologies within the Brazilian setting.
The freed Africans who recorded their wills did not always have important amounts of material wealth, thus inheritance issues were not the primary reasons why they prepared these documents. On the other hand, testators composed their testaments because they had something to bequest. Even in the cases where these assets were not a lot, libertos were very much concerned with their legacies going to the right people, i.e. to their non-
Church sanctified partners or children born out of wedlock for example, who would not have been considered direct heirs. They also wanted to avoid the appropriation by the
State of their assets. All these concerns will appear in the testaments analyzed in this dissertation, especially in Chapters II and III. But as Mattoso also states, a testator closely resembles the author of an autobiography, in seeking to leave for posterity the best image that they can provide of their persons and their lives.17 I believe this to be one of the main reasons why libertos prepared their wills in the first place—to underline themselves as people of dignity and honor. This image would survive them into eternity in the form of an officially registered document. Equally great in importance were their fear of death
16 Kátia Mattoso. “Testamentos…”: 227.
17 Ibid: 230.
7 and the centrality of faith to their lives, which reflected themselves in lengthy requests for funerary arrangements.
In none of the studies cited above, as well as those built on them, have testaments been studied qualitatively and in depth as narratives and actual texts that can throw light on individual lives and communities. Their close textual analysis provides us with a very enriching understanding of what it was like, and what it meant, to be African and a liberto in nineteenth-century Salvador.18 To this end, I only look at the wills left behind by African libertos, and do not include Brazilian-born Blacks. This perspective permits a better understanding of the lives led by freed African men and women. It is also reflective of the ways in which their identities were constructed, and offers important clues into the formation of their personal associations and kinship networks. In looking at the ways in which they sought to present themselves, and the characteristics they valued in both themselves and others, we also gain insight into their worldviews. From this perspective, the centrality of honor, dignity, and justice to their lives becomes extremely clear.
The sample of primary documents that constitutes the basis for this dissertation contains all the testaments19 listed as “testamentos de africanos” [testaments of Africans] in the
Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia in Salvador. They are grouped in the “Judiciário”
18 Within the analysis of libertos’ testaments as texts, I incorporate all the insights offered by these documents into my analysis. Often, these are indicative of many distinct aspects of liberto life and identity, and their analysis may consequently take many different directions.
19 While the sample has been checked numerous times to be sure that it is complete, it is always a possibility that certain documents may have been erroneously filed, extremely damaged, or even lost. Additionally, a certain number of wills that had become completely illegible due to having been badly kept and damaged could unfortunately not be included within the sample.
8 section of the archive since they are legal documents.20 Their time frame encompasses the entire nineteenth century, since people who had freed themselves from slavery continued to compose testaments even after the occurrence of emancipation in 1888. They still remained libertos. The testaments exist in two groups within the archive: those that are
“loose” documents archived under the heading of “Processos de Testamentos”
[Testament Processes] and those that have been bound together in “Livros de Registro de
Testamentos” [Testament Registry Books].21 Being among the very few sources of actual narratives concerning the lives of freed Africans in the Bahian archives, these wills provide the historian with the opportunity to decipher the individual voices of freed
Africans—their daily lives, relationships, ties, understandings and efforts, which can acquire a life of their own through a careful reading of what is embedded between the lines of official documents. In depth qualitative textual analysis has never been conducted on a large scale on testaments in Bahia. When it had been undertaken, it has remained limited to very small groups of documents, and often with a very specific focus of analysis. These testaments constitute an important window into understanding both slave life and African life in Bahia in the nineteenth century, while they give voice to people who are often lost between the lines in official documentation. Understanding the lives and personal networks of African libertos also has important repercussions for understanding the experiences of Africans and their descendants all over the Atlantic
World.
20 It should be noted that there are no testaments at all in any other archive in Salvador, since the APEB is the only archive that contains the documents of the ecclesiastical-state apparatus of what was at the time the province of Bahia.
21 The overlaps between the two groups of sources are very few, but in rare instances the two types of testaments could exist for the same individual. All available versions of documentation for libertos’ wills are listed in the Bibliography..
9
I have not been able to analyze in depth the 307 testaments that together compose this sample. Additionally, at times the testaments need to be supplemented by different types of documentary sources. For these reasons, I analyze in depth thirty-six primary documents from different moments along the nineteenth century, along with another eleven that are studied to a lesser extent, in this dissertation. While this is valuable for giving a sense of change over time, the wills and inventories analyzed in depth have been selected primarily from the perspective of their capacity to illuminate certain patterns, or to offer significant perspectives. I have also sought to highlight some of the best examples for different cases, while making sure to provide the necessary amount of documentation to make a valid argument. These testaments are not equally mentioned in every chapter, both to avoid repetitiveness, but also because their contents are not equally applicable everywhere. Several among them appear in more than one chapter, however, where they are discussed from distinct angles. I also engage in a small level of cross- referencing from one testament that does not belong to a liberto, as well as a “processo cível” or civil case in Chapter I, while seeking to uncover certain exceptional dynamics in the lives of libertos. Further, in Chapters II and III, I also refer to certain post-mortem estate inventories, in order to provide a better understanding of the totality of material assets within a household, and/or their sale values. In these places, it will also be seen that inventories are also capable of telling interesting life stories.22
22 In chapters I and IV, where the direct evidence in my primary sources is not always sufficient, I have had to rely on secondary sources to a greater extent than in the other two chapters.
10
III. Why Salvador? Salvador da Bahia fit perfectly the definition of a true city of the Atlantic World. Directly facing the West Coast of Africa across the Atlantic ocean, it was a place where Europe,
Africa and the Americas within transatlantic voyages and trade networks, but especially in the context of the slave trade and the specific ethnic make-up and social relationships that it engendered. Salvador’s was a slave society par excellence, where the main distinction was between “free” and “unfree.” This resulted in a very strong color hierarchy, which was more than evident in every aspect of life within the city. Slavery was such a dominating part of life that it entered every stratum of Salvadorean society.
Commitment to slave ownership and to slavery as a system was the primary organizing principle of society, the main referent around which questions of belonging and identity, understandings of who people were vs. who they were not, and notions of insiders and outsiders were all defined. Slavery was pervasive and utterly hegemonic.
The hegemonic nature of slavery in Salvador did not mean that the system did not offer possibilities of interaction among different segments of the population, opportunities for strategic maneuvering that could often lead to social ascension, or even close—and sometimes intimate—relationships among people who otherwise would have belonged to different worlds. As hierarchical and rigid as it was in certain ways, Salvador’s was also an extremely porous society where the lines could often be blurred. “Unfree” could become “free” with greater ease than in any other slave society, perhaps with the exception of urban nineteenth-century Cuba.
11 Map I.I. Salvador in Relation to Africa and the Rest of the Americas
23
Salvador’s was also a society, which in its constant burst of activity, was greatly marked by the constant interaction between different groups. Blacks, Whites, and mulattos interacted daily on the city’s streets and markets, lived in the same neighborhoods, and even in the same houses at times. The free and the enslaved often shared close ties. Social status could be fluid, and categories stretchy. The inhabitants of the city were greatly interconnected through their everyday lives, which also tied them to the Recôncavo—the
23 Ira Berlin. “The Atlantic World circa 1750.” (Based on “The Atlantic Littoral, ca. 1700.”) Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in America. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000: vi-vii.
12 commercially important sugar plantation region of the interior, as well as to the different parts of the Atlantic World as a whole. However, this great level of activity was in itself a direct consequence of Salvador’s centrality to the Atlantic slave trade, and to its great dependency on slave labor for daily survival. Slavery and the slave trade were the reason why the Black population existed in the first place, and slavery infiltrated every pore of the city and every single one of its interactions. In a manner that could was truly hegemonic, its allowance for controlled freedom was what actually enabled it to perpetrate its existence. By affording mobility and the possibility of social ascension to a certain extent to both slaves and ex-slaves, the system of slavery was strengthened considerably. While people of different social strata constantly rubbed shoulders, the general order of a slave society was kept intact. Slavery as the main shaper of societal dynamics was deconstructed, reconstructed, resisted and reinforced on a daily basis in
Salvador.
The slave society clearly imposed its general hierarchical structure upon the inhabitants of the city, and the system itself was never open to question. But the borders of this framework were more elastic than they seemed at a first glance, and they were frequently and repeatedly negotiated. Blacks and mulattos were not always poor, and Whites were not always rich. The former did not always depend on the latter, and vice versa was also often possible. Blacks could sometimes acquire social positions that outdid those of
Whites; urban slaves could live in better circumstances than freed Blacks, or even become creditors to them. Slaves ownership was pervasive to such an extent, and entered every level of society, that it could include the ownership of slaves by people who still
13 found themselves enslaved, even though this generally remained an exceptional phenomenon.24
Salvador represented a slave society in permanent movement, where social status, relationships, belonging and power were constantly negotiated and reconstructed. As argued by Richard Graham, the different individuals that formed Salvadorean society
“occupied social positions along a continuum rather than in sharply separated groups.”25
Conversely though, the different groups that formed this complex society were also extremely conscious of their particular group identities. They engaged with one another in solidarity, organized themselves within their distinctive social groups, and even took collective action as such. This also meant that, in spite of the high level of interconnectedness among people of all kinds, separation was actually very clear in the
Salvadorean setting. Blacks still interacted to a higher extent with other Blacks, and the same was also true for Whites. The African-born mostly interacted with others who had
24 João José Reis talks about slave ownership by Bahian slaves in his book Domingos Sodré: um sacerdote africano: escravidão, liberdade e candomblé na Bahia do século XIX. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2008.
25 Richard Graham. Feeding the City…: 4.
While this statement remains mostly valid, through his focus on the food trade which represented an even greater level of interaction than did other daily encounters, as well as on certain exceptional archival cases of significant upward mobility, Richard Graham tends to lose touch with the primary dynamics of Salvadorean slave society, which revolved around the primary referent of slavery. While I refer to Graham as an example, no historian who works on the Bahian capital is actually free from this danger, and I have referred to similar tendencies within the work of Kátia Mattoso. The harsh realities of the slave society are often clouded over by a highly dynamic city that constantly brought together people who were highly different from one another, both in their places of residence and work.
One such case discussed by Richard Graham is that of Ana de São José da Trindade, a liberta who died an owner of nine slaves, as well as of a good place of dwelling. She gained her significant wealth that surpassed those of many Salvadorean Whites through her participation in the market trade. This dissertation also encompasses similar cases, but also those of libertos/as who were much more common and humble in their existence. In this way, it also serves to demonstrate the great variety of possible existences for Salvadorean freed Africans, as well as for all members of society in general.
14 also been born on the continent, while crioulos stuck with other Brazilian-born members of society, since their primary allegiance remained to their place of birth.26 But this did not mean that African identity in Brazil remained what it had been on the continent. As will be seen in this dissertation, African libertos insisted on their Africanness, but redefined their identity and its meanings, as well as their communities through being
Africans in Brazil. The lines that existed between the free and the unfree were less rigid than those imposed by color or origin, and freed Africans often had enslaved Africans within their close personal networks. And even though patron-client relationships could also be blurred and often depended more on class than on race in nineteenth-century
Salvador, color/ethnic hierarchies were also dominant among these.
The relative stability of slavery secured by the allowance of controlled freedom and mobility given to the Black population could not stop Salvador from being a highly contentious society. The constant possibility of revolts loomed in the air above a city that was built on the suffering of the many for the benefit of the privileged few. The rumors and fears of conspiracies and revolts dominated the daily life of the city and the nightmares of the largely outnumbered Whites, from the earliest days of the colonization of Bahia state and the installation of sugar plantations in the Recôncavo. Salvador, the first colonial capital of Brazil27 that grew and expanded as a result of the burgeoning
26 While many studies on Bahian slavery have touched on this subject at different points, Mattoso once again constitutes an important reference. See especially “No Brasil escravista: relaçōes sociais entre libertos e homens livres e entre libertos e escravos” in Da Revoluçāo dos Alfaiates à Riqueza dos Baianos no Século XIX: Itinerário de uma historiadora. Eds. Soares, Arlette, and Rina Angulo. Salvador: Editora Corrupio, 2004.
27 Salvador always remained a major urban center and slave port of critical importance even after the transfer of the capital to Rio de Janeiro with the arrival of the Portuguese royal family in Brazil as a consequence of the Napoleonic wars.
15 sugar economy, represented risky and contentious dynamics already from its seventeenth- century beginnings. Rebellions, however, were especially rampant and insistent in the nineteenth century, where the slave society experienced its highest level of crystallization just prior to its unraveling. These complex and contradictory dynamics will be discussed in greater detail below. But before that, some more information is needed on what kind of city Salvador was in terms of size, geography, topography, and population.
IV. The Physical and Population Characteristics of Nineteenth-Century Salvador Salvador has always been shaped by the peculiar geography of being located in the Bay of All Saints, but also by being a city of ladeiras [hills] by which it is divided into the
“upper” and “lower” cities. In the nineteenth century, specifically in the period of 1760-
1870, Salvador included ten urban parishes, as well as suburban areas that surrounded the city and that would later come to be incorporated within it. These ten urban freguesias were Sé or São Salvador, Nossa Senhora da Vitória, Nossa Senhora da Conceição da
Praia, Santo Antônio Além do Carmo, São Pedro Velho, Santana do Sacramento,
Santíssimo Sacramento da Rua do Passo, Nossa Senhora de Brotas, Santíssimo
Sacramento do Pilar, and Nossa Senhora da Penha. The Cidade Baixa or Lower City, which started off from the coast, encompassed Conceiçāo da Praia, Pilar, part of Vitória and Penha. Looking seaward towards the bay and the sugar-planting center of the
Recôncavo, the Cidade Alta or Upper City included Sé—the very first nucleus of the
Bahian capital—, Sāo Pedro, Santo Antônio Além do Carmo and the Rua do Passo.
Santana was the only freguesia that remained completely shut off to the sea. The very
16 large parish of Brotas, in spite of being in the interior, extended itself all the way to the suburban parish of Itapuā, which also opened up to the Atlantic Ocean.28
For most of the nineteenth century, Salvador remained a small city, quite modest when compared to its role as a major urban center, and a city of primary importance in the
Atlantic World. It lacked both urban planning and the care that would result from the planned allocation of resources. Houses were built first, and streets simply resulted out of need, adding spatial confusion to the general chaotic nature of the city. However, the nineteenth century saw Salvador grow, in spite of the various political, military and economic upheavals that also occurred in this period. While 176 streets existed in 1855, by 1863 this number had already reached 210.29 Similarly, in his book Histórias de
Salvados nos nomes das suas ruas, Luiz Eduardo Dórea states that street names in the soterópolis30 took on greater importance exactly in the nineteenth century when the previous divisions followed by the Post Office (Correios) stopped being used, and newspapers also started to be delivered to specific addresses.31 These changes in the
28 Unless otherwise indicated, the following section providing information on Salvador and its freguesias is taken from Anna Amélia Vieira Nascimento’s book Dez freguesias da cidade do Salvador: aspectos sociais e urbanos do século XIX. Salvador: Editora da Universidade Federal da Bahia, 2007.
In her book-length study on the social and urban nature of the ten freguesias of Salvador in the nineteenth century, Nascimento uses a range of primary sources among which the city census record of 1855 constitutes the most important source of documentation, Her other major sources are electoral lists, the residential permission records of foreigners, testaments, lists of the people attacked by the cholera epidemic, memoirs, and property listings, as well as oral histories and local studies in order to provide an in depth history of the Bahian capital exactly in the period under study in this dissertation.
29 Anna Nacimento, Dez freguesias…: 49.
30 Since Salvador was Brazil’s first colonial capital and major urban center, it was denominated as the “soterópolis,” in reference to the Byzantine fortress. The initial significance was forgotten over time, with the inhabitants of the city insisting on their identity as the first urban inhabitants of Brazil.
31 Luiz Eduardo Dórea. Histórias de Salvados nos nomes das suas ruas. Salvador: EDUFBA, 2006: 23.
17 urban structure of the city correspond directly to the period of the testaments under study.
This was to be expected, since the nineteenth century in so many ways was a time of transition and change in Bahia, as well as in Brazil as a whole. The erratic nature of the addresses provided by libertos, by those literate individuals who put matters in writing on their behalf, as well as by the authorities who recorded and approved their wills, testified to this transitionary stage in the urbanization of Salvador.
Anna Nascimento elaborates on the difficulty of censuses in the nineteenth century, and on the dubious nature of their results.32 Taking the 1855 census as her main point of reference, she indicates the city’s population to be at 56,000 inhabitants. While certain people expectedly were not part of the censuses, she states that this number was both reasonable, and that it also demonstrated the population growth that the city experienced around this time, which was a period of evolution in all senses with regards to the city’s urbanization.33 In this context, she also goes against the contemporary arguments that asserted that the number was too small, once again emphasizing that it was probably quite realistic.34 On the other hand, the population estimates provided by Joao Jose Reis for 1835 go significantly beyond this number at 65,000. This is also a reasonable estimate, following Reis’ logic, and also taken into account the population segments that would not have been included in censuses.35 However, considering that the Malê
32 Anna Amélia Vieira Nascimento, Dez freguesias…: 99-103.
33 Ibid: 106.
34 Ibid: 109.
35 João José Reis. Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia: 5-6. Reis explains: “There are, unfortunately, no data of any type concerning changes in Salvador’s population between 1807 and 1835, the year of the Malê rebellion. One can only speculate. If the city’s growth
18 Revolution took place exactly two decades prior to the 1855 census, it could still be exaggerated up to a certain point. Finally, the last and most reliable census of the century
(that of 1872) demonstrates that by then, Salvador’s population had reached 108,137.36
In any case, while Salvador may have been less than impressive in its size and urbanization at the time, it certainly was so by its geographic location and beauty, as well as by its cultural and economic liveliness, as has been observed by many foreign travelers of the time.37 Moreover, in its role as the first capital, main city, and center of production of Brazil, in addition to being a major center of the Atlantic slave trade, Salvador was clearly marked by its history and prosperity. All these dynamics worked in favor of the by now well-established argument that none of the parishes of Salvador offered a structure of social or racial segregation. While a certain concentration could be evidenced at the much more limited level of the quarteirão, the larger religious-administrative unit remained constant, if it grew at about 1 per year, in 1835 the population would have grown to 65,500, which is the working hypothesis of this study (5). Here, it is important to take into account that Nascimento also argues for continuous population growth in the Bahian city.
36 Nascimento, 107. For the detailed breakdown of the 1872 census, see: Recenseamento Geral do Império de 1872. Vol 3. Bahia. Rio de Janeiro: Typ. De G. Leuzinger e Filhos, 1872. https://ia802703.us.archive.org/23/items/recenseamento1872ba/ProvinciaDaBahia_text.pdf
37 These travelers are numerous. But for some insightful travel memoirs with regards to Salvador in the nineteenth century, see for example: Robert Abé-Lallemant. Viagem pelo norte do Brasil no anno de 1859. Trans. Eduard de Lima Castro. 2 vols. Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, 1961.; Alcide D’Orbigny. Viagem pitoresca através do Brasil. Reconquista do Brasil, no. 29. Belo Horizonte and São Paulo: Itatiaia and EDUSP, 1976.; Maria Graham. Diário de uma viagem ao Brasil. São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1956.; Daniel P. Kidder. Sketches of Residence and Travel in Brazil Embracing Historical and Geographical Notices of the Empire and its Several Provinces. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Sorin and Ball, 1845.; Mrs. Kindersley. Letters from the East Indies. London: J. Nourse, 1777.; Maximilien von Habsburg. Reise Skinnen. Esboço de Viagem. Bahia, 1860. Vienna: Tipografia Nacional, 1861.; James Prior. Voyage Along the Eastern Coast of Africa to Mosambique, Johanna, and Quiloa; to St. Helena; to Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, and Pernambuco in Brazil, in the Nisus Frigate. London: Richard Philips, 1819.; Johan B. Spix, and Karl von Martius. Viagem pelo Brasil. 3 vols. São Paulo: Melhoramentos/IHGB/Ministerio de Educação e Cultura, 1976.; L.F. Tollenare. Notas Dominicais. Recife: Coleção Pernambucana, v. XVI, 1978.2.
19 encompassed most if not all segments of society. No parish was ever limited to, or even dominated by, a single social category.
Nascimento makes an argument in certain ways similar to what I assert in this dissertation. While ethnic mixing and constant mobility clearly constituted central factors of Salvadorean life in this period, the closed and self-protective nature of the city’s
White—and near White—elites put clear limits to the social mobility on the part of
Africans and Afro-descendants. Personal networks composed primarily of other Africans were simultaneously an imposition by the Brazilian society at large and a conscious choice on the part of Africans within which their own agency became clear. In a context where race often equated class, in ways quite similar to what is experienced in Brazil today, only wealth and very significant economic power provided Blacks with actual social mobility and access to White Brazilian society. This racial/class endogamy, coupled with the fact that racial Whitening and social Whitening often went hand in hand, constituted important reasons why the world of freed Africans remained a world composed largely of other Africans.38 In this context, African group identity and endogamy symbolized the beginnings of a racial consciousness that was more complex than its counterparts in other parts of the African Diaspora, due to the specific dynamics of Brazilian society as expressed in the complex interactions between race and class.39 As repeatedly argued by numerous scholars of both Bahia and of Brazil in general, Africans
38 Maria Inês Côrtes de Oliveira makes the same argument, in both her book O liberto: seu mundo e os outros (Salvador 1790-1890). (São Paulo: Corrupio, 1988), and her article “Viver e morrer no meio dos seus. Nações e comunidades africanas na Bahia do século XIX”. (Revista da USP. Spec. issue “Dossiê Povo Negro” 28 (1996): 174-193).
39 What I mean by this is that while race consciousness had already become a much clearer phenomenon in many parts of the Americas, in Brazil it remained clouded over and complicated by endogamic group dynamics on the one hand, and by higher levels of social mobility and fluidity on the other.
20 in Salvador lived and worked in highly mixed worlds. It was their personal lives and networks that reflected a more personal agency that ironically emanated from the limitations of society in terms of creating a world composed mostly of their peers, of people who came from and shared similar pasts, as well as similar present experiences and lives. Even in the case where their African lives might actually have differed quite a lot from each other, being Africans in Brazil brought them together in ways that could never have been the case back on the continent.
V. The Complexities of the Brazilian Nineteenth Century To understand the lives and the legacies left behind by freed Africans in nineteenth- century Salvador da Bahia, it is essential to understand the context and the dynamics presented by the period, as it applied to the lives of Africans and Afro-Brazilians, both enslaved and free. To this end, a discussion of what the nineteenth century was like in
Brazil in general, and in Bahia and Salvador in particular, becomes of utmost importance.
This was a turbulent period, marked by revolts, the highly transformative experience of
Brazil’s war of independence, the Malê rebellion in Salvador and its repercussions in other parts of Brazil and the Atlantic World, and the many efforts at policing and repression that were directed towards Blacks—and especially Africans—by the Brazilian authorities. To these were added the efforts to end the slave trade, which culminated in its abolition, the contraband trade and internal slave trade that followed and were brought only later under control, and finally emancipation in 1888. All these events, as well as the general characteristics of urban Bahian society, constitute the backdrop against which this dissertation is construed and acquires its actual meaning.
21 V.I. The Century of Rebellions and Wars The fears of the members of White colonial Bahian society as to losing their dominance when they did not directly fear for their lives gained a new reality and fervor in the context of the nineteenth century. The first half of the century was primarily marked by
Brazil’s independence from Portugal, and the shifting of dynamics that this engendered.
This was a tumultuous period for all segments of society. Between 1823 and the final years of the 1830s, the free population of the city rebelled repeatedly, in first anti-
Portuguese and later federalist revolts. Military revolts were also present throughout this whole period. Since the anti-Portuguese and military revolts were mostly rebellions of the lowest sectors of the Bahian society, in a slave society where race and class were intrinsically linked, mulattos and Black Bahians also actively participated in these revolts. Their dissatisfaction with their social circumstances became all the more apparent within the microcosm presented by the military institution, where race played a major role in defining rank, position, and compensation.40
40 This whole section on all Bahian revolts prior to the Muslim Uprising of 1835 is taken from accounts given by Richard Graham in Feeding the City…, and João José Reis in Slave Rebellion…, in addition to: Kátia M. de Queirós Mattoso. “O consulado francês na Bahia em 1824” Anais do Arquivo do Estado da Bahia 39 (1970): 149-227., and F.W.O. Morton. “The Conservative Revolution of Independence.” PhD. Diss. Oxford University, 1974.
22 Map 1.2. Salvador at the time of the Malê Revolt41
41 Even Anna Amélia Vieira Nascimento’s own book on the subject of Salvador’s ten urban parishes in the nineteenth century does not provide a map of these. Nor do other historical sources. The map of the city of Salvador offered by João Reis comes closest to the understanding that I would like to provide here. João José Reis. Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993: 76.
23 The anti-Portuguese revolts, dubbed mata-marotos in Bahia, brought the correlations between race and class to the forefront. These were largely movements of the Bahian free poor, and the free poor population meant primarily one of mixed race, with at least some
African descent, while they also included a small number of poor Whites. Interestingly enough, racial vengeance also played a certain role in these rebellions. The racism of all
Whites—both Portuguese and Brazilian-born— against Blacks led the latter to resent the
European-born Whites as the most ready and apparent target. Since they could not attack the White Bahians, they attacked the White Portuguese. However, the participation of freed Africans appears to be almost completely negligible in these revolts, which were shaped within a framework of Brazilian vs. non-Brazilian. Yet, in the understandings of local authorities, imminent slave revolts of the time were sometimes tied to Portuguese plots. While slaves represented a major societal force that all camps would seek to manipulate for their own purposes, what was also at stake here was that Africans were categorized similarly to the Portuguese in the eyes of the Brazilian authorities and elites:
They were both “foreign enemies.” As will be seen, this element of “foreignness,” and especially its association with danger and rebelliousness became most evident in the context of the Muslim revolt of 1835.
Once independence was achieved and the Portuguese threat largely over, the revolts of the general population of the province concentrated on federalist tendencies. The
Brazilian-born Black population also participated in these revolts. But they were clearly exempted from the nation-building project headed by White and light-skinned Brazilians.
These elites never questioned slavery as the basis of Brazilian society, especially with
24 regards to the Bahian sugar plantation economy. Many of the rebels actually owned slaves themselves. Nor were racial hierarchies or discrimination ever opened to discussion. The federalists only sought a greater level of social justice among the free, who were in this context also mostly racially defined as non-Black, if not solely as
White.42 Aside from these discussions of race, “Brazilian” incontestably meant non-
African in this time period. You were seen as a foreigner if you were born on the African continent, and you would probably remain so in the eyes of the majority no matter the degree of your adaptation. Therefore, even when the freedom of Bahian-born slaves was timidly brought to the table, these discussions never included the African-born. Yet, as with every act of rebellion, the federalist revolts also endowed the unfree segments of the population with a certain amount of agency, as well as with a small taste of the freedom they craved.
In addition to these revolts that encompassed the general population, the nineteenth century also saw an especially large number of slave rebellions in Bahia, the characteristics of which gradually crystallized into the dynamics represented by the 1835
Malê Rebellion in Salvador. The city already presented the notable dynamics of being home to efforts of the retention and reinvention of African ways of life and cultures within an urban setting, through the existence of suburban quilombos, two of which are known to have existed in Nossa Senhora dos Mares and Cabula.43 Naturally, these areas
42 This would have been simply impossible in the context of the prevalence of mestiçagem (race mixing) in Brazil.
43 The most documented and well known of these was the Urubú quilombo, which interestingly belonged to a mulatto, thus pointing to a highly unusual and largely unprecedented alliance between Africans, crioulos and mulattos.
25 around the city represented the first places in which the slaves organized themselves for rebellions. Between 1807 and 1830, many slave revolts also took place in the Bahian
Recôncavo, while a few once again had the city as their center. Rather than going into the details of particular revolts, I would like to highlight certain important unifying factors among them, which actually went on to strongly shape Bahian history at a later stage in the context of the 1835 Muslim uprising. These are also the factors that are most relevant to this dissertation.
Firstly, although Brazilian-born Blacks led some of them, most of these slave revolts had
Africans for their leaders. Indeed, they were defined specifically as African revolts.
Some, just like the Malê Rebellion would do later, urged for death to Whites and mulattos. While they were not anti-crioulo, they definitely envisaged freedom primarily for the Africans of the city, and of the province as a whole. In many cases, the ensuing revolts were also tied to African religious celebrations and gatherings in both urban44 and plantation settings. This was similar to how such meetings signaled the beginnings of uprisings in other parts of the Diaspora, and especially in the Haitian Revolution.
For important discussions on the Brazilian quilombos, see the studies grouped under: João José Reis, and Gomes Flávio dos Santos. Eds. Liberdade por um fio: história dos quilombos no Brasil. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1996. Also see: Stuart B Schwartz. “Rethinking Palmares: Slave Resistance in Colonial Brazil.” Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels: Reconsidering Brazilian Slavery. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1992: 103-137.
While many of the rural areas surrounding Salvador were home to more African ways of life, so was the case with the semi-rural and peri-urban parts of the city, as will be seen with the case of the Brotas parish, to be discussed in some detail in Chapters II and III.
44 There were, of course, urban Candomblé terreiros (centers of worship) within the city limits of Salvador as well, and some of these were quite centrally located. Several studies that concentrate on the Bahian Candomblés will be referred to in some detail in Chapter IV.
26 Manifestations of African culture, or just of Africanness per se, came to be associated with rebellion, and to clearly represent the potential for the undoing of the system to both the Bahian authorities and the privileged members of society.
Second, the revolts proved themselves to be both ethnically exclusive and inclusive at the same time. For example, while the Hausa (called Ussá in Bahia) were in the forefront of the 1809 rebellion, Gegê (corresponding primarily to the Ewe-Fon linguistic groups) and
Nagô (corresponding primarily to the Yoruba) slaves also participated in the revolt.
While the leadership of a certain ethnic group within Bahian society constituted an important factor within the rebellion, the uprising defined itself more broadly as African, and was inclusive to different ethnicities. Yet, in most of the pre-1835 Bahian uprisings,
Nagôs and Hausas still seem to have been the most prominent leaders, and thus serve as important precedents to the dynamics that would later mark the Malê Rebellion.
Third, the series of revolts clearly showed the interconnectedness between the urban context of Salvador and the rural context of the Bahian Recôncavo. While rebellions happened in both places, as well as on the islands of the Bay of All Saints, several of these pointed to constant movement and communication among these different points. A revolt that started in one place could easily move on to a different setting, or ignite rebellious activity in a place that would not have normally been perceived as connected to its initial starting point. The general picture of nineteenth-century Bahian revolts seemed too complete and interlinked to simply be a series of isolated incidents. Indeed, as elsewhere in the Atlantic World, the shadow of the Haitian Revolution loomed over
27 Bahia as well. And even though the actual 1835 attempt at total rebellion ended up in failure, it became the second greatest attempt at freedom from slavery in the Americas. In this period as a whole, rebelliousness became a major characteristic of the slaves and the greatest fear of the White members of society. This resulted in the fourth defining characteristic of these revolts, which was the fervor shown by the local authorities in their repression, and the factors that defined that very effort. The White members of Bahian society, and the authorities who represented them and protected their interests, all saw the potential danger embedded in African meetings and celebrations. These were strictly controlled, and often repeatedly prohibited during this period.45
Freed Africans were perceived as potentially even more dangerous than their enslaved counterparts, since they had greater mobility, the ability to convene with one another, and domiciles where they could meet in private. Consequently, their movements and activities in both the city and rural areas were also—and sometimes even more— severely curtailed. This demonstrated that the authorities understood that these series of rebellions went beyond a simple framework of “slave revolts.” It also pointed to
Africanness as the principal defining feature of these revolts. Finally, since it was once again the freed Africans who could move between the city and the Recôncavo with much greater ease than slaves, their movements also contributed to the increasing understanding of the interconnectedness of the two settings on the part of the elites and authorities.
45 Many histories of nineteenth century Bahia refer to the efforts to control urban African conglomerations. Among these are the already-cited works of Joao Jose Reis and Anna Amélia Vieira Nascimento. In addition, see for example: Renato da Silveira. O Candomblé da Barroquinha: Processo de constituição do primeiro terreiro baiano de keto. Salvador: Maianga, 2010.
28 Bahian elites were also acutely aware that the general dynamics of the time were in themselves conducive to and enforced the rebellions. The period of the Brazilian war for independence (1822-23) saw even greater unrest in the slave quarters of the plantations, and witnessed at least three major slave revolts in Bahian territory. The victory that came with the war also gave hope to the rebels. The war of independence could be perceived and interpreted as a successful uprising that had actually succeeded in replacing one power with an emergent other. Even though its victors were the White Bahian elites, it still showed that uprisings were not always bound to fail.
Rebellions continued and became harder to control once the war itself ended, and by then they were both more numerous and better organized, as well as of greater scale. The lives of many Bahian slaves were also greatly affected by the social tumult that resulted from the war of independence, and the important role that the Bahian state played within it.
Some slaves were abandoned by their masters who had fled, or who simply decided that they were incapable of taking care of them; others took advantage of the events to flee themselves. Again, many others were able to experience greater mobility and a larger degree of freedom through the relaxation of the authorities whose forces needed to be concentrated elsewhere, and the general chaos in both the state and in the country as a whole. Another important factor was the essential role they played in moving foodstuffs around the region, which greatly increased their mobility. Even more acutely than before,
Salvador’s African and Afro-descendant population were the ones “who fed the city.”46
46 Richard Graham. Passim.
29 V.II. The Muslim Uprising of 1835 As time went on, slave rebellions in Salvador would bypass other factors in order to be shaped most clearly in terms of origin: African vs. non-African. This became most evident in the 1835 Malê Rebellion, which was the most important specifically Bahian event of the nineteenth century. It could come as no surprise that the biggest event in the life of a slave society par excellence would be the joint rebellion of both free and enslaved Africans with the purpose of overthrowing the existing social order.47 Just like the Haitian Revolution whose repercussions were felt throughout the Atlantic World as a whole, so did the Malê Revolt affect the attitudes towards slavery and freedom throughout Brazil, for all segments of the population. It caused societal controls to be enhanced, slavery to be brought into discussion, Brazilian nationhood and belonging to be questioned, all at the same time. Its repercussions went beyond Brazilian borders, and played a role in nineteenth-century discussions vis-à-vis both repression and emancipation in all parts of the African Diaspora.
The Malê Rebellion was the culminating event where all the factors discussed above in the context of Salvador’s “rebellious nineteenth century” crystallized to become the
47 The role of ethnicity within the Malê revolt should also not be ignored. Similar as to what is argued in this dissertation, however, ethnicity in this context appeared as a major component of Africanness, and not as independent from it. At the time in which it actually took place, the Muslim rebellion of 1835 was initially perceived as primarily an ethnic movement, as a Nagô revolt. A call heard by witnesses said “Death to whites! Long live Nagôs!” (Quoted in João José Reis, Slave Rebellion…: 127) In fact, the role played by religion in the revolt was largely emphasized only in later scholarship, and was not part of the common understandings of the time. One of the main reasons for this was because the religious factor had come to the surface for the first time with the rebellion, while the ethnic factor was a well-known one in Bahia, as well as in all of Brazil. This dissertation will also refer to the complex interactions between religion and ethnic identity in the nineteenth century.
While it pointed to the cohesion among the African population in Salvador, the rebellion also inadvertently made clear the divisions that existed among Africans. It was these divisions, rivalries, and fears that actually caused the revolt to start a day earlier than planned, since the plans reached the ears of the city’s authorities through the Africans who had close connections to White members of Salvador’s population. Because of this, the rebellion was put down in a matter of hours.
30 organizing principles of a decisively African revolt that united both the free and the unfree African populations of the state, but especially of the city.48 João José Reis’s careful analysis has underlined the importance of Africanness as the identifying and uniting principle within the revolt, as well as the main basis for its persecution. Indeed, the “foreigness” of Africans and their culture seems to have been the most significant challenge for the Bahian seigniorial order. Reis explains:
It is impressive how the presence of Africans and their cultures challenged the world-view, the daily habits, and even the psychological stability of many Bahians. The so-called African customs, which before had seemed so typically Bahian, suddenly emerge in the documents as alien and subversive and in need of prohibition and, if possible, extinction.49
Even though the Malê Rebellion was dominated by Muslim leaders and the cultural symbols of Islam, the persecution of the law officials was not limited to the symbols of the religion, but encompassed anything and everything African that currently existed in
Salvador.50 Since Islam was a religion that was solely practiced by Africans in Bahia, it
48 The revolt has been extensively studied by João Reis in his work Slave Rebellion…, where he concentrates on the ensuing court records following its suppression, which includes most important testimonies by the accused and by many witnesses to the revolt itself, as well as to its preparations.
Other than those cited in the general context of rebellions above, among other important scholars who have worked on the Malê Revolt and that I have depended on for my narrative is: José Carlos Ferreira. “As insurreições dos africanos na Bahia.” Revista do Instituto Geográfico e Histórico da Bahia 10. 29 (1903): 103-19.
49 João José Reis, Slave Rebellion…: 203. Freed Africans were in no way seen as Brazilian citizens. Even worse, while they were seen as “foreign enemies” on Brazilian land, they also had none of the privileges of foreigners: “The chief of police […] declared: “None of them has the rights of a Citizen, nor the privileges of Foreigners (192).”” Freed Africans simply “existed” in a strange social vacuum in Brazil, between “citizens” and “subjects”—in this case slaves. Their “foreignness” defined them over all else.
50 Chapter IV will demonstrate, however, that Islam was seen in a way that was even more inimical to Roman Catholicism and Brazilian society than the traditional African-derived religions, for Islam providing competition in the spiritual, political, and social domains through its status as a major monotheistic world religion. Similarly, both Islam and Christianity, in their own ways, were much more accepting of African- derived religions and open to interactions, than they ever were with each other in both Portugal and Brazil.
31 was especially significant as a pointer to Africanness. It was a religion “foreign” to
Catholic Brazilian culture, and thus highlighted even more clearly the “foreignness” of the African-born population of the city. In conclusion, any and everything that was
African was seen as inimical to Bahian society, and thought to symbolize the reversal of its dynamics. If they were no longer to represent a constant, threat, “[a]ny Africans wanting to stay should leave their roots behind.”51 They should become “Brazilian” and committed to the values of Brazilian slave society.52 From this perspective, it is significant that many Africans actually chose not to leave, and actually resisted repatriation post-1835.53 “To leave Bahia was to voyage once more into the unknown, to have to adapt one more time.”54 By then, these people had clearly acquired new identities as Africans in Brazil, different from Africans in Africa, or Brazilian-born Blacks. For these individuals in nineteenth-century Bahia, Africanness constituted a major part of their identities, but the lives, communities and personal networks they had constructed for themselves were deeply rooted in the Bahian setting.
51 João José Reis, Slave Rebellion…: 204.
52 The whole body of laws that sought to govern Bahia in the 1835-1888 period, and were thus made exactly in the aftermath of the Muslim uprising and for the purpose of bringing the dynamics that had led to it under control, was published in 1996 by the Fundação Cultural do Estado da Bahia as Legislação da Província da Bahia sobre o negro: 1835 a 1888, and constitutes a necessary guidebook for understanding when Africans were operating within or outside the law, since those questions became especially complex within the time frame in question. Also see: Padre A. da Rocha Viana. Compilação em índice alfabético de todas as leis provinciais da Bahia, regulamentos e atos do governo para execução das mesmas. Bahia: Typ. e livraria de E. Pedrosa, 1858.
53 João José Reis. Slave Rebellion…: 221-3.
54 Ibid: 223.
32 V.III. Abolition of the Slave Trade and Emancipation from Slavery The nineteenth century as a whole was also marked by the many events that led to the official abolition of the slave trade in Brazil in 1850, and finally by 1888 to complete emancipation from slavery.55 The pressure for abolition and emancipation in the Brazilian case came primarily from without, rather than from within. Of course, there were outspoken abolitionists in Brazil too, but these people were mostly outdone by the defenders of slavery in both Portugal and Brazil. The Brazilian abolitionists themselves were advocates for a much more gradual change of the societal dynamics. The majority of the criticisms that they directed towards the system concentrated on the harsh treatments of the slaves, and simply asked for ameliorations. For the most part, they were not directed towards the termination of slavery in and of itself.56
In 1808, British naval powers assisted the Portuguese Crown in escaping the Napoleonic wars in order to reestablish themselves in Rio de Janeiro. This marked the beginning of the relationships of protection and dependency between Britain and Portugal—and of
Brazil by extension. The Portuguese royal family’s move from Lisbon to Rio enabled
55 On abolitionism and emancipation in Brazil, see for example:Wlamyra R. de Albuquerque. O jogo da dissimulação: Abolição e cidadania negra no Brasil. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2009.; Leslie Bethell. The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade: Britain, Brazil and the Slave Trade Question, 1807- 1869. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970.; Robert E. Conrad. The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 1850-1888. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.; Walter Fraga Filho. Encruzilhadas da liberdade : historias e trajetorias de escravos libertos na Bahia, 1870-1910. PhD. Diss. Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 2004.; Lawrence F. Hill. "The Abolition of the African Slave Trade to Brazil.” Hispanic American Historical Review, XI (1931): 169-197.; Herbert S. Klein, and Francisco Vidal Luna, Slavery in Brazil. New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. On the persistence of the Brazilian slave trade, see: Jaime Rodrigues. De costa a costa: escravos, marinheiros e intermediários do tráfico negreiro de Angola para o Rio de Janeiro (1780-1860). São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2005.
56 Many examples of the assertions and discourses of the time are gathered together as primary sources in the book Children of God’s Fire: A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil by Robert Edgar Conrad (1983): 415-481.
33 Britain to put pressure on the Portuguese Crown to follow in its steps to first limit, and then end, its transatlantic slave trade. Three separate treaties signed between the two countries, in 1810, 1815 and 1817, sought to limit the Portuguese slave trade in Africa to the Portuguese territories south of the equator.57 British pressure, which was later extended to the young Brazilian nation-state, finally resulted in the legal abolition of the
Brazilian slave trade in 1831. These legal steps were unable to bring about the end of the slave trade from the African Coast to Brazil, and led to the creation of the phrase “para inglês ver” (“for the British to see”), implying that what lay under the surface was completely different from the actual reality. The illegal slave trade continued strong, and even gained momentum at times.58 It also took place in even worse conditions than before, due the fear that its complete termination was imminent. Traders sought to get as many slaves as they could into the country as fast as possible until it was finally suppressed in 1851. In addition, with the relocation of production and wealth from
Northern Brazil to the South of the country meant that thousands of enslaved people were once again uprooted, separated from their personal networks, and made to start anew in a social setting that they were completely unfamiliar with. Their crossings over land could be compared to those that had brought them from their places of capture and enslavement in the African hinterland to the slave ports of the coast, if not to the Middle Passage itself,
57 Britain would also attack the trade from these Portuguese possessions at a later period, and especially within the context of the continuing slave trade with Mozambique and Angola.
58 See for example: Jaime Rodrigues. O infame comércio: propostas e experiências no final do tráfico de africanos para o Brasil 1800-1850. Campinas, SP: Unicamp/CECULT, 2000.
34 and the trauma of going through “social death”59 anew should in no way be underestimated.
The Haitian Revolution, the many rebellions within Brazil itself, events in Europe and finally in the United States, and foreign pressure from abolitionists finally all came together to cause the Brazilian government to redefine its approach and policies towards slavery as an institution. They could no longer regard it as a natural part of Brazilian society that solely needed to be reformed. This resulted in the passing of the Rio Branco
Law in 1871, also known as “a lei do ventre livre” [Free Womb Law], to mean that those slaves born after this date would be considered free. They would still have to serve their
“ex-would-be-masters” for a certain period of time as compensation for their expenses in raising children who would not be their slaves, in a way similar to what took place in the slave societies of the Caribbean. This law fit in very well with the general Brazilian mindset that wanted only gradual change and did not harbor strong feelings for abolition.
The members of the General Assembly were satisfied with the passing of the Rio Branco law, and did not think any further proceedings were necessary. To their minds, the law would eventually lead to the end of slavery, and also give Brazilian slave owners a chance to adapt to the loss of the labor of their enslaved workers and earners.
From 1880 onwards, Brazilian slaves took the struggle for emancipation into their own hands, initially in the northern provinces such as Ceará and Amazonas, and later much more strongly in the coffee planting province of São Paulo. During this period, the need for slaves had moved to the south of the country, with coffee becoming the major source
59 Orlando Patterson. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.
35 of wealth. As a consequence, the main defenders of slavery were also concentrated in the province of São Paulo. In late 1886, a massive runaway movement took off from Paulista plantations, with the encouragement of Brazilian abolitionists. Tens of thousands of slaves left the plantations that had been the places—and symbols—of their suffering.
Little alternative was left to the members of the Assembly who formally abolished slavery in May 1888. Even so, emancipation was presented as the gift of the benevolent
Princess Isabel de Bragança to her Black subjects with the Lei Áurea of May 13, 1888.
The high level of agency exercised by slaves and freed Africans throughout the century, and which had culminated in the massive run-away movement that finally gave them their freedom, was largely overlooked. Brazil thus became the last country to abolish slavery in the Americas. All these events and circumstances together constitute the framework in which the analysis of the testaments of libertos in nineteenth-century
Salvador da Bahia require to be placed. They need to be understood against the backdrop of a highly tumultuous and eventful century, against which individual lives can be explored, individual voices rediscovered, and the dynamics of the period reconsidered and rethought.
VI. Liberto identity: Why study freed Africans as a specific group?
João José Reis has calculated that by 1835, at the time of the Malê Rebellion, Africans— both slave and freed—, made up 21.940—and thus almost one third—of the total of
65.000 inhabitants in Salvador. 4.615 of them were libertos, who thus formed a significant social stratum and constituted 7.1% of the population. In addition to their networks that were both intra-liberto and African, the closest interactions of his group
36 that came next primarily took place with their African-born companions who still remained enslaved (17,325 and 26.5 %). But their racially stratified world also brought them to share similar destinies, restrictions, living and work environments, with the
Brazilian-born Black population of the city, once again both enslaved and free, numbering 10,175 and 14,885 respectively. The free Brazilian-born population had by then surpassed the numbers of those who still remained enslaved. Free Whites, numbering 18,500 and forming 28.2 % of the population constituted the largest single population group in Salvador. But when placed within a dichotomy of Whites vs. non-
Whites (most controversial in the context of the high level of race-mixture experienced in
Brazil), the former were clearly the minority in the population as a whole. The number of enslaved Africans, at 17,325, also came dangerously close. The nineteenth century was a quintessentially African century in Salvador.60
Africans and Brazilian-born Blacks had very different places within Brazilian society.
Crioulos had been born in Brazil, and had no memories of Africa. They had been born as slaves, and if not, as children of slaves. While Africans could also have been enslaved back on the continent, this experience usually would have differed from plantation or chattel—and its extension of urban—slavery in Brazil. Brazilian-born slaves and ex- slaves had never known another land. They were much better acquainted with the norms and expectations of Whites, and were accepted to a greater degree than Africans.
Brazilian society was the one they had been born into, and the only one that they had known. As crias born into the households of Africans or Brazilians, they had almost
60 All numbers are taken from João José Reis. Slave Rebellion…: 6.
37 become members of these families. In the cases of mulattos, they also pursued familial ties with certain members of White society. Furthermore, they perceived the slavery that they had been born into as at least a known evil, in comparison with the unknown threat represented by African dominance, as would have been the case had the Malê Rebellion succeeded for example. They were not at all certain—and quite probably rightly so—that they would fare better under African masters, when they would be the ones who would be defined as foreigners.61
Conversely, African slaves and libertos had been born in Africa, and often at least spent part of their childhood on the continent. Some still had family there, from whom they could receive occasional news through complex transatlantic networks.62 They had their own different understandings of social rankings, depending on who they were before they had become enslaved and sent to the Americas, who they were related to, what lineage they came from etc. These understandings were often quite distinct from those of the
Bahian masters, and of other members of society who were born in Brazil. Numerous examples abound from all over the African Diaspora as to how a person who was simply a low-ranking slave in the eyes of the seigniorial class could easily be a respected leader or teacher among Africans, and their descendants, themselves, significantly in the context of the Haitian Revolution among other instances.
61 For a better understanding of the lives and social positioning of freed people in the African Diaspora as a whole, see: David W. Cohen, and Jack P. Greene. Eds. Neither Slave nor Free: The Freedmen of African Descent in the Slave Societies of the New World. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1972. Specifically in the Bahian context, also see: Pierre Verger. Os Libertos: Sete caminhos na liberdade de escravos da Bahia no século XIX. Salvador: Corrupio, 1992.
62 See for example: Sylviane A. Diouf. “The Last Resort: Redeeming Family and Friends” in Diouf, Sylviane A. Ed. Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press & James Currey, 2003: 81-100.
38
I think it significant that three major distinct points made up their life cycles: They had gone from being either free or part of a very different experience of enslavement back in
Africa to being enslaved within the Atlantic system of chattel/plantation slavery in Brazil, and then gained free status in the same setting where they had previously been enslaved.
They had acquired their freedom in what was once a foreign land, that of their enslavement and suffering. Their situation was more complex than that of newly arrived
African slaves, and encompassed its own specific dynamics. By the time they were offered or were able to buy their freedom, the libertos had usually spent many years in
Brazil. They had grown accustomed to life in Salvador, forged new friendship and kinship networks, become part of lay brotherhoods and transculturated religions.63 They formed a distinct group within, but preserved close ties to the other members of, the
African community in the city. Their personal networks encompassed those Africans who had recently arrived, as well as those who had spent many years in Bahia and in other parts of Brazil. They included the enslaved as well as the free. In other ways, however, they had witnessed strong processes of “creolization,” and had come to identify in many ways with the dynamics and values of Brazilian society.64 In order to be an accepted part of Brazilian society, Africans had to accept its norms, hierarchies, and rules.65
63 “Transculturation” is a term coined by Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz in his book Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar in 1940 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995) to describe the phenomenon of merging and converging cultures. Different cultures come together to form new cultural phenomena of which the constitutive parts can no longer be identified, as in the Santería religion in Cuba or Candomblé in Brazil.
64 This acceptance of Brazilian identities has been most strongly the case with the “Agudás,” those Africans brought to Brazil as slaves, who later returned to the continent as freed people, where they defined themselves primarily through their Brazilian identity. The historiography on the subject is extensive, and many important studies are cited in the Bibliography. See for example: Robin Law. “Francisco Felix de Souza in West Africa, 1820-1849,” Joseph C. Miller. “Retention, Reinvention, and Remembering:
39
Restoring Identities through Enslavement in Africa and under Slavery in Brazil,” and Alberto Da Costa e Silva. “Africa-Brazil-Africa during the Era of the Slave Trade.” Enslaving Connections: Changing Cultures of Africa and Brazil during the Era of Slavery. Eds. Curto, José C. and Paul E. Lovejoy. New York: Humanity Books, 2004.; Milton Guran. Agudás: os “brasileiros” do Benim. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Frontera, 1999.; Robin Law. Ed. From Slave Trade to “Legitimate” Commerce: The Commercial Transition in Nineteenth-Century West Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.; Robin Law, and Kristin Mann. “West Africa in the Atlantic Community: The Case of the Slave Coast.” The William and Mary Quarterly 56.2 (1999): 307-334.; Robin Law. “The Evolution of the Brazilian Community in Ouidah” em Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of a Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil. New York: Frank Cass, 2001: 22-42.; Robin Law. Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving “Port,” 1727-1892. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press & James Currey, 2004; Kristin Mann. “Shifting Paradigms in the Study of the African Diaspora and of Atlantic History and Culture,” Elisée Soumonni. “Some Reflections on the Brazilian Legacy in Dahomey,” and Olabiyi Babalola Yai. “The Identity, Contributions, and Ideology of the Aguda (Afro-Brazilians) of the Gulf of Benin: A Reinterpretation.” Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of a Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil. Eds. Mann, Kristin, and Edna G. Bay. New York: Frank Cass, 2001.; Alberto Da Costa e Silva. Um rio chamado Atlântico: A África no Brasil e o Brasil na África. Rio de Janeiro: UFRJ, 2002.
See also the classic work by Pierre Verger, which has constituted the stepping stone for many of the above: Flux et Reflux de la traite des nègres entre le Golfe du Bénin et Bahia de Todos os Santos du XVIIè. Au XIXè. siècles. Paris/La Haye: Mouton & Co., 1968.
65The hegemonic ideology that naturalized the reigning color hierarchy paradoxically depended on the non- African Black members of Brazilian society to secure itself. Anti-Africanness was a sentiment that reigned among all Bahians, and one major instrument employed by its privileged segments to underline such social divisions was a ploy common to White elites in many parts of the Americas. It was to employ both mixed- race and Brazilian-born Blacks in the police force and in the lower ranks of the army. Through their being employed primarily towards the purpose of subduing the African population of the city, the large gap that separated Africans and Brazilians was once more and even more strongly highlighted. The 1835 rebellion, just like all the slave rebellions that had led up to it in the 1800s called for death to Whites and mulattos, and in the understanding of many, crioulos were also included in this call for death. In the eyes of Africans, their Brazilianness largely overrode the possibility of racial solidarity, which would come to exist only at a later period in Brazilian history.
The Malê Rebellion was clearly and essentially an African-led revolt, and while it also included slaves, freedmen played the most important role within it. Several of these leaders were Muslim teachers, who could read and write in Arabic. While religion played a major role in it, from another angle, this was primarily a Nagô-led rebellion, which also included several Hausas in prominent roles. In the Malê Rebellion, all the factors discussed within the context of the previous rebellions were crystallized and greatly strengthened. The uprising demonstrated the centrality of “Africanness” as a shaper for identity and the organizing elements in the call for radical social change. It made clear the cohesion that existed between different ethnic groups and among freed and enslaved Africans—in spite of the frequent efforts of the authorities to prevent them by enhancing cultural divisions—, as well as the connections that existed between the urban setting of Salvador and the rural setting of the Recôncavo, through the movement of people, especially freedmen.
Another argument in favor of studying freed Africans as a specific group is the fact that freed African men and women in nineteenth-century Salvador had a significant knowledge of the legal systems of the land, and of the ways in which they needed to negotiate it. While they shared these properties with other Brazilian-born Blacks, they were stigmatized and discriminated against to a much greater extent when their “foreignness” within Brazilian society was added to the stigmas of race and enslavement. Freed Africans were aware of their rights, and of how much they would need to fight for their interests within a legal framework that was inherently against them. They knew how fragile their existence, their freedom, and their possessions all were. They did their best to protect themselves and the members of their communities in every instance. It is also in this context that they made significant use of their testaments.
40 VI.I. Reconstruction of Kinship and Personal Networks Joseph Miller argues convincingly that “all slaves, everywhere, built lives of their own under slavery, if they were allowed to remain long enough in one place to consolidate the social connections that validate anyone’s being—with family, shipmates, master’s household, and many others that the people enslaved in Brazil created for themselves.66
Numerous other scholars, among whom James Sweet, Walter Hawthorne and Vincent
Brown come to the forefront, have made similar arguments.67 The approaches of these historians have differed to a certain extent from one another with regards to where they have stood in the historiographical continuum with creolization dynamics on one end, and African retentions on the other. However, they have all insisted on the continuities that linked Africa to the Americas in terms of social structures, religious practices, kinship networks, and culture in the broader sense. Like Joseph Miller, they have agreed that the need of belonging, of creating new communities and personal networks after their initial “social death” constituted the primary marker of the trajectories of Africans in the
Americas. This constant search for belonging, for self-identification, for the creation of a new world, new kinship networks, ties, meanings, worldviews, and identities comes out most clearly from the testaments under study in this dissertation. The attempts at creating new lives for themselves in the Americas was clearly more of a necessity than a choice in
66 Joseph C. Miller. “Retention, Reinvention, and Remembering: Restoring Identities through Enslavement in Africa and under Slavery in Brazil.” Enslaving Connections: Changing Cultures of Africa and Brazil during the Era of Slavery. Eds. Curto, José C., and Paul E. Lovejoy. New York: Humanity Books, 2004: 83.
67 Vincent Brown. The Reaper’s Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008.; Walter Hawthorne. From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1830. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.; James H. Sweet. Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441-1770. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
41 the first place. In the context of Atlantic slave societies, where people arrived after having been torn from their families, traditions, culture, and belief systems, enslaved and freed
Africans had to replace these in the new worlds that they created for themselves. To these were added additional obstacles in their place of arrival. For instance, in Brazil, as elsewhere in the Americas, the slave population was incapable of natural increase and had to be constantly replenished by new Africans being brought on board the slave ships.
Moreover, since women were a minority among the male-dominated work force, the situation became even more acute. Scholars assert to this having been the case among freed Africans, as well as among those who continued to be enslaved.68 African practices of polygamy were also no longer possible in the Brazilian setting, both because of the fact that they were not accepted by the larger society and because the comparatively low numbers of women within the slave and liberto populations were not conducive to the continuation of such practices. The economic independence gained by women, who hired out their labor or worked as peddlers, in the urban setting of Salvador might also have added to the low degree of childbirths among them.69 No matter what the reasons may have been, the fact remained that not only were there fewer African women than men in
Salvador—slave or free—, but also that freed African women often had few children.
68 Scholars such as Kátia Mattoso, Maria Côrtes de Oliveira, and João Reis, among others, argue that this may have been due to a relatively late age of manumission on the part of freed women, or perhaps to their having a certain understanding of birth control. Kátia Mattoso especially makes the point that this could have been a conscious choice on the part of African or Brazilian-born enslaved women to facilitate the acquisition of their alforria and their survival in its aftermath, since both would have been much more difficult with the existence of children for whom they would be responsible.
69 However, while this set them apart from White Brazilian women, African women had often been economically active back in Africa, even if “economic independence” was not always an applicable concept in those settings.
42 African families, therefore, were not only divided upon arrival in the Americas, but also received several additional blows to their formative capacities.
However, in the midst of the necessity of widening the doors of family, kinship and identity, Africans and their descendants in Brazil were extremely active and resourceful agents in their recreation. The slaves that came from neighboring regions of West Africa, who spoke similar languages and shared cultural affinities, first came together in the holds of slave ships during the Middle Passage. As in most other parts of the African
Diaspora, having been through the Middle Passage together was an essential basis for new group identities and kinship networks. Shipmates, or malungos as they were called in Brazil, came to see each other as members of the same family, and often as siblings, through having been through this extremely harsh and life-shaping experience together.
The tragic crossing of the Atlantic imposed upon them a redefinition of identity, within which they also recreated families. João Reis refers to cases where malungos who saw each other as siblings were also perceived as such by members of their own families, sometimes even by their spouses.70
70 João José Reis, Slave Rebellion…:184.
There is nothing surprising about people who were part of the close personal networks of these malungos not questioning their self-definition as siblings. As Elisabeth McMahon asserts: “In the scholarship, the term “fictive kin” is often used, but that betrays a Western fixation with “blood” and marriage as the only means of kinship—if there were not blood or marital ties, then the relationships were defined as “fictive.” For ex-slaves, there was nothing fictive about these relationships that bound people together (194).” Elisabeth McMahon. Slavery and Emancipation in Islamic East Africa: From Honor to Respectability. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Brazilian society manifested dynamics that were of African, European, and Indigenous origins. The extended biological family and marital ties were important in Salvador, but not more or less so than the other ties of kinship people forged for themselves as direct consequences of their enslavement in the Americas.
43 For the first time on board the slave ships, rather than insisting on their differences as they had done previously, Africans discovered their commonalities. Later, the urban setting of Salvador made possible a much greater degree of encounters and interactions with one’s “countrymen” than what would have been possible in scattered rural plantations where the workers had much more limited mobility.71 In the context of the survival and resistance that marked the lives of enslaved Africans in the slave societies of the Atlantic World, they found themselves obliged to shape a broader and more inclusive social and cultural identity, within which they created extended kinship networks and found new allies. They could no longer interact and form alliances with only those within their ethnic group, nor only with those with whom they had previously had good relationships back in Africa. Thus, “countrymen” became a much wider and more inclusive concept than what it had been back home. Africans expanded their understandings of family and kinship for reasons of survival and resistance in the African
Diaspora. Ethnic factors were most significant as shapers of identity, but their scope was widened in the setting of American slave societies: “The [Portuguese] word parente
Unfortunately, not even a single testament that is part of my sample refers directly to close ties with someone emanating from the experience of having been shipmates, although it is of course possible that this could have been the unstated case with several friends and acquaintances. One possible case—though it is open to numerous interpretations—is that of the joint testament of the liberto Viana couple who gave the same year for their arrival in Bahia.
Similar new definitions of kinship, emanating from the experience of enslavement—i.e. having belonged to the same master, having been sold together, or having arrived from the same broad cultural areas in Africa—also appear in libertos’ wills.
The documentation at hand does not lend itself to many such conclusions, since there are no cases where such links are openly stated. Therefore, we are often left with educated guesses. But in the instances where there are different freed Africans (as well as some cases where the free live together with the still enslaved) who lived together, it is a definite possibility for this to be a continuation of their previous patterns of coexistence.
71 Additionally, in Bahia, slaves were sometimes able to move from the city to the plantations, and vice versa, due to the high levels of interconnectedness that existed between the two settings.
44 (“relative”) was the one Africans took from their masters’ language to mean
“countryman” (patrício). The members of a specific ethnic group considered themselves each others’ “relatives.”72 Of course, there were many other possibilities for identification and solidarity. Reis also asserts, for example, that “[m]any freed Africans who had been slaves together shared houses after getting their freedom.”73 This was because having been companions in slavery also constituted an experience similar to that offered by having gone together through the Middle Passage. These freed Africans had been close companions in the hardships of enslavement, lived within the same households, shared the difficulties of daily life, probably helped and protected one another when necessary.
What is most important here is that while Africans were forced to engage in such arrangements and re-adaptations as a direct consequence of their enslavement, they were themselves active, highly resourceful, and selective within these processes. Beginning with the construction in Chapter I of a more general framework for the understanding of
African liberto lives in nineteenth-century Bahia, all chapters of this dissertation elaborate on these efforts at creating new personal networks, and a new identity as
Africans in Brazil, within the Salvadorean setting.
VI.II. Ethnicity Attention should also be paid to the dynamics that are more directly linked to the African pasts of libertos, such as ethnicity—a theme that has dominated much of the historical scholarship on slavery in Bahia. When studying the life stories of freed people born on the African continent, for whom Africanness constituted the main referent around which
72 João José Reis. Slave Rebellion…: 185.
73 Ibid:180.
45 their identities were construed in their Brazilian lives, it would be impossible to not read ethnicity as a main subtext of their existence. It is a complicated feat to make arguments around ethnicity as it was experienced in the African Diaspora. As convincingly argued by Gwendolyn Midlo Hall,74 ethnic identities as defined by Africans themselves were quiet different from those designated by the slave traders or slave owners both in Europe or the Americas. Over time, African slave traders also began to see their captive cargos primarily in the ways that their buyers would understand them. The ways in which slave traders defined “African coasts” were as much a manifestation of the trade links they pursued as the ways in which they stereotyped the slaves that came from those areas in terms of physical characteristics, character traits, religious attitudes, and perhaps most importantly the kind of labor they had previously engaged in, the skills they would bring with them, and how willing and fit they were to work. These last characteristics were a major part of the “personality profiles” attributed to different African “nações” or
“nations” in Brazil. The firm boundaries between the “African coasts” as designated by
European traders did not actually exist, and slaves were brought to these areas from many different parts of the hinterlands. Such appellations did not correspond properly to any indigenous understandings, and these constructs only became reality when people were identified, separated, and stereotyped as such upon their arrival in the Americas. It did not exactly matter in Brazil that members of the same ethnic group could in fact be exported from different coasts, or that people from different ethnicities were shipped from the same port. As stereotypes linked to different groups of people who shared certain characteristics came to take shape, even invented names accompanied their
74 Gwendolyn Midlo Hall. Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Passim.
46 recently acquired New World identities: While being a Nagô or a Tapa would have meant little in West Africa, it meant a lot to people from all walks of society in Brazil. Just like people who would have never identified themselves with a whole continent came to be grouped together as Africans upon their arrival in their places of enslavement, ethnic identities were also shaped in different ways.75 In Brazil, where enslaved people and their descendants often had little control on their self-definitions within the larger society, in order to exist and resist, they ceded to the dynamics of “ethnic clustering.” This meant that against those who were radically different from them, they held on to those who were closest to them in terms of geographic and cultural proximity, similarities in language or religiosity, affinities in cosmologies and societal structure, etc. Once again, therefore, while people were “clustered” together by the slave trade and enslavement, they also chose to “cluster” for survival and resistance. In the process, as with all social constructs, the labels and definitions that were inventions in the first place became reality; they directly affected people’s lives and understandings. Africans made sure to take advantage of all the limited spaces that slave society offered them and constantly widened their borders. They also endorsed its hegemonic understandings, and redefined them from their own perspectives.
This did not mean that Africans lost their ethnic, or even their other identities such as those that were village-based or lineage based for instance. “Ethnic clustering” was
75 Many different forms of self-identification were available in Africa: While certain people did in fact define themselves through allegiance to a main hierarchical state as was the case with the Kongo Kingdom for example, the Yoruba people who started being called Nagô in Brazil often saw themselves as different from their neighbors with whom they had actually engaged in series of wars. Many other people identified themselves based on their village, local leader, religious community, language etc.
47 successful only to a certain extent, and the intra-ethnic divisions must also have hindered the cohesion of action during the Muslim uprising, In the interrogations following the
Malê Rebellion, ““[e]ven though they are all Nagôs,” the slave Antonio told the judge,
“each one has his own homeland.””76 In addition, certain enmities between different groups continued to exist in Brazil as well, as was evident in the distance and sometimes even hostility, which existed between the Nagôs and the Gegês, who had been enemies, and often in war with one another, back in Africa within the time frame in which they were brought to Brazil as slaves. In fact, I argue in this dissertation that the minority status of the Gegê ethnic group led to a need on their part to more strongly assert their ethnic identity. I believe that it is for this reason that they formed the most-widely mentioned ethnic group in the nineteenth-century testaments. It was not because they were simply listed as such. Rather, that is how they actively chose to define themselves.77
76 Quoted in João José Reis. Slave Rebellion…: 154.
77 The proud Nagôs who had led the Malê rebellion were highly criticized and marked as scapegoats in order to divert attention and to impede the persecution of Africans from different groups. Prominent among these were the Gegês, whose participation in the rebellion had indeed been negligible (while West-Central Africans had been completely absent). Naturally, such enmities were strategically exaggerated in the context of the rebellion, in order to prove the “innocence” of certain people in contradistinction to the “guilt” and at the expense of the persecution of others. Such strategies were largely in vain, however, as the authorities persecuted all Africans as one large group, regardless of the differences and enmities that might have existed among them.
My primary documentation makes a plausible case for the significance of ethnic identity for the Gegê in nineteenth-century Bahia. On the other hand, the significant case of one Hausa man points to the complex and dangerous interactions between religion and ethnicity in the time period in question.
According to Reis, a Gegê freedman, named João Duarte da Silva, claimed to have nothing to do with The Nagôs and to not speak their language. In fact, “because they are enemies of Jejes, if he were to have been outside on [the] occasion [of the uprising], he would certainly have been killed (158).” Another case was that of José da Costa, who in addition to his claim to being an honest and responsible individual (read in line with the demands and inherent understandings of White society), underlined the rivalry and enmity that existed between the Gegês and the Nagôs—“the blacks who upset the city’’—even more strongly, in order to defend his innocence within the context of the rebellion. He stated not having any friends among the latter, and went so far as to assert that “not even out of human frailty [sexual desire] would he have relations with black women of that nation.””(João José Reis. Slave Rebellion…: 202-3.)
48 In addition to the minority status of the Gegê, ethnicity makes itself apparent in my documentation in certain other ways as well. First and foremost among these is the general absence of African “nations” from the self-definitions of the libertos, in contradistinction to its overwhelming presence in their definitions of their slaves. I argue that this was a direct consequence of the hegemonic nature of Brazilian understandings regarding slave ownership. The liberto testators seeking to construct for themselves new identities as honorable and dignified members of Brazilian society of African origin did not see any reason to define themselves in ethnic terms in their wills. They only did so in the cases where, like the Gegê, their ethnicities positioned them somewhat differently in society. However, when it came to slave ownership, they also defined their property through the vocabulary of “ethnic clustering” in the Americas, whose most important implications concerned labor capacities and productivity. Even so, they provided ethnic details on their slaves only in the cases where they had been close to these people in their daily lives. In a complex way, this meant that even when defined specifically as property through their African “nations,” these enslaved Africans were also defined as such exactly because of their humanity. As will be seen in Chapter III for example, when a major slave owner like Joaquim de Almeida78 referred to his plantation slaves whom he probably did not even know in person, he only referred to their “produce.” On the other hand, the nine slaves who lived in his household were offered their names, genders, and ethnic identities in the testament that he recorded in 1857.
78 03/1228/1697/13
49 The next major setting where ethnicity becomes central is that of religiosity and faith- based communities discussed in Chapter IV. It is impossible not to take ethnicity into account when discussing African-derived religions in Bahia, or “bi-religious” beliefs and practices on the part of freed Africans. In my analysis, I follow James Sweet’s understanding that once again insists on a certain process of “clustering” through the commonalities that existed between West-Central and West African cosmologies.
Although a more profound discussion of the complex interactions between ethnicity and religiosity is beyond the scope of this dissertation, it is impossible to ignore the direct connections between African “nations” and the formation of the Bahian irmandades
(Catholic lay brotherhoods and sisterhoods), the irmandades and the Candomblé terreiros, and the constant sustenance of those centers of worship through transatlantic voyages.79
VII. Beyond Ethnicity: In Defense of Africanness While the schism between the native and African-born constituted an important shaping factor in many African Diaspora settings, in Salvador Africanness did not only define itself in terms of opposition to Brazilianness, but also as a primary source of identity.
Africanness did not override ethnicity; rather it was the overarching category within which ethnic identities existed, and it drew strength from its juxtaposition to them. I assert that, in spite of all the numerous differences that may have existed among Africans, as well as the strength of the forces of creolization obviously at work in Brazil, the obstacles, limitations, impositions, and discriminatory dynamics of Brazilian slave
79 For a more extended discussion of the ethnic make-up of Salvador in the nineteenth century, especially from the perspective of a “Slave Coast century,” please see Appendix D.
50 society caused Africans to come together in ways that they had never experienced back on the continent. As they were perceived as one major group of “foreigners” within
Brazilian society with their capacity of belonging always open to question, they also came to consider and perceive themselves as such, in spite of their many differences.
Being lumped together as Africans versus Brazilian-born, enslaved and freed individuals of African origin started to concentrate more on their commonalities than on the differences that had formerly separated them in Africa. While they were perceived by others as Africans, they also perceived themselves as such. But they were Africans in
Brazil, as different from their peers that still remained on the continent, and different from Brazilian-born Blacks. They merged their Brazilian realities and experiences with those they had brought from Africa, as well as with those that they learned from other
Africans in Salvador. They created for themselves a world made out of African personal networks and worldviews within the nineteenth-century Bahian setting. It is this world that this dissertation proposes to explore.80 I realize that as with all approaches, the one provided by taking Africanness also has serious limitations. But when I let my documents speak for themselves, it is the perspective that comes out as the most central and valid reference point from the testaments left behind by Salvadorean libertos in the nineteenth century. All complex questions require the conversation of different perspectives. By
80 This argument is enhanced through the existence of sets of documents that groups them in this specific manner. The testaments and inventories at the Arquivo Público de Estado da Bahia are divided into “africanos,” “escravos,” and “De Tal.” While this is an interesting classification that cluster together different perspectives on identity (origin, free or unfree status, and discrimination respectively), just the simple fact that they are archived in a separate group as “africanos” is meaningful in itself, and reflects both the current perceptions of the time and the understandings of archivists. It is true that many other classifications could have been made—according to time, neighborhood, occupation, ethnicity, gender, life trajectory, among many others—, both in the archive and in this dissertation, and distinct choices would have lead to different analyses and conclusions.
51 taking Africanness as my point of departure, I hope to add one more layer to the many conversations that already exist on this subject, and hope to pave the way for more.
52
CHAPTER I
AFRICANNESS, AGENCY, AND DELIBERATION
Libertos and the Building of Personal/Kinship Networks and Communities in Bahia
I. Introduction When we use the testaments left behind by freed Africans as windows to the lives they led in nineteenth-century Salvador, we are able to reach certain conclusions as to the people whom they associated themselves with, whom they referred to as protectors, the kinship networks and other Brazilian-based identifications they constructed for themselves, as well as how they fit within Bahian society at large. The ways in which the continuation and recreation of African families were thwarted and their freedoms and rights were limited have been referred to in the Introduction to this dissertation. Never fully accepted by Brazilian society, lumped together as one major group of foreigners born in Africa without regards to their differences, Africans were in many ways forced to accept Africanness as the main reference point for their identities. Simultaneously however, Africans exercised significant levels of agency in the building of their personal networks, which they deliberately constructed around the most important turning points and events within their Bahian lives, and the people who had mattered to them within these. Within the confines of the spaces allotted to them by Brazilian slave society, they were creative, innovative, as well as highly selective. They chose their own ways of association and belonging. They decided on what to keep from their African pasts, and
53 what to adopt from the Brazilian context. They adapted and modified these, and enriched them by what they learned from other Africans in Bahia. In their day-to-day lives and decisions, freed Africans consciously and successfully navigated among the different parallel repertoires, vocabularies, and allegiances that were open to them. While they thus guaranteed their survival, they also empowered themselves by the agency they exercised on how they would live and who they would include in their Brazilian lives. While they constantly tested the boundaries of the confined spaces slave society left them with, they also recreated their identities. The individuals studied in this dissertation are not solely
Africans who fight to continue some of the ways of the continent they left as slaves. Nor are they simply Afro-Brazilians who let themselves be acculturated and creolized. They are Africans in Brazil, merging aspects from both settings in recreating themselves. They are individuals who chose to live in the nineteenth century as honorable and dignified members of Brazilian society, while they insisted and gave importance to their African pasts and identities. Their personal networks were formed primarily by Africans like themselves—both enslaved and free—, and they made sure to extend both the Brazilian and African concepts of honor and dignity to these people who became part of the new personal networks and communities that they constructed in Salvador. This chapter seeks to elaborate on these, and to provide the general framework necessary for understanding the elements of African liberto identities and allegiances.
This chapter was, without a doubt, the hardest to write within this dissertation. This is because while personal information on the testators themselves is in itself limited, it becomes especially scanty when it comes to the other individuals who were part of their
54 personal networks, the people with whom they had constructed close links and associations. The exercise of reading between the lines becomes more necessary than ever, in the general absence of actual descriptions as to what certain people meant to the testators, or how they understood their connections. But it can still yield significant insights into how much agency libertos were actually able to exert in shaping their worlds, while it can also provide us with limited windows as to the concerns that guided them in this process. The kinds of associations they engaged in show a complex interplay between Africanness and Brazilianness present in every aspect of liberto life in the nineteenth century. The complexities of liberto identity, on the other hand, point directly to the limitations imposed by both the Brazilian state and the intrinsic dynamics of slave societies in the Americas on the one hand, and to the extreme capacities of Africans and their descendants to take control over their own lives, to redefine and to resist.
Such a reading pursues certain strategies for analysis. As always, in the majority of the cases, I let my documents speak for themselves. At times, when referring to the people who were to receive part of their legacies, to those to whom they were indebted or were creditors, or to those whom they chose as their executors, libertos themselves offered limited amounts of information on the people to whom they were connected in their
Bahian lives. At other times, when the testaments were followed by other attached documents—inventories, certifications, etc—, it was the Brazilian authorities of the state- ecclesiastical apparatus who occasionally added information on executors or heirs.
Finally, there are also some rare occasions where executors and other people mentioned in the body of libertos’ wills were identified by their professions or other specific
55 (sometimes honorific) titles. In such cases, it is sometimes possible to find other data on these people through cross-references from other sources of documentation. I have sought such additional sources in these cases, but they have yielded only limited results and I have been able to successfully include only one of these in the section V.III. of this chapter. As is the case throughout this dissertation, my main strategy has remained to engage in close readings of the testaments, and a few inventories, that constitute my primary documentary sources. Understanding these as actual texts and narratives that can open significant doors into the mentalités of freed Africans in the nineteenth century can be highly rewarding, in spite of falling victim to the entrapments that result from every study that remains primarily limited to only one kind of documentary source.1 I have sought to group the most salient patterns that come across from the documents in order to give a better idea of the most common and significant ways in which libertos constructed their personal networks and communities. In the last section, I have chosen to study a group of testaments that pointed to relationships that were uncommon within the documentation at hand, and to analyze them from a perspective of exceptionalism.
From the information available, the main conclusion that can be reached is that the worlds of freed Africans were primarily composed of other Africans. It is important to underline that within this primarily African community, the freed and still enslaved conserved close links to one another. While some of these involved the dynamics of patronage and protection that were among the most defining characteristics of Brazilian
1 Maria Inês Côrtes de Oliveira also depends primarily on testaments for understanding the lives of freed Africans in her book O liberto: o seu mundo e os outros, Salvador 1790-1890. São Paulo: Corrupio, 1988. In her Introduction, she also elaborates on the dangers on depending on one main source of documentation, while she also underlines the many insights that can be gained from studying libertos’ wills: 5-10.
56 society, they also extended themselves to friendship, sexual/love relationships, and kinship networks of all kinds. From this perspective, Africanness once again proves to be an important and valid category in itself for understanding the lives of both slaves and freed slaves in nineteenth-century Salvador, as well as in other parts of the Diaspora. Yet, as also asserted above, the actual level of personal choice and preference exercised by freed Africans in surrounding themselves by freed Africans lends itself to a lot of questions. Still, I posit that even though the impositions of the Brazilian state and the hegemonic precepts of slave societies played an important role in shaping and limiting the worlds of freed Africans, libertos were far from being passive in the configuration of their Brazilian lives. Through underlining the existence of agency and deliberation through the close reading of a number of documents, the chapter’s main purpose, is to provide a better understanding of the complexity of lives under slavery, and specifically those led by freed Africans. The exceptions studied are also reflective of this overarching reality.
Of course, in the highly mixed society of Salvador, freed Africans constantly rubbed shoulders with Brazilian-born and African slaves, crioulo free Blacks, people of mixed race, and poor Whites, as well as other freed Africans. They also interacted with wealthier Whites in positions of state, legal, and religious authority when they had to resort to these, as well as when the latter used their services or bought goods from them.
Among many other scholars of Bahian slavery, Richard Graham, in his study of the food trade in Salvador, has demonstrated that this was especially the case in the context of the kinds of jobs held both by slaves and freedmen—African and Brazilian-born—during the
57 nineteenth century. Taking into account that class and race often coincided in the colonial
Brazilian setting, and that interaction was always more evident in the lower levels of society and diminished in proportion to wealth and rank, labor relations greatly enhanced connections between distinct social groups. People of different races but similar social standings often worked and lived together in Salvador. While acknowledging the importance of the divisions and stratifications that existed within Salvadorean society,
Richard Graham asserts:
Wealth and inherited status certainly played a large role in building an invisible tracery to keep people in place. Yet the vertical ordering of society was confounded by interpersonal contacts, status reversals, physical movement, and individual social mobility.2
This emphasis on constant interaction in Salvadorean daily life has been the general understanding of the great majority of historians who have worked on slave life in Bahia.
Even João José Reis, in spite of his emphasis on African identity while looking at the living arrangements of the Africans who participated in the Malê Rebellion, has shown that Salvador’s was a relatively unsegregated society. Brazilian neighbors often knew a lot about the Africans who lived close to them, which also meant that they were often aware of the plans of revolt as well.3 As will also be seen in Chapter II, population breakdowns of Salvador’s urban parishes also make it clear that even if a certain social stratum might be more dominant in a certain part of a parish, all Salvadorean freguesias home to people from all segments of society. Also, while ethnically and also socially
2 Richard Graham. Feeding the City: From Street Market to Liberal Reform in Salvador, Brazil, 1780- 1860. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010: 209.
3 João José Reis. Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1993: 177.
58 exclusive to a certain extent as will be discussed in Chapter IV, many Bahian irmandades
(lay brotherhoods or sisterhoods) were home to worshippers from different societal segments, and the igreja matriz or “mother church” of each parish was the religious center for all of its inhabitants. Therefore, to larger or lesser degrees, Africans were present in all parts of the city, and inter-origin, inter-racial, and inter-class interactions
(which also overlapped in many instances) were a daily occurrence. So was the blurring of the lines between the free and enslaved through living, working, and worshipping together.
But these daily interactions were not sufficient to change the fact that Salvador’s was a highly ordered and hierarchical slave society. As Graham asserts, whenever the order was broken or deconstructed, it would quickly be reaffirmed and strengthened: “A ranked order was daily being undone and then recalled and reinstituted.”4 Exceptions only served to reassert the norm, and the social bifurcations reinforced the social structure. In spite of their close links to the enslaved members of their community, the assertion of free status became a major differentiating factor, and shed light to the particular identity of libertos in nineteenth-century Salvador. Being in possession of their freedom constituted a major component of fitting within Brazilian society for Africans and their descendants in Brazil.
They were thus endowed with a greater sense of power and rank, and a relatively greater ability to exercise agency in shaping their own networks and lives:
Throughout the cattle and meat trade, racial markers intertwined with social distinctions in the complex and amorphous way they still do in Brazil. Although the black and mostly African slaughtermen were close to the bottom of the social
4 Richard Graham, Feeding The City…: 63.
59 scale, they were freedmen or freeborn. They were proud of that, and not about to ignore the distinction between themselves and slaves […].5
While Africanness constitutes a valid and meaningful category for analysis, it is complicated by other factors in an urban slave society as complex as that of Salvador.
The categories of “freedom” and “enslavement” particularly complicate the meaning of shared Africanness among the libertos who had being born on the African continent as their principal point in common. It is difficult, however, to find proof for the ways in which freedom played an important role within the workplaces or labor arrangements in the testaments of libertos. Except for in a few exceptional cases, freed Africans make no references to professions or livelihoods. Therefore, most of the sources in favor of daily contact among different groups in Salvador that I have to depend on when expanding on the question of labor in Chapter II are secondary in nature, rather than emanating directly from libertos’ wills. I do, however, analyze the primary sources available at hand, in providing a listing of the references to different professions in libertos’ wills. I also look at semi-rural patterns of life and settlement from an occupational perspective, once again in Chapter II. Another source for this argument is the analysis of the racial and class compositions of the different freguesias in which freed Africans lived. Since an important percentage of testaments provide locations—sometimes with specific references to addresses, but usually at least offering the name of a parish—, it is possible to gain some insight into liberto occupations in this way. This angle is also broached in Chapter II.
5 Ibid: 133.
João Reis also elaborates in Slave Rebellion… on African agency within their work arrangements, when he writes about their “cantos” or meeting points, located on street corners where they waited for customers to whom they offered their services. They also chose their own “capitões do canto” (canto captains) as their leaders—arrangements that probably originated in African practices: 104, 164-65.
60
Dealing with people in positions of authority, freed Africans also encountered Whites or near-Whites of a higher social standing. Dictating and registering their testaments were one of these occasions, as were the opening and certification of these, the payment of fees etc, where their executors and heirs—who were also freed Africans for the most part— interacted with state and/or religious authorities. Religious last rites also brought libertos in contact with people of higher rank, who were also part of the Church hierarchy. At times, they also chose such people as powerful executors whom they believed would be best capable of carrying out the conditions of their wills. Finally, in the few exceptional cases where they opened court cases—for divorce, property and inheritance rights, or against certain other injustices—, they interacted with members of the ecclesiastical-state apparatus in a more direct and intensive manner. A few such cases are discussed in all chapters of this dissertation. In these cases, the societal inequalities of nineteenth-century
Salvador become all the more apparent. However, we also see cases of protection and patronage vis-à-vis African libertos by these privileged members of society from whom this would not normally have been expected. Business networks are also encountered, as well as independent bonds of friendship in rare instances.
In any case, while contact with the different elements of the wider Salvadorean society remained an important part of life for many freed Africans, their testaments—as windows to their personal networks—clearly demonstrate that their primary connections were to other people who were similar to themselves. As argued in the Introduction to this dissertation, Africanness as a category constituted an essential referent in Bahia in the
61 nineteenth century. Although many other categories existed and were important in and of themselves, Africans often identified with having arrived in Brazil from the African
Coast, and placed this legacy and difference in the center of their connections and community formations. Within this basic commonality, however, there were many complexities. Unfortunately, the testaments say nothing about the social ranking of people in Africa, or about their enslaved or free status back on the continent. While we know that Africans almost always had their own understandings of social hierarchy within their own groupings in the Diaspora, it is impossible to get a sense of these from the primary sources at hand. In any case, no matter what their past status has been, a framework of a triple cycle of life which consists of (relative) freedom-enslavement- freedom still holds, for people who were African, were forced to become Brazilian, but redefined themselves as Africans in Brazil, or Brazilians of African origin.6 Additionally, for the majority of these individuals, the freedom they acquired in Brazil was also relative, since it was curtailed by law, societal limitations, and economic difficulties.
In the case of freed Africans who had been free in Africa, the fact of having first been free on the continent, followed with being enslaved and then free again in Brazil throughout their life span also formed an important part of their sense of self. Even in the case of those Africans who had been enslaved on the continent, that experience was much different from plantation slavery in Bahia, as well as from its urban extension in
6 For the Agudás, or Africans who later built trade networks to Africa, the triple cycle was also geographical. But even in these cases, the Africans who resettled on the African coast or who kept going back and forth, conserved an identity that was as Brazilian as it was African. For the less privileged Africa primarily became a memory, but the majority were able to keep it alive through transatlantic communication networks, their more privileged acquaintances who were able to travel, and most commonly through African-derived religions and their associated cultural repertoires, which will be discussed in detail in Chapter IV.
62 Salvador. In this sense, having being placed along the continuum of different levels of dependency or unfree status in Africa could in fact be seen as a relative freedom when compared to the experience of enslavement in the Americas. This is why the framework of the triple cycle of life posited in this dissertation remains a valid one. All the above- mentioned factors made it so that the personal networks of freed Africans were primarily composed of other people like themselves. This is the main understanding that comes across in their testaments, as will also be confirmed in the examples that will be presented below.
While ethnic differences, solidarities and enmities, as well as the major distinction between the enslaved and free in a complex,7 but clearly stratified, slave society sometimes overrode Africanness, a significant sense of it generally remained. Yet, this was not a clannish or endogamous category as has sometimes been argued. Nor was it a question of simple or hegemonic group solidarity. Life in Salvador did not permit such endogamy, nor would even simple survival have been possible for Africans in such a setting, in the absence of their constant interaction with, as well as the patronage and protection that they received from, people from differing ranks within Bahian society.
But in the midst of it all, Africans conserved a sense of self that was centered around the experience of having come from Africa to Brazil, and of having freed themselves from slavery in Bahia.
7 It is clearly impossible for this difference to not have factored into intra-African relationships, when freedom remained one of the major life goals for many, and people went through significant hardships in order to gain their freedom. The fact that freedom was among their most important life goals for many individuals is the reason why my documents, and the people who composed them, existed in the first place.
63 II. A World that Primarily Revolved Around Other Africans Virtually every testament that is part of my sample of primary sources proves the existence of a network of close relationships between African-born libertos and other
Africans, the majority of whom were also libertos but also including individuals who still remained enslaved. The section below will thus focus on analyzing a selection of testaments that readily illustrates this fact. This sampling of documents demonstrates that freed Africans married in their great majority or entered into non-Church sanctified unions with other freed Africans.8 The libertos’ wills studied below also point to the probable significance of ethnicity to certain intra-African relationships, while they are also indicative of the ways in which Africanness could factor into master-slave relationships. In referring to other Africans who were neither partners, former masters, nor current or ex-slaves, the testaments also underline the centrality of Africanness to liberto personal networks and community formations.
On 18 March 1875, Maria Joaquina Victoria da Conceição,9 stated that she was an
African liberta “mas adepta da religião católica apostólica romana” [but a follower of the
Roman Apostolic Catholic religion], thus creating an interesting contradistinction between Catholicism and Africanness. She had been married to the freed African Victor
Teixeira Barbosa de Nazaré. She had given birth prior to their marriage to their son José
8 This finding is supported by Maria Inês C. de Oliveira’s research on marriage among libertos, the majority of whom were also endogamous within the larger community of Africans. However, as João José Reis asserts in Slave Rebellion…: “In spite of the lack of women in the African community, African men rarely took up with Brazilian women—or were refused by them (181).” The actual level of agency exercised in this context by African men and women remains open to discussion. They might as well have been rejected by potential partners from outside their community, as much as this having been a conscious choice on their part. Once again, the Africanness of liberto lives was reinforced from two directions—that of societal and state impositions on the one hand, and African understandings and preferences on the other.
9 5/2185/2654/08
64 Epiphanio Teixeira, who was now an adult and whose status as their offspring had been legitimated upon their joining together in holy matrimony. Therefore, he directly became heir to two thirds of Maria Joaquina’s assets, while the remaining third would go to Maria
Joaquina’s husband, who was also her executor. Maria Joaquina Victoria da Conceição requested that her husband’s part would also go their son upon the death of the former.
Interestingly, Maria Joaquina Victória da Conceição specified in her will that prior to his death, Victor Teixeira Barbosa de Nazaré would not be permitted to change in any way any of the assets that were included within this third. Maria Joaquina’s case presents common dynamics from the perspective of intra-African marriages. In addition, it appears clear that the couple had chosen to turn their non-Church sanctified union into holy matrimony primarily for reasons of guaranteeing the rights and privileges that emanated from living within the rules and precepts of Brazilian society. They thus made sure that the inheritance arrangements that they asked for would not be open to doubt or denial by the authorities. From this perspective, it seems that the ways in which Maria
Joaquina sought to limit the ways in which her husband would dispose of her assets constituted her main reason for putting her bequests into writing. Since she counted her wealth in slaves, Maria Joaquina was perhaps concerned with how her husband would handle their future. It is also possible that she may not have trusted him in general to be financially responsible. She did trust him in other ways however: He was to be responsible for realizing her final rites, as well as listing her assets in an inventory.10
10 While not at all uncommon, it is still important to underline Maria Joaquina Victoria da Conceição’s ownership over her own material assets as a freed African woman in nineteenth-century Bahia. The same will be evident in the testament of Ana Maria da Silva Rosa, to be discussed below.
65 Adriano José Viana and Mariana Maria do Sacramento Viana,11 who in 1893 composed one of the three joint testaments I have encountered in my sample,12 clearly conformed to the general norm of freed Africans marrying other freed Africans. The fact that they chose to dictate a joint testament was exceptional, and their will provides evidence as to this having been the result of a deep commitment rooted in long years of partnership that existed between them. Their testament indicates that they had both arrived in the Bahian capital in 1836. Although this might simply be an averaged date to say that they had arrived around the same time in Salvador, it attested to a long companionship that had continued over many years. Probably, it also meant that their partnership went further back—to the African Coast, to the Middle Passage, or simply to the city’s slave markets and warehouses. Their sharing the same last name could also indicate that they had been
“parceiros,” or slaves of the same master or mistress in Salvador.13 The deep bond that existed between them also led the Vianas to choose each other as both executors and heirs, of all the assets that they already held jointly, including those that they may receive after the passing of one of them. Since they did not refer to one of them being sick or near death, it seems that their commitment to one another was their main reason for preparing
11 02/886/1355/01
12 The other two joint testaments belong to Lino Ribeiro Sanches and Luiza de Queirós (Book: 43 – pp: 112v a 114) and to Marcos de Moura and Maria Josefa de Queirós (Book: 62 – pp: 81 a 83v).
13 The case of the Viana couple is certainly one case where the kinship networks that derived from the Brazilian context were encountered, although there exists no detailed proof as to their specific nature.
Another case of parceiros entering into relationships with one another is recounted in the will of the liberto Ernesto Meireles composed in 1876. He stated that while he had never been married, as a single man he had had four children (named Bonifácia Meireles, Edmundo Meireles, Lúcio Meireles, and Nuno Ernesto Meireles) from the African liberta Victoria, who had also been a slave of their former master. The fact that Ernesto and Victória had four children points to long years of partnership, and the fact that they were both libertos could also possibly indicate that they had assisted each other in the process of acquiring their alforria (Book: 52 – pp: 25 to 27v).
66 their will. They also did not include any other heirs in their testament. Within the exceptionality of their relationship evidenced in their joint testament, the Viana couple also conformed to the general pattern of freed Africans forming long-term partnerships with one another. Additionally, the fact that their testament had been composed in 1887, therefore in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and extremely close to emancipation, demonstrates that such patterns of intra-African network building were persistent in Bahia at least until the end of slavery, and most probably for much longer than that.
Ana Maria da Silva Rosa14 died on 17 June 1817. Her testament is among the most interesting cases encountered in the course of this study. Her executor was José Pereira da Silva, an inhabitant of the Rua da Ópera Velha, which went on to the Gravata. Ana
Maria da Silva Rosa defined herself as a “natural do Gentio de Guiné” [a native of the people of Guinea]. This term could mean the region commonly defined as the “Guinea
Coast,” which referred mostly to the region of Senegambia, from which Brazil had received significant numbers of slaves at a much later period, especially in the seventeenth century. But it might also have referred to the Mina Coast as other testaments have shown that these terms were sometimes used interchangeably. This was because the areas were close, and by this time Senegambia was mostly out of the picture.
This interpretation is also more probable since this will was dictated earlier on in the century, when Ewe-Fon identity in Bahia and its associated denominations were not as yet as well established as they would become later on. The two marriages, and especially the conditional divorce, of Ana Maria will be discussed in detail in Chapter IV, while her
14 Book: 09- pp: 59 to 62V
67 relationship to her slaves will be elaborated on in Chapter III. But it is important for the current discussion of libertos’ social networks to note that both of the men she married—
Domingos de Almeida and Mathias de Souza—had been freed Africans just like Ana
Maria herself. Moreover, it was exactly the fact that both Ana Maria and Mathias were
African libertos that shaped the decision of the ecclesiastic tribunal to grant her only a conditional divorce. The offenses committed by an African husband against his African wife were not taken seriously enough by the authorities of the Ecclesiastical Court. While adultery was a common element in the lives of many Brazilian women of different colors and classes, it held additional meanings when enslaved or free Blacks, and especially
Africans, were concerned. In these cases, the adultery in question contributed to a stereotyped understanding of what White or near White members of Bahian society already expected of these relationships. Irresponsible finances, adultery, single female-led families, and unstable marriages were common stereotypes associated with Africans.
Therefore, it was indeed her Africanness, her ex-slave status, and naturally Blackness, that caused the religious/legal authorities to not give much importance to Ana Maria’s grievances. This fact also goes on to prove that Africanness as the primary referent of a group identity was often a choice only to a limited extent on the part of the members of the community. Much more often, it was a reality and limitation imposed on those born in Africa by Brazilian slave society and its authorities.
In the pursuit of the “amicable partition” [partilha amigável] of the material legacy of
Afonso José Joaquim Machado15 at the very end of the century, in 1899, between this two
15 01/102/152/16
68 children—who naturally were Brazilian-born—, it was another African—João Bastos— who came to the office of the scribe Miguel Championi with a medical certificate from
Dr. Alfredo de Barros, stating the date, hour, and reason for Afonso’s passing away. The fact that another African came to attest to the death of the African liberto Afonso—in spite of not being a heir— points to the fact that the two men were part of one another’s personal networks. Perhaps they were neighbors or friends; perhaps they worked together. We can only make guesses at their connection, which could have been of many different kinds. However, Africans usually trusted other Africans with their legal proceedings, and libertos often took it upon themselves to make sure that the directives expressed in the testaments of other libertos were successfully realized. When the time came for them to think about their own deaths and the realization of their final wishes and rights, they would similarly trust African freed men and women to carry out these tasks in their great majority, while they would also be the ones that were primarily remembered in their bequests.
Afonso had also chosen African women as his companions in Salvador, even though he had never formalized his relationships in a sanctified church marriage. His children—the
32 year-old Honoria Machado and the 30 year-old Cláudio Machado—had both been born to African mothers. While Cláudio had been born to Ana Maria africana, Honoria’s mother was stated to have been the “africana Francisca.” By the time of Afonso’s death, both African women had already passed away—an indication of the low life expectancies for Africans and their descendants at the time. Their offspring had both been born and baptized in the Freguesia do Pilar, which meant that Afonso, his two children, and their
69 mothers had lived in close proximity to, and probably in constant contact with, one another. With this document, they were recognized, and endowed with the same rights, as children born from a legitimate marriage. Most probably, they had always been considered as legitimate by their African father, whose understandings of parenthood did not necessarily conform to those imposed by Brazilian society. Yet, when the time came for interactions with the state authorities for the preservation of legal rights and the handing down of material assets to heirs, Afonso found himself in the situation where he had to legalize his fatherhood, and consequently the status of his children as his direct heirs.
In most testaments in many different settings, people’s direct offspring are those that are seen as the natural recipients of their material resources. However, in the context of the precarious nature of life for Africans and their descendants in nineteenth-century Bahia, it was common for people to both choose not to or not be able to have children, for their children to die beforehand, or to meet other difficult fates such as being sold into slavery in different settings so as to completely lose touch with their parents. It was also common for individuals to strategically refrain from having children in order to guarantee their own survival and alforria.16 Consequently, the African libertos who dictated their testaments were often not able to directly hand their wealth to the next generation.
Brazilian law dictated that in the absence of a specific prenuptial agreement—something that very rarely existed—, all property was jointly held by both spouses, and the spouse who remained alive at the death of the other inherited half of the estate, regardless of
16 Kátia Mattoso, Testamentos de escravos…: 258.
70 gender. Then, two-thirds of what remained would be equally divided among the children of the deceased. Once again, this took place regardless of gender, with the assets being equally divided among male and female children. In the event there were no
“descendants,” property would revert to “ascendants,” as in parents or grandparents.17
Only the remaining one third could be disposed of according to the final wishes of the deceased. Since all goods were to be legally divided in this manner, even the most modest estates have made their way to the archives in the form of legal documents, and make this sample of documents into a representative one. An important number among
Salvadorean libertos were not legally married, however. While this gave them greater leeway in deciding to whom they would leave their assets upon their own death, it also made it extremely necessary to register an official testament. Libertos often prepared their wills, because they did not want their assets to go to people whom they did not accept as heirs—distant relatives for instance—, or to be confiscated by the State, when there actually existed people within their personal networks whom they would like to provide for, or institutions such as the Bahian irmandades to which they would like to leave money or assets.18 In addition, as seen above, if partnerships which took place outside of holy matrimony and parent-offspring relationships were not legalized in front of the legal authorities in post-mortem testaments, the companion and/or the children of the deceased would also not be able to qualify as direct legitimate heirs in the eyes of
Brazilian law. From this perspective, the case of Afonso and his children points to a complex interaction between African ties of affection on Afonso’s part to his daughter
17 This is why many libertos stated in their testaments that they had “neither ascendants nor descendants,” and were thus free to dispose of their assets as they pleased.
18 Ibid: 248-50.
71 and son, and the clear need to legalize these relationships in order for the children to be able to receive the material assets permitted by the Brazilian authorities solely to the children born within holy matrimony. This amicable partition of assets, therefore, is indicative of the differences between African and Brazilian understandings regarding romantic or sexual unions and family constructions, as well as of the need on the part of
African libertos to mold their understandings to the exigencies of the Brazilian authorities.
We learn from the petitions and acknowledgements attached to the testament of Ana
Maria dos Prazeres19 that the second executor to her testament, Agostinho Corrêa Vieira, had passed away on 3 May 1821, which clearly places the time frame for the testament
(itself also opened in 1826) almost within the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
Agostinho had died with all the necessary sacraments, and the reason for his death was given only as “molestia interna” [internal sickness], although even this brief description went beyond those offered by libertos on their own situations in the opening paragraphs of their wills. He was very old by the time of his death—98 years of age, which represented an especially long life in the context of the general life expectancy for slaves, ex-slaves and their descendants in nineteenth-century Salvador, and even for the city’s general population as a whole. The fact that Ana Maria dos Prazeres listed such an old person among her three possible executors might mean that she did not expect to live as long as she actually did, even though there was actually a difference of only a few years between her own life span and that of her second executor. However, it is a greater
19 Book: 19 - pp: 18 to 25./ 04/1354/1823/77
72 possibility that she did not doubt that her own daughter Benedita da Conceição, as her first executor, would accept to fulfill the dispositions of her testament. The probable reasons why Benedita did not accept the executorship will be analyzed in some detail later in this chapter. Since all testators were required by law to name at least three executors in their testaments, Ana Maria might have seen the naming of the latter two as the mere fulfillment of a formality. When thinking about Ana Maria and Agostinho within a context of African liberto networks, the will in question also offers other relevant information. The attached certidão (notarial certificate of acknowledgement) actually provides more detailed information on Agostinho Corrêa Vieira, and refers to him as a “preto forro” [free Black] married to Ana Maria das Neves. While he was not specified to be African, the fact that he was listed as “preto,” and not stated to be
“crioulo,” most probably means that he in fact was a native of the African Coast just like
Ana Maria herself. In Bahia in the nineteenth century, as well as in Brazil in general,
“preto” was often a synonym for “africano.” This represents an interesting choice of terminology even if we take the relatively early period to which this testament belongs: In the nineteenth century, liberto had almost fully substituted the earlier usage of the term forro to indicate an ex-slave who had purchased his own freedom, or in very rare cased been granted his freedom without having to compensate for it materially. It is still possible that this transition in terminology was just gradually taking place in 1826 when this information was provided on Agostinho. In addition, Brazilian legal authorities could always exercise their own preferences as to how they would refer to Africans, and to
Blacks in general. Relations of power were always evident in these dynamics.
73 As has been referred to in the Introduction and will be evidenced in subsequent chapters, the inclusion of the names of African “nations” in post-mortem testaments represents a complex question. Against the possibility of this being an indication of a personal choice on the part of the scribe, I contend that it was much more probable for the inclusion of their African “nations” to be a reflection of the importance given to these by the testators themselves. Since I see ethnicity as an essential component of Africanness, I also argue that by extension, this also constituted a personal emphasis on their African identities.
Even when we take into account that such broad ethnic labels themselves directly emanated from the Brazilian context and especially from the realities of the Atlantic slave trade, it still seems clear that having been born on the African continent was more important to some African libertos than to others. The broad cultural areas that they came from, and the ethnic identities which they acquired as Africans in Brazil, constituted important aspects of their Africanness. Within this framework, the peculiar status of the
Gegê/Mina in nineteenth-century Bahia constituted a specific case with many intricacies.
These peculiarities proper to the people clustered under the label of Gegê in Bahia are also present in the will of Ana Josefa do Rego,20 who added being “Gegê” to her statement of having arrived in Bahia from the African Coast. While she was obligated to identify herself as an African by the Brazilian authorities who first identified testators by place of origin prior to race, the assertion of her Bahian ethnic identity represented more of a personal choice and a reflection of what was important to Ana Josefa within her own perception of self. It is exactly in the context of the Gegê ethnic cluster in Bahia that the
20 Book: 23 – pp: 7v to 10v and 20v to 30
74 argument in favor of the statement of African “nations” as an indication of the actual importance Africans themselves gave to their ethnic identities gains more credibility. The majority of such assertions are made by Gegês in the documents under study. In the
Yoruba-dominated nineteenth-century Bahia, the Gegê/Mina constituted a minority ethnic group of people who had often been oppressed by the Nagôs in West Africa. The two factors came together in the Bahian setting for the Gegê to often place themselves in contradistinction with, and adverse, to the Yoruba. They often continued to assert themselves as enemies of the Nagôs in Bahia as well, as evidenced by their testimonies in the aftermath of the Malê Rebellion. Historically, minorities have often been seen to cling to their particular identities with greater strength. The presence of a significant amount of
Gegê self-identification in this collection of wills strongly suggests that this was the case in Salvador at this specific period in time. The above argument gains even greater strength in consideration of the fact that Ana Josefa had been legally married to Rafael
Cordeiro—another freed African as would be expected, but also someone whom she stated to be a native of the Mina Coast. In Bahia, the term “Mina” represented a complex ethnic reference, as was also the case in most other slave societies of the Americas. In
Brazil, both “Gegê” and “Mina” referred to Ewe-Fon speakers from roughly the same areas of the African Coast (the Bight of Benin), and the differences between the designations could become highly confounded. This meant that Ana Josefa had married someone who was quiet similar to her in terms of his ethnic identity, or someone who would at least have been perceived as such in the Bahian setting. Rafael Cordeiro certainly belonged to the same broad cultural area in Africa as his wife, and the commonalities that ensued from this could have factored importantly into their
75 relationship. We learn from Ana Josefa do Rego’s testament that Rafael had died before her, leaving her behind as a widow. Finally, it is important to assert that Ana Josefa’s testament dates back to 1834, a year before the Malê Rebellion. While we know that the
Gegê sought to assert themselves as increasingly inimical to the Yoruba for purposes of self-protection and survival in the aftermath of the revolt, it is worthy of note that Gegê identity seems to have been of importance even prior to the 1835 rebellion. This would be expected since while West-Central African participation in the revolt was nonexistent, very few Gegê/Mina had also taken part in it. This was also the exact period where ethnic tensions had risen in Bahia, culminating only a year later in the complex dynamics that led to the Muslim uprising.
On 21 May 1824, the testament dictated less than a year previously —on 28 November
1823—by Ana Rita Gonçalves da Silva21 was registered on the occasion of her death.
Probably advanced in years, Ana Rita also stated that she was sick at the time. She indicated that she was from the Mina Coast. Like most freed Africans, Ana Rita had been married to another freed African—Francisco Pires, whom she defined as a “homem livre”
(thus insisting on his status as a “free man” rather than stating that he was a “liberto,” and thus an ex-slave), also of the Mina “nation.” While the denomination of “livre” usually referred to Blacks who had already been born free in Brazilian society, this could not have been a possibility for Francisco. Since his ethnicity was specified, he had been born on the African Coast and almost certainly come to Brazil as a slave. Thus, Francisco’s designation was most probably more of a choice of words than anything else. Another,
21 Book: 10 – pp: 208 to 211v
76 less likely, possibility is that of ethnic endogamy affecting the second generation of
Africans in Bahia. João Reis refers to a single such case where Yoruba parents sought an intra-ethnic partnership for their Brazilian-born daughter.22 We do not have any proof as to the possibility of this having been the case for Ana Rita and Francisco, which would mean that Francisco was actually a Black man born free in Bahia to parents of Mina origin. In terms of the choice of partners in question, both the primary sources as well as the relevant secondary literature demonstrate that the Gegê/Mina were among the most endogamous of the African ethnicities in nineteenth-century Bahia. This could lend greater credibility to an understanding of ethnic endogamy extending itself to the next generation. Such an understanding would have even further repercussions, since it would complicate even more the formation of Black identity and racial consciousness in nineteenth-century Bahia. It would underline once more that for the time being, the main distinction was between African and Brazilian, with race existing in a complex interplay within those identities. The endogamy that brought Ana Rita and Francisco together was one shaped by African ethnic identity, and not shared Blackness.23 However,
22 João José Reis. Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993: 181-2.
23 A similar case is presented by the will of Antônia Josefa da Conceição (Book: 2 – pp: 20 to 22) passed away on 11 September 1825. In the official document, she was described as “preta forra” rather than “africana liberta.” The actual African agency that went into such a choice of terminology is once again very much open to question. In the case that we accept the existence of such agency, however, its implications have been discussed in detail above. When seen as a simple question of terminology on the other hand, the former was much more common in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, while “africano/a liberto/a” became the generally accepted description at a later period. Even so, the two were often seen as interchangeable by the authorities at all times. For them, being “preto/a,” and thus the absence of race mixture, often equaled Africanness—by negation pointing to the widespread occurrence of miscegenation in Brazil, and implying that being Brazilian meant being of mixed race. Antônia Josefa was a native of the Mina Coast, and she explained in her will that she had been married according to the requirements of the Catholic faith to Domingos Pereira de Carvalho, who had also come to Salvador from the Mina Coast. This constitutes another example of Mina/Gegê endogamy, giving more credibility to the idea that it was often the members of this ethnic group that sought to define themselves by their ethnicity.
77 documentary sources clearly show that, no matter what their parentage may have been,
Brazilian-born Blacks were always referred to as crioulos. Especially when we take into consideration that Francisco’s ethnic identity was actually indicated, there is no reason to imagine that what was at stake here went beyond a simple question of choice exercised vis-à-vis terminology.24
The approval of Ana Rita’s testament took place on 29 November 1823. In the document, she was also described differently than the usual formula—as “mulher preta” [a Black woman]. This was another difference in the choice of words, but it was one made by the tabelião or notary in question, since the testators themselves did not dictate the approvals of their wills. It is once again indicative of the fact that the descriptions of “africana” and
“preta” were almost interchangeable in the documents of the time, as has already been stated to be the case in the Introduction. Yet, such a choice of words becomes of greater interest within the above discussion of the relative absence of racial group identity and/or solidarity in nineteenth-century Salvador. If the terms African and Black were interchangeable, it would imply that the consciousness of being African was in itself a demonstration of racial consciousness. In this case then, it would be much more interesting to consider this a personal choice of words on Ana Rita’s part than on that of the scribe. If we take the voice to be Ana Rita’s own, the fact that she described her husband as a “free man” [homem livre] who possessed his freedom, rather than a liberto
(who had been given his freedom by someone else, or who had to pay for his freedom)
24 I also do not give any credibility to the idea that Francisco might have been a free African man in Salvador. A counterpart to the trade links that could take libertos back to Africa did not exist for the people who had never known Brazil. A free African man, in addition, would probably not have associated himself with a liberta like Ana Rita. Finally, there is no indication in Ana Rita’s estate as to any exceptionality in their lives, or the kinds of assets that could be traced back to Atlantic trade networks.
78 underlined the self-identifications of Africans, and what they considered to be most important. For Ana Rita, both she and her husband were free members of Bahian society
(while they also knew their ethnic identity and defined themselves as Africans).
While free status was a referent of central importance, however, in a world of personal networks composed mostly of Africans, freed Africans interacted with both free and enslaved members of their group on a daily basis. While they sometimes held other
Africans in enslavement, they also had friends and connections among those enslaved by others. As will be seen later in this chapter, ex-slaves could also forge exceptional relationships with their former masters or with their own slaves. It was also not uncommon for such connections to matter more, and for freed Africans to have closer bonds at times to the enslaved members of their group rather than to other libertos. In her testament, Ana Josefa do Rego stated that the material assets that she possessed in land, real estate, household goods, money etc. were largely insignificant and did not elaborate on their nature. But this lack of detail was not the case with regards to her slaves whom she identified as follows: Antônio from the Hausa “nation,” Rita Gegê, Angélica Gegê, and Esperança Nagô. It was expected that Africans would own African slaves in nineteenth-century Bahia and there existed no understanding that stipulated in any way that they should be from ethnic groups outside one’s own. In the presence of the many different layers of identifications possessed by Africans, being from the same broad cultural area could have mattered to varying degrees to people. For some it would not have meant much at all, for others it could be a source of enmity or affinity. Often, the ethnicities of one’s slaves were purely coincidental. Further, while Africanness was an important shaper of identity, for the African testators studied in this dissertation, it
79 referred to being Africans in Brazil—a new combination of precepts, values, and ways of life that was in the process of coming into being. It was different from what people had been and left behind in Africa, but also different from the Afro-Brazilian culture of crioulo slaves and libertos. It was an identity proper to itself, constantly being defined and redefined by the “flux and reflux” of people between Africa and Brazil, as so aptly named by Pierre Verger.25
Another significant fact is that few African testators identified themselves by their ethnic groups in their wills until the last quarter of the century. The sample of testaments under study clearly demonstrates that African libertos tended to record their “nations” much more towards the end of the century, and thus during the final phases and aftermath of slavery in Brazil. Still, the statement of ethnic identity never became a truly widespread phenomenon at any time.26 A possible reason for the more frequent references to ethnicity in the last quarter of the century may be that Africans in Brazil had already established themselves as worthy members of Brazilian society of African origin. Time had also gone by since the Muslim uprising of 1835 and ethnic identities were no longer perceived as dangerous. With the end of the Atlantic slave trade, Salvador’s African population was no longer being constantly replenished, as had been the case before.
Africans might have taken it upon themselves to provide for the survival of their differences, which originated from their “nations.” Finally, the transatlantic networks that
25 Pierre Verger. Flux et Reflux de la traite des nègres entre le Golfe du Bénin et Bahia de Todos os Santos du XVIIè. Au XIXè. siècles. Paris/La Haye: Mouton & Co., 1968.
26 It is possible that many among the sample of nineteenth-century libertos might also not have chosen to define themselves as Africans, had they had a choice. But they did not, since that was how they were perceived by, and grouped in the understandings of, Brazilian society. They were obliged to state themselves as Africans, since for a Black person, the choices were either “crioulo” (with the additional racial definitions that were part of crioulo identity) or “africano.”
80 took Brazilians of African origin back to the African continent—referred to in the
Introduction, and also to be elaborated upon in Chapter III—could have also played a role in the increase of ethnic references in libertos’ wills. These two simultaneous occurrences may have made their ethnic identities more important to the freed Africans.
The Introduction has explained that constantly throughout the nineteenth century, the common pattern for freed African testators was to refer to the ethnicities of their slaves while listing them among their material assets, or within the clauses that concerned their alforria. In fact, the cases where they divided their slaves only into the two basic groups of africanos and crioulos were very few and far in between. In Bahia, as well as in slave societies all over the Atlantic World, the ethnic designations given to Africans were based on the understanding that they were commodity goods whose main purposes were plantation and domestic labor, as well as being urban earners. In this context, broad ethnic definitions would be matched with certain characteristics related to working capacities, skills, and obedience. By the nineteenth century, it had become common sense to define slaves by their African “nations” as they were perceived in different American settings. On the other hand, asserting one’s own ethnicity was much more of a personal choice and a reflection of self-perception. Not everyone chose to offer such information on themselves, and those who referred to their own “nations” often did so for specific reasons.
Ana Josefa took advantage of her will to free the four slaves cited above. They would gain their freedom within eight days after Ana’s death, with her executor endowing each
81 of them with their cartas de liberdade or freedom papers. Ana added that she also possessed several other slaves, but that she did not include them in her testament for having already passed their cartas de liberdade, which were currently to be found in the hands of the Sr. Custódio da Silva Ferraz. As was often the case, these enslaved people had been able to enjoy a de facto freedom while their mistress was alive, but they would need to prove it de jure upon her death. If no freedom papers could be provided, the possibility of re-enslavement would always be at bay.27 While no further information was offered on these slaves in Ana’s will, they were also most probably from the African
Coast. Africans in Salvador lived lives in which they were surrounded by other Africans, both enslaved and free. The norm was for Africans to own African slaves, and while they did own crioulo slaves as well, these constituted a minority in comparison to those of
African origin. Additionally, in the rare cases where Africans did own Brazilian-born slaves, these were usually their crias—the children of their mostly African slaves, who had grown up in their own households, and to whom they often had close, affectionate, and sometimes almost parental, relationships. Adult crioulo slaves were much more infrequent. All these factors will be studied in detail in Chapter III. They have simply been referred to here in order to emphasize the fact that African libertos inhabited worlds that encompassed Africans from different origins and status.
27 For the precarious nature of freedom in Brazil, see: Sidney Chalhoub. A força da escravidão: ilegalidade e costume no Brasil oitocentista. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2012.
For similar arguments made for other parts of the African Diaspora, see for example: Laurent Dubois. A Colony of Citizens: Revolution & Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804. Durham: The University of Carolina Press, 2004.; Rebecca J. Scott, and Jean M. Hébrard. Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012.
82 The distinctions between slave and free did not impede deep bonds from taking shape among Africans in Bahia. Ana Josefa do Rego named as her only “universal heir” to the assets that would remain after the execution of her final dispositions the above-mentioned
Felicidade of the Gegê “nation” who had been her slave. She claimed to have given
Felicidade her freedom, “pelo muito amor que lhe tinha” [because of how much love I had for her], while she did not give any reasons for why she had chosen to free her other three slaves who also gained their alforria through her post-mortem testament.
Presumably for the same reason, Ana Josefa also chose Felicidade to be the sole heir to her estate. We can only speculate on the reasons why Felicidade had not been freed prior to her mistress’ death. Perhaps, the bond that had united them had been so close to the extent that Felicidade had already enjoyed de facto freedom, which could possibly have placed her in a better economic and social standing than what would have been her lot if she had simply acquired her alforria and went off to live alone, or in the company of others of similar social status to whom she had not been so closely acquainted during her life. In this case, legal documents would have come to be strongly needed only at the advent of her mistress’ death. Ana Josefa’s testament once again makes clear the many complex ways in which freedom and enslavement constituted porous and interconnected categories for many Africans throughout the slave societies of the Americas. Africans built close relationships with one another, even in the cases where they were each other’s owners or slaves. Slavery was a given in nineteenth-century Salvador, and slaves constituted the most common and important repositories of wealth. In sum, African libertos who had freed themselves from enslavement often later freed other enslaved
Africans to whom they were connected in multi-layered and complex ways. While they
83 considered slavery as hegemonic, they considered alforria as a natural part of that very same hegemonic system. Freedom was something that they all fought for. Both enslavement and the wish to free oneself from it were perceived to be natural, while the gift of freedom represented a sphere of many complex understandings and calculations.
In this specific instance, it is possible that the shared ethnicity of Ana Josefa and
Felicidade could in fact be indicative of one possible factor within this complex web of connectedness, especially since the “nation” in question was the Gegê. However, I refrain to make too many assumptions about ethnicities in this dissertation, since the documentation at hand lends itself to such conclusions only to a very limited extent.
On 10 September 1827, Ana Ludovina de Oliveira28 found herself sick in bed.
Interestingly (but perhaps not so much because it was early in the nineteenth century),
Ana Ludovina claimed to be from the Costa do Leste—that is from the East African rather than the West African Coast. As seen earlier, this meant in the greatest probability that Ana was of the Kongo-Angola region, and thus actually West-Central African, from which the majority of slaves had come to Brazil prior to the mid-eighteenth century. She could also be Mozambique. In any case, at the time period in question, these individuals did not use the term West-Central African to refer to themselves. They often referred to the Eastern Coast in order to differentiate themselves from the West Africans who were clearly dominant in Bahia in this time period. In any case, Ana Ludovina had been the slave of Leonor Francisca da Rocha, to whom she had paid 120,000 réis in order to acquire her freedom. A Sr. Antônio Pereira, among others, owed Ana Ludovina money.
28 Book: 15 – pp: 115v to 120v
84 He lived in the Ladeira do Taboão, and was a goldsmith by profession.29 The sum he owed her was of twenty thousand réis and seven patacas,30 which she had lent him on the day of the Ano Bom (New Year’s Day) 1827. She asked her executor and heir to immediately collect this sum, giving a degree of urgency to the situation. Such haste seems a little strange, in light of the fact that Ana Ludovina also reported having previously given Antônio Pereira larger quantities of money in order to assist him in purchasing his own freedom. From this statement we understand that he was also a freed
African, as was often the case with the members of the close personal networks of
African libertos. Ana Ludovina clearly asserted in her testament that she did not ask for this money back. As an African liberta who had had to pay for her own alforria, she herself knew firsthand the hardships slaves had to go through in pursuit of their freedom, and certainly felt compassion and solidarity for Antônio. Indeed, we know that the majority of freed Africans had been assisted by other people within their personal networks in the process of paying for their alforria.31 The Black irmandades could also assist their members in purchasing their freedom, as will be studied in greater detail in
29 While libertos almost never stated their own professions in their testaments, they could sometimes refer to those of other individuals listed in their wills, just like Ana Ludovina de Oliveira did with Antônio Pereira. References to professions are also provided by the Brazilian legal authorities themselves, in the additional documents attached to libertos’ testaments. Just like with ethnicity, choosing how to define one’s self and others is indicative of complex societal dynamics. While the trade or profession learned in Bahia may not have been central to a freed African’s own identity, they could see it as important while defining for the authorities an individual who owned them money. Similarly, in the cases of the authorities who offered such definitions, such statements could be reflections of how they perceived the Africans in question, rather than how the Africans perceived themselves.
30 The 100th part of a Brazilian real, just like with cents for the American dollar. It is significant that Ana Ludovina made a point of counting even the coins that Antônio Pereira owed her. It is clear that she perceived of this specific debt and its repayment within a framework of honor and justice.
31 Kátia Mattoso finds this second factor to be much more influential than the first. She states that slaves could never have achieved their independence in the absence of help from the people within their social networks. These people could have been their ex-owners, other libertos, close, or distant friends, irmandade members, etc. But outside support was always central to the process of gaining one’s alforria. (Testamentos…: 258).
85 Chapter IV.32 However, in Ana Ludovina’s case, her decision to not lend the money for
Antônio’s alforria, but to rather offer it as a gift, went much beyond a simple understanding of shared difficulties and the wish to provide assistance. As an African liberta with a certain amount of financial means, Ana made a conscious choice and exerted a significant degree of agency in assisting another African in the acquisition of his freedom. It was a deliberate political strategy, one that valued freedom, and highlighted the role played by Africans—women as well as men, free as well as enslaved—in their transition from enslavement to freedom, both as individuals and as a group. As they assisted each other in the process, Africans also strengthened their personal networks, their communities, and especially their group identities.
While Ana Ludovina saw a much larger purpose, as well as a political act, in assisting
Antônio Pereira in paying for his alforria, she perceived the additional and much smaller sum of twenty six thousand réis simply as money that she had lent him, without any political or social significance to speak of. Her tone suggests that she wanted Antônio to take responsibility for the money he had borrowed, as would any honorable member of
Brazilian society, in her perception. She herself swore in her will that she did not owe anyone money, thus underlining her own responsible disposition, and requested that if in case any unknown debts appeared, these were to be taken care of by her first executor.
Ana’s approach to debt as an obstacle to respectability and honor in Brazilian society demonstrates once again that while Africanness was of central importance to people’s
32 As will be discussed in more detail in Chapter IV, while some scholars have underlined the role of irmandades in purchasing the alforrias of their members, others have stated that this was not among the primary activities of the Black brotherhoods and sisterhoods. See for example: Lucinele Reginaldo. Os Rosários dos Angolas: irmandades negras, experiências escravas e identidades africanas na Bahia setecentista. PhD. Diss. Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 2005: 206.
86 perceptions of self, they also operated within the larger dynamics of Brazilian society.
This is not to say that Africans did not seek honor and respectability in Africa; of course they did.33 But Africans also sought to be respectable and respected members of the society in which they now lived, while they also fought for, insisted on, and assisted each other within, their new group identity as Brazilians of African origin. An additional factor with regards to Antônio paying back his debt is that, as seen many times before, even small amounts of money could go a long way in making a difference in the lives of people in dire situations. The poorer among the libertos as well as the enslaved within their community could all fall into this category. The money that was to be paid back could be bequeathed, or could assist in Ana Ludovina’s final rites. In any case, this was just money, pure and simple. It did not hold the key to the life changing transition from enslavement to freedom.
Benedito José Cardoso’s testament34 was brief on all fronts. He did not state his ethnicity in his will, but rather simply said that he was from the African Coast. He had remained single throughout his life, but had a “natural” daughter, Henriqueta, from his African companion Francisca d’Aguiar. Benedito named his executors in respective order as his companion Francisca, his daughter Henriqueta de Coração de Maria, and Antônio dos
Santos Lima. The mother and daughter would work together to arrange his funeral and to make the necessary arrangements for his soul. By this time, Benedito had already legally accepted Henriqueta as his legitimate daughter, and took advantage of his testament to
33See for example: Elisabeth McMahon. Slavery and Emancipation in Islamic East Africa: From Honor to Respectability. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
34 06/2586/3086/28
87 ratify her legal status as his daughter and heir. Francisca was identified as a single woman at the time of the recording of Benedito’s will, but clearly theirs was a continuing companionship. Therefore, Francisca was single only in the eyes of the Brazilian authorities, and not in her own understanding, or in that of her companion or their daughter.35 They were perhaps an African family, one that did not care so much for the rules of Brazilian society or of the Catholic Church. Even so, they were an African family in Brazil, with all the adaptations, limitations, and redefinitions that implied.36 Once again, the Africanness in question here was a very Brazilianized understanding of
Africanness, so to say.
In any case, in line with this understanding and as proof to the continuous nature of their relationship, it was Benedito’s companion Francisca who was to be heir to his remaining
“third” upon the fulfillment of the obligations cited in his will. But his inheritance would have to be inventoried, since he did not list any specific assets. Most probably, this was because he lived with his daughter and her mother. All assets were known and available to them, and since there were no other heirs involved, Benedito’s legacy would pass on to them without any issues arising from the process. As asserted earlier, most testaments belonged to freed Africans who were incapable of handing their wealth on to the next generation, and contained very specific provisions exactly for this reason. As would be expected from the relationship that existed between the two freed Africans, Francisca
35 This subject will be expanded upon in Chapter IV, from the perspective of African vs. Brazilian understandings of romantic/sexual partnerships.
36 Polygamy does not seem to have been an attribute of their family, for example. As argued by many historians of Brazilian slavery, from James Sweet to João Reis, it was almost impossible for African men to sustain polygamous relationships within the dire context of Brazilian slave society.
88 accepted the executorship for Benedito’s testament on the very same day of its presentation. In many ways, Benedito’s testament constitutes the norm for libertos in nineteenth-century Salvador, where Africans knit new African worlds with one another in
Brazil. On the other hand, their crioula daughter points to another reality: Africanness could be a viable category only as long as the slave trade continued and more Africans kept arriving. Creolization and its corollary of miscegenation were full speed in place in the nineteenth century, and already the next generation would be one of Afro- descendants, and not of Africans. The nineteenth century represented both the crystallization and the end of a whole a range of demographic and cultural dynamics related to African and Afro-descendant identity in Brazil. This century would see both the formation of a new identity of people who insisted on their Africanness while choosing
Brazilian lives, while it would also experience the dismantlement of that very identity.
The following generations would be Afro-Brazilians per se, not Brazilians of African origin who brought social, cultural, and religious understandings that derived from the two contexts together in the new identities that they constructed for themselves.
III. The Extended Biological Family—Its Existence and its Limitations The majority of the slaves brought to the Americas after being torn from their families, kinship networks and other associations, as well as from their homelands, cultures, religions and languages in general, found themselves face to face with the need to create new worlds for themselves in Brazil. While they brought African structures into the process, they also clearly had to mold their relationships and culture according to the dynamics of creolization, and thus to the necessities of different Brazilian slave societies.
For this reason, they created new personal networks and communities for themselves in
89 Brazil. In the process, they gave new meaning to both kinship and family. In Salvador, family and kin were constituted simply of whom people felt were family. Some of these possible redefinitions of kinship—in the form of malungos, parceiros, etc—have already been referred to above. In spite of being connections and bonds that emanated directly from the worlds of enslavement in the Americas, there was nothing “fictive” about these networks and associations.37 They were more than real to the people who spent their lives within them, and libertos often made sure to demonstrate affection and to provide assistance to those people whom they saw as their kin when composing their testaments.
In Bahia, Africans often gave equal importance to values and understandings that derived both from their African pasts and their Brazilian presents. They operated at the intersection of two separate repertoires and vocabularies, and were highly selective as to which one they would see as important or relevant in a specific situation. These processes of innovation, adaptability, and selectivity will be elaborated upon from the perspective of religiosity in Chapter IV. But the same principle applied to the construction of personal networks and communities. As Sandra Lauderdale Graham argues, while family often went much beyond its limitations, the biological family also mattered, and exactly because of the overarching reality of having to exist within the boundaries and framework of Brazilian society:
Having family mattered in the slave variant of this culture that located and validated a person’s identity within the family. Those who lacked family ties lacked full social membership and remained more vulnerable to the wear and tear of daily hardships than those encircled by the protecting presence of family.38
37 Elisabeth McMahon. Slavery and Emancipation…: 194.
38 Sandra Lauderdale Graham. Caetana Says No: Women’s Stories From A Brazilian Slave Society. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002: 33.
90
Here, taking into account that Brazilian understandings of the biological family could often be equally important as African recreations of kinship in Brazil, I would like to turn to a brief analysis of biological liberto families as understood simply as those that were formed of blood relatives. The extended family, which in the Western sense grows through marital ties, will also be factored into this discussion. From this perspective, it is also important to remember that biological ties were important to Africans back on the continent as well. While they may have constituted one of many possible ways in which to construct kinship networks, they did exist and remained important in the lives of many individuals.
In spite of all the barriers to the continuation of African families in Brazil, a significant number of young children were brought as slaves from Africa to Brazil. At least some of these slave children were accompanied by their mothers, and sometimes fathers and/or siblings. To a limited extent therefore, some Africans brought parts of their biological
African families with them to Brazil through the Atlantic slave trade. One such case is encountered in the testament of Angélica da Costa39 who died on 16 May 1823. Among its many detailed provisions, perhaps the most interesting and significant detail
Angélica’s will offered on her life was that she had accompanied her mother to Brazil from the Mina Coast. As Angélica herself was approaching the end of her own life at the time that she had her testament registered, her own mother had already passed away.
Clearly, Angélica must have been quite young at the time of her arrival in Bahia. The fact that, differently from many of her peers, she had had her very own mother at her side,
39 Book: 11 – pp: 237 to 44
91 would have made the perils and difficulties of enslavement, the Middle Passage, and slavery in Salvador somewhat more bearable. Having been very young at the time of her arrival would also have helped in her adaptation and incorporation into Salvadorean society. This had probably played a role in her commitment to both Brazilianness and
Catholicism that were evident in her testament. Although both factors could also certainly be the case for Africans who had arrived in Brazil at a much later stage in their lives, time could also play a significant role with regards to acculturation, cultural incorporation, and assimilation. The process could not have been as easy for her mother as it had been for
Angélica. Her mother had probably never converted as fully as her daughter to the
Catholic faith, nor adapted as well as she did to her novel surroundings. The experiences of Africans in Bahia would have differed greatly according to their distinct circumstances. It is even possible that Angélica’s mother might have never become a liberta, and that she had actually died as a slave. In any case, Angélica followed her personal understandings in making arrangements for her mother’s soul when she asked in her own will for five masses to be said on her mother’s behalf. Most probably, Angélica’s mother had never composed a testament. It was also quite possible that she was not a believer of the Roman Catholic faith, and continued to engage in African religious practices and/or their African-derived variants in Brazil. It is less of a possibility that masses may have already been said for her soul at her funeral, and that Angélica just wanted to make her own contribution to the peaceful existence of her mother’s soul. Yet, considering that requests of masses for dead parents are extremely few and far between in the documents, it is much more accurate to imagine that this was the effort made by a very Roman Catholic daughter to look after the soul of her mother who had perhaps not
92 fully embraced Christianity. From this perspective, Angélica’s was a very significant gesture, and directly points to the importance of funerals and final rites as spaces for community and identity formation, as well as self-assertion in the African Diaspora, to be discussed in detail in Chapter IV of this dissertation.
“Family” was already a complex term in the African societies from which libertos came, and more complexities that arose from Brazilian slavery were added to it in Bahia. But even the simple understanding of family as limited to blood and marriage ties proves itself to be much more complex than what initially comes across. The extended family could also play an important role in the lives of freed Africans, and especially during difficult times in their lives. Ana Maria da Silva Rosa’s problematic divorce settlement has been alluded to above, and her testament will be discussed in greater detail in
Chapters III and IV. But when Ana Maria encountered many physical and emotional difficulties as a consequence of her divorce, she found both solace and refuge in the company of her niece and her niece’s husband. Ana Maria stated that since her brother was already over fifty years old, she had opted to name her niece Francisca and her niece’s husband José Pereira as her heirs. While Ana Maria only referred to her brother in passing, this information also meant she and her brother had probably arrived together in Bahia, most probably as slave children. While explaining her decision, Ana Maria da
Silva Rosa asserted that she was currently living in the house of her niece and nephew where she had been sustained and treated with great love and care. She thus underlined the importance of the extended family in the lives of freed Africans by stating that, in the way that they had taken care of her, her niece and her niece’s husband had strongly
93 demonstrated the bond of kinship in which they all found themselves intertwined.
Francisca was the daughter of one of Ana Maria’s siblings, and most probably of the above-mentioned brother who had also been a slave in Bahia. Her brother was much closer to Ana Maria in terms of family ties, but Ana Maria had chosen to take refuge with her niece’s family. She had no blood ties to her niece’s husband José, but he had supported her in such a way that she also named him among her heirs. While Ana Maria explained in her will that she did not choose her brother as an heir because of his already advanced age, this appears to be more of an excuse than anything else, especially in consideration of the fact that being over fifty did not correspond to being so advanced in years. Libertos could and often did name older people as heirs and even as executors in their wills. It is clear that Ana Maria’s feelings towards and the bonds she had constructed with her niece and her niece’s husband went beyond her connections to her biological sibling. Ana Maria da Silva Rosa put the help and support she received from
Francisca and José, and the affection that she felt toward them, into writing in her testament for posterity. In the process, her will testified to the importance of the extended family, and the important roles that it could play, in the lives of freed Africans in the
Americas.40
For this reason, once the more specific provisions of Ana Maria’s will had been fulfilled,
Francisca would remain as the heiress to all the remainder of her assets. Along the same lines, as her executors, Ana Maria da Silva Rosa named José Pereira whom she described
40 Another important example of the importance of the biological family to African libertos will be discussed in Chapter II, in the context of protecting the rights of one’s children with regards to one’s material assets. It is the case of Antônio da Silveira and his young son Marcolino José Dias (04/1354/1823/69).
94 as “husband to her niece, child, and heir” in the first place. Her niece Francisca herself was named as her second executor. Certainly, it was the patriarchal nature of Brazilian society and men’s greater capacity to engage and succeed in legal dealings that marked
Ana Maria’s decision to not name her niece in the first place, but rather her niece’s husband. Other cases that are indicative of the ways in which gender interacted with legality in Brazil will be referred to in subsequent chapters. But as in this case, trust did not simply mean the belief in someone’s sincerity or willingness to carry out their wishes.
Ana Maria could trust José more than her own niece simply because of his actual capacity to realize the conditions of her will. Ana Maria da Silva Rosa had been fortunate to have the support of her extended family in the midst of the difficulties that she had experienced, and she bore witness to that fact in both the circumstances that she recounted in her testament, as well as in the ways in which she chose to dispose of her legacy. Her extended family had taken care of her during her lifetime; she would also take care of them upon her death. In many cases, libertos used their wills to guarantee that their material assets, no matter how meager, made a difference in the lives of their loved ones upon their death. In the case of Ana Maria da Silva Rosa, they were not meager either, so they could have had a significant impact on the lives of her niece and nephew.
Family was a fragile institution in slave societies, and this fact clearly affected the lives of libertos. On 9 September 1825, the Captain João Pereira Lopes filed a petition on behalf of his wife Benedita da Conceição, daughter and heir of the late Ana Maria dos
95 Prazeres.41 She was also the first executor named. Benedita had refused the executorship to her mother’s will. The third executor named had also rejected the testament, while the second had already passed away prior to Ana Maria herself. Attached to the petition was an actual copy of the initial testament. At the time Ana Maria had prepared her testament,
Benedita had been single and about twenty-five years of age. She already had a son. Her mother’s requests were lengthy, from the specific final rites that she asked for to the extremely detailed ways in which she chose to divide her assets. In addition to her two slaves, who would have been considerably advanced in years by the time she died (due to the time that passed by between the dictation of her testament and her death), she did not possess many other assets. She only listed a small compound of houses, and several pieces of gold and silver jewelry, which were mostly religious in nature. She bequeathed the main items to her daughter and grandson, and some of these were probably already handed over to them while Ana Maria was still alive. Once the items of importance were bequeathed to her close family members, the testament became incredibly detailed with regards to the small amounts of money, clothing items, and even household trinkets Ana
Maria chose to leave to friends, godchildren, slaves and acquaintances. By the time she died, the majority of her possessions had lost their value, to the extent that her daughter’s husband indicated them to be either no longer existent or of no value to speak of. The fact that she first accepted and later revoked her acceptance of the executorship to her own mother’s last wishes demonstrates that Benedita da Conceição must have decided that the fulfillment of the executorship would cause her more problems than advantages.
However, it can also be explained otherwise. Since Benedita had initially taken on the responsibility, she had most probably realized her mother’s final rites. These rites would
41 Book: 19 - pp: 18 to 25./ 04/1354/1823/77
96 have taken place in any case, since funerary arrangements could not wait for executors being compensated for their efforts. In this case, Benedita would have simply relinquished her responsibility with regards to her participation in lengthy legal processes and the partition of her mother’s assets. In the cases where no executor accepted the responsibilities, a state official would be appointed to act as executor. This was the actual request made in his petition by Benedita’s husband João Pereira Lopes who filed it on behalf of his wife. Even as she abdicated her responsibilities, Benedita would still remain the main heir to her mother’s will, and receive the few assets that she had not already received and that still remained. In the precarious worlds of slavery, most individuals often needed to make such difficult calculations, even in the cases where these involved their own mothers. Death constituted an important sphere for the assertion of family, kinship, and community for Africans and their descendants in the slave societies of the Atlantic World. Funerals and last rights, the successful realization of bequests and the fulfillment of the conditions of wills, were of primary importance. Even in the best case scenario where Benedita would have provided her mother with last rites that were as elaborate as those that she had requested, the dynamics surrounding Ana
Maria’s death became a microcosm of her weak family structure within Bahian slave society and of the dynamics of power that existed within it. They also pointed at the importance of making secure arrangements for the realization of one’s final rites in the cases where these really mattered to the person, which would have been Ana Maria’s case in light of the piety that comes across in her admissions of faith and ownership of religious jewelry/artifacts. From this perspective, Benedita had failed in her role as a
97 daughter, and in the process she had exposed the fragility of the biological family as a viable institution in Brazilian slave society.
IV. Compadrio or Godparentage The relative absence of detail with regards to family formation and relations in Bahia— except for the names of spouses, references to children and rarely to grandchildren,42 and precious few descriptions of familial bonds and problems—that comes out of the testaments of nineteenth-century African libertos is also reflective of the difficulty of accessing such information in most Brazilian slave societies. This difficulty, in part, has been countered by the numerous studies that have focused on Brazilian creations of kinship networks, ranging from being shipmates during the Middle Passage or slaves belonging to the same owner, to being irmandade (lay brotherhood or sisterhood) members or compadres brought together by bonds of godparentage. Among these essential kinship bonds, membership in the irmandades will be discussed in much greater detail in the context of faith and religiosity in Chapter IV, in spite of it’s being an essential element of the kinship networks that both freed and enslaved Africans constructed for themselves in Brazil. Below, I would like to focus on the Roman Catholic institution of the compadrio, which was taken on by Africans and their descendants in
Brazil, and reshaped according to their realities and needs. Several testaments are analyzed from the perspective of godparentage, in order to illustrate its central role in
African liberto life in nineteenth-century Salvador.
42 For example, Justina Maria da Conceição, while registering her testament on 27 June 1876, referred to her five grandchildren: Clemente, Agostinho, Joana, Maria, and Rogaciano. She stated that they were all minors at the time. (Book: 51—pp. 101-102.)
98 Compadrio or godparentage constituted an essential component of the creation of novel ritual kinship networks everywhere in Brazil, and has been discussed by virtually every historian of slavery in Brazil as an important shaper of life within communities of both enslaved and freed people. The voluntary ties constructed through participation in the
Catholic institution could and often would be called upon to account for the material and spiritual wellbeing, education, and protection of children. Godparents could be asked to substitute the child’s real parents, to support them as well in times of need, or to intervene on the child’s behalf if the biological parents did not appropriately fulfill their responsibilities. Through the Roman Catholic ritual of baptism, a new network of kinship was thus woven around both children and adults that bound them to one another for the duration of their lives.43 It also extended itself beyond their deaths, as is testified by the references to compadrio in the testaments left behind by freed Africans in nineteenth- century Bahia.
Stuart Schwartz argues that in Bahian sugar plantations, while the importance of godparentage may not have been as evident for plantation slaves, it was essential to the lived of free(d) people.44 In the present study, it takes on added value for freed Africans, who in contradistinction to Brazilian-born enslaved and freed people, were born into no
43 While I discuss baptisms in Chapter IV in the context of freed African religiosity, it would also have made perfect sense to place the discussion here. But vice-versa would also have been valid. Because of the many overlaps in the different aspects of liberto lives, I have had to make practical decisions as to what I would focus on within a certain chapter. While I see compadrio as essential to freed African community formation, I have come to understand the importance given to baptism as a more direct manifestation of the centrality of faith to liberto identity. For this reason, I have chosen to place its discussion within Chapter IV.
44 Stuart B. Schwartz. Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550-1835. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985: 61.
99 direct Brazilian kinship networks to start with, and thus had to construct them from the
very beginning in their own lives. Indeed, in the sample of testaments under analysis,
twenty-four libertos referred to other persons with whom they found themselves
intertwined in a compadrio relationship. 116 out of 307 testaments referred to some kind
of compadrio relationship. At around 38 %, godparentage is among the most notable
patterns within libertos’ personal networks in the microcosm presented by their wills.
Table 1.1. References to Relationships of Godparentage
Total number Madrinhas Padrinhos Afilhadas Afilhados Comadres Compadres of people
116 6 5 41 37 12 15
% 5 4 35 32 11 13
Table 1.1. demonstrates the central role played by godparentage in the creation of the
fictive kinship networks of freed Africans. It takes into account all45 references to
godparentage in the documents, encompassing padrinhos and madrinhas, comadres and
compadres, afilhados and afilhadas. After partners, godparentage formed the sort of
interpersonal network most commonly related in the documents. Perhaps because of the
low fertility rates among libertas, and high childhood mortality rates among the African
population, references to compadrio present themselves as even more common than those
to actual offspring. As already stated, wills were composed primarily by people who were
unable to—at least legally—hand their wealth over to the next generation, and who
45 By this, I mean that I have not only included direct, but also all indirect references within the testaments while constructing this table.
100 sought to make sure that their assets would go to people they themselves chose over others. One of the most repeated formulaic sentences in the testaments of libertos, in fact, asserts the absence of both “descendants” and “ascendants.” While the absence of
“ascendants” was a direct consequence of the Atlantic slave trade, that of “descendants” was a direct result of enslavement and life in Bahian slave society.46 Freed Africans usually made this assertion to insist on their freedom and to dispose of their assets as they thought fit. No matter what the actual reasons were for its frequent appearance in libertos’ wills, however, this statement clearly underlines both the reality of their capture and enslavement on the African continent, and the precarious nature of the lives that they sought to build for themselves in Brazil.
The bonds of godparentage were rooted in the ceremony of baptism, and thus were of a religious nature from the beginning. Indeed, the Catholic nature and ensuing importance of compadrio has been discussed by many travelers/observers in Brazil.47 These travelers have mostly understood the institution in a general Roman Catholic context, surpassing
Brazilian borders. As Schwartz argues:
Ritual godparentage created a set of bonds, of spiritual kinship, between the godchild (afilhado) and his or her godfather (padrinho) and godmother (madrinha), and between the natural parents and the godparents, who then referred to each other as compadres or comadres or joint parents of the baptized children in recognition of the union of the spiritual and material essence of the
46 Some libertos opted for putting it more clearly in their testaments. For example, João da Silva explained his reality in the testament he registered in 1879 in the following manner: “Sou solteiro, não tenho pai e mãe, nem mesmo parente algum […]” [I am single, I have no father or mother, or any relatives to speak of…]. Book: 54 – pp: 91 to 93
47 Most prominent among these traveler/observers was Henry Koster, the English plantation owner, explorer and writer whose memoirs vividly portray many facets of Brazilian life at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. Henry Koster. Travels in Brazil. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1817.
101 child. The bonds were formed in the church but extended beyond it to secular life.48
Sandra Lauderdale Graham similarly states that “[because godparents might well be called upon to replace real parents, their choosing was a delicate matter and produced an intricate pattern of ritual kinship that buttressed and mirrored the interlaced understandings of sacred and secular hierarchical order.”49 The Portuguese Crown and later the Brazilian state, along with the Catholic Church, did not see a threat in the ceremony of baptism, and in conversion to Catholicism in general. This attitude often contrasted greatly with the ways in which religious conversion, indoctrination, and participation in Church activities were perceived in the protestant Caribbean or North
America. Even though it was never universally or enthusiastically embraced, neither was participation in the Roman Catholic faith objected to, and the most basic premises of the religion were usually seen as a necessary education that should be provided to all slaves.
Patterns of adult baptism differed widely for different groups of Africans in Brazil. While the usual pattern for slaves coming from West-Central Africa was to already be baptized on the African coast,50 West African slaves were either baptized on board the ships that brought them to Brazil, and even more often in their place of arrival. Despite this regular baptism of enslaved Africans in the south Atlantic system, the essential qualities of baptism and the world of opportunities it was supposed to have opened up for slaves
48 Stuart B. Schwarz. Sugar Plantations…: 406.
49 Sandra Lauderdale Graham. Caetana Says No…: 44.
50 For general information on slave baptisms, see for example Kátia M. de Queirós Mattoso. To Be a Slave in Brazil: 1550-1888. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1986. For specific information on West-Central African baptisms and conversions, see for example: James H. Sweet. Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441-1770. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003: 194-6. Also see all cited works by John K. Thornton.
102 largely clashed with the very premises of slavery as it existed in Brazil. The
“paternalistic” qualities of slave masters found their limits in the institution of godparentage,51 where their obligation to “protect and educate” their slaves would have implied masters and mistresses becoming padrinhos and madrinhas. In this way, compadrio also followed the usual pattern of Brazilian slavery—that of allowing for exceptions that actually ended up strengthening the hegemonic system itself, and of the usual strategy of “para inglês ver,” which meant that theory would often largely differ from practice. The eighteenth century English planter and traveler Henry Koster reported that he had never encountered a slave master who had accepted the position of a padrinho towards his slaves or ex-slaves in Brazil, and similar patterns have been observed by many scholars of slavery in the country.52
Adult baptisms, and the baptisms of the children of those Africans who had already spent a considerable length of time in Brazil, and the godparent relationships that ensued from them naturally demonstrated a greater level of agency and personal choice on part of those who took part in them. By then, they had come to know people and to be
51 This hegemonic understanding of Brazilian slavery which insists on the patronage and paternalism of slave masters comes primarily from the work of Gilberto Freyre. Gilberto Freyre. Casa Grande e Senzala: formação da família brasileira sob o regime da economia Patriarcal. São Paulo: Global, 2006 (1933).
52 Even scholars like Stuart Schwartz who had previously insisted on the patronage role of masters in godparentage reversed this opinion in later studies. See for example “Opening the Family Circle: Godparentage in Brazilian Slavery” in Stuart B. Schwartz. Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels: Reconsidering Brazilian Slavery. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1996: 137-160.
Kátia Mattoso understands godparentage in terms of the constant need for both sides—the masters and the slaves—to compromise in a slave society, in order for the system to continue unharmed. She asserts: “Yet friendships occurred more often than one might suspect between individual masters and slaves. Slaves also formed friendships with freed men and other slaves. These were matters of individual choice, of elective affinity, of personal sympathy between man and man. Such personal sympathies were institutionalized in the godparents (To Be a Slave in Brazil, 114).”
103 acquainted with the system; they had already formed at least limited personal networks, and had become more aware of their place within Brazilian society and the kinds of solidarities they could count on and construct. My research shows that, as a result, many freed Africans who left testaments behind in the nineteenth century referred to their place of baptism in Salvador, if not to its date, and its results will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter IV, where I also offer tables constructed from my results. The centrality of baptism as a turning point within the lives of freed Africans, and as a reference point in the life stories of libertos, also enhances our understanding of the centrality of godparentage to African kinship networks in Salvador. But this phenomenon was not limited to the Bahian capital. In her analysis on these patterns in colonial Sabará,
Kathleen Higgins asserts:
These differences in turn suggest that the motivations behind the decisions of slaves to accept conversion for themselves or for their children were complex and reflected an ongoing struggle between owners and slaves for control over the converted slaves’ lives and the community connections among slaves, which becoming Christians helped to foster.53
This distinction was extremely clear in the lives of libertos. Of course, unless they were of Kongo-Angola origin and had already received Christian indoctrination in Africa, most libertos would have all received adult baptisms. A minority would have also been baptized in Brazil as young children. These children would not have been able to have much say, if anything, in the godparents they were assigned. Still, even in the cases where libertos had not been able to exercise agency in choosing their own godparents, compadrio brought along with it important responsibilities for the godparents, and
53 Kathleen J. Higgins. "Licentious liberty" in a Brazilian gold-mining region: Slavery, Gender, and Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Sabará, Minas Gerais, University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press, 1999: 123.
104 protection and assistance for the godchildren who partook in the Catholic ritual and institution:
The godfather was obliged to help his godchild, not only spiritually but also materially, and in Brazil he rarely failed to take this obligation seriously. Relations with godparents served as the model for all other interpersonal relations. The godparent relationship was perfectly adapted to the rules of Brazilian society, based as it was on the broad, extended, patriarchal family.54
While Mattoso’s analysis of compadrio affords perhaps exaggerated importance to the creolized and Iberian/White dynamics of Brazilian society, godparentage was certainly an institution that responded well to African needs and concerns, and for this reason became central to the lives of Africans and their descendants in the Catholic Americas. Even in the rare occurrence of patriarchal patronage where African masters served as godparents to their African slaves, godparentage would still have remained within an African sphere.55 This would strengthen the portrait of a liberto world in Salvador that was essentially composed of Africans in the nineteenth century.
But those libertos who had spent a significant period of time in Bahia (which would have been a rare occurrence), compadrio would have involved a greater degree of personal choice in whom they selected as both their comadres or compadres, or as the padrinhos and madrinhas of their children. In fact, having certain individuals as compadres or comadres must have been as important as having them as godparents to their children.
For those whose godparents were chosen from among their peers, the bond made for
54 Kátia M. de Queirós Mattoso. To Be a Slave…: 114-5.
55 This is a question that warrants greater attention and research. Unfortunately, I have not been able to elaborate on this subject, since I have not encountered any direct references to masters having served as godparents to the libertos who composed their wills, and have not been able to engage in the cross- referencing necessary to find the identities of the godparents they referred to, and see if they had been their initial masters, or to have a better idea of what was their relationship to the freed Africans in general.
105 enduring relationships of solidarity and protection that extended themselves over their lives. Consequently, when choosing godparents for their children, they took advantage of all the protection and ritual kinship that could be provided by this Roman Catholic institution, in the supremely Brazilian form it had acquired through the specific ways in which it had been adapted to the society. Africans and their descendants needed to construct new communities and personal networks in Brazil through all avenues that were open to them. In godparentage, they found an institution that has already been transformed to fit the Brazilian setting and that was also widely accepted. They now re- molded the institution to their own terms, and used it to their advantage in all ways that were possible to them.
Sandra Lauderdale Graham asserts for both African and Brazilian-born slaves that, while choosing godparents within their enslaved community could also work to their advantage at times, their primary preference went to free(d) people, who potentially could provide better protection and support to both them and their children.56 Libertos’ wills show that the padrinhos and madrinhas were often designated among close friends, in order for children to be able to turn to them in times of need, and especially in the case of the death of their own parents. We do not know if they differed in social and economic status from their compadres and comadres, but they must have been perceived as having the sufficient capacity to fulfill their responsibilities. In the process, the actual relationship between the biological and fictive parents was also fortified, and they were generally expected to assist and provide for one another as well, during difficult times. While being
56 Sandra Lauderdale Graham. Caetana Says No…: 47. The fact that enslaved godparents had been chosen for Caetana at her birth worked to her favor through having protection of people in her community who had inside knowledge of her world and could intervene on her behalf.
106 a padrinho to an afilhada for example implied a serious amount of responsibility in the testaments of libertos, being compadres or comadres also signified a special bond that existed among those who were tied to another through being common parents and protectors of children. All these factors, in turn, point to the importance of children—and thus of direct kin—to the libertos. Not only were they heirs and recipients of love and affection, they were central referents in their lives that tied them to others in the construction of their personal networks. They point to the strong links that existed between biological and so-called fictive kinship in the lives of enslaved and freed
Africans. As with all bonds of patronage and protection, people came into this relationship fully cognizant of the responsibilities it could imply. In a society of patronage that included dependency relationships at many levels, this was valid for all members of Brazilian society who participated in this particular Roman Catholic ritual.
But for Africans and their descendants for whom survival remained precarious, it became a bond of even greater importance. It was one of their primary reference points for fictive kinship and community formation. Further, it was one of the few ways available to libertos in which they could secure protection for one another. It would have been expected that this centrality be evident in the microcosm made up by libertos’ wills.
It is an open question whether these links were valued essentially for their religious origins, or whether in this context they mainly functioned as a provider of novel kinship ties. It probably was a mixture of both. In a world where Africans desperately needed to create new bonds and relationships, the latter must have taken on greater importance.
However, the role of the Roman Catholic religion in the lives of many freed Africans should not be underestimated, although the specific understandings and components that
107 went into it were complex and will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter IV. Another important factor is that Candomblé and other African-derived religions were also open to such associations of ritual kinship, and the kinship that was provided by being members of the Bahian irmandades was quite similar in many ways. Africanness remained the main tenet around which other more Brazilian associations such as the Catholic associative networks were to a certain extent transformed and reconstrued. Just like the libertos whose wills are studied in this dissertation perceived themselves as Africans within the Brazilian setting (as different from Africans in Africa), institutions like godparentage were transformed into African institutions in Brazil.57 Understanding compadrio as the institutionalization and legalization of the personal affinities and associative choices of slaves and libertos supports the argument that the need for constructing new networks and associations marked by an African identity in Brazil constituted the primary purpose of the great acceptance afforded to godparentage and similar institutions by Africans in Bahia.
As seen with the majority of the enslaved opting for free(d) people as their compadres and comadres, people of all levels sought others above their own rank in their choices of compadrio in Brazil. This was not solely with regards to race, class, or free status, but also to gender. For example, Schwartz has clearly shown that in the baptisms that took place in the Recôncavo plantations, male godparents were favored over females, since
57 A similar argument will be made concerning liberto participation in the Bahian irmandades in Chapter IV, which will also elaborate on liberto participation in the Roman Catholic faith, as well as African- derived religions and their interactions with Catholicism.
108 often it was not possible for slaves to have both at the same time.58 Once again, freedom presented a similar case in many ways. While slaves served as compadres to many other slaves, free people were the people who were actually sought after for the role. Free godparents were the norm for both free Brazilian-born Blacks and freed Africans whenever their cooperation was actually possible. In a society where upward social mobility through both race and class was simultaneously possible and clearly limited, people of all levels sought to better their situation in every way they could. Because of the dynamics intrinsic to Brazilian society, social ascent often passed through patronage networks. Just like it was to an agregado’s advantage to be part of a wealthier household as a less than equal member, it would be to an enslaved child’s advantage to have a free godmother, and even more so to have a free godfather, and to a freed African’s advantage to have a free compadre of a higher social and economic status. Unfortunately, the many
African libertos who refer to their compadrio relationships in their testaments do not offer information vis-à-vis their social ranking. But relationships to people from different races and classes will be discussed in the last two sections of this chapter. We can safely infer that such exceptions also extended themselves to relationships of godparentage.
In spite of these concerns with upward social mobility, the institution was also heavily based on people’s own considerations of who to admire or respect, on their own understanding of who were their real friends and who they could actually count on in times of hardship. These understandings as well as the ideas of who actually mattered within their community often greatly differed for Africans from the perceptions of White
58 Stuart B. Schwartz. Sugar Plantations…: 410. This social hierarchy of gender comes across in libertos’ testaments in other ways as well, as when men oversee legal proceedings for their wives, or women take refuge in the houses of men who are socially more powerful just by their gender, although race and social standing probably constitute additional reasons of importance.
109 Brazilian society. As Mattoso argues, “[e]ntre o povo dos negros baianos existem hierarquias paralelas totalmente independentes do poder branco” [within the community of Black Bahians there exist parallel hierarchies that are totally independent from White power].59 Africans seen as leaders by the members of the African community could be less than significant in the eyes of the Salvadorean elites. This has frequently been the case in the leadership of slave rebellions all over the African Diaspora. The roles and ranks given to African or Afro-descendant actors by slave owners and other dominant members of White society often differed greatly from those they had held back in Africa.
Such understandings of who they were back in Africa could persist in Brazil, or also could be redefined with regards to the realities of their new American settings. In both cases, African understandings of people’s place within their community in Brazil would have differed significantly from those of the privileged White and near-White members of Bahian slave society.60
In choosing suitable godparents, libertos turned towards their own personal networks, as well as towards people who were recognized and respected in their own communities, or by the members of their own personal networks. Being from a higher social rank did not
59 Kátia M. de Queirós Mattoso. “No Brasil escravista: relações sociais entre libertos e homens livres e entre libertos e escravos” in Da revolução dos alfaiates à riqueza dos baianos no século XIX: itinerário de uma historiadora. Soares, Arlette, and Rina Angulo. Eds. Salvador: Corrupio, 2004: 275.
60 Any major work on the Haitian Revolution gives examples of rank and esteem, which differed for White masters and for the members of Black communities of both enslaved and freed people. See for example: David Patrick Geggus. Haitian Revolutionary Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002., Laurent Dubois. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 2005. For a comparative perspective on the Haitian Revolution and the Malê uprising, see: Luiz Roberto de Barros Mott. “A revolução dos negros do Haiti e o Brasil.” História: questões e debates 3.4 (1982): 55-63. For similar dynamics within the 1835 Malê revolt in Bahia, see once again: João José Reis. Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
110 in and of itself guarantee protection for Africans and their descendants. In a society where almost nothing could ever be guaranteed, they were better off choosing the people in whom they had the greatest level of personal trust. The best scenario would be if the two factors could coincide. Freedom nevertheless seems to have functioned as the most important variable that shaped choices within libertos’ personal networks, with all others—including race, origin, social and economic rankings—coming in second place and being dependent upon it. Most often, one of the main reasons why slaves turned towards free Blacks—probably both libertos and livres— to act as their padrinhos or madrinhas, in addition to their greater capacities of patronage, was in order to facilitate the move towards freedom for their children. Still, these must have mostly been freed
Africans, since Africans mostly operated in a world formed by their peers, as the documentary sources discussed in this dissertation have by now clearly established. Such relationships of compadrio might also have aided the libertos themselves while they were still enslaved, both by providing them with financial support and solidarity, as well as assisting them in purchasing their freedom. The experience of slavery and the difficulty experienced in the process of gaining one’s alforria clearly influenced this constant turn towards freedom as the main referent. Africanness was a category united those who were both slave and free, and the free members of the community often helped and protected those who still found themselves enslaved. Once again, the importance of freedom as one of the most central objectives in the lives of Africans and their descendants is underlined here. No matter what its complexities, the triple cycle of freedom-enslavement-freedom is valid for the lives of African libertos, and the constant struggle to acquire first legal and then economic and social freedom remains a major referent in their lives.
111
There was also another type of godparentage that existed in Brazil and which was highly applicable to the lives of both slaves and libertos: “godparentage” which had not been sanctified by the Roman Catholic Church. It can be better understood as a “symbolic godparentage.” As a personal bond, it went beyond simple understandings of patronage in
Brazilian society. In the cases where their “rights” were not respected, individuals could seek the protection of powerful “godfathers” from the privileged segments of society, just like they would have done in its institutionalized form. Given the patriarchal dynamics of
Brazilian society, these protectors were rarely women, although this was certainly not impossible.61 Not all slaves and libertos had access to people in such high ranks within
Brazilian society, and the opportunities that existed for Africans were often considerably less than for Brazilian-born Blacks and especially people of mixed race. However, in the highly dynamic world of everyday life in Salvador, they still were able to encounter people from ranks that could significantly differ from theirs. In rare instances, they could receive both protection and patronage from such people. This was the case of Ana Maria da Silva Rosa who has already been referenced in this chapter, and whose case will also be further analyzed later on, as well as in Chapters III and IV. Ana Maria was a freed
African woman who had sought an official divorce from her abusive husband, but was only afforded a conditional one. In the context of the many hardships she went through as a result, Ana Maria received the protection and patronage of her attorney Manoel
Domingues da Costa. Clearly a White man because of his profession, the attorney can be seen as having acted as a protective “godfather” to Ana Maria da Silva Rosa.
61 Kátia Mattoso relates the case of a mulatta named Domingas who was valued at an excessive price by a legal guardian who did not want to facilitate her alforria. In this case, Domingas sought the help of a powerful foreigner to whom she had been hired out (166-7).
112
At other times, fellow Africans to whom libertos were connected were able to significantly increase their wealth and influence during their lives. Similarly to how freed
Africans of even the poorest ranks of life remembered many others to whom they had possessed linkages in their lifetime when composing their wills, these more privileged freed Africans would be able to provide greater levels of patronage in line with their social ranks. Survival was precarious in Bahian slave society, and especially for the
African community in the nineteenth century in light of the turbulent atmosphere that reigned throughout the period. All Africans, enslaved and free, needed and depended on one another. While on the one hand the formation of a world of personal networks that revolved around freed Africans represented a conscious choice on many levels, it was also an imposition of social dynamics on the other. These impositions were then reinforced by the limitations of the ecclesiastical-state apparatus. In any case, it was expected for freed Africans to protect and assist their enslaved peers, and for the financially better off to provide patronage to the less privileged. Many challenging situations the libertos encountered in their everyday lives made them seek the protection and help of others more powerful. Nineteenth-century Salvador was a society of patronage and of dependents of many different ranks, ranging from slaves to agregados to poorer relatives and acquaintances. But so were many African cultures where people existed within a continuum of dependency, for which they could often receive patronage and protection in retun. African libertos fit right in within the patronage and protection networks in Brazil, and created associations that would ensure their survival in the midst of innumerous hardships.
113
While some compadrio relationships are clearly described in the testaments under study, many more are not, which is why we cannot go much further than the information presented in Table 1.1 and the clear understanding that compadrio as an institution was central to liberto lives. While we see cases where freed Africans sought to acknowledge relationships of godparentage in their testaments, this is often in passing and commonly in the context of monetary tokens of affection that are left to compadres or comadres. For instance, Sebastião de Carvalho,62 a freed African who stated being over sixty years old in his testament left Cora, an African liberta who was his comadre the sum of fifty thousand réis. While the legacy he left Cora was significant within the context of the provisions he listed in his will, she was one of several people whom Sebastião remembered and rewarded at the advent of his death.
Often then, compadrio in libertos’ testaments often appeared primarily as a symbolic emphasis on bonds that had connected people over their whole lives. The liberta Ana
Francisca da Conceição included among her provisions several small one-time payments to be made to specific people upon her death. She left the Sra. Maria da Gloria, daughter of Teresa Joaquina, the sum of twenty-five thousand réis. Another one-time offering was to be made to her afilhada Juliana, of the smaller sum of ten thousand réis.63 Since this was no more than a token sum, Ana Francisca’s primary motive was probably to engage
62 Book 55—pp. 55
63 Sums left to afilhados increased towards the end of the century. Joaquina Rosa do Sacramento left each of her afilhadas the sum of Rs. 50$000. She also gave an explanation, when she stated that they had proven themselves to be (actual) goddaughters (“que o provarem ser”). She thus referred to the obligations and expectations that were part and parcel of the institution of compadrio (Book: 50—pp. 17 to 17v).
114 in a symbolic gesture to let her goddaughter know that she had not forgotten her when the time came to think about her own death. It was primarily an acknowledgement of a life- long bond between the two. Juliana might not have needed Ana Francisca’s financial help. Perhaps, she was already materially better off herself than her godmother, or she had already received a certain degree of financial assistance from her while Ana
Francisca was still alive. However, the fact that not all bonds among people are openly stated in the documents leave much to ponder. Was Teresa Joaquina also a comadre or just a good friend to Ana Francisca? She may have felt a greater need and impetus to provide monetary protection to Teresa’s daughter Maria de Gloria who received a larger inheritance than Juliana. It is quite possible that while the relationship between the two had not been formalized in the Church-sanctioned bond of godparentage, Ana Francisca considered her as such, or that they were equally close to one another within their personal networks without their relationship having been institutionalized by the Catholic ritual. Ana Francisca could have acquired this close relationship to Maria de Gloria over the years, the bond between the two actually becoming stronger than the one that tied her to her goddaughter. Ana Francisca referred to Maria Gloria as “Senhora,” while she did not extend the title to her goddaughter Juliana. While this may simply have been an omission, common in libertos’ testaments, it could also suggest that there may have existed certain dynamics of reverse patronage that tied the two women to one another.
These would have most probably passed through Maria de Gloria’s mother Teresa
Joaquina. Examples such as this complicate the understanding of godparentage within the lives of freed Africans. They demonstrate that while the institution was important, it was also simply one among many different bonds that brought people together. On the other
115 hand, Ana Francisca may have primarily been influenced by the different levels of need experienced by her acquaintances. Because even though none of these were large sums, any sum was often capable of making a difference for the people within libertos’ personal networks. Perhaps, certain people had assisted her to a greater extent in times of difficulty. Still, these were primarily token sums whose symbolic value seems to have been more important than the actual financial assistance that they were capable of providing. Ana Francisca also left another one-time token payment to the Sra. Ana
Joaquina de Oliveira, daughter of her second executor, of the sum of twelve thousand réis. She also left an esmola (alms)64 of another ten thousand réis to the Sra. Breula, daughter of the same Ana Joaquina, stated to be the widow of the Tenente (Lieutenant)
Nicolau Alvares. As these small bequests of token payments demonstrate, the solidarities felt by libertos could be extremely complex. Compadrio was an important Brazilian institution that could provide a significant basis for fictive kinship in many cases.
However, it was equally possible for many different life experiences and the connections created in the process to go well beyond this Church-sanctified bond. While we do not have specific information as to the relationship these recipients of symbolic sums had to the testator, the many instances in which libertos acknowledged people to whom they had no official bonds in their wills also attests to this fact. Often, these could also have to do with questions of conscience, honor, and justice as will be seen later. What makes Ana
64 The fact that this bequest is stated to be an offering of alms also attests to the probably difficult economic position of the recipient, and to the difference that even a small sum could make in someone’s life. In addition, the fact that the only person in this list not referred to as “Senhora” suggests that Ana Francisca saw Juliana as a younger family member, perhaps almost as a daughter. In this case, she would certainly have assisted her in many additional ways, and had simply sought to provide her with a symbolic token upon her own death.
116 Francisca’s case significant is the fact that a goddaughter was listed among a number of people who were to receive small sums of money upon her death.
Angélica da Costa65 was an African liberta who insisted on compadrio within the context of the specific conditions enumerated in her will. In her testament, she followed what was one of the two major patterns pursued by freed Africans in disposing of their material legacies—that of providing small quantities of assistance to several people, rather than leaving them to one or two main heirs. The testament stated that Angelica’s godson
Sandro was currently the slave of the Lieutenant José Gonçalves Lima. Here, the ties that brought both enslaved and freed Africans together within one main community of
Africans in Brazil is once again obvious. So is the fact that most people opted for free(d) godparents for their enslaved children,66 and that the free members of the community often held the responsibility of assisting those still enslaved. In Sandro’s case, the small sum of ten tostões67 Angelica left him could not have actually provided him with any real financial support, since the total did not even reach one thousand réis. Angélica must certainly have helped Sandro beforehand, so this payment was purely symbolic, one of the most symbolic that I have encountered within my documentary sources. The same amount was also to be handed out to another godchild, this time her goddaughter Maria
65 Book: 11 – pp: 237 to 44
66 It could of course have been the case that Angélica was still enslaved when she was chosen as Sandro’s madrinha. But she could also already have been free, or it could have been evident that she would soon be acquiring her alforria.
67 A tostão was a coin of eighty réis during the nineteenth century.
117 de Tal68, also a slave of the same Lieutenant, in whose case the same dynamics described above would also have applied. From this description, we understand that these children were José Gonçalves Lima’s crias, slave children born into his household. Their mother must have been Angélica’s comadre. Therefore, Angélica clearly fit within the above- discussed pattern of freed Africans serving as godparents to slave children. She must have assisted them during her life in ways that cannot be discerned from her testament, but seemed either incapable or unwilling to help them pay for their alforrias. She might have contributed to their future freedom by money she might have placed in the hands of a trusted third party, or she could have imagined that they would eventually be given their freedom anyway, through their status of being crias.69 Since buying one’s freedom was a costly affair, Angélica would probably not have been able to cover the costs anyway. Her godchildren would need to save significant sums of money through their ganho labor, or receive financial assistance from different sources in order to be able liberate themselves from their current owner. However, the fact that they were crias born into his household provided them with a much better chance of being freed unconditionally by the
Lieutenant at a later stage in their lives, and Angélica was certainly aware of that.70 On the other hand, Angélica’s requests manifested the same complex dynamics evident in
Ana Francisca’s will, since she made several other “acknowledgement bequests” of small sums of money. She asked her executor to hand the same very small sum of 10 tostões to
Marcos Dias Barradas, the son of the late Antônio Dias Barradas. She explained that this
68 De Tal invariably signified slave ancestry in Brazil. Crias would have received the last name of their owner, José Gonçalves Lima, and De Tal referred to the very fact that they did not have their own.
69 This subject will be elaborated on in Chapter III.
70 These patterns will also be discussed in greater detail in Chapter III.
118 was because of the love she felt towards him, without referring to any specific bond of godparentage. She also left the same sum to Maria da Trindade, who was the mother of one of her executors. Once again, godchildren were listed among several other recipients of token sums of money—tokens that were smaller than was often the case, perhaps because of Angélica’s economic circumstances and the priorities that guided her while bequeathing her assets. Different kinds of bonds made everyone in this group of people important enough to Angélica for her to remember them while pondering her own death, even if what she was able to leave them was only symbolic. Godparentage, in this context, appeared as one of many different bonds that could unite Africans in nineteenth- century Bahia. There existed many different kinds of connections that brought freed
Africans together as a community. Some of these were sanctified by Brazilian institutions and accepted to a greater extent by the larger society, while others derived from the specific life experiences of libertos themselves.
Bernardina Maria de Jesus71 passed away on 10 April 1815. She was described as a
“preta Gegê,” pointing to the quasi-equation between “preta” and “africana” in the common understanding of the time in Bahia. Whether a choice on her part or on that of the scribe, she also defined herself as a “preta forra” in her testament.72 She explained that she had arrived in Bahia from the Mina Coast, which pointed to yet another
71 Book: 7 – Pp: 166 to 169
72 Since Bernardina’s testament had been put into writing in 1815, and thus well towards the beginning of the century, it is understandable that terminology of earlier periods could still have been in use at the time.
119 interchangeability: that of being from the Gegê ethnicity and from the Mina Coast.73 It also emphasized my argument as to the Gegê giving greater importance to their ethnic identities in the nineteenth century, for reasons that have already been discussed.
Bernardina Maria had never been married and had no children, and thus she also had no heirs with direct rights to her legacy. She decided that everything that remained after the fulfillment of her specific dispositions would go to Maria da Aleluia, whom she instituted as her universal heir through her testament. She explained that Maria de Aleluia was the daughter of her own madrinha Andréia de Menezes. Bernardina’s case is important for showing that bonds of godparentage among freed Africans were capable of extending themselves over generations at times. Bernardina Maria was not the madrinha of Maria de Aleluia. Rather, she had profited from the patronage and protection provided by the latter’s mother who had been her own godmother. While this had not resulted in her becoming a formal godmother to Maria de Aleluia herself, the bond of godparentage had played important enough a role in her kinship networks for her to choose her godmother’s daughter as her primary heir. The previously discussed cases of Ana Francisca and
Angélica have served to question the centrality of godparentage as an institution, and shown that while compadrio was important, it was one among a plethora of personal networks that tied freed Africans to one another. The bonds people had shaped through diverse experiences in their Bahian lives could often be as important as these. On the other hand, the case of Bernardina Maria shows that compadrio could be so important as a form of fictive kinship that it could actually extend itself over generations. Some of this centrality certainly derived from its being an officially-sanctioned bond that was accepted
73 In some exceptional cases, people described as “from the Mina Coast” could also include other groups in Bahian understandings, and Gegês could sometimes be described as being from the Guinea Coast. Often however, Gegê and Mina worked as interchangeable ethnic descriptions.
120 by all segments of Brazilian society. Its origins rooted in Roman Catholicism are also reflective of the efforts of Africans to fit within Brazilian society while molding its institutions to their own needs and understandings. It also testifies to the capacity of
Africans to use the limited spaces offered them within societal confines to their advantage, and to make use of all avenues open to them to construct new personal networks and communities.
V. Exceptions to, and Complications within, “a World of Africans”
V.I. Complications Regarding Marriages and Partnerships among “Peers” The first section of this chapter has demonstrated that the fact that freed Africans inhabited worlds mostly formed by other Africans was evident in their choices of spouses or partners. Here, I would like to discuss a few cases encountered within my sample that serve to provide some notable exceptions to this trend, as well as to complicate our understanding of libertos’ worlds in nineteenth-century Salvador.
Antônia de Araújo74 passed away on 12 June 1823. Her testament had been dictated on 4
May 1823, only a little over a month prior to her passing away. This suggests that she had most probably been old and sickly by that time. She stated being from the Mina Coast, and indicated that she had been baptized in the same freguesia of Nossa Senhora da
74 Book: 10 – pp: 91 to 96v
121 Conceição da Praia where she still lived.75 She had been married to Joaquim Gregório da
Trindade. Interestingly, Joaquim was not an African, but a pardo—thus both Brazilian- born and a man of mixed-race.76 Such unions naturally took place in Salvador, as was witnessed in the high level of racial mixing that extended itself to every social stratum.
But Antônia de Araújo’s case constitutes a notable exception among my documents, where the great majority of the individuals opted for intra-African marriages and partnerships. Additionally, it had been her husband who had bought Antônia’s freedom from slavery, paying her alforria money to her former (and late) master Francisco Nunes de Araújo and to his wife Ursula de Araújo. Joaquim Gregório had also passed away by that time, and he and Antônia had never had any offspring. The marriage of a freed
African woman to a Brazilian-born free man of mixed race was nearly absent within the microcosm of libertos’ wills, which must have meant that it was also not a common occurrence in nineteenth-century Salvador as far as the African population was concerned. It is all the more significant in consideration of the fact that Antônia de
Araújo must have been in a relationship with Joaquim Gregório da Trindade while still enslaved, since it had been her husband who had actually paid for her alforria. This fact, in turn, supports the thesis that outside assistance was the main factor that defined the possibility of buying one’s freedom. It also emphasizes the idea discussed in the previous section of how people from a higher social status—in terms of race, class, origin, or free status—were often capable of bringing about higher levels of protection and upward social mobility in the lives of Africans and their descendants in the Americas. Antônia de
75 The next chapter will demonstrate that freed Africans often continued to live in the parishes where they had previously lived as slaves, except in the cases where they consciously opted for semi-rural—and often more African— ways of life.
76 As explained in the Introduction, “pardo” was a Brazilian term that indicated mixed-race ancestry.
122 Araújo’s case constituted a significant exception to the norm of freed Africans marrying other freed Africans at many levels: Antônia had married someone who was Brazilian- born, as well as of mixed race. Since he had been capable of paying for her freedom, he must have also possessed more financial means and a higher economic status. Until he bought her alforria, furthermore, she had remained enslaved while he had been a free man.
Another notable exception to endogamy with regards to both race and African origin is encountered in the case of Antônia Maria da Silva who passed away on 30 November
1826.77 Antônia Maria indicated than she was from the “Angola Kingdom.” As has been asserted to be commonly the case in the section on godparentage, she had already been baptized in West-Central Africa and arrived in Salvador as a Christian. Her commitment to, and participation in, the faith was reflected in the person of her executor, Joaquim José de Santana, who was a reverend. But this is not the most interesting aspect of Antônia
Maria’s case. She stated in her testament that, upon acquiring her alforria, she had been married to Eleutério Rodrigues--a White man born in Salvador. The couple had had no children, and thus Antônia had no direct heirs to her assets. Needless to say, Antônia’s case was highly exceptional among the wills left behind by libertos. It has been argued that West-Central Africans were better accepted within Bahian slave society, since they were stereotypically deemed to be more submissive, trustworthy, and adaptable. As João
Reis explains:
Colonial and provincial authorities in Brazil, as well as plantation owners, foreign travelers, and native chroniclers, often portrayed Bantus, and especially Angolas,
77 Book: 14 – Pp: 207 to 210
123 prejudiciously. They maintained that Angolas were mentally slow, physically weak, and uncivilized and thus more submissive and less anti-white than West Africans. From the seigniorial point of view, Angolas were model slaves.78
This stereotypical view of West-Central Africans had also been strengthened by their near complete absence in the Malê Rebellion.79 While these understandings made
Angolas more acceptable to White Bahian society, their extended interactions with
Europeans and their descendants over centuries also played a major role. Among the first groups of slaves taken to both Portugal and Brazil, they had also gone through much stronger processes of religious and cultural acculturation. All these factors could have played a role in facilitating Antônia Maria da Silva’s marriage to Joaquim José de
Santana. From this perspective, her case may not have been as surprising as a White man marrying a Gegê woman, for example. It no doubt still remained highly exceptional.
The last example I discuss in this section shows that other inequalities also affected the marriage arrangements of African libertos, and that being African did not always imply equality between spouses. Caetano Carlos Teixeira80 passed away on 3 April 1835. He had dictated his testament two years prior to his death, and named his wife Francisca da
Conceição as his first executor, pointing to the fact that he must have believed that she possessed the necessary financial, legal, and organizational skills. Francisca accepted the executorship. Caetano provided proof of his commitment to the Roman Catholic religion in the beginning of his testament, through both his repeated assertions of having always
78 João José Reis. Slave Rebellion…: 148.
79 Ibid.
80 Book: 23 – pp: 118v to 122v
124 lived within the faith and his detailed implorations to God, Virgin Mary, the Saints and the Angels.81 Caetano Carlos indicated that he was from the Mina Coast, and of the
Hausa nation. Considering that the great majority of the Hausas were Muslims and had played a major role within the Muslim uprising of 1835, it is interesting that Caetano so strongly underlined his Christianity. But perhaps he did so exactly for that reason: He wanted to assert his difference, the “true” nature of his faith.82
When counting his material assets, Caetano stated that he had four slaves. Upon his death, they would be left in the possession of his wife who was their “verdadeira senhora and possuidora” [“true mistress and owner”]. She would thus be the one to decide on their fate according to what she found appropriate. The very language in which Caetano, an ex-slave himself, conveyed these ideas of absolute masterhood and ownership is in itself significant, but not as much as his clear deferment to his wife. While it is never openly stated, the language of Caetano’s testament does not simply imply respect and trust. In ways that are subtle for the most part, Caetano appears to have seen his wife as above his own rank, as the clear owner of their material assets, and as the sole person who could decide as to whatever became of them. The only debt that Caetano had was to a certain Sr. José Caetano. It was once again his wife who would present him this sum of
110,200 réis upon his death. Caetano’s deferral to his wife became even more evident with regards to his daughter. While Caetano had never had children from his official marriage, he had conceived a daughter beforehand. Her name was Marcela, and she was
81 As will be seen in Chapter IV, I see such lengthy descriptions that go beyond the required formulaic statements as proof of a sincere Catholic faith professed by freed Africans.
82 Caetano’s case will be elaborated upon from the religious angle in Chapter IV.
125 married at the time the testament was written. While Caetano stated that Marcela had been born prior to his marriage (and thus not from an adulterous relationship while he had been joined to Francisca in holy matrimony), he did not specify who her mother was.
Caetano left Marcela a female slave as inheritance, “or the value of such a slave” he said, and emphasized the fact that he left her nothing more than that. The clause in question was a strong one, and might demonstrate that the relationship between father and daughter was tense at the moment. Caetano stated that if Marcela was not content with her legacy and if she sought any judicial means to dispute it, Caetano’s wife and first executor (whom he seemed quite certain would outlive him) would not give her anything, and that he otherwise disinherited her for her disobedience to his determinations
[“desherdo-a como desobediente do meu determinado”]. It is not clear if this was already the case, or would only become so when/if she disputed her father’s dispositions. Since one’s legal child directly became one’s legal heir according to Brazilian law and many individuals took advantage of their testaments to recognize their children born out of wedlock, Caetano felt the need to explain and justify his actions. He asserted that all his material assets had been acquired by him and his wife, and “to put it more clearly” [para mais claro dizer] by his wife in particular. Therefore, this was another instance within nineteenth-century libertos’ wills where a woman held assets of greater importance than those of her husband. In fact, Caetano did not assert his personal ownership over anything that he listed in his will. Francisca was to have complete rights over all assets, as well as the right to decide to whom they would go. It seems that emphasizing Francisca’s ownership and rights, and limiting those of others including his daughters, was in fact
Caetano’s main purpose in preparing his testament. Another additional reason for doing
126 so was certainly his fear of death and the need to prove the sincerity of his Roman
Catholic faith. As in the case of the four slaves, Caetano strongly insisted on his wife’s rights and power throughout his testament. In each case, he seemed to greatly defer to his wife in all decisions. Was Francisca so very different from Caetano in terms of social standing and financial status? Did his wife influence Caetano in his decisions with regards to his four slaves, and particularly with regards to the legacy he would leave his daughter? It seems clear that Francisca possessed her own assets, and she also comes across as a strong individual who held a large degree of influence over Caetano. It is possible that a certain amount of competition and jealousy was at stake with regards to
Caetano’s daughter. On the other hand, what was more at stake was probably a question of having control over precarious resources and assets. Perhaps Caetano had not been adept at controlling their resources and safeguarding their economic circumstances during his life, and wanted to avoid any more bad decisions at the advent of his death.83 It could also be that guaranteeing the wellbeing of his wife after his own death, which he seems pretty certain would take place before hers, was the most important consideration for
Caetano. In any case, it seems clear that Caetano had married someone with more resources and power than himself, and this inequality came out clearly from the clauses of his testament. He openly stated that the assets jointly owned by the couple had essentially been acquired by his wife.84 In this way, his testament testified to the fact that not only racial differences and those of origin, or the distinction of free vs. slave status,
83 This might have been the case, but it is unlikely that Caetano would have openly stated that the material assets in question had been acquired by his wife or repeatedly referred to her clear ownership over these, if this was simply a question of her being the more responsible person in their marriage, or the one more capable of managing their assets.
84 Ana Maria da Silva Rosa, whose testament has previously been discussed and will be referred to again in later chapters, also insisted that her husband had usurped her own personal wealth in his adulterous relationships.
127 but also considerations of class entered as important factors into the dynamics that shaped the lives and unions of freed Africans. Even in the cases where both spouses were freed
Africans, the inequalities in wealth among the two could cause unequal dynamics both within the marriage, and with regards to their relationships to others. While Caetano and his wife seemed to be in full agreement with regards to how they would proceed about his bequests, the testament implies that Caetano’s wife had affected his relationship to his daughter who was born prior to his current marriage, and probably limited the legacy he would have otherwise left her. The father and daughter did not seem to be on good terms, for which there may have been a number of reasons, but the fact that Caetano privileged his wife over his daughter and natural heir also seems to have played a role in shaping their relationship.
V.II. Close Bonds between Former Masters and Slaves Eternalized in Libertos’ Wills While Africanness brought the free and enslaved members of the community close to one another, the relationships between enslaved Africans and their African owners remains a problematic subject that will be discussed in detail in Chapter III. Kátia Mattoso asserts that in her study of libertos’ wills, she has observed that “no período 1790-1826, três quartos dos homens e um pouco mais de três quartos das mulheres mencionam no seu testamento o nome de seu antigo senhor” [in the period 1790-1826, three quarters of the men and a little more than three quarters of the women mentioned the names of their former masters in their testaments].85 This certainly holds true for the sample of
85 Kátia M de Queirós Mattoso. “Testamentos de Escravos Libertos na Bahia no Século XIX: Uma Fonte para o Estudo de Mentalidades.” Da Revolução dos Alfaiates à Riqueza dos Baianos no Século XIX: Itinerário de uma Historiadora. Eds. Soares, Arlette, and Rina Angulo. Salvador: Corrupio, 2004: 236.
128 documents at hand as well. Even in the case where libertos do not offer any additional information on their former masters or ex-slaves (or the ones who would soon be able to gain their freedom), they mention their names with great frequency. This clearly points to the role played by African masters and mistresses in the acculturation and adaptation processes of their slaves to Bahian society. It does not mean that these relationships were always good, but they were almost always central to the experiences of those Africans who arrived in Bahia as slaves. Below, I analyze several testaments that point in the direction of especially close relationships forged between ex-slaves and their former masters and mistresses. Others, on the other hand, emphasize the complexities inherent to such relationships.
In her testament, Angélica da Costa86 related that she had been jointly owned by two women before purchasing her alforria—Joana Nunes who had already passed away, and
Inácia Maria do Livramento who was still alive at the time. To Inácia Maria, Angélica left the small amount of ten tostões as an “obligation of slavery” [em obséquio da escravidão]. Rather than the affection or gratitude that was usually expressed by freed
Africans in such situations, even in the cases when this might have been solely in words rather than actually in thought, it is worthy of note that Angélica clearly stated this to be her obligation. Conversely, for Joana Nunes, her former mistress who had already passed away, Angélica requested that three masses be said in return for alms of three hundred and twenty réis. In her explanation for this specific disposition, she did underline this time the gratitude she felt towards this ex-mistress, in return for having permitted her
86 Book: 11 – Pp: 237 to 44
129 alforria for which she had paid a hundred and eighty thousand réis in return. In this context, it is important to remember that buying one’s alforria was common in nineteenth-century Bahia, and could even be considered customary. However, it was not a given right, and therefore never guaranteed. Owners expected gratitude from their slaves in return for offering them this possibility, even when they did not do so unconditionally, but were paid in return as in Angélica’s case.87 With regards to alforria prices, Chapter III will demonstrate that the sum Angélica paid was considered reasonable in a comparative framework of alforria prices set by libertos, and that these were often considerably lower than the market value of slaves. Former slaves often did feel grateful for having been given the possibility to buy their freedom. Masters and mistresses were capable of withholding the right, or of making the conditions for it so difficult that it could be almost impossible to attain. Many actually did so. Freedom was very fragile in nineteenth-century Bahia, and its acquisition constituted the main goal and the most important turning point in the lives of many freed Africans. A well-known fact, this was not the significant detail in Angélica da Costa’s testament. Rather, Angélica was exceptional for being an ex-slave who had been jointly owned by two different women
(about whom we have no information as to how they were connected to one another), who seems to have held different relationships to both. Perhaps, Inácia Maria had not made an effort to help her in gaining her freedom in the same way that Joana Nunes did.
Or the latter woman had simply treated her better. In any case, while she felt an
87 In “Part Eight. The Perils of Being Black,” Robert Conrad offers documentary sources from different parts of Brazil and different points in time with regards to the possibilities of being granted one’s alforria, as well as to how easily it could be revoked. Several of the primary sources demonstrate how (the lack of) gratitude could be used as an easy pretext for taking back alforria grants. Robert Edgar Conrad. Children of God’s Fire: A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1984: 319-357
130 “obligation” towards one and left her a small token of alms, she felt “gratitude” for the other and asked for masses to be said for her soul. While the main difference could also be that one was still alive while the other had passed away, Angélica talked about the gratitude she felt for her alforria towards only one of her mistresses, and did not state that she was grateful to both.
Joaquina Maria de Menezes died on 26 March 1823, and her executor was Andreza
Maria de Menezes.88 In her testament, Joaquina Maria stated being a native of Guiné, which the nineteenth-century testaments have shown was usually used as a synonym for the Mina Coast, rather than referring to the Senegambia region as in previous periods.
Like many of her peers, Joaquina Maria had arrived in Bahia as a minor. Often, in the cases where Africans spent larger periods of time in Brazil, they went through greater degrees of both adaptation and creolization. They developed stronger ties to their surroundings, to the people within their personal networks, as well as to the Roman
Catholic religion. This was clearly not the case for everyone, since some people adapted much faster, and others did not in spite of many years spent in the country. Similarly, many people who had spent long periods of time in Brazil exercised their agency in not opting for the Catholic faith and remaining committed to African-derived religions.
Joaquina’s personal commitment to both Brazilian and Roman Catholic ways was evident in the elaborate funerary arrangements she requested, which also pointed to an important level of identification with the society and its values. The fact that she had arrived in
Bahia as a child had probably facilitated her life in Salvador in certain other ways as well.
88 Book: 11 – pp: 181 to 185
131 She had had more time to form bonds and to create personal networks. She must have adapted more easily and become better accepted within communities of Africans. Perhaps as a consequence of many years of coexistence and ensuing affection, when her former owner Josefa Maria de Menezes had passed away, she had left Joaquina Maria in possession of her freedom papers, without demanding any payment in return. The two also had very similar names, in addition to the last names that slaves would normally inherit from their masters or mistresses. Perhaps Josefa Maria had taken a liking to
Joaquina Maria from the very beginning. In this way, Joaquina’s relationship to Josefa seems similar to that between African masters (and especially mistresses) and their crias, the slave children born into a household and who came to be seen almost as part of it.
Chapter III will show that these were almost invariably the slaves who were favored in alforria arrangements, and certainly the predominant group among unconditional alforria recipients. Joaquina’s young age at the time she arrived in Josefa’s household seems to have made for similar dynamics to be present in their relationship.
Joaquina had never married nor had any children. Therefore, her assets were “free” [são os meus bens livres]—an interesting and relevant choice of language in the context of slavery. Among the few freedoms she had ever possessed, being able to freely dispose of her own legacy must have been a major one for Joaquina. In continuing the line of close master-slave bonds, it is highly interesting that Joaquina Maria’s first executor, who accepted the executorship, was also her own former slave—Andreza Maria de Menezes.
The two other executors named were Joaquina’s children—her daughter Maria de Aleluia in the second place, and her son Pedro Gomes de Brito in the third. It was remarkable that
132 Joaquina had trusted her ex-slave over her own children to realize the executorship of her testament. On the other hand, there may also have been a practical element to this decision. Joaquina Maria may have picked another person to whom she had close ties and whom she could count upon in realizing the conditions of her testament and her final rites, rather than having to decide between her two children as to who among them would be her first executor. In any case, it is clear that Joaquina Maria had a very close relationship to her former slave, which could have been mother-daughterlike in nature, and probably resembled the relationship that she herself had had to her former mistress.
Ana Francisca da Conceição89 left the Sra. Maria Custódia who had retreated to the
Convento do Desterro the non-negligible sum of forty thousand réis. Ana Francisca stated both her “reconhecimento” [acknowledgement] and her “muito amor” [great love] for the lady in question, who had been her former mistress. Even though she had liberated herself from her through the payment of her alforria, a life-long bond had kept tying Ana
Francisca to her former mistress. By then, Maria Custódia was clearly advanced in years, and perhaps equally sincere a believer as her former slave appeared to be in her testament,90 as could be deduced from the fact that she had withdrawn herself from the world in old age to the Desterro convent. Had the two women been in regular contact after Ana Francisca gained her freedom? At least, they had never lost track of each other’s whereabouts, even though Maria Custódia had clearly changed her place of residence. Ana Francisca remembered her former mistress when she was faced with
89 Book: 4 – pp: 158v to 163
90 Ana Francisca da Conceição’s religiosity will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter IV.
133 contemplating life after her death, and she actually indicated that what she felt for her was love, in addition to gratitude. In leaving her ex-mistress a sum that was actually capable of making a difference in her life, Ana Francisca asserted both Christian values of piety and underlined the importance of, and the appreciation one felt for, the possibility of acquiring one’s freedom in a slave society.
V.III. Other Notable Exceptions In rare instances, freed Africans also forged close associations with people with whom they shared few things in common. Two such examples are presented in the joint testament of Adriano José Viana and Mariana Maria do Sacramento Viana,91 already studied above in the context of the special bond that existed between the husband and wife who had either come to Salvador together, or met very soon afterwards. Their testament stated that they owed a debt to Sr. Thomé Pinto de Almeida Castro for the sum of Rs. 4:300$000, which resulted from the mortgage that existed on their two urban dwellings. Even considering that their testament had been composed at the end of the century, this amount represented a very large sum, which in turn indicated that Thomé
Pinto de Almeida Castro was from a different social standing, and probably not a freed
African. Indeed, cross-referencing with regards to Thomé has resulted in a “processo cível” (civil case) in which he himself borrowed money from D. Eugênia Leopoldina
Ferreira Adães for a mortgage.92 Unable to pay his debt, he had been obliged to pay through the real estate that he himself owned, which was auctioned publicly. Since the document at hand is a “processo cível,” it does not offer any personal details on Thomé.
91 02/886/1355/01
92 28/977/7
134 However, it does say that he was a businessman, owner of real estate, as well as cigar shops, located in the Rua da Preguiça in the Freguesia da Conceição da Praia, and in the
Rua do Tijolo, located in the Freguesia da Sé. The occupation of Thomé Pinto de
Almeida Castro, as well as his material assets and the sums of money involved in his business transactions all point to the fact that he was most probably a White man of some social standing and financial means.
Another exception to a “world of Africans” also appears in the joint testament of the
Vianas. Indeed, the Vianas must have had a somewhat exceptional personal network when compared to other freed Africans in Salvador. In line with their commitment to one another, they named as their executors the one who might possibly outlive the other within their couple. The second candidate they chose was referred to exceptionally as the
“Excellentíssimo Senhor Doutor” [“the most excellent doctor”] Frederico Marinho de
Araújo. The third candidate was not bestowed the same honorifics, but rather referred to simply as Francisco Gomes Ferreira. The latter was probably another freed African, as was usually the case with the members of libertos’ personal networks, and the executors they often chose from within these. However, the description of the second executor points to the fact that he might have been a more privileged member of Bahian society, and most probably a White person. The term “Doutor” referred to at the time, as it still does today, to either a medical doctor or a doctor of law in the Portuguese-speaking world of which Brazil is a part. Such a privileged profession and title was not one that could have been accessible to freed Africans in the nineteenth century. As Renato da
Silveira asserts, “[o]s africanos eram enquadrados em uma legislação que lhes asegurava
135 apenas alguns direitos elementares, institucionalizando limites que lhes barrava a ascenção social” [Africans were framed within a legislation which provided them solely with certain elementary rights, institutionalizing limits that blocked their social ascent].93
While there existed no direct laws that banned freed Africans from the medical or legal professions similar to those encountered in Haiti for example, Africans in Bahia were seen as foreigners without the privileges of citizens, in addition to the stigmas of slavery and race that they constantly carried with themselves. In fact, the fact that there existed none that directly banned them from these professions in the midst of the plethora of laws and limitations that followed the Malê Revolution is in itself telling. It means that such a possibility was seen as so remote that it was not even directly taken into consideration by the state’s legal authorities. While there existed a slim chance that a mulato or pardo (or rather a person of mixed race who actually passed as White through processes of social whitening) could have held such a title, it was a much greater possibility that the “doutor” in question was a White member of Bahian society.
I have also engaged in some cross-referencing in the case of Frederico Marinho de
Araújo who actually left his testament behind, although in the twentieth century.94 For being Frederico’s own will, it offers more personal details than a civil case. It was
93 Renato da Silveira. O Candomblé da Barroquinha: Processo de constituição do primeiro terreiro baiano de keto. Salvador: Maianga, 2006: 170.
Once freed, libertos were supposed to have the same legal rights as free Whites. However, radical social events such as the Malê Revolution clearly demonstrated that this was not the case, or at least that their status was only provisory, extremely fragile, and open to being revised and reversed at any moment. In a society with such high levels of inequality, social order meant keeping everyone in their perceived places. This is also the reason why most of these laws were directed to libertos, even more than to enslaved individuals.
94 8/3281/2
136 composed on 3 September 1917,95 and unfortunately is partly damaged and thus illegible.
Frederico listed two houses that he owned in the freguesia of Penha, as well as certain items of furniture. But he also listed books of law, which make it quite certain that he was in fact in the legal profession. In addition, the fact that his two houses were located in the
Penha parish, home primarily to poor Whites and very few Blacks of any origin, also point to Frederico being a White man—probably a lawyer of modest means. No other qualifications were listed in his will nor were there any direct references to profession.
The relationship between the Viana liberto couple and Dr. Frederico Marinho de Araújo can only be speculated upon in the absence of further documentation. However, a closer look at the appearance of another “doutor” in a separate testament could shed some further light on the matter.
The testament of Ana Maria da Silva Rosa,96 who was able to procure only a conditional divorce from her husband who had engaged in adultery and wasted her material assets, has already been referred to and will be examined in detail in the context of religion in
Chapter IV. As her executors, Ana Maria da Silva Rosa named in the first place José
Pereira—“husband to her niece, child, and heir”—with whom she had taken refuge. Her niece Francisca herself was to be her second executor. The third candidate was Manoel
Domingues da Costa, who had been her attorney. She described Manoel Domingues da
Costa as someone who had always been worthy of her trust in both her legal quests and at
95 The fact that the Viana couple also prepared their testament in1887 and thus well towards the end of the nineteenth century places that of Frederico Marinho de Araújo (registered in 1917) within an acceptable time frame, leaving very little doubt as to the testament being his. He must, however, been quite old by the time that he passed away.
96 Book: 09- pp: 59 to 62V
137 a personal level. She recounted having stayed at his house, in the period that had immediately followed her conditional divorce, and probably before she went on to live with her niece and her husband. It is clear that Ana Maria da Silva Rosa had gone through very difficult moments as a result of her decision to get a divorce, which once again serve to demonstrate her courage and strength, especially when put in the context of the place, time, and her condition as an African liberta. These difficulties, on the other hand, seem to have highlighted the true solidarities and friendships in her life. Accordingly, she once again demonstrated her recognition towards Manoel Domingues by leaving him the large sum of a hundred and fifty thousand réis which she stated that she owed him, in return for the nourishment, papers and work with which he had provided her during the whole time he remained in her service. From Ana Maria’s testament, it appears that Manoel
Domingues had not received any payments for his services prior to her death. Even if he had done so, Ana Maria herself had decided that these did not constitute a sufficient compensation for the level of assistance he had provided her with. If she had even needed food at the time that she had taken refuge in the house of her attorney, Ana Maria must have left the company of her former husband in very dire circumstances indeed. No wonder she felt grateful for the assistance that Manoel Domingues had offered her. An attorney who had studied law, who was able to fight for Ana Maria’s divorce and with the economic and social means to assist her when she was in need, was clearly not a freed
African or someone of the same social standing as Ana Maria herself. We can safely assume that Manoel Domingues was a White man, or at least someone who was near
White in race, and who had come to be considered as such through a significant level of education and social Whitening.
138
VI. Conclusions Nineteenth-century Salvador da Bahia constituted a highly cosmopolitan slave society, where Africans, Brazilians, Portuguese nationals and other foreigners; Whites, people of mixed race and Blacks; free people, freed people, and slaves, as well as people from all social classes lived and worked together. This was evident in the topography and diverse compositions of Salvador’s parishes, neighborhoods and streets, as well as in the living arrangements entered into by the different members of society. The same mixing and non-segregation also existed in the world of labor in Salvador, where people of all segments of society worked together in different professions, as well as in trade.
Moreover, the fact that shops, warehouses, workshops and other places of labor were usually set up in the same locations as people’s residences also reinforced this existing diversity and coexistence. Patterns of liberto life in nineteenth-century Salvador with regards to living and labor arrangements will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter II.
This chapter has primarily argued that freed Africans inhabited a personal world that was largely formed by other Africans like themselves—whether enslaved or free. While their daily and public lives took place in the highly mixed world of Salvador that constantly bustled with activity and brought together people from all walks of life, the deliberate personal choices libertos made as to who to associate with in their own terms, as well as to who they would value, trust, and assist in their lives often revolved around other
Africans. While they exercised a significant degree of agency in creating African worlds for themselves in Brazil, these processes of identity and community formation also received a significant impetus from the ecclesiastical-state apparatus that limited their
139 rights, and the Bahian slave society that only offered limited acceptance to Africans.
Coming together in solidarity and resistance, these freed Africans forged for themselves new identities as Africans in Bahia, as different from both Africans in Africa and Afro-
Brazilians who were born in Brazil.
Within their Africanness, libertos forged intricate connections to one another through marriage and partnerships, godparentage, as well as other bonds of solidarity, protection, and patronage that sprang from their specific experiences. As with all hegemonic systems, and with every aspect of slavery as it was experienced in Salvador, the general pattern of an “African world” also lent itself to many exceptions. Some of these, along with the high level of complexity inherent to these relationships, were also discussed in this chapter through the analysis of several testaments left behind by nineteenth-century libertos. Such exceptions and complexities have manifested themselves in the context of marriages, master-slave relationships, as well as close bonds with people well above the social standing of libertos. Now that this necessary framework has been established, the next chapter will delve more deeply into the daily lives, worldviews, and values of freed
Africans through an analysis of the material assets they listed, and the living arrangements they referred to, in their testaments.
140
CHAPTER II
THE MATERIAL POSSESSIONS AND LIVING ARRANGEMENTS OF LIBERTOS
I. Introduction: Post-Mortem Testaments and Inventories; Understanding the Wealth of African Libertos
This chapter proposes to reach a more in-depth understanding of liberto life through a study of the material assets listed in their testaments and post-mortem inventories. In the process of studying liberto wealth in land and real estate, light is also shed on their living patterns. In all cases, life choices on the part of freed Africans, their mentalities, and personal networks once again become apparent. The motives of freed Africans for composing their testaments have been referred to in the Introduction. In order to contextualize the material assets discussed in this chapter, however, it is important to remember once again that testaments constitute skewed samples, since they solely deal with those who owned property. Naturally not everyone did, and this was more commonly the case when one was an African ex-slave. But as Kátia Mattoso explains, the desire to leave behind a testament was not only felt when the assets to be bequeathed were important. Testaments were also dictated when it was important to sort out an inheritance problem, when the legal condition or the marital status of the eventual heirs
141 was not exactly clear. Other reasons might be that the assets that were in the hands of the testators did not actually belong to them, because they had many debts, or because they only held the right to their products. A will could also serve to protect a partner who had not become a legitimate spouse, an illegitimate child who had not yet been acknowledged, or a member of one’s extended kinship/personal network.97 Several such examples have been seen in Chapter I, and more will be studied below through a primary focus on wealth in material assets rather than on wealth in people, which constitutes the subject matter of Chapter III. Often though, the fear of death and concerns with a decent passage to the afterlife constituted the primary reason for libertos’ preparing their wills, as will de discussed in detail in Chapter IV. All these different reasons why freed
Africans sought to prepare their testaments make this sample representative to a significant degree. Covering households that range from the most humble to the quite affluent, and even encompassing people with no assets who only prepared their wills because of their concerns with death and the afterlife, libertos’ wills constitute a microcosm for the lives they led in nineteenth-century Salvador.
Post-mortem estate inventories constitute a primary source associated with, but different from, testaments. Since they are not reflective of life histories and worldviews in a way similar to the wills of libertos, they do not compose my main source of documentation for this dissertation. However, for this chapter where I primarily focus on the wealth of freed
Africans that was counted in land, houses, and other objects, they constitute important primary sources that provide a concrete understanding of what liberto wealth could look
97 Kátia M. de Queirós Mattoso. “Testamentos de escravos libertos na Bahia no século XIX: uma fonte para o estudo de mentalidades.” Da revolução dos alfaiates à riqueza dos baianos no século XIX: itinerário de uma historiadora. Eds. Soares, Arlette, and Rina Angulo. Salvador: Corrupio, 2004: 249-50.
142 like. Inventories are also very useful through their being much more detailed than the testaments with regards to the descriptions or values of material assets. Kátia Mattoso affirms that the data that comes out of these inventories offers a highly rich source for the understanding of past social structures. She explains in detail the characteristics and the processes that were part of an estate inventory, which was an act that was complementary to the juridical act of a testament, but indispensable for the realization of the last wishes of the testator. These additional documents were composed of two parts: the “avaliação” or appraisal of the material assets owned by the testator, and the “partilha” or partition where the assets left behind by the testator were distributed among heirs.98 While Mattoso focuses on the inventories that accompanied post-mortem testaments, these legal documents were not always dependent on one another. An inventory could indeed follow a testament and re-appraise the assets listed in it, which could also have changed in value over time. In cases where testaments were accepted without qualms, where heirs were directly allotted certain legacies, or where slaves were to be freed, however, inventories were not mandatory. But inventories could also exist by themselves in cases where someone had died intestate or when officers of the state intervened upon someone’s death. Similarly, in the cases where there were direct heirs i.e. a legitimate spouse and/or offspring, these could resort to an amicable “partilha” even when there was no testament in existence. Inventories implied taxes that were much more substantial than those required by testaments, which were solely those of the tax stamps and the small amounts
98 Kátia Mattoso. “Para uma história social seriada da cidade do Salvador no século XIX: os testamentos e inventários como fonte de estudo da estructura social e de mentalidades.” Da revolução dos alfaiates à riqueza dos baianos no século XIX: itinerário de uma historiadora. Eds. Soares, Arlette, and Rina Angulo. Salvador: Corrupio, 2004: 174-5.
143 paid to the notary for his services. Therefore, the existence of a will was beneficial to heirs from a financial perspective as well.
For a perspective on the expenditures linked to an estate inventory, I would like to offer a listing of the payments that were part of the inventory attached to the testament of Luiz
Mendes,99 which will be studied in greater detail below. Luiz’ last rites, the registration of the testament, the whole process of inventory, the tax stamps attached, and the attorney expenses had cost a total of 298,920 réis, written Rs. 298$920. The partition, its associated tax stamps, and the verdict had resulted in another Rs. 20$000 more in expenses, while the chit had cost an additional Rs. 30$000. In addition, there were tax stamps attached to each of the payments that were to be made to separate heirs, since
Luiz Mendes had specified that these should not be subtracted from their legacies. When the additional masses that Luiz had specifically requested were added to these legal costs, the initial inventoried legacy of 1:371$000 had diminished to 770$920. Inventories were costly processes, often avoided in the presence of a testament, and which only made sense in the cases where the financial assets that existed were indeed considerable.
Richard Graham has successfully argued that in a city where a large variety of people from very different backgrounds lived highly interconnected lives, “[p]eople of a middling sort, some better off than others, as well as some very poor and the enslaved, all working hard, filled the city and made it hum. This urban setting allowed the formation
99 05/2186/2665/41
144 of a large intermediary sector […].”100 This idea of the “middle classes” in a general sense, which existed within Salvadorean society in the nineteenth century, also correspond to Mattoso’s effort of understanding of the social structure of the city, by
“captar a realidade do homem comum, do “homem médio,” com todas as suas misérias e problemas cotidianos […]” [understanding the reality of the common man, of the
“average man,” with all his miseries and daily problems].101 Placing poverty and wealth within their proper context in a certain place and time is a complicated task, but even more so in nineteenth-century in Bahia, which represented a period of intense social change and upheavals, as well as a time of major economic crises. The libertos studied in this dissertation are all people who possessed some material assets, which at least they themselves saw as worthy of bequeathing to others, and thus can generally be seen as belonging within this middle social segment, if mostly tending towards its lower strata.102
But while they did possess some material assets, in the large majority of the cases, these could primarily be classified as “bens humildes” or humble assets.
However, this idea of humble assets is in itself problematic. In order to provide at least some basis of comparison with regards to what is perceived to be modest assets by other historians who have worked with libertos’ testaments as their primary sources, I once again turn to Kátia Mattoso. Contrasting two examples from her work points to the complexities of such affirmations, as well as to the wide gaps that could exist among the
100 Richard Graham. Feeding the City: From Street Market to Liberal Reform in Salvador, Brazil, 1780- 1860. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010: 3.
101 Kátia Mattoso. “Para uma historia social seriada…”: 156.
102 The main exception is the case of Joaquim de Almeida, whose testament will be analyzed to some extent in this chapter, but in much greater detail in Chapter III (03/1228/1697/13).
145 people who made up this very large social segment of the “Salvadorean middling classes.” In one study, Mattoso refers to the assets of the liberta Antônia de Araújo,103 studied in the previous chapter from the perspective of her pardo husband—a factor which she does not consider worthy of any special attention. Defining Antônia as a
“mulher piedosa” or pious woman, Mattoso lists Antônia’s material assets which she describes as “bem modestos” [quite modest]. They are mostly of a religious nature: an oratory with the images of Christ, and five others with other titles and names, all decently ornate, as well as a few crowns of gold and silver. There is also a small chest of three drawers, a small chest, and a few other items of furniture of little value. Mattoso rightly understands Antônia’s primary reason for preparing her will as her fear of death, and the specific final rites that she would like to receive. In addition, since she is a widow with no children, Antônia wants to make sure that her universal heir is the one of her choice:
Antônia Maria da Silva, on whom she offers no additional information.104 It is easy to agree here with Mattoso that Antônia’s material assets are indeed quite modest, and that her reasons for bequeathing them to her namesake must be linked to their emotional and religious value, much more than the material assistance they could provide her with. We can now contrast these with another example Mattoso provides in a different study of a liberta whose assets she once again defines as modest. These are the possessions of
Quitéria de Assumpção, a freed Gegê woman, who prepared her testament in 1805.105 It is hard to read the assets that belonged to Quitéria as having been as humble as Mattoso
103 Book: 10 – pp: 91 to 96v
104 Kátia Mattoso. “Testamentos de escravos…”: 253-4.
105 Kátia Mattoso. “Para uma historia social seriada…”: 229.
146 posits them to be. They include a sobrado,106 as well as a “casebre” or hovel in the outskirts of the city. What Mattoso refers to as “pequenas importancias” or small amounts in terms of the money that was owed to Quitéria by others reach the total sum of Rs.
237$199, which by no means was a negligible sum at the time. In addition, Quitéria owned two adult slaves, as well as some furniture and a Roman Catholic oratory, just like
Antônia did.107 It is hard to make sense of someone like Quitéria as a liberta in very humble circumstances, nor of anyone at any point of time who owned both real estate and slaves, as well as money and items of household furniture. From this perspective,
Mattoso’s understanding of wealth and poverty does not appear to be sufficiently nuanced. The same complication extends itself not only to the freed African population, but also to the wide range of people grouped together in the large and ill-defined category of Salvador’s “middling” or “humble” classes in the nineteenth century. Even so, the libertos’ wills that I will be discussing below from the perspective of material wealth often indicate legacies that were indeed quiet modest in the majority of the cases. But as is almost always the case with post-mortem wills, these listings include what they owned around the times when they already started to ponder their deaths, and not what they could have owned before and then lost, or what they had already passed on to the others.
It is still hard to imagine that what they had lost or given away by then could have gone too far beyond what libertos listed in their wills.
106 A sobrado was basically a house of two to three stories, which could include a loja or loge in the basement, which often served as crowded living quarters for large numbers of both enslaved and freed Blacks, in the cases where they did not belonged to more privileged Bahians. Joao Reis states in Slave Rebellion… that these stately houses separated by narrow streets constituted the main urban living spaces in Salvador in the nineteenth century (67).
107 Kátia Mattoso. “Para uma historia social seriada…”: 230.
147 While racial hierarchy remained an important shaper of life in the soterópolis,108 freed slaves—both African and crioulo (Brazilian-born Black)—could at times occupy positions above those of Whites. Within the intermediary sector referred to above, Blacks and Whites often rubbed shoulders, and did not differ much from one another in their economic circumstances and the material lives that they led.109 Economic and social differences became increasingly negligible towards the bottom of the social scale. As will be discussed later in this chapter, Anna Nascimento has also emphasized the cosmopolitan nature of all of Salvador’s urban parishes, where the members of the middle and lower classes of all races lived in close proximity to one another, but also not far from the dwellings of the much more privileged members of Salvadorean society.110
Of course, the extent of the cosmopolitan nature of the parishes could vary considerably, but the fact remained that they were all home to very diverse groups of people. This understanding of the absence of major racial differences, or those linked to origin, among the “middling” segments of society has also been demonstrated in Kátia Mattoso’s study of the testaments of the more exceptional libertos who had been capable of a significant level of social mobility—cases where no major differences could be witnessed between these “socially successful” African and Brazilian-born ex-slaves in the nineteenth century, and their White or near-White social peers.111 Therefore, it would be wrong to understand the freed Africans studied in this dissertation as simply economically and
108 Since Salvador was Brazil’s first colonial capital and major urban center, it was denominated as the “soterópolis,” in reference to the Byzantine fortress. The initial significance was forgotten over time, with the inhabitants of the city insisting on their identity as the first urban inhabitants of Brazil. 109 Richard Graham. Passim.
110 Anna Amélia Vieira Nascimento. Passim.
111 Kátia Mattoso. “Testamentos de escravos…”: 248-257. However, Mattoso has clearly spoken about the differences between crioulos and africanos in other places within the body of her works.
148 socially inferior members of society. While they were inferior to some, they were also above others. And they also lived in a world that was populated by many other people who greatly resembled them in their social and economic circumstances.
In addition, the nineteenth-century was a time of general economic turmoil in Bahia, described as a period of “intense economic oppression” by Kátia Mattoso in her study of the social and economic upheavals that took place in Bahia in the period of Brazil’s war of independence.112 This dire economic situation has also been elaborated on by João
Reis, with specific reference to the framework of uncertainty, dissatisfaction, frustration, social tumult and rebellion that marked the Bahian nineteenth century.113 The war of independence especially left Bahia in a desolate state. While Richard Graham has elaborated on the general economic crisis experienced in this context of war and siege, he has also shown that these social and economic tumults also resulted in more significant levels of upward social mobility for libertos, as well as slaves.114 This turbulent period was also followed by the relocation of production and wealth to southern Brazil, upon which Bahia lost its centrality to the Brazilian economy.115 With the end of the Atlantic
112 Kátia Mattoso. “Sociedade e conjuntura na Bahia nos anos de luta pela independência.” Passim.
113 João José Reis. Slave Rebellion…: 13-20. In his Master’s thesis entitled “Entre a Pobreza e a Propriedade: o pequeno proprietario de escravos em Salvador, 1850-1888,” Carlos Zacarias F. de Sena Junior also summarizes the context of poverty in the city in pages 7-22. (Universidade Federal da Bahia, 1997).
114 Richard Graham, Feeding the City…: 137-190.
115 References to the move of wealth from the Northeast to the Southeast can be found in any major work on the history of slavery in Brazil that encompasses the nineteenth century, such as Dauril Alden. Ed. Colonial Roots of Modern Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.; Kátia M. de Queirós Mattoso. To Be A Slave in Brazil: 1550-1888. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1986.; Caio Prado Jr. The Colonial Background of Modern Brazil. Berkeley & Los Angeles: The University of California Press, 1967.; Stuart B. Schwartz. Slaves, Peasants and Rebels: Reconsidering Brazilian Slavery. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1992. Especially applicable references are also
149 slave trade, its importance and wealth that derived from that specific trade were also gone, and the new trade in “legitimate goods” that was to replace it could not even come close to its profits.116 In the midst of such a period of economic crisis, most members of society went through a loss in social and economic status, even though the underprivileged were hit more directly as is usually the case almost everywhere. In this context, the economic circumstances of the libertos, who had actually been able to pay for their alforria through both ganho earnings,117 and the support of the people within their close personal networks,118 came to differ little from those of many other soteropolitanos. This was even more so the case for those individuals who had left behind their testaments in the nineteenth century, who for having assets that they saw as
contained in every study which focuses on slavery in this time period in Bahia, many of which have already been listed in this dissertation. In addition, for a specific historical study on the subject, see for example the more didactic study by Cleyton Rodrigues dos Santos. “Da escravidão à imigração: A Transição do Trabalho Escravo para o Trabalho Livre Assalariado no Brasil.” Intertemas (2003). http://intertemas.unitoledo.br/revista/index.php/Juridica/article/viewFile/121/124
For the over-land slave trade to Minas Gerais in the nineteenth century, see: Roberto Borges Martins. Minas e o tráfico de escravos no século XIX, outra vez. Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 1994.
116 For the experience and consequences of the transition from the Atlantic slave trade to the trade in palm oil and legitimate goods on the West African Coast and especially Dahomey, see for example: Robin Law. Ed. From Slave Trade to “Legitimate” Commerce: The Commercial Transition in Nineteenth-Century West Africa. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.; Elisée Soumonni. “Some Reflections on the Brazilian Legacy in Dahomey.” Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of a Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil. Eds. Mann, Kristin, and Edna G. Bay. London: Frank Cass, 2001: 61-72.
117 Slaves in Salvador could hire out their labor or work as vendors in return for giving a significant percentage of their proceeds to their owners. This system was called the ganho system, while its participants were ganhadores/ganhadeiras.
118 Kátia Mattoso finds this second factor to be much more influential than the first. She states that slaves could never have achieved their independence in the absence of help from the people within their social networks. These people could have been their ex-owners, other libertos, close or distant friends, but libertos almost always needed outside assistance for their alforria (“Testamentos…”: 258). All these possibilities are apparent in the cases of the freed Africans studied in this dissertation, while we also know that irmandades also provided their enslaved members with financial support to acquire their alforria at times. This last point will be discussed in more detail in Chapter IV. However, the material wealth witnessed in this chapter and in Chapter III also point to the importance of ganho earnings, since such material assets could have only been acquired over significant lengths of time.
150 worthy of passing on to others, also constituted a somewhat more privileged segment within their own social group.119
The less privileged freed Africans who had no material assets and lived in dependency to others then, is not represented in the sample of documents analyzed in this dissertation
(although they also composed testaments at times for reasons already cited above), except in the few cases where testators themselves referred to some of their poorer acquaintances, in an effort to be of some assistance to them even after their own deaths.
Similar dynamics are also present in the case of the “forced inventory” also to be analyzed later in this chapter. The libertos whose wills I analyze are those who owned material assets, and whose bequests, however meager, could make a difference in the
119 Still, their relative upward social mobility and closeness to others in the social and economic scales should not be exaggerated either. Most libertos led extremely difficult and desolate lives in Salvador. They arrived in the Bahian capital either as children or as young adults, and spent many years working as slaves. They might have been at an advantage vis-à-vis their peers who labored on the sugar plantations of the Recôncavo, in the sense that being a domestic slave or ganho labor was often less back-breaking work. But this in no way meant that it was an easy life. Enslaved Africans still worked extremely long hours at highly difficult physical tasks. They were poorly fed and clothed, and able to sleep few hours. Even in the cases where they hired out their labor or were vendors, precious little money remained for their own use or for saving after they paid their owners. It could, and often did, take years for them to be able to collect the money to pay for their alforria, in the cases where they were actually offered the opportunity by their masters and mistresses. By then, they would often be of at least middle age, and the difficult lives they had led would have taken at least some toll on their health. Even in the cases where they were assisted by others, the purchase of their alforria would frequently leave them in dire financial circumstances, and often in debt to others. Even when they received their legal freedom, their poverty often meant that they would never be completely free and that they would be dependent on others. They would live in their company, receive physical and material protection from them. In this, they followed the general historical trend for all underprivileged people in Brazilian society. But being African exacerbated their circumstances, since they constantly carried with themselves the stigma of both enslavement and “foreignness.” They often owned no property, no money, nothing to call their own, and to pass on to their offspring or other potential heirs. Their life expectancy was low, and being around sixty usually meant approaching death, as well as often being sick and bed-ridden. This was the common life story of an African liberto in nineteenth-century Salvador.
To have a better idea about the daily and average lives of slaves and libertos in Brazil, see for example: Sheila do Castro Faria. “Cotidiano do Negro no Brasil Escravista.” Tres grandes cuestiones de la historia de Iberoamérica. Ed. José Andrés-Gallego. Madrid: Fundación Mapfre Tavera - Fundación Ignacio Larremendi, 2005.
151 lives of others. As Sandra Lauderdale Graham states, “the imprint of Brazilian culture was deeply juridical” and “[e]ven ordinary Brazilians knew the necessity of a notary’s seal.” 120 Freed Africans, in addition, often made a special point of using the few legal recourses open to them to register their last wishes into official documentation that would survive into eternity. For them, this also constituted a significant reclamation of what they saw as their rights and privileges they deserved as dignified members of Brazilian society. In the process, they also exercised as much agency as they could in shaping the lives of their loved ones, and of the other people associated with them in different ways through being part of their personal networks or extended communities, upon their own deaths. For people who lived in difficult circumstances, some of whom were still enslaved, any small amount of money or material bequest was capable of making a difference.121 For this reason, the testaments covered even the humblest households within a sub-stratum of people who composed a relatively more privileged group among their own peers. Therefore, within the general limits of the sample, I once again posit that the wills under study are actually quite representative of people of differing life trajectories, social circumstances, and economic means. The documentary sample is also representative, because of the multi-layered reasons that led libertos to compose their wills. If someone registered a testament primarily because they feared death and wanted to make sure they received a decent funeral, they would do so even if they did not own anything of actual value. These factors will become clear in the analysis of the primary
120 Sandra Lauderdale Graham. Caetana Says No: Women’s Stories from a Brazilian Slave Society. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002: xxi.
121 Seeking to protect and help loved ones is a reason common to all wills composed by everyone everywhere. However, in the case of freed Africans who continued to live in the precarious world of slavery in Salvador, and were connected to both enslaved and free people who could be worse off than them in their economic circumstances, such arrangements took on additional importance and urgency.
152 sources presented below. But for the purposes of this chapter, I have only included people who at least had some possessions. Every freed African studied here was able to find at least a few things they would like to leave to others, ranging from a house to money, from jewelry to clothing items. Within this more privileged group, as in any other, divisions also existed. Some people were relatively more privileged than others; some were much more so. The differences in their social and economic status also shaped the ways in which they chose to dispose of their material assets in the wills that they prepared.
The ownership of slaves by African ex-slaves is not discussed in this chapter, since slave ownership involves dynamics that are much more controversial and complex. The experience of enslavement is reflective of the most problematic and nuanced aspects of intra-African relationships in Salvador. This complex discussion will be considered as a topic wholly unto itself in Chapter III. I focus here on the strictly material assets owned by freed Africans in nineteenth-century Bahia. Namely, these are houses and fruit/vegetable gardens, furniture and other household goods, precious metals and currency, as well as a few other items of little monetary importance which do not fit within any of the above categories, such as clothing items etc.122 These items tell us much about the material lives led by freed Africans in Bahia, while they also point to the conscious choices they made, the calculations they engaged in, and the ways in which they exercised their agency. Why did a liberto choose a rural dwelling made of cheap
122 In addition to the works of Kátia M. de Queirós Mattoso and Maria Inês Côrtes de Oliveira, among the histories of slavery in Brazil that rely on testaments as archival sources, the work of Kathleen Higgins in colonial Sabará, Minas Gerais, has been especially relevant for shaping my understanding of the worldly lives of libertos, as I seek to describe them in this chapter.
153 perishable materials, while someone else chose to own or live in an urban sobrado? Why would a liberta invest in jewelry rather than in a house? Such questions can be answered, at least partly, through the in-depth analysis of wills. In the process, clues regarding the occupations and work arrangements of libertos also come to light. Since freed African labor constitutes one of the weakest points in the majority of the testaments with extremely scarce references existing as to the professions of the libertos themselves as well as the people within their close personal networks, looking at the kinds of material assets assembled by freed Africans prior to their deaths becomes an important angle from which to understand their daily lives.123
In this chapter, then, I primarily seek to offer a glimpse into the possessions of libertos that can be deduced from the documents at hand. The actual material assets listed in the wills of freed Africans, as well as those that were inventoried among their estates upon their death, offer significant clues as to the material lives they may have led, and to the
“estates” that they sought to pass on to others. But these testaments and inventories also illuminate the post-mortem efforts of freed Africans to shape the lives of the members of their communities. As a microcosm of relatively more privileged liberto life in Bahia, these documents work as windows into the kinship networks and community associations that Africans constructed for themselves in Salvador, at the intersection of African retentions, the experiences of enslavement, and the dynamics of creolization. They highlight both the limitations experienced and the agency exercised by these freed
African testators. In highlighting their choices and priorities, they also have a lot to say
123 In “Testamentos de escravos…,” Kátia Mattoso reaches the same conclusion when she asserts: “Freqüentemente, a profissão não é mencionada com precisão nos testamentos [Frequently, professions are not precisely mentioned in the testaments]: 232.
154 about their worldviews and values. In rare instances, they even shed some light on the religiosity and belief systems of libertos.
The bens (as they are always called in the documents) or material assets encountered in the testaments of freed Africans fall into a few limited categories. When looking at their
“wealth in objects,” rather than their “wealth in people,” the different assets that come to the forefront are houses and small plantations, household objects, money and jewelry.
These categories of material assets encompass all the material wealth—other than slaves—listed in libertos’ wills. There are no other categories, because there simply exist no other assets listed in the testaments.124
II. The Living Arrangements of Libertos
II.I. African Life in Salvador’s Urban Parishes
Tables 2.1 and 2.2 demonstrate that, as also argued by Anna Amélia Vieira Nascimento,
African libertos were present in all of Salvador’s urban parishes. Table 2.1. clearly shows that the majority of libertos at 78% indicated their freguesias in their testaments, which clearly points to their identification with their places of inhabitance and with their local communities.
124 In line with my understanding that an in-depth textual analysis, and its necessary theorizations, constitute the primary contribution of this dissertation to the histories that use testaments in order to understand slave life in Brazil, as well as the histories that focus on liberto life in general, I let my documents speak as much as they can. Even when referring simply and directly to the material lives of libertos, testaments, partilhas and inventories offer important insights into Bahian slave society in the nineteenth century. Whenever I am able to hear individual voices therefore, or able to reach a deeper understanding of societal dynamics, I engage with my sources as fully as I can, and in the process often include details that are not always directly applicable to the specific subject at hand.
155 Table 2.1. Libertos who Indicated Parishes in their Testaments
Total number of people Those who indicated a Those who did not indicate parish a parish 307 239 68
% 78 22
While some freguesias are less referred to in the testaments than others, Table 2.2. demonstrates that African libertos were clearly present in all of them. Some possible reasons for the higher or lower concentrations of freed Africans in different parishes can be deduced from the population and occupational profiles offered by Anna Amélia Vieira
Nascimento.125
125 Anna Amélia Vieira Nascimento. Dez freguesias da cidade do Salvador: aspectos sociais e urbanos do século XIX. Salvador: EDUFBA, 1986.
156 Table 2.2. Breakdown of the Parishes Indicated by Libertos in their Testaments
Total number Brotas Conceição da Penha Pilar Rua do Passo of people who Praia indicated a parish
239 25 23 9 19 15
% 11 10 3 8 6
Santana Santo São Pedro Sé Vitória People who Antônio Velho lived outside Além do the ten urban Carmo parishes of the city
34 26 12 20 9 47
14 11 5 8 4 20
Anna Nascimento states that Pilar was the parish where existed the storage houses for the
collection of sugar, as well as four cotton presses. The nature of these activities directly
implied the existence of slaves, as well as of freed Africans. But the city’s biggest traders
and sellers in bulk were also found here. The most defining feature of this freguesia,
throughout the nineteenth century, continued to be that it was the place of residence for
the majority of the Portuguese merchants and those who adopted Brazil as their new
country. Often, they had been able to make significant fortunes for themselves.126 They
126 Anna Nascimento, 50.
157 were mostly wholesale traders, while many also took part in the slave trade. This meant that White Portuguese slave traders constantly rubbed shoulders with enslaved or freed
Blacks in the freguesia do Pilar. While this factor in itself was a major cause for racial tensions, Nascimento also sees the elitist nature of the parish as the reason for the existence of racial or social discrimination within Pilar.127 Since it was a diverse parish as was the norm in the Bahian capital, different districts of Pilar also included people belonging to the lower ranks of society, with many families residing together on a single floor of sobrados—the living arrangement that was the norm for most urban-dwelling
Africans in the nineteenth century, both slave and free. The wealthier inhabitants of Pilar often owned a considerable number of slaves (usually more than ten).128 These generally had rural origins, with links to the sugar plantations of the Bahian countryside.129 This enslaved population clearly added to the African element within the population of the freguesia. The slaves described as “pretos,” often a synonym of “africanos,” were asserted to be at 12.20 % of the population. The liberto and liberta populations of the freguesia are stated to be 0,80% and 1,44% respectively, and are slightly lower than the population of pessoas livres, which are stated as 1,29% and 1,59% respectively.130 In
127 Ibid: 153.
128 As will be discussed in Chapter III, this was not the norm for slave ownership in the Bahian capital, where people usually owned a much smaller number of slaves.
129 The rural origins of these slaves highlights the links between the rural and urban areas of the state of Bahia, as well as between different slave populations, while it also emphasizes the fact that urban slavery in Salvador was in large part an extension of plantation slavery in the Recôncavo.
130 Anna Nascimento: 157.
158 spite of all its significant wealthy White population, Pilar was also home to an important
African element in Salvador.131
The freguesia da Sé was the administrative, legislative, judicial and religious center of both the city and the whole province. For this reason, it encompassed all the major buildings that accompanied such a role, as well as impressive and grand private buildings, which testified to an elitism that had once surpassed that of Pilar. It also included numerous convents and irmandades.132 But the reality of Sé had also changed in the nineteenth century. The once impressive sobrados were divided into much smaller and humbler homes. As the previously powerful White elite population of the freguesia gradually fell victim to downward mobility, the Black element in the population became much more visible than before. Both free Blacks and freed Africans took on many minor tasks, ranging from carrying water to being porters, from selling necessities as diverse as wood and corn meal to roaming barges. They also engaged in artisanal work such as being tailors, hat or shoemakers. Once again, freed Africans were not so different in social standing from their White and near-White peers in a world where class interacted with race in complex and complementing ways. But as a single social group, they were a small minority in this parish: 0.83% of libertos and 1.10% of libertas added up to 1.93 % of its total population.133 This could also be why they melded into both the larger non-
131 Ibid: 153-7.
132 Ibid: 51-2.
133 Ibid: 157.
159 White and poor social segments to a greater extent than elsewhere in the Bahian capital.134
While Sé demonstrated a downward trend in its dynamics of social mobility, this was not the case for Vitória. This parish gained its high level of elitism primarily from including the majority of the non-Portuguese European foreigners of the city within its premises— especially the English and the Germans. They were also the most important merchants in the city, who naturally were also slave owners.135 Unfortunately, no clear figures of the kind that are available for other freguesias are present for the social divisions within its population. However, Anna Nascimento states the existence of freed Africans among the ranks of the slave owners that lived in this parish. These libertos also corresponded to the general trend of the ownership of few slaves by the general population (often one or two, and almost always less than five). For the most part, these slaves were employed in domestic service, or worked as ganhadores, porters or cooks.136 This freguesia also included large quintas and roças (farms or small rural estates), in which were situated different houses together forming a compound. While these belonged to the privileged
Europeans who lived in the parish, they were bound to include a significant population of non-Whites through the kinds of labor that they implicated.137
134 Ibid: 112-9.
135 Ibid: 52-3.
136 Ibid: 120-4.
137 Ibid: 53.
160 The parish of Santana was home to many convents, churches and irmandades, around which people conglomerated. This factor of religiosity set the main reason for the residence of freed Africans within its boundaries. They were drawn to its many churches and irmandades. While religious life existed in every parish of the city within the igreja matriz, and other local churches as well as irmandades, certain freguesias did function as the main religious centers of the city. As was also the case of Rua do Passo, Santana was marked by its earthen houses, which were grouped around the religious centers of the parish.138 While the freguesia was small in size, it held a large population and thus also a large number of—poorer—dwellings. Santana was also the artistic center of the city in the nineteenth century, and was home to musicians, actors, sculptors and writers. There also lived members of different professions, as well as Portuguese and Brazilian traders, along with craftsmen. While Nascimento does not provide any specific data on the liberto, and even the non-White, population of the parish, the majority of its living arrangements corresponded to the socio-economic realities of freed Africans. This chapter will demonstrate that many of the living places of freed Africans were actually of the nature described to be the norm for Santana.139 This was also the case for other poor segments of Salvadorean society. It can be concluded, therefore, that Santana, more than others, was a parish where libertos would have lived among their peers, and with others who were close to them in social standing.140 Santana also demonstrated that upward
138 Ibid: 52.
139 However, the primary data with regards to such living arrangements within my sample primarily refers to such living patterns in Brotas, and not Santana. I have made a parallel between the two parishes and propose that they might have offered similar settlement patterns, through the similarities that come out of Anna Nascimento’s descriptions of these dwellings.
140 As already discussed in Chapter I, the former would primarily have been a conscious choice on the part of freed Africans, while the latter would have been more of an imposition by the larger society.
161 social mobility was indeed possible in Salvador, either through education or through wealth, in spite of the many barriers that existed in what was a slave society par excellence.
Conceição da Praia was the commercial center of Salvador in the nineteenth century. A large number of Portuguese nationals, as well as others who had adopted Brazil as their homeland, continued to live here. These immigrants had a lesser commitment to the preservation of the social order than the Brazilians. As a result, they were often less rigid in their understanding of racial boundaries and hierarchies, and more open to interracial marriages. 141 They were also prone to a lesser degree of elitism—both economic and social/racial—than the Northern European immigrants in Bahia. In this parish, the ganhadores—both free and enslaved—were especially visible, mostly as they waited for clients for their different occupations, as porters, stevedores, sellers, etc.142 It is interesting that the census data provides no percentage for libertos in this parish, while the existence of a significant free Black population is clearly demonstrated: pretos livres
2.45% and pretas livres 8.83%.143
The parish of Santo Antônio Além do Carmo was home to the great majority of the
Salvadorean middle class, including petty merchants, artisans, and public officials. The ranks of these professions often included libertos as well as poor Whites. As one of the
141 Anna Nascimento: 124-5.
142 Ibid: 124-130.
143 Ibid: 129-30.
162 largest parishes of the city, it was prone to be home to a diverse population. Since it also housed a very large middle class segment of the city, the parish also included a very large non-white population. One of its districts (the 2nd) in particular contained a very small number of Whites, and the large majority of its inhabitants were Blacks who dedicated their labor to working the land. Agriculture and farming constituted the main source of income for the majority of the parishioners, while trade came in second place. Another of the quarteirões of the parish (the 11th) contained no Whites at all, and once again the majority of its inhabitants were agricultural workers.144 Interestingly, while the livres surpassed the libertos in this specific district, the parish as a whole represented the opposite dynamics: 2.47 % of libertos vs 1.32 % free African males, and 2.87 % of libertas vs 1.91% free African females.145
In São Pedro Velho lived the largest number of liberal professionals, such as lawyers, doctors, and public officials. It was also home to the majority of the city’s intellectual and social elite. Bahian plantation owners also had temporary residences here, which they used during their stays in the city. When the important element of commerce within São
Pedro was added to these characteristics, it became one of the most elitist parishes of the city. But Anna Nascimento explains that this parish was also going through a transformation at the time up the economic upheavals of the nineteenth century, with the lower social classes gradually replacing the more privileged segments of society.146 In
144 Ibid: 130-5.
145 Ibid: 135.
146 Ibid: 136-40.
163 line with its elitist nature, the freed African population was very small: 0.92 % of libertos pretos, and 2.57 % of libertas pretas. Together, they made up only 3.98 % of the freguesia. Women surpassed men not only among freed Africans, but also among slaves:
15.53 % vs 13.03 %, making up a total of 28.56 % of the parishioners. This was probably due to the fact that in such elitist settings, there would have been many enslaved women working as domestic slaves, who would stay in the parish even after the acquisition of their freedom.147
The Freguesia da Rua do Passo was what Anna Amélia Vieira Nascimento defines as the most “traditional” parish of the city. Often, whole sobrados would be occupied here by large patriarchal families, led by liberal professionals or businessmen. Non-Whites also owned houses here, and as was often the case, they depended on their physical labor for their livelihoods. Other sobrados were divided into dwellings for priests, students, and members of the lesser professions. Many schools were located in the parish. Anna
Nascimento defines the merchants as belonging to the middle segments of society, based on both their occupations and the numbers of their slaves (usually less than ten).
Unfortunately, no numbers are available for the freed African population of the freguesia.148
The Penha parish was far from the more central parts of Salvador, and was more of a holiday destination for the city dwellers. It also constituted a refuge for the city’s poor
147 Ibid: 140.
148 Ibid: 145-50.
164 White population. Its inhabitants labored primarily as fishermen. Accordingly, both the
White and non-White parishioners were poor in their majority, of modest means. The most common occupations for women were sewing, washing, or working as vendors.149 It is interesting that there are only pretos and pretas among the numbers provided for the freed population of the freguesia: 0.27 and 2.95 respectively, making up a total of only
3.22 % of the population. This small number is due to the fact that poor Whites and near-
Whites indeed made up the majority of the people who lived here.150 One would have expected a larger number of African men to work as fishermen here, but African women ganhadeiras were almost always visibly more dominant in their presence in the occupations cited above.
The very large parish of Brotas had a more rural population, perhaps also because of the way in which it extended itself to the suburbs. It included roças (farms), fazendas
(estates), and at times even engenhos (sugar plantations). Many of these rural dwellings were made out of mud/earth. Because of its semi-rural nature, Brotas was not included among the ten urban parishes of Salvador until 1854. It presented both urban and suburban elements, and its religious and social life revolved greatly around its main church—the Igreja de Nossa Senhora de Brotas (previously Grotas). In spite of its recent urban denomination, the majority of Brotas’ population continued to live in roças, and the majority of these were Blacks of humble origins. The semi-urban nature of Brotas, and its large dimensions, made it harbor greater slave and liberto populations than its
149 Ibid: 158-9.
150 Ibid: 160.
165 more urban and well-established neighbors.151 It was natural that many of the mud/earthen houses built on rented land that belonged to libertos were situated in this parish, as will be seen in the section on semi-rural liberto life in this chapter. Another significant aspect of liberto life in this freguesia was the existence of land, farms, and even sugar plantations that belonged among the estate of the Viscondessa [Viscountess] of Rio Vermelho. Her lands bordered on the church of Brotas, and the testaments of freed
Africans show that many people constructed houses on land for which they paid annual rent to the Viscondessa and her heirs, while some also refer to lands belonging to the
Barão (Baron) of Rio Vermelho as well.152
Numerous scholars including Renato da Silveira, João José Reis, and Anna Amélia Vieira
Nascimento relate how the actions of the libertos living in the freguesia resulted in complaints from the local authorities. The freed Africans were purported to house and offer work to runaway slaves on their farms. While hiding escaped slaves may have been especially hard in a highly urbanized parish, it was relatively easier in the roças or small farms of rural Brotas. Small independent houses or compounds made out of cheap materials often housed groups of Africans—probably both enslaved and free. The vegetable and fruit gardens that surrounded these compounds provided subsistence, as well as a communal way of life and a greater degree of independence from White society than what would have been the case in urban areas. If not a direct threat to society, such
151 Ibid: 150-2.
152 Also in Brotas was the Quinta das Beatas, a fazenda or plantation that was the property of the Recolhimento do Senhor Bom Jesus dos Perdões, which also appears several times in the wills of libertos at the points where they indicate their places of residence.
166 communities would have definitely been at least disturbing to the state authorities. But a much greater potential threat was the existence of Candomblé houses in the parish.
Expectedly, these centers of worship of African-derived religions also constituted the main element that came to the forefront of the discussions that involved the Bahian state authorities. While there of course existed important urban Candomblé houses in more central areas of Salvador as well153, they still continued to be concentrated primarily in the outskirts of Salvador. The semi-urban nature of Brotas, and its large dimensions, made it harbor more potential slave and liberto dissidence than what was possible for its more urban and well-established neighbors. In fact, Renato da Silveira clearly asserts that in terms of its rural lifestyle and dwellings, and the African nature of its social structures, as well as its cultural and religious activities, Brotas did not differ at all from the large rural parishes that surrounded Salvador.154
This brief analysis does not take into account the suburban districts, whose rural nature also brought large numbers of Blacks together, among which freed Africans also represented an important segment of the population. Among these, Itapuã—the coastal suburb that touched on Brotas on one end—comes frequently to the forefront in libertos’ wills. João José Reis explains that the majority of the communities of Blacks that were formed around Salvador grew out of both quilombos and Candomblé terreiros, as stated in the Introduction.155 These had to be away from the city center in order to conserve
153 This subject will be elaborated upon in Chapter IV.
154 Renato da Silveira. O Candomblé da Barroquinha: Processo de constituição do primeiro terreiro baiano de keto. Salvador: Maianga, 2006: 261.
155 João Reis. Slave Rebellion…: 40-62.
167 their freedom and privacy, and to remain inaccessible to city officials. The expanded and more rural parish of Brotas was also more open to such gatherings based on African religions and culture for the same reasons. The same argument could be extended to the parts of other parishes that conserved vestiges of rural life within the nineteenth-century transition to greater urbanization. Such aspects would be even more pronounced in the suburban parts of the city, which were further away from the eyes of city officials and thus more difficult to control. In such contexts, African culture flourished in Bahia.
Libertos, in turn, formed a most important and visible part of that culture. Even in the cases where they arrived in Brazil as young children, Africans had spent at least part of their lives on the African continent, and the knowledge, traditions, culture, and ways of life they brought with them to Salvador were fresh. Even in the cases where their knowledge and memories were not so recent and strong, they could always be enhanced with the constant influx of new Africans who would pass on their knowledge to their more creolized peers. In the Bahian capital, African libertos created a world for themselves that primarily revolved around other Africans, both free and enslaved. While they were clearly confined by the boundaries set upon them by the hierarchical Bahian slave society, they were still in possession of their freedom, and as a result had a higher degree of mobility than their peers who still remained enslaved. Freed Africans formed a very important and active segment within the Salvadorean society of the nineteenth century, and were accordingly present and visible in all freguesias of the Bahian capital.
It was this pervasive presence of libertos all over Salvador, as well as their solidarity with those Africans who still remained enslaved, which became so evident in the Muslim
168 uprising of 1837. It alarmed the Bahian authorities and elites to such a great extent that it actually led them to engage in extreme measures to curb African mobility, visibility and freedom. João Reis underlined the importance of the living arrangements of the participants in the rebellion when he stated: “As urban dwellers the rebels were often neighbors. Their propinquity helped make community ties and aided communication and the conspiracy itself.”156 While they often lived in highly mixed settings that included people from many different walks of life, Africans in the urban areas of the city also sought to exercise agency in the ways in which they chose to live: “Inside their hovels, loges, and shabby, crowded rooms, slaves and freedmen sought to redefine their lives and live in a manner somewhat different from what masters and authorities wanted for them.”157 In both rural and urban settings, and within highly mixed worlds, Africans still created for themselves universes of their own that were primarily composed of other
Africans. They did so in part because of what was imposed on them by the Bahian slave society. But they also did so by choice, exercising clear and deliberate agency in the ways in which they negotiated the limitations of their Bahian lives, and applying their own rules to the ways in which they lived within them.
III. The Material Assets Owned by Libertos
III.I. Moradas (Houses and Plantations) Almost every study that focuses on the lives of freed Africans in the Americas insists on the need to have a proper place of dwelling. For instance, Vincent Brown has argued that
156 João Reis, Slave Rebellion…: 185.
157 Ibid.
169 in Jamaican plantation society, in the rare cases where a White man offered both freedom and material assets to his long-time female companion and/or children upon his death, the possession of a house proved itself to be paramount for the future survival of the ex- companion and her children.158 Contrary to what took place in Jamaica where masters were more prone to free their enslaved companions rather than their enslaved children, in
Brazilian slave societies, it was slave children born to master-slave relationships who had a much better chance of acquiring their freedom than their mothers. They were followed immediately by young Brazilian-born slaves, who were often the children of the African slaves owned by their masters. They were referred to as crias for having grown up in close proximity to their masters, who consequently often considered them as close to being their own children. In the mining slave societies of Minas Gerais, for the enslaved women who gave birth to the children of their masters (just as it would have been the case for any enslaved woman with children anywhere in the Americas), the priority was to secure the alforria or freedom papers for themselves and their children. However, in addition to their freedom, or sometimes in order to make up for its absence, many also sought to secure material compensation. This was often the only real way to secure their livelihood and actual “freedom,” which would only come in the form of material independence, especially when women were concerned.159 It was frequently through this material compensation—often in the form of a morada, or place to live— provided by their ex-masters that the forras or freed slaves ever managed to become part of the free
158 Vincent Brown. The Reaper’s Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008: 107-113.
159 Eduardo França Paiva. Escravos e libertos nas Minas Gerais do século XVIII: Estratégias de resistência através dos testamentos. São Paulo: Anna Blume, 1995: 122.
170 world without even greater disadvantages than those that already came with their former slave status and race.160
While the urban setting of the city of Salvador presented many differences from the realities of plantation life in the Americas, the need of possessing a house was nevertheless paramount for libertos. Having actual shelters from the climate and natural hazards has historically constituted a major need for everyone everywhere. But houses often go well beyond being a roof over one’s head, and acquire important economic, social, and symbolic value: They are important as living spaces over which to have control and to share with the people of one’s choice, while they also constitute a significant form of wealth that can be bequeathed to others. But they hold even greater value for freed slaves, both Brazilian and African, who were often left with no shelter of their own upon the acquisition of their alforria. As Kathleen Higgins argues for freed people in Minas Gerais, legal freedom in the absence of economic freedom was often no freedom at all.161 Libertos needed to have the means to survive as free individuals in
Salvador, for which the ownership or rent of a house was paramount. The political and social value of a house was equally significant. In the majority of the cases, freed
Africans had lived as slaves in the houses of their masters. Having a place of their own was central to their assertion of freedom, and their attempts to redefine themselves as free
160 Eduardo França Paiva. Escravos e libertos…: 139.
161 Thornton has made this argument in many of his books, and very clearly in John K. Thornton. Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500-1800. London: University College of London Press/Routledge, 1999. Also see: John K. Thornton. Africa and Africans in the Formation of the Atlantic World, 1400-1680. New York and London: Cambridge University Press, 1992 (second expanded edition, 1998).; John K. Thornton. The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684-1706. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. John K. Thornton, and Linda Heywood. Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles and the Making of the Anglo-Dutch Americas, 1580-1660. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
171 and dignified members of Brazilian society. Additionally, as will be seen below, the kind of living space and location chosen by libertos pointed directly to their mentalités and the ways in which they wanted to construct their Bahian lives.
John Thorton has argued that while Europeans bought land, Africans invested in people.
They continued to do so in Brazil as well, and Chapter III will demonstrate that a large portion of libertos’ wealth was kept in the form of their slaves. In the context of slave ownership, African and Bahian understandings intersected, while they also differed from one another. But for libertos who remained in the land of their enslavement upon the acquisition of their freedom, what was important for Brazilian society in general became at least as important as the understandings they had brought with them from Africa, as has already been argued in the previous chapter with regards to the importance of the biological family, for example. It should come as no surprise then, that houses or moradas were significantly represented and valued among the possessions that freed
Africans listed in their testaments.
A morada can be translated as “living quarters” in general, but I have also translated the term as “compound” at times, especially in the cases where libertos referred to a “morada de casas” or “compound of houses.” Such a description directly recalls images of African compounds. It is indicative of the fact that African libertos were obliged to redefine themselves as Africans in Brazil. In the process, they almost always merged what was
African into what was Brazilian. If the greater value symbolized by a house emanated from the Brazilian setting, the way in which it was built could be African. This was also
172 evident in the locations of these living spaces, the construction of households, and the existence of vegetable and fruit gardens, as will be seen in the first pattern of residence to be analyzed below, i.e. that of semi-rural or peri-urban residence. The second pattern, on the other hand, will demonstrate that not all libertos opted for more African ways of living in Salvador. They opted for much more urban lifestyles in parts of the city where they lived close to people from all segments of society. Often, they even chose to stay in the same parishes where they had lived as slaves. Probably, these were the freed Africans who also sought a greater level of social integration within the larger Bahian society. But as João Reis has demonstrated, even they sought and were able to create African worlds in these crowded living quarters, filling their lives with their peers, and organizing them around principles shaped by the experience of being Africans in Brazil.162
As can be seen in Table 2.1, 136 out of 307 libertos referred to the ownership of a living space of some kind in their wills, while 171 people did not list a house among their material assets. Of course, there may have been those who did not see their houses as worthy of a bequest, or who had already handed them over to others while still alive.
Other individuals may have lived in shared spaces with other Africans or other people socially, racially, or culturally close to them. Otherwise, they would have chosen to invest in other forms of wealth. In any case, 44 % of libertos bequeathed their houses to others, which constitutes a very significant percentage even without taking into consideration the ownership of dwellings that may have simply been omitted from the documents.
162 João José Reis. Slave Rebellion…: 185.
173 Table 2.3. Liberto Ownership of Houses
Libertos who stated their ownership of a place Libertos who did not state their ownership of a of dwelling place of dwelling
136 171
56 % 44 %
The importance of a house in which to live is evident for both enslaved and freed
Africans in all parts of the African Diaspora, and has constituted a subject of importance for a plethora of studies on slavery everywhere in the Americas. On plantations, slaves strove to achieve a level of private and family life whenever they managed to live in their own houses or have some kind of private space within the slave quarters. Having access to land, and to small vegetable and fruit gardens both for their own subsistence and for participation in the market economy through their surplus was also of central importance for enslaved people all over the Americas. Sandra Lauderdale Graham writes about how access to small plantation plots worked as an incentive for slaves to get married and form stable families:
But for married slaves, in both the Campinas region of western São Paulo and in the province of Rio de Janeiro, marriage was qualification for access to land: a field or garden, called a roça, where slaves raised their own crops of corn, beans, potatoes, coffee, and sugarcane. Crops meant a more plentiful or varied diet, or cash from their sale could be spent on small luxuries, saved against harder times, or accumulated toward the buying of freedom.163
On the other hand, the slaves who hired out their labor or who worked as vendors in urban settings also aspired to live in houses together with their families or peers, and independent of their masters. The urgency of having a house grew with the acquisition of
163 Sandra Lauderdale Graham. Caetana Says No: Women’s Stories from a Brazilian Slave Society. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002: 36-7.
174 freedom, since being free without any protection in a hostile slave society did not mean much in and of itself. Freed people were often obliged to live as agregados in dependency to others and under the protection of people who were better off than them, and many examples of such arrangements can be encountered in my sample of primary documents, some of which will be analyzed below. However, people fought for true economic, as well as legal, freedom, whenever possible. Possessing one’s own living quarters meant a lot in this respect.
With regards to the residence patterns and housing situations of African libertos in nineteenth-century Salvador da Bahia, their testaments include few complete stories, but are replete with short tidbits that nevertheless offer some important insights. The choices people made as to what sort of house they would live in, as in if these would be located in more urban or rural areas, what materials they would be made out of and what shapes they would take, or if they would also be located within land encompassing vegetable or fruit gardens, are all representative of their worldviews, indicative of what was important to them in their lives, and what sort of labor they sought to engage in for their livelihoods. Table 2.4 demonstrates the specific kinds of houses owned by African libertos in the nineteenth century. The documentary evidence on this subject is limited, since not all testaments refer to houses. Further, even in the cases where they do, they rarely provide details about their location or what kind of houses these were.
175 Table 2.4. Ownership of Moradas (or Dwellings) by Libertos
Total number of those who Those who specified the kind Those for whom the kind of stated the ownership of a of dwelling dwelling was not specified dwelling
65 71 136 %48 %52 %
Nevertheless, Table 2.4. shows that almost half of those libertos who listed a place of dwelling in their testaments also provided some additional information as to their nature.
This additional information is specified in Table 2.5., which includes diverse descriptions of liberto moradas, both urban and rural.
Table 2.5. Specific Kinds of Moradas Identified (including vegetable or fruit gardens) Sobrado Single floor House made House made out of straw House made within a out of out of mud house shingles (probably a sobrado) 4 2 6 4 16
Small Board House made of Houses surrounded by trees, House, half Farm house earth but without proper land of which belongs to another African 7 1 16 3 3
With regards to Tables 3.4. and 3.5., we can also assume that very few of the houses located within urban freguesias, which were not specified to be sobrados by libertos in their wills, could have been “casas nobres” or independent houses of a higher social
176 status.164 Of course, there existed many other independent houses that were far from being as sumptuous. Still, even more modest “casas nobres” would have been out of libertos’ reach in the majority of the cases. A portion of the unspecified moradas would have been “casas térreas” or earthen houses, whose nature could vary according to the affluence of the freguesia or quarteirão in which they were located. But as João Reis has indicated, the large majority of accessible urban housing for the poorer segments of society in nineteenth-century Salvador was in the form of sobrados.165 Anna Nascimento also states that while some privileged families could own entire sobrados, the majority of these were divided for the use of people of lesser means. Both Nascimento and Reis explain that Africans and their descendants often occupied the lojas or loges within these sobrados. Reis defines a loja as “a sort of basement that can still be seen in some of
Salvador’s colonial buildings.”166 In this sense, a loja or shop did not actually imply that any kind of sale took place in these settings. Rather, as Anna Nascimento asserts, “[e]ram habitações de pessoas mais pobres, geralmente de cor, e que, eventualmente, seriam protegidos dos habitantes do sobrado, ocupando os andares inferiores” [they were the dwellings of poorer, often colored, people, who would eventually be protected from the inhabitants of the sobrado, by occupying the lower floors].167 Considering that the majority of the houses for which libertos provided more detailed information were of a semi-urban nature, we can imagine that most of the urban dwellings owned by freed
164 Anna Amélia Vieira Nascimento describes one such house located in the Baixa dos Sapateiros, in the freguesia do Passo. She states that the house was located on its own land, and had a façade of stone and lime. It had eight windows at the front, a door in the middle, and had a total of four halls and nine rooms, in addition to the annexes that were located outside. Dez freguesias…: 75.
165 João José Reis. Slave Rebellion…: 67.
166 Ibid: 75.
167 Anna Amélia Vieira Nascimento. Dez freguesias…: 73.
177 Africans were actually sobrados or parts of sobrados, and to a lesser extent earthen houses, even in the cases where they were not openly defined as such.
III.II. Legal limitations to Liberto ownership of Land and Real estate; Patterns of Residence and Real Estate Ownership Article 17 of the Law number 9 passed on 13 May 1835 dictated that all freed Africans were banned from acquiring “bens de raiz,” literally “rooted assets,” which basically meant real estate. The contracts that had already been signed would also be annulled after this date.168 This was one of the laws passed in the aftermath of the Malê Rebellion, which sought to limit the rights, freedom, mobility and relative power of libertos. The objective was to underline their position as “foreigners” without the rights of Brazilians.
As a result, libertos were banned from owning land or their own houses. However, they found many ways to go around these limitations. The most common of these, as will be seen below, was to build houses on land belonging to others and for which an annual rent would be paid. In these cases, libertos would still be able to bequeath these houses and surrounding plantations to others, as long as they continued to comply with the rent arrangements of the owner of the land. The produce of the gardens they kept belonged to the libertos themselves. Another common arrangement to avoid the limitations of the
1835 law was to register the land or house in the name of a Brazilian-born person. This could be a free person of confidence, while it could also be one’s Brazilian-born child. In some cases, it could even be a crioulo slave owned by the African liberto in question.
168 Legislação da Província da Bahia sobre o negro: 1835 a 1888. Salvador: FUNCEP/DIBIP, 1996: 21.
For additional information on laws that had the objective of limiting African rights and liberties in the nineteenth century, see for example: Luciana da Cruz Brito. “Sob o Rigor da Lei: africanos e africanas na legislação baiana (1830-1841). MA thesis. Universidade Estatual de Campinas: 2009.
178 The earlier among the testaments of African libertos make a point of explaining that their properties were on rented land, or of stating the indirect ways in which they had been able to acquire real estate. This need disappears as the century progresses, and it becomes much easier for freed Africans to own both land and dwellings. This is because while the
1835 law itself was never officially revoked, in time it simply became irrelevant for several reasons. Firstly, it was a direct product of the Malê Rebellion and of the fears it had invoked. Such fears died out over time, and the limitations they had caused slowly became pointless in the context of abolitionism. Second, it had never been truly implemented, and many Africans had been able to buy both land and houses post-1835.
There is no known case of the government taking these possessions away from them. The law was slowly forgotten over time, to the extent that real estate ownership is considered quite natural in testaments dictated more towards the end of the century. The testaments and inventories under analysis also make it clear that, even when they were built on rented land, these houses and gardens remained the personal material possessions of freed
Africans. Both these assets and their proceeds could be sold or leased. They also come right after slaves among the material possessions of primary importance to be bequeathed upon the death of the testators. Finally, the existence of the 1835 law probably constitutes another reason why the ownership of moradas was not even more commonly cited in libertos’ wills.
Two main patterns defined residence and real estate ownership in Salvador. As stated earlier, libertos could own or rent urban sobrados or houses, or part of a sobrado or house. This was usually the case in the more urban freguesias of Salvador whose main
179 characteristics have been described earlier in this chapter, with special attention paid to liberto life within them. The second existing pattern was that of owning or renting a house or a compound, often surrounded by a garden, in the semi-rural parts of the city, among which Brotas came to the forefront in libertos’ wills. Here, I would first like to turn to the first of these two patterns, that of urban residence. Below, I provide the analysis of a small sample of documents where the liberto testators referred to urban living patterns, or to the ownership of real estate in the quintessentially urban parts of the
Bahian capital.169
III.II.1. Urban Living Patterns in the Testaments of Libertos While most freed Africans lived relatively modest lives within the social, as well as the legal, limits of Bahian slave society, those with greater economic power and social standing were able to defy these limitations at times. Joaquim de Almeida170 was a freed
African who decided to have his testament recorded as he was about to set out on a voyage to the African coast, and he represents the most exceptional case within the testaments analyzed in this dissertation, through his large wealth and resulting social power.171 His slave ownership was especially significant, and will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter III. Joaquim composed his testament in 1857, thus more than two
169 While a minority, there were also freed Africans who possessed both kinds of moradas. For example, the freed African Joaquina Rosa do Sacramento listed among her assets both a roça on which the house where she herself lived was located, as well as a “casa assobradada” or sobrado located in the Rua do Caminho do Gravatá. It seems like while Joaquina herself had opted for a more rural lifestyle, she had used the urban dwelling that she owned as a source of income. Since she had registered her will in 1875, she had not felt the need to explain or justify her ownership over both her land and houses in any way (Book: 50— pp. 17 to 17v).
170 03/1228/1697/13
171 Joaquim de Almeida is the richest freed African I have encountered in my study of libertos’ testaments.
180 decades after the legal abolition of the Brazilian slave trade, and seven years after the suppression of its illegal continuation.172 Probably already advanced in years, Joaquim was not sure that he would be able to make it back safely to Bahia. He thus showed a concern that was also repeated in the testaments of other more privileged freed Africans, as to what would happen to his assets if he died outside of Brazilian borders.173 Joaquim counted a “cazinha térrea” (a small house made out of earth) in the Rua dos Ossos in the parish of Santo Antônio Além do Carmo, among his many assets. Joaquim’s economic and social status, which derived from his trade links to the African Coast, was quite exceptional among his peers. In line with this exceptionality, Joaquim de Almeida owned an independent earthen house in an urban freguesia that was clearly within the city limits, and at a time where the after-effects of the Malê revolt were still evident in Bahian life.
As explained above, Santo Antônio was one of the largest parishes in nineteenth-century
Salvador, and home to the majority of its middle classes. It is clear that Joaquim de
Almeida would have felt at home within this setting, where he would have lived together with people from different races and origins, tending towards the upper strata among
Salvador’s “middling” classes. Most of his neighbors would have been people of a certain means, who like himself had experienced a certain degree of social mobility. Joaquim had been able to circumvent the limitations of the law in order to purchase a good
172 I refer to these dates since it is almost certain that the source for Joaquim’s wealth was the Atlantic slave trade.
173 This also points to the fact that Joaquim de Almeida saw himself as first and foremost a Brazilian. The trade links to the African Coast point in the direction of his having been similar in many ways to the Agudás—Brazilians born in Africa who re-established themselves on the African Coast as privileged new members of their societies.
181 property in the parish in question.174 Financial means always implied the possibility of social ascent and a greater capacity to circumvent the law in the Brazilian setting.
Joaquim de Almeida had been able to become a man of a certain means, whose economic status could assist him in negotiating his social status as an African and an ex-slave. In addition, if Joaquim had been a participant in the slave trade as he most probably was (as well as in the “legitimate trade” in commodities that later followed), his allegiance to the system and to the dynamics of Brazilian life would also have posited him as a
“deserving” member of Brazilian society in the eyes of many. In this sense, Joaquim would have gone through processes of social Whitening that would have worked to his favor in his general integration into and acceptance by the larger Bahian society. But, as will be seen below, Joaquim’s identity remained that of an African in Brazil. While he benefited from his greater acceptance by people from other social strata, his nevertheless chose to inhabit a world that was primarily composed of other Africans like himself.
The diminutive –inha attached to the description of the house notwithstanding, Joaquim’s house was not small, and it was made out of earth like the majority of the houses in the freguesia, rather than from more perishable materials. In this way too, the house was of a
“middling sort” in the words of Richard Graham, and it corresponded to the general description of Salvador’s houses that were not sobrados, as explained by Anna Amélia
Vieira Nascimento. On one side, Joaquim’s house was neighbor to the house of Dona
174 Yet, as has been explained above, and will be seen in other individual cases of libertos later, Joaquim was no exception in this respect. The 1835 law impeding the access of Africans to real estate ownership had never been truly respected in Bahia, and people had constantly found the means to go around it. By 1856 when Joaquim wrote his testament, more than two decades had passed since the Muslim revolt, and the initial fervor shown by the authorities in its aftermath had died out. Even though it had not weakened as considerably as it would later on in the century, it had sufficiently weakened for someone who already held a highly privileged position within the freed African community.
182 Ursula de Tal Folha, and on the other side to the quintal or backyard of Maria da
Conceiçāo. In the case of Dona Ursula, the last name De Tal175 points towards the slave ancestry of Joaquim’s neighbor. Probably, Dona Ursula was also a freed African. Even wealthy libertos, who could aspire to greater flexibility with regards to their social limitations, often chose to surround themselves by other Africans in their daily lives.
While it was quite possible in Salvador for libertos to also have Whites or near-Whites from humbler social strata as their neighbors, they often deliberately chose not to do so.
Even in the cases where they benefited from high levels of upward social mobility and fully accepted the premises of slave society, the communities they built for themselves in
Salvador continued to be primarily composed of other Africans.
As was the case with Joaquim de Almeida, trade links to the African Coast, or connections to those who possessed such links, shaped the experiences of many freed
Africans in Salvador, and often worked to elevate their social or economic status. When she had her testament recorded on 16 April 1857, Maria Joana das Chagas176 indicated that she owned a morada de casas—a living compound made of several houses— in the freguesia of Sāo Pedro Velho. It has been explained above that São Pedro Velho was one of the most elite parishes in the city, even though it was also in decline in the nineteenth century. Within this context of social decline and downward social mobility, an African liberta like Maria Joana das Chagas would have experienced lesser degrees of difficulty in living and belonging in the freguesia. Maria Joana had composed her testament a year
175 De Tal was used when no last name was available, or when it was understood that the last name would have been that of a freed person’s previous owner.
176 03/1228/1697/18
183 after that of Joaquim de Almeida, and therefore much within the same social and historical context. She had also been able to openly state that she was the owner of an urban dwelling in an affluent freguesia. But the house was not a free asset for Maria
Joana to pass on to her heirs. Because there existed a claim/lawsuit concerning it with a crioulo man named Luiz who was currently residing on the African Coast. This meant that Maria Joana had used her compound as security—perhaps as collateral for a loan, or perhaps as capital for trade to be conducted to her name, among other possibilities—with a Brazilian-born livre or liberto involved in the trade with Africa. At this period in time,
Maria Joana could have had as much a part in the continuing illegal Brazilian trade in slaves, as in the “legitimate” trade, as it was called, in commodities. Through these links to the African Coast, she had come to own her compound in the city, through which she was probably also able to play a small role in affecting the fate of other Africans like herself. But as was representative of all the complexities that defined intra-African relationships in Salvador, she would have negatively affected the lives of some
(anonymous) Africans through her links to the continent, while she would have helped and protected others within her own personal networks.
Furthermore, the relationship of indebtedness between the African Maria Joana and the crioulo Luiz points to the highly complex relations of dependency, mutual aid, and power among the many different people of African descent from highly varied experiences in the African Diaspora. They had their differences, and often insisted on these. Often, they did not even take part in the same communities. However, just like everyone in Salvador, they interacted on a daily basis, and carried out business ventures together. This
184 dissertation still argues that origin should be taken as the main referent—as in “African” vs. “Brazilian”—in people’s lives. The solidarity imposed/chosen by Africanness often overrode those based on race and class. But in a highly complex slave society where race and class, as well as Africanness and Brazilianness, interacted in complicated and complementary ways, such discussions could never be simple.
Moving on to a later part of the nineteenth century, we once again encounter the joint testament of the liberto couple Adriano José Viana and Mariana Maria do Sacramento
Viana177 dictated in 1895, around forty years after the two testaments studied above.
Since their case is the first instance in which prices are mentioned in this chapter, it warrants some information on values and prices in Salvador in the nineteenth century. B.
J. Barickman states that
[b]oth before and after independence, the basic unit of currency in Brazil was the real (réis in plural), which existed only as a money of account. […] Larger sums were calculated in mil-réis (literally one thousand réis) […]. One thousand mil- réis equaled one conto de réis (or simply one conto), written Rs. I:000$000 or Rs. I:000$.178
It is not easy to put the currency in context, but secondary information provided by historians helps in this regard. While studying the rises in commodity prices because of the economic fluctuations of the nineteenth century, João Reis provides the following data:
One arroba, or approximately fifteen kilos, of beef jerky jumped from 1,930 réis in 1824 to 2,600 réis in 1831 and to 3,245 réis in 1834—a rise of 68 percent in ten
177 02/886/1355/01
178 B.J. Barickman. A Bahian Counterpoint: Sugar, Tobacco, Cassava, and Slavery in the Recôncavo, 1780-1860. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1998: xvii.
185 years. The wholesale price of beans rose 25 percent between 1824 and 1831, from 1,680 to 2,240 réis per alquieire (18.135 liters). The same quantity of manioc flour, which cost 630 réis in 1824, would rise 25 percent in price by 1831.179
Another important basis for comparison is once again provided by João Reis. It is especially important for the purposes of this dissertation, since it refers to the previously set amounts that slaves were obliged to give their masters from the proceeds of their ganho earnings. Stating that these quotas took into account “the average productivity of specific occupations within the marketplace” as well as the age, health, and other characteristics of slaves, Reis offers the following numbers based upon Maria José da
Silva Andrade’s calculations:
Andrade gives some examples of quotas for the year 1847: a sedan chair porter paid out 400 réis per day, as did a shoemaker. Next came other porters and stevedores, who paid their masters 320 réis per day. Rachel, a slave washerwoman, only paid 240 réis, which was the average quota noted thirty years earlier by Spix and Martius.180
Rachel had probably differed from the others in her age and health, which had resulted in significantly lowering her quota.
Other comparisons are offered by the primary sources under study themselves. One example is the amicable partilha, which took place among the heirs of the freed African
Antônio Mendes181 who died intestate in 1859. Among his assets were several slaves,
179 João José Reis. Slave Rebellion…: 18.
180 Maria José da Silva Andrade; Johan B. Spix., and Karl von Martius quoted in João Reis, Slave Rebellion…: 161.
Maria José da Silva Andrade’s book on slave labor in Salvador constitutes mandatory reading for anyone working on the subject, and provides much more detailed information on the professions and occupations exercised by the city’s African and African-descendant population, labor arrangements, the ganho system, and earnings. A mão de obra escrava em Salvador, 1811-1860. São Paulo: Corrupio, 1988.
181 Book: 30 – pp: 32v to 36v
186 none of whom were younger than forty years old—which would have been the case for the slaves owned by the majority of the African libertos who died in old age. This inventory is both significant and relevant for the actual human details that it provides on the slaves in question. The youngest among them, the 40 year-old Nagô man named
Felipe was valued at Rs. 800$000 for his right leg being crooked. Then came the Angola
Delfina, who seemed to be around forty-five and who was valued at the same price. Two of the slaves Antônio Mendes left behind were stated to be very old, and both were Nagô.
Constantino was valued at Rs. 150$000 réis and Domingas at 100$000. The latter also had the misfortune of being sick at the time. The evaluation also included a sad detail, which is however useful as a basis of comparison. Antônio Mendes had also left behind a male calf among his material assets. It was valued at the exact same price as
Domingas.182
Going back to the testament left behind by the Viana couple in 1893, we see that they owed a debt to the Sr. Thomé Pinto de Almeida Castro of the sum of four contos and
182 Such a clear calculation provides us once again with the important perspective that by the time African libertos approached their own deaths, providing their slaves who also were no longer young in most cases with set alforria prices almost always worked to their great material advantage. Moreover, it also demonstrates that the provision of alforria was not always the best option for slaves who had already reached old age: How could have a slave like Domingas been able to survive alone in Salvador, let alone pay for her freedom? It is possible that she might have had protectors, but also equally probable that many members of her community had also passed away by then, and that she was bound to lead a lonely and precarious existence.
Many scholars of slavery in Brazil have also referred to cases where freedom did not always represent the best option for its beneficiaries. It could actually mean separation from one’s community and personal networks, as well as being left without any economic support. For one example among many, see: Sandra Lauderdale Graham. Caetana Says No: Women’s Stories from a Brazilian Slave Society. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002: 42.
Once again, slave prices increased significantly towards the end of the century. In her will, Joaquina Rosa do Sacramento indicated having paid Rs. 1:700$000 to her brother Raimundo de Almeida for her slave Dalumácia. (Book: 50—pp. 17 to 17v).
187 three hundred thousand réis (Rs. 4:300$000). This debt resulted from a mortgage that they had on the sobrado that belonged to them—and in which they lived—, located in the
Rua do Coqueiro, in the Freguesia do Pilar. Not only did the liberto couple own an entire sobrado to their name in a highly urban parish, they also possessed an independet house
(probably earthen, as described above) in the Rua do Bom Gosto, also located in Pilar.
Clearly, the couple did not live in both houses; such ostentatiousness would not have made sense in the life of any liberto in Salvador. It was even highly improbable that they would keep a whole sobrado solely for their own dwelling. In fact, their main source of income must have been the rent payments that came from their houses. This was especially clear in consideration of the fact that the couple owned no slaves at the time they chose to prepare their joint testament. In fact, the couple stated that in addition to their real estate, their only assets were the furniture and other household goods that could be found in their sobrado. They did not pursue any debts other than those that emanated from their mortgage. Their sobrado at the Rua do Coqueiro almost certainly was divided into rooms and loges that were rented out to other Africans—probably both enslaved and free. The house on the Rua do Bom Gosto would have similarly functioned primarily as a source of income, which could also have made possible the payments on the first house possible. In addition to these renters and the Viana couple themselves, the dwellings probably still housed agregados, family members, friends, and acquaintances, mostly freed Africans themselves. This constitutes one of the few instances in the documents were libertos indicate the ownership of sobrados. It also represents an uncommon choice as to how freed Africans usually chose to keep their wealth and guarantee an income in nineteenth-century Salvador. The Viana couple constitute an exception to both African
188 and Brazilian norms, in choosing to count their wealth solely in real estate rather than storing it at least partly in people. They are even more exceptional in the highly urban nature of their real estate. Finally, the late date of their will is in line with the fact that the law against the real estate ownership on the part of libertos had mostly fallen into disuse by that time. Their ownership and debt regarding their dwellings were clear, and they did not seek to justify or clarify it in any way in the documents.
One final example I provide here relates to the partilha amigável or “amicable partition” on 28 February 1899 of the material assets left behind by Afonso José Joaquim Machado, who had passed away from pneumonia at the very end of the nineteenth century.183 At the time of his death, Afonso was 66 years old, which referred to a relatively long life when the low life expectancy of Africans in Salvador in the nineteenth century was taken into consideration. Several other—and unusual— details were offered on Afonso in the partilha: He had died as a single man, and had been an artist by profession. He had lived in the Rua de São Roque, which was also the place where he passed away.184 The material assets of Afonso José Joaquim Machado would be shared between his two children—Cláudio (age 30) and Honoria Machado (age 32), who were his natural heirs
183 01/102/152/16
This document thus offers one of the rare cases in which the actual reason for the death of a liberto is openly stated, rather than the use of general terms such as “sickness” and “old age.” This is of course natural, since death had already taken place by the time one’s heirs resorted to the partition of the assets left behind by the deceased.
184 Such detail of information clearly emanated from the fact that he was being described by the authorities, rather than describing himself. This is a pattern witnessed in all the inventories, partilhas, or additional documents attached to the testaments composed by libertos. They contain details that the testaments themselves do not: Perhaps because they reflect the need to provide additional information, but another possibility is also the difference that must have existed between what freed Africans saw as important elements of their identities vs. what the authorities perceived as significant about the very same identities. In this context, I find it significant that very few libertos declared their professions while dictating their testaments.
189 through their status of offspring. They had been born to different African mothers—who had both passed away by this time, and had both been conceived outside of official marriage. They were recognized as Afonso’s legitimate children, and endowed with the same rights. As their father’s heirs, Claudio and Honoria were entitled to the house situated in the Ladeira de São Roque: Number 39. It was valued at one conto and eight hundred thousand réis.185 It would be up to them to decide to sell, rent, or live in the house. It was certain that through his death, their father had solved for them one of the biggest problems in the lives of Africans and their descendants in nineteenth-century
Bahia: That of securing a reliable a place of dwelling that would protect them from the precarious nature of life in the city, that would serve as a guarantee against the social and economic perils they could encounter at any moment, while it would also provide them with a continuous and secure source of income. All these factors and more were embedded in what a morada meant for slaves and ex-slaves during the nineteenth century as a whole.
III.II.2. Semi-rural or Peri-urban Living Patterns in the Testaments of Libertos In their Brazilian worlds, African libertos merged understandings that were both African and Brazilian to form new identities as Africans in Brazil. In the context of wealth, both
African understandings and the dynamics of Brazilian slave society prioritized wealth in people. When they opted for wealth in land and/or real estate however, those understandings also often reflected a merging of these ways of understanding life that were both African and Brazilian at the same time. Below, I analyze several testaments
185 This high sum provides an important contrast to the values of the rural/urban houses that will be analyzed later in this chapter, and also in the context of changes which took place over time. The house Afonso left his two children was of significant value, and its bequethal could result in major changes in the lives the two would be able to live in Salvador da Bahia.
190 that correspond to this second trend in real estate ownership. As I have argued in Chapter
I, these cases are significant because they often correspond to the desire and effort to create a more independent and African way of life for themselves on the part of libertos.
A defining characteristic of these houses was clearly that they were made out of cheap, highly perishable and low quality materials. Even if they were covered with clay bricks, the houses were almost without exception made out of mud. The quality of the covering could even be lower at times, as is witnessed in the case of Bento da Costa. The tropical, yet mild, climate of Salvador did not ask for too much shelter against inclement weather.
Unlike in the Caribbean, no major hurricanes hit Bahia, and there were seldom if any rains heavy enough to damage roofs made out of fragile materials. This worked to the advantage of the freed men and women who in their large majority lived their lives in relatively humble circumstances, if not by imposition by choice. In cases where owning a dwelling constituted a privilege in itself, it would be expected for its materials to be perishable and of low quality.186 In addition, even though no law openly restricted the materials out of which freed Africans could build their living quarters, these could be restricted by custom and social understandings with regards to the place of Africans within Bahian society. The premises of White-dominated slave societies restricted
Africans to build houses “suitable to [their] station[s],” as was the case in many other parts of the Atlantic World.187 The houses that corresponded to these characteristics were located in semi-rural areas, and were made out of materials that fit the setting. In urban
186 The fact that these houses were built on rented land could also have been a factor for libertos to not invest in expensive building materials. But often, such arrangements of lease extended themselves over long periods of time, and were bequeathed several times over. People did come to see them as their own property. In other cases, they already were their own property, and the explanations of annual rent were there solely to appease the legal concerns of the officials.
187 Vincent Brown, The Reaper’s Garden…: 108.
191 Salvador, it would have been impossible to place a mud house next to a sobrado. In semi- rural Brotas, however, libertos had more freedom in how they constructed their houses and their lives, relatively far away from the watchful eyes of the authorities and the privileged White members of society. In the section below, I will provide a close reading of a sampling of testaments in order to shed light on liberto lives in these semi-rural/peri- urban parts of the Bahian capital through a focus on their houses and small plantations.
Getrudes Vaz de Souza188 was over ninety years old when she dictated her testament, which was later transferred into notes. She had a house made of straw in the village of
Itapuã, outside the city limits of Salvador. The location of Gertrudes’ house is exceptional within the body of the testaments of freed Africans. While this chapter has demonstrated that freed Africans could be found living in each of the city’s ten urban parishes, this did not mean that Gertrudes was an actual exception. Urban libertos would have had greater access to authorities and to the necessary legal knowledge. They would have also lived in the midst of people who used such channels. It was only normal that they would register their testaments to a greater extent, which would explain their overwhelming within the sample of documents. We do know, however, that villages like
Itapuã were major African settlements in the nineteenth century. The major semi-rural parish of Salvador, Brotas, actually extended the whole way to Itapuã. Therefore, we can imagine that the village portrayed similar dynamics, and probably in a manner that was even more pronounced.
188 Book 41—pp 42
192 As was the case in the semi-rural parishes of Salvador, the house that Gertrudes built in
Itapuã was made out of cheap and perishable materials, in this case straw. Gertrudes had sought greater freedom in choosing to live outside of urban Salvador, in a more rural setting where she probably had control over land and its produce. Unfortunately, her testament was extremely brief, and she left no information regarding the ways in which she could have lived off her land.189 She had chosen to build her house in a way that differed from the norms of the city. She had also chosen to inhabit a world that was more
African within the Bahian setting. Her case provides a useful introduction to the wills of those libertos who inhabited semi-rural parishes.
Luiz Mendes190 was already sick at the time he asked to have his testament written down.
His mud and clay house included a living room, two other rooms and a kitchen. It was quite large in comparison with houses owned by libertos in similar settings. It was valued at Rs. 50$000. Luiz also had a small plantation on the farm where he lived. Even though he had only planted a small portion of manioc in his back yard, it was assessed to be worth more than twice the value of the house: Rs.121$000. The land on which both the house and garden were located was rented from the heirs of the Viscondessa of Rio
Vermelho.191 The house must have been Luiz’s own place of dwelling, since he referred to no other real estate in his will. This is supported by the fact that the small plantation
189 However, because of the rural nature of her dwelling place, we can imagine that she did indeed live off the land. The brevity of her testament also corresponds to her exceptionality within the sample: It was probably not customary to register wills in her community, and she did not know how else to approach the legal document or what to add.
190 Book 44—pp. 66
191 In fact, this is the case for many of the testators included in this dissertation. Many rented from the Viscondessa.
193 also appears as his sole source of revenue. This was quite common, and partly explained why libertos would choose to live in such semi-rural settings. They often continued the practice of cultivating small subsistence gardens during their enslavement by choosing to own small vegetable or fruit plantations in their new domiciles. By the time they acquired their freedom, ex-slaves had become used to the perils of life in a slave society and developed or revised certain mechanisms of survival. In semi-rural settings like that of
Rio Vermelho where they still had similar recourses to what they had previously experienced, they would continue the patterns which they already knew to be successful.192 It might be far-fetched to look for parallels with the lives libertos had led in
Africa, but it is still quite probable that they had cultivated the land either as a primary or a side activity.193 I argue that this also constitutes one of the main reasons why such semi- rural or rural dwellers did not cite professions. Cultivating the land certainly guaranteed their livelihood. But it was not considered a profession neither in Africa nor in the
Diaspora. It was much more of a way of life than anything else. It was also a major choice that demonstrated a way in which freed Africans exercised agency in living more
African lives within the Brazilian setting.
192 We can also imagine that some of those who settled in such rural parts had in fact been plantation slaves in the Recôncavo.
193 This chapter has already referred to the importance of having access to land, and at least of having garden plots to cultivate for both self use and surplus all over the African Diaspora, in addition to the importance given to farming and cultivating the land in the African continent itself.
Another freed African, Ernesto Meireles, stated that he owned land in the Vila de Maragogipe, which he had purchased after acquiring his freedom, and with money he had borrowed from his former master. He stated that he had lived on a small house situated on this land, where he had depended for his livelihood on the yams, corn, and other crops that he planted. This fact is even more significant considering that Ernesto Meireles had recorded his will in 1876, and thus well towards the end of the century. Still, it was registered only nine years after Luiz Mendes prepared his testament, and we can safely assume that living and work arrangements within Salvador would not have changed drastically by then (Book: 52 – pp: 25 to 27v).
194 Rita Ignácia,194 a freed African woman, had been baptized in the Freguesia da Sé—a highly urban parish as explained earlier on in this chapter. She had also chosen to leave the urban areas of the city where she had lived as an enslaved African and to move to the semi-rural parish of Brotas. Here, she possessed a board house covered with clay slabs at the Pitangueiras farm on land belonging to Manoel de Castro Neves, for which she would have paid an annual rent. Just like houses made of mud or straw, board houses were also commonly owned by freed Africans in such parts of the city.195 Rita’s testament makes it clear that she did not remain in the urban setting where she had been a slave upon the acquisition of her freedom. She consciously chose a different way of life, probably one that was more African.
Florentina Maria da Conceiçāo, a free Gegê woman,196 had two small houses made out of mud and covered with clay slabs. They were built on land belonging to a certain Senhor
Gantois. He had other tenants with houses on his land, which was located at the entrance of the Rio Vermelho neighborhood within Brotas, on the side of the urban Freguesia da
Vitória. The fact that a group of people rented land from Gantois shows that a small
African community had probably formed on his land. Freed Africans would not have shared the same land with Brazilian-born Blacks or poor Whites. Gantois was surely
194 Book: 41 – pp: 148 to 149
195 And once again, they represented a pattern that surpassed the Brazilian setting: Board houses were all over the Caribbean at the time, while also present in North America and mainland Spanish America. While the specific material that made up a house could change, the fact that it was cheap and perishable often remained a constant.
196 Book: 44 – pp: 32 to 24
The fact that Florentina Maria cites her Gegê ethnicity reinforces the point made in Chapter I with regards to the minority status of the members of this “nation,” and the greater importance they gave to their ethnic identity.
195 aware of the living arrangements that were in place on his land, and he accepted them.
This was probably because they were not exceptional at all. African communities must have abounded in such semi-rural settings.197
But at the time Florentina put her testament into writing, both houses were free and unoccupied, which indicates that she did not live in a house which she herself owned.
There could have been several other possibilities. Florentina could have chosen a more urban place of dwelling, and shared the rent of a loja or of a room in a sobrado, or less likely within an earthen house, within the more direct city limits. She would naturally not register in her will a place that she only rented. Even in such an urban setting, she would most probably live with other Africans, as was the usual pattern. Less probable but still a possibility would have been for her to live as an agregada (as an “addition” to another household of free persons). This was a common occurrence in Brazilian society at the time, for both Whites and Blacks of all social segments. Even if she were an agregada,
Florentina Maria would have almost certainly been part of an African household. She could have opted for such a living option, even though she must have had a certain income from the houses that she owned. Florentina most probably rented out her houses—either as a whole or divided into rooms— to other libertos. Simultaneously, she could have housed friends or acquaintances in need for certain periods of time. Although she gave no details on the subject, the houses were probably in ruins and no longer habitable by the time she dictated her testament as an old person, which was why they
197 The African-derived religious and cultural activities that took place in Brotas and that alerted the Bahian authorities are referred to at several distinct points within this dissertation.
196 were empty.198 She also might have lived there previously, while they were still habitable. Florentina Maria may also have rented a room for herself in another liberto household after her houses fell into ruin. She could also have lived in the company of other Africans who had formed part of her personal networks without paying anything in return. It was common for people to depend on others in old age, infirmity, or difficult situations.199 Freed Africans protected other Africans within their communities, both free and enslaved.
Rio Vermelho, where Florentina’s houses were located, was a neighborhood within the parish of Brotas where many freed Africans had built their houses. Interestingly, most of these houses were built on land belonging to either the Baron or the Viscountess of Rio
Vermelho, or to their heirs. This demonstrates that even such noble and large landowners saw the housing ventures of freed Africans an appropriate and considerable source of income. Even though few libertos in nineteenth-century Salvador held considerable wealth solely as individuals, they formed an important segment within the city’s population, and the material power they wielded when they came together was to be reckoned with. In the complex and mobile world of Salvador, wealthy Whites were quite aware of the economic and business capacities of people from other social groups with whom they rubbed shoulders on a daily basis.
198 The case of Antônio da Silveira’s material assets that will be discussed below provides one such example.
199 This factor is also evident in Antônio da Silveira’s testament, which he used to procure protection for the less advantaged members of his personal networks.
197 Bento da Costa’s testament200 provides a much more complete documentation than many of its counterparts. This is because it also includes the assessment, which followed his death and sought to correctly value all his assets in order to make sure that their bequeathals were justly carried. This evaluation permits us to gain an understanding of the actual sale value of Bento’s assets, and by comparison of the social standing of other freed Africans in nineteenth-century Salvador who were close to him in their social positions. The house that Bento da Costa owned was built on a fazenda (plantation) named Pomar, also leased from the Baron of Rio Vermelho. It was made out of mud, but in this case it was covered with straw like that of Gertrudes Vaz de Souza. Therefore, it was a house of even lesser quality than one covered with clay, and also worth less. The assessment of Bento’s properties also includes details that are not part of his testament. It shows that the house made out of mud and covered with straw was actually quite large. It contained a living room, as well as two other rooms and a kitchen.201 It also had a door and window in the front. It had probably housed a whole family, as well as other members of Bento’s kinship networks. This house was valued at fifty thousand réis.
When put into comparative context with the usual amount of alforria set at Rs.150$000 for a slave to be freed upon a testator’s death, we can once again underline that the value of a house was significant, but often not even close to the value of wealth in people in the period in question. While slaves constituted the main source of wealth in the slave societies of the Atlantic World, libertos also followed African patterns in the ways in
200 05/1465/1934/8
201 The fact that many libertos specifically mention the existence of doors and windows in their wills shows that they were not such a common occurrence, and that there were many houses that were built without them. However, the majority of the descriptions of dwellings from this time period in Salvador, many of which appear within the body of information provided by Anna Amélia Vieira Nascimento, also refer specifically to doors and windows.
198 which they chose to invest. Africans counted their wealth primarily in people, while
Europeans counted their wealth in land. In Brazil, where freed Africans merged both
African and Brazilian elements within their identities and ways of life, they often counted wealth in both land and slaves, to degrees that varied from individual to individual.
This is because Brazilian realities could be as important as African understandings in that a proper place of dwelling was an important counterpart to freedom in Brazil. Land, on the other hand, was central to sustenance in semi-rural areas and in the absence of a profession. Bento had been able to make up for the lesser value of his house by having a fruit plantation. The majority of his wealth actually rested here. He had a tarefa (small area of plantation) of manioc, which was valued at Rs. 30$000. His fifty Chinese orange trees were worth a whole Rs.100$000, twice as much as the house itself. The quintal or backyard, and other small areas attached to the plantation were assessed to be worth a total of Rs. 20$000. In total, therefore, the plantation equaled three times the value of the house, but it only added up to the alforria price for an adult slave. Slaves did constitute the best way to store wealth in the nineteenth century from every perspective, African and Brazilian.
Freed Africans could also own farms on leased land, in addition to houses and plantations. In these cases, they would have proper rights over the farm buildings, materials, crops, and animals, even though their actual rights often extended themselves to the land as well, as argued above. Rita Friandes202 was born on the African coast and had been the slave of the late Manoel Friandes da Silva. She indicated owning a farm in
202 04/1355/1824/2
199 the alley that went from Brotas in the direction of Rio Vermelho. The farm was built on land belonging to Senhora D. Maria, widow of Domingos de Tal.203 Therefore, the land itself probably belonged to libertos. Freed Africans were capable of renting from people of many different social standings, ranging from the highest ranks of noble Whites to
Brazilian and African-born libertos or livres. As long as they paid their annuities, these actions seem to have been well accepted by people from all social strata.204
The freed African Antônio Mendes205 had passed away without a testament in 1859, upon which an amicable inventory and the “partilha” (partition) of his assets took place between his widow Josefa de Santa Ana, and his children—his daughter Maria de Santa
Ana represented by her husband Benedito Nobres, his son Antônio Mendes, and his daughter Isabel de Santa Ana who represented herself.206 The house Antônio Mendes left behind was made out of straw and covered with clay slabs. It was situated within the farm
203 This fact is significant since the last name De Tal implies slave ancestry in Brazil. In many cases where no clear last name existed, De Tal was used. Since slaves took on the last names of their masters, these were sometimes seen as a mere formality and substituted by this expression. In my analysis of the testaments, I have only encountered a single case where the last name of a liberto was given in one instance and replaced with De Tal in the next. It is quite likely that libertos did not deal with one another with their last names in their daily lives, except in business or legal settings, which could make it so that they were often unaware of the last name bequeathed to one of their peers from his/her ex-master. It is also probable that people could refrain from using these last names in their daily lives. Another possibility could be that these did not matter that much to scribes. On the other hand, the De Tal section of the judiciary archive of testaments at the APEB usually does not refer to freed Africans, but to Brazilian-born ex-slaves. It is open to question whether freed Africans saw their identities—and consequently their names—differently from their Brazilian peers. We do know, however, that their full Brazilian names mattered greatly to the Agudás, the African ex-slaves in Brazil who later returned to the continent, often with a higher status and much Brazilianized identities.
204 Rita left this major material asset to her first testamenteira (executor) Luiza Guirina. However, since no inventory or assessment was attached to the testament, no calculation was possible to make as to the value of the said farm.
205 Book: 30 – pp: 32v to 36v
206 While all women could represent themselves in front of the law in Brazil, they could also opt for being represented by their husbands in the cases where they were legally married, since men continued to wield greater power in Brazilian society.
200 named Candial in Brotas. Prior to his death, for the land on which it was built, Antônio
Mendes had been paying an annuity of 800 réis in rent to Luiz José de Almeida. The house itself was valued at the small sum of Rs. 25$000. Surrounding this house was a fruit plantation that once again encompassed the majority of the material wealth that he left behind. In comparison with others in this sampling of documents, Antônio Mendes owned a relatively large plantation which served as an important source of income. The following number of trees were valued at the respective sums of money: Three hundred and sixty orange trees at Rs. 900$000; sixteen mango trees at Rs. 48$000; eight jaca trees at Rs. 40$000; and 43 coconut trees at Rs. 86$000. In addition to these, Antônio Mendes’ fruit plantation also contained a breadfruit tree (valued at 2,000 réis), a tamarind tree
(valued at 4,000 réis), a clove tree (valued at 3,000 réis), and a sapodilla tree (valued at
5,000 réis). Only one animal was counted among his assets. It was the male calf already referred to above that was valued at Rs. 100$000.207
While the house described above seems to have constituted the living quarters of Antônio
Mendes and his family, the late Antônio also possessed another small house made of mud and covered with clay slabs. This building was built for business purposes: It contained an oven for making farinha—the manioc flour so commonly consumed in Brazil and especially in the Northeast—, as well as a press for the dough. It was located on land belonging to the Viscountess of Rio Vermelho who, as already seen above, commonly rented out land to libertos. Due to its small size, it was valued at 15,000 réis. Its annual rent was also set at the low price of one hundred réis. It is possible that Antônio himself
207 It is important to remember here that while these fruit trees represent a significant sale value, Antônio Mendes had lives from their proceeds and not their sale, which would have yielded a much smaller sum in comparison.
201 was involved in making manioc flour or bread. But it was more probable that he received both rent from the people who worked there—most probably African libertos themselves—as well as a percentage of their profits. When added to the proceeds from his fruit plantation, Antônio’s proceeds from his wealth in land would not have been negligible.208
The freed African Antônio da Silveira209 was a widower who lived in the Quinta das
Beatas, also located in Brotas. He had been legally married to Luiza da Conceiçāo, who had been an African liberta like himself. While his Church-sanctified union was exceptional to a certain extent among the greater population of libertos in Salvador, the fact that he had had a freed African life partner corresponded to the general norm.
Antônio’s did not compose his testament for the most common reason of old age and/or ill health, but just like Joaquim de Almeida because he was about to set out on an Atlantic voyage. Antônio owned a large house made out of mud and covered with clay slabs: 38 palmadas (hand spans) in depth and 16 hand spans in length. It had a front door, two windows, a living room, four other rooms and a kitchen. It was valued at Rs. 300$000, a significant sum of money for the period in question. The house was located on the plantation and farmland belonging to Jacinto Muniz Barreto, for which Antônio paid the annual rent of Rs. 18$000. At the time that he had his testament recorded, the rent was already paid in full for the next two years, which implied that Antônio’s financial position was relatively secure. He actually seemed to be quite well off.
208 Antônio Mendes’ case is one of the few instances in libertos’ testaments where we can gather indirect information that might be indicative of the occupations and sources of income of the freed African testators themselves.
209 04/1354/1823/69
202 Recording his testament more than two decades after the Malê revolt and its ensuing laws, Antônio also openly stated that he owned his land. This land was located in Areias, and had been given to him as payment by Antônio Jorge, in return for the cargo that the former had carried in his name to the African Coast.210 As explained above, although
Bahian law prohibited all Africans from owning land, they almost always found ways around this limitation. Antônio Jorge might have been Brazilian-born, and thus entitled to real estate ownership. He still would not have been permitted by law to pass on his land to a freed African. But in a context where the legal limitations regarding land ownership by Africans had never been fully respected, it would have been easier for a man of a certain wealth and power to openly list land among his material assets.211 Still, while it was relatively more common for libertos to refer to their ownership of houses, direct references to land ownership were very few and far between. Antônio insisted on making clear that his trade with the African Coast had been in “negocios lícitos” [“lawful goods”], since he prepared his will eight years after the complete ban of the slave trade.
From this perspective as well, Antônio’s will was a clear product of its time, since it pointed to the illegal continuation of the slave trade in Brazil as well as among the members of the freed African community. We cannot be sure if Antônio had actually not participated in the trade as he indicated, since he would have never stated it openly in his will. But a significant amount of wealth in nineteenth-century Bahia often implied slave
210 Moreover, this land also tied him to the African Coast, as was the case with many privileged libertos in nineteenth-century Salvador da Bahia. From this perspective, it is also interesting that someone involved in transatlantic trade would opt for a semi-rural lifestyle in Salvador. Except for his direct references to Atlantic voyages, nothing in Antônio da Silveira’s testament indicated any participation in the Atlantic trade in slaves or commodities.
211 While considerable, Antônio da Silveira’s material assets could in no way compare to those of Joaquim de Almeida whose direct claim to real estate ownership was previously discussed from this very angle.
203 trade links. As discussed in the Introduction, this trade had also intensified to an even greater degree right after it became illegal.
Antônio da Silveira had another house made out of mud and covered with clay slabs on his own land in the Fazenda da Areia Branca. The exceptionality of this house derived from its size just like it had been the case of the one that was previously cited: It measured 45 palmadas in length and 73 palmadas in depth. It had four rooms, as well as a living room and a kitchen. In this state, the house was valued at Rs. 250$000. Antônio’s considerable wealth also came across in his ownership of several other houses. One of these, also made out of mud, could be found on the same land. It was covered with clay, and smaller than the first one: sixteen hand spans in length and twenty-five hand spans in depth. It had a door and a window, as well as a single room and kitchen. It was valued at
Rs. 40$000. Two other small mud houses were valued at Rs. 30$000. The price difference with the former house may be due to a difference in size, but also to the fact that they were covered with straw, rather than clay. Four additional houses, even smaller in size, were built on the same land, valued at Rs. 15$000, 12$000, 10$000 and 5$000 respectively. Antônio had most probably built these houses as an additional source of income. They would be rented out to other libertos, possibly single individuals living alone or in small groups. In spite of their small size, they could also have housed freed
African couples, or small families. A lesser possibility was that they were planned as shops or work places as the small manioc bakery cited above. In semi-rural lands, just like in urban sobrados, Africans sought to congregate and create communities through their living arrangements. We can imagine the dwellings on Antônio’s land as forming a
204 small African village cut out from Brazilian fabric, bringing together the two worlds.
Such an arrangement testifies to the attempts on the part of Africans to create for themselves worlds that primarily included their peers. Antônio himself had chosen to reside among these other Africans. Even in the cases where class differences separated them, their Africanness brought them together, as will be seen below.
As one who wielded a certain amount of power in comparison to other libertos through his trade links to Africa, Antônio da Silveira sought to make use of his power to protect other freed Africans who had not been able to share in his luck. Through his testament, he asked his son to give part of the farm to his acquaintances with whom he had always lived. This meant that Antônio had indeed chosen to inhabit an African world in Bahia that included people from very different social standings who all had their Africanness in common. Antônio explained that these acquaintances had no independent means of their own to rent houses in the city of Salvador. These libertos had depended on Antônio during their lives, and would continue to do so upon his death. Antônio sought to make use of his testament to guarantee the wellbeing, and thus to have some agency over the lives, of these poorer acquaintances upon his death. In this way, the provisions of
Antônio’s testament were reflective of his understanding of who he saw to be part of his community and kinship networks. These people could be poor or rich, enslaved or free.
Almost always though, they were African. Upon his death as before, it would be the power that he wielded through his wealth that would assure the safety of those close to him: In order to receive the material benefits of his testament, Jacinto Muniz Barreto would need to accept this condition.
205 On 27 February 1864, Jacinto Muniz Barreto agreed to become Antônio’s executor, as well as tutor to his son Marcolino José Dias.212 Jacinto would be paid for his services from the value of the house, which was part of the estate of Anacleto da Silveira who in turn was currently under Antônio’s guardianship. The same last name suggests either biological ties, or kinship networks constructed around former master-slave relationships.
Probably the latter, since he held future rights over an estate. It is clear that complex dynamics of patronage and protection were part of Antônio’s life, and that he engaged in equally complicated calculations with regards to the people who made up his community around the time that he seriously started to think about his own death. The house that would pay for the expenses of Jacinto Muniz Barreto was indicated to be the one situated in the Quinta das Beatas. This was a complicated arrangement, pointing to the many possible ways in which libertos were able to circumvent the law, as well as to the complex business and personal arrangements they entered in. The land on which the house that would pay for Antônio’s expenses was located actually belonged to Jacinto
Muniz Barreto himself, which means that Antônio was referring to the house itself and not to the land when he indicated that it was part of Anacleto da Silveira’s estate.213
Within the complex nature of these arrangements, it is hard to decipher what was actually part of Antônio’s own estate and what was not, what he would actually be able to bequeath his son, and how far he could realistically go in protecting the people within his
212 Since Marcolino José Dias was a minor at the time that his father recorded his testament, he would not have been able to understand the importance of, or be able to do much about, the people his father had asked him to provide with shelter and protection. That responsibility would fall on Jacinto Muniz Barreto.
213 Because no explanation was given for Barreto’s ownership (in contradistinction to the clarifications related to Antônio’s ownership of land), it is probable that he was Brazilian-born. Therefore, while Antônio’s personal networks primarily included other Africans, he must have had business arrangements with Brazilians that also extended themselves into the personal realm. Unfortunately, the testament does not provide any additional information regarding the identity of Antônio Jorge with whom and in whose name Silveira had conducted trade ventures with the African Coast.
206 personal network. In this way, Antônio’s will bears direct witness to the complexities within liberto community formation. At a more concrete level, it also shows that while some assertions of renting land could in reality be covers for actual ownership, the complicated arrangement of private properties being built on rented land were also quite common. This specific arrangement made in Antônio’s testament probably meant that
Barreto would now also receive either regular rental income from a property located on his own land or a one-time compensation from its sale. Since the owner Anacleto was still under age, he would neither be able to control this sale nor to choose any other form of payment to be given as compensation to Barreto. Another major question that remained open was what would happen to Anacleto upon Antônio’s death—who would become his guardian, and if his rights and wellbeing would be provided for.
As he agreed to become the executor, Jacinto simultaneously asked for the accounts to be modified because of the changes in the values of leases. The reason for these changes was the considerable length of time that had passed since the deceased liberto had dictated his testament, which meant that he had not died during the African voyage that he cited in his testament nor soon afterwards. As has already been seen in Chapter I in the case of Ana
Maria dos Prazeres’ testament214, the time that could pass between the registration of a testament and the death of someone, as well as the time frame that separated the opening of a testament from the series of legal proceedings that followed, could be substantial.
This was often detrimental to its acceptance by an executor and to the successful realization of the conditions embodied within it. Material assets would have often lost their value by then, and it would not be to the advantage of executors to take on the
214 Book: 19 - pp: 18 to 25./ 04/1354/1823/77
207 responsibility to fulfill the conditions of the wills. In the cases where executorship was refused, certain among the testament’s conditions would remain unrealized. In Antônio da Silveira’s case, from the statements that ensued, we learn that the house was truly in a state of complete decay and had lost most of its value. It was attested that the house could not, under any circumstances, be valued at more than Rs. 50$000 or 60$000. It was in such a state of ruin that the only things salvageable and worth any money were indicated to be the two thousand clay slabs that were valued at a much higher total of Rs. 300$000, which made it much more profitable to take the house apart and sell the materials. Since the house risked falling apart during the following winter, both the substitute and the minor heir risked losing everything if it were left to stay in its present state. Barreto advocated for the house being taken apart as fast as possible and the clay slabs sold before they lost their value even more. It seems pretty certain that the house had lost a large portion of its value by the time that Antônio passed away. But Barreto’s efforts to bend the legal proceedings in his favor are also evident. He attested to owing Marcolino
José Dias the sum of Rs. 210$829, remaining from the rent that his father had already paid in advance for the two years following his death. Rs. 300$000 would come from selling the clay slabs, which would leave him with Rs. 89$071 to fulfill the conditions of the testament. This should be enough to cover Barreto’s expenses, with only a slight chance of leaving him with some money of his own. The executor was probably afraid that the money he would receive from the current state of the house would not be able to cover his legal expenses. But he probably also wanted to be able to profit, if only to a small extent.215 Antônio da Silveira seems to have made a strategic move for protecting
215 Vincent Brown presents many instances where the executorship of testaments works to the material advantage of the people who accepted the responsibility, and argues that material compensation actually
208 his son by tying his wellbeing to the interests of his executor, who also accepted to be his son’s guardian. If he could trust Jacinto Muniz Barreto with this latter responsibility as well, the two must also have been close at a personal level. Even so, executors needed to be sufficiently compensated in material terms if they were to be expected to comply with the conditions of libertos’ wills.
The moradas I have analyzed in this section are all of a semi-rural/peri-urban nature.
Such places of dwelling and living arrangements are primarily important because of what they reflect with regards to the worldviews and aspirations of freed Africans. They demonstrate that often, libertos chose to live far from the urban parts of the city, where they would constantly be under the watchful eye of authorities. In this way, they were able to acquire a greater degree of independence. They also indicate that these areas were conducive to the creation of worlds that were more African in nature, where libertos could live surrounded by their peers, in dwellings that conformed to their own preferences, and where they could engage in activities that would not have been possible in more controlled parts of the city. In separate houses within rented farmland, in compounds that included several houses, in living arrangements which could even come to resemble small African villages, libertos did not have to constantly rub shoulders with
Brazilians, both Black and White. They could even hide their fugitive companions. Such semi-rural living arrangements are also described in greater detail within my documents.
It is natural that crowded urban living quarters in the form of shared loges within sobrados, or rented rooms within the city limits, would not have been as important for
constituted the primary reason for their acceptance. Vincent Brown. The Reaper’s Garden… . Passim.
209 freed Africans at a personal level, thus warranting detailed descriptions. Conversely, these semi-urban dwellings and living patterns emanated from direct choices and deliberations on the part of libertos. It is not at all surprising that they would choose to include them in their self-representations.
III.III. Furniture and Other Household Goods Naturally, houses did not come alone. However modest, they always included at least a few pieces of furniture and other household goods. In my sample of 307 African libertos,
40 openly indicated that they owned furniture, at 13 % of the sample. This clearly did not mean that the others did not, because even if they did not own real estate and rented their living quarters, they would still have owned some of the items that were to be found in them. Rather, this factor points in several other directions. Firstly, not all testaments are descriptive even with regards to houses, and as asserted above the ones that include descriptions are primarily of a semi-rural nature. When houses are better described, so are the material assets that were included in them. Second, people who owned greater quantities of wealth often did not consider such items as worthy of note. Even when they invested their wealth in houses, their approach to these might not be as personal as that of peri-urban liberto dwellers. Third, most people tended to invest their wealth primarily in people, and their testaments would focus on their slaves. And fourth, not everyone was equally detailed in their descriptions or bequests. Significant, for example, is the fact that none of the individuals whose assets are listed in this chapter referred to owning beds.
Such references were also almost non-existent within the larger body of libertos’ wills.
While woven mats spread on the ground were much more common at the time than wooden beds that were actually raised off the ground, at least some of the people who
210 owned more elaborate items of furniture would have also owned beds, which means that they simply were not listed.216 Some would have considered that many of their household items would have fallen into decay by the time of their use, or find the task of their separate bequeathals taxing. Many would simply hand such items over personally to family, friends, or acquaintances. Others would simply leave houses to their heirs, and imagine that what came with the house would directly be passed on along with it. The following section concentrates on the household items registered in libertos’ wills, but also those included in inventories because of the more descriptive and detailed nature of these documents in this regard. Taken by the state authorities, inventories included all the assets that they encountered, even those of minor value that freed Africans themselves may not have considered worthy of listing.217
Table 2.6. Ownership of Furniture and Household Goods
Total number of people Those who listed furniture Those who did not list furniture among their assets 307 40 267
% 13 87
The assessment of the material assets of Bento da Costa discussed earlier also gives us a fair idea of the furnishings possessed by a freed African who was well-off enough to have his own slaves as will be seen in Chapter III, and who could also afford a house of fairly
216 In Caetana Says No…, Sandra Lauderdale Graham describes the beds that were common to the use of enslaved people, which would also have been close in nature to those used by the poorer among freed Africans. She also explains that the single reference to furniture that she has found among her documentary sources actually concerns a bed, through Caetana’s refusal of her husband Custódio’s pleas to let him into her bed (39).
217 Another testament that was very detailed with regards to the bequests of household goods is that of Ana Maria dos Prazeres, referred to above and discussed in detail in Chapters I and IV.
211 large dimensions along with a small fruit plantation. Bento left behind a large chest and a marqueza (a large couch), both of which were made out of vinhatico (a common Latin
American timber tree) and valued at six and four thousand réis respectively. Two platforms that were manufactured in order to be used as seats made of the same wood were also valued at the same price. Finally, two chairs with straw seats that were valued at 2,000 réis constituted the only other household items that Bento had considered worthy of note in his testament. Whatever other items Bento may have possessed, he did not see them as significant enough to be registered in an official document.
On 7 March 1832, a detailed inventory was passed on the material belongings left behind by the “preta” (Black woman) Laurinda and the “preto” (Black man) Raimundo, both from the African Coast.218 Raimundo was still alive at the time the inventory was passed.
But he was obviously sick and probably near death, since he had been admitted to the
Hospital da Misericordia. Laurinda was dead, but we do not know if this had been a recent occurrence or had taken place a while back. Sharing the same house, Raimundo and Laurinda had probably shared close affective ties to one another, even if they had not been companions.219 Now that one was dead and the other was sick, Raimundo sought to
218 05/2006/2477/09
219 Specific diseases or sicknesses were never indicated in the testaments of libertos who simply referred to old age, ill health, or being bed-ridden. It was certainly possible that Raimundo and Laurinda could have gotten sick around the same time, one passing the disease to the other. Certainly, disease factored into the lives of many enslaved and freed Africans in Bahia. But this does not seem to have been the case with regards to this inventory. Raimundo does not refer to any recent deaths, neither does the language of the inventory suggests such an occurrence. It seems rather that being sick, Raimundo resorted to an inventory of everything that was in the loge. We do not know why he would have preferred an inventory over a testament, even though inventories were costlier and he did not own material assets of much value. It might be that the costs may have diminished in the absence of heirs to receive any of the assets, or because of the fact that two of the asset owners had already passed away. Perhaps his last rites were also not that important to Raimundo, so that this major reason for preparing one’s testament did not apply in his case.
212 have his assets inventoried, and that would include anything and everything that was to be found within his living space. This understanding is enhanced by the fact that the inventory also included the assets of another “preta” whose name was not mentioned in the document, and who had also passed away by then. Raimundo probably referred to her since he could not claim to be the owner of certain feminine items that were found in the loge, but probably also wanted to be truthful in his descriptions of what actually belonged to him and had belonged to others. In any case, since everything in the house was inventoried, he might still be able to claim ownership to all the household goods. But even household items of relatively minor value were at risk for being confiscated by the authorities.220 Of course, this would have only mattered if Raimundo was actually to be capable of regaining his health.
Thus, the joint inventory was made of all the assets that were found in the loge, which was located in the Freguesia of São Pedro Velho, for which the exact address had also been provided: Rua de João Pereira, loja no. 14.221 The listing provides some insight into the daily material lives of poorer freed Africans in the nineteenth century. The few items of furniture that Laurinda, Raimundo and their anonymous friend possessed were a marqueza made of vinhatico, and six benches of various sizes. Other than that, the house was also full of small objects and knickknacks: Various items of china that must have
220 As explained earlier, the appropriation of assets by the State was always a possibility in the absence of official documentation that would be able to counter it. But illegal appropriation by the authorities was also a possibility. Poor people in Salvador did not differ so much from one another in their possessions or living conditions, and the officials who would have inventoried the loge would not have been from a rank much higher than that of the libertos in question.
221 Once again, the detailed descriptions provide emanate from the fact that this was a document prepared by official third parties and not by freed Africans themselves.
213 been of their daily use, old sheets,222 a small basket with lace, wool and buttons. Some clothing items, most of them old, were also found in the same basket. Other small household items and pieces of clothing of various qualities were also discovered in the loge. Most of these were old and shattered. But it was also clear that the three libertos who lived in the loja had not been negligent of their dress, and also possessed some items in better condition. In a chest made of vinhatico, there were different fabrics and other newer items of clothing, among which there was even a brand new pano da costa.223 The two ladies who had lived in the loge had been attentive to their manner of dress and appearance, as was the case with many freed Africans, especially women, in the city of
Salvador—a fact that had attracted the attention of many a traveler.224 This is supported by the fact that, in a small box that the judge ordered to be opened, several items of jewelry were also found, made of gold, silver, copper and coral. Of course, the value and importance of these items went well beyond female vanity, and will be discussed in more detail below. Finally, there were a few items of special interest, specifically because they referred to one of the few exceptional cases where objects of a “bi-religious” nature were found among the material assets of libertos. The three freed Africans possessed sixteen doubled missals and fourteen thin ones. But they also had various fios de miçanga. While these could be Catholic ornaments, the term also commonly refers to Candomblé necklaces made with different colored beads according to the Orixá to which they are
222 The existence of sheets would imply that of beds as well. However, none are listed in the inventory. Probably, Raimundo and the two libertas had slept on mattresses on the floor. But these also seem to have been absent at this time.
223 Pano da costa was the name given to the cloths that came from the West Coast of Africa, which constituted an important trade item of the time, and which were coveted and commonly used as “wraps” by many African women in Salvador da Bahia, descriptions of which abound in travel writing.
224 Many of these travelers and avid observers of Salvadorean life have been referred to in previous chapters.
214 connected. Through fios de miçanga or fios-de-contas, one can usually tell the level of initiation of their owner to Candomblé, or even his/her African “nation.” It is a pity that no other information was offered on the necklaces, but nobody could have referred to their participation in African-derived religions in an official document at a time where they were strongly persecuted. We also cannot be sure if the authorities were actually aware of what these items represented, or if they were able to differentiate between
Candomblé artifacts and the similar religious insignia of the Roman Catholic faith.
Certain subtleties would not have been easy for an outsider to tell. Their coexistence with the missals is a significant indicator as to the transculturation of Christian and African- derived religions in the Bahian setting. It is of course possible that these might simply have simply been of a Roman Catholic nature. But Candomblé and other African-derived faiths in Bahia were extremely common and extended themselves to many segments of society. As Chapter IV will explain, “bi-religiosity” was the norm for the city’s African and African-descendant population. A great many among the people who did not openly assert themselves as Catholic, as well as an important percentage of those who did, must have been Candomblé practitioners. The large number of missals and beads that were found in the loja could point to the fact that the libertos might be selling these as a source of sustenance. If this were the case with the Candomblé beads, they might have been priests or priestesses of Orixá worship, and might be preparing them for the people who sought their services. It would have been much harder to fabricate Roman Catholic missals. It is more probable that they were simply religious people, simultaneously involved in the Catholic faith and African-derived religions. When considering these valuable religious items as well as the jewelry found in this freed African loge, it is also
215 worthy of note that these had constituted the primary repositories for the wealth of these libertos.
Other than the items cited above, Raimundo, Laurinda, and their friend who was bound to remain anonymouys, only left behind two balaios da costa (“coastal,” or rather African brooms), and twenty edible coconuts. The fact that the Bahian officials even listed these last few items of very little significance demonstrates that they had been meticulous in listing everything owned by these three Africans. At least they listed everything they were able to find in the house, since Raimundo might have taken certain items away, given them to others or hidden them in other places, prior to the inventory or before leaving for the hospital. The three freed Africans could have already given them to others, or relatives and other members of their personal networks could have laid claim to these before the inventory took place. This would certainly have been the case with objects belonging to African-derived religious practices, had these existed. Nevertheless, the detailed nature of the inventory with regards to the objects found in the house does provide a good understanding of the material worlds these libertos had occupied in
Salvador. It also says much about their worldviews and choices. It shows that these three freed Africans chose to live together in the same house. While two were women and one was a man, we do not know what kinds of bonds tied them to one another. Were two of them a couple? Could this have been a polygamous relationship by any chance? They might also have simply been friends who had chosen to live together, protect and help one another, and thus build a small African kinship network of their own. No matter the details, they had chosen to share a loja as their living space, as well as the household
216 items proper to common use that were listed in the inventory. The crowded space offered by the loge and the specific way in which they had chosen to store their wealth would have most probably implied that they had not owned slaves. The women had paid attention to their appearances, through their dress, jewelry and upkeep. While some of the items were old, others were in very good shape, which also showed that the libertos had been able to conserve a certain power of purchase, even with regards to things that were not of basic necessity. They also had been religious and spiritual people, who had invested in objects that belonged to their faiths. They might even have provided other people with these, and made a living out of it.225
“Joana africana,” whose last name was not stated, passed away without having dictated a testament in 1863.226 The inventory that ensued from her death stated that she had not owned a house, but rather lived in a room on the street that was to the right of the Rua da
Saúde in the parish of Santana.227 She counted the majority of her wealth in coins, gold, and silver, which will be discussed in the next section. But certain items of house furniture were also listed among them. In Joana’s room, there was a small white wood
225 One last interesting detail provided by the inventory requested by Raimundo is that a crioulinha (a Brazilian-born Black girl of minor age) named Luiza also lived in the loja. Her status as a forra could not be ascertained. Without her freedom papers, Luiza was at great risk for (re) enslavement. This was even more so the case for a minor who would not have been able to assert her rights. In the best case scenario, Raimundo would have been able to produce freedom papers for Luiza or prove that she was either his daughter or of one of the libertas, and born into freedom. If none of that could be ascertained, Luiza would most probably find herself being taken to the praça for sale. It is also possible that she might not have been legally free. She could have been able to get away with this while she lived in the company of freed people, but her de facto freedom would come into danger upon their deaths. Freedom was fragile for ex-slaves, and other cases of liberto vulnerability to re-enslavement are discussed at many other points in this dissertation.
226 05/2119/2588/13
227 The complicated nature of the addresses provided corresponds to the already referenced understanding of Luiz Eduardo Dórea as to the transitionary nature of the nineteenth century with regards to the city’s organization. (Histórias de Salvador nos nomes das suas ruas. Salvador: EDUFBA, 2006.)
217 chest, as well as four boxes, and two sitting platforms made out of the same wood. She seems to have given importance to the appearance of her room. In her daily life, Joana had also used two Jacaranda chairs with straw seats. She had also owned a bench carved out of the same white wood, which seemed to be her personal preference. These objects were simple but tasteful, and they certainly could not be described as poor furnishings for a single person. Joana was not well off, but she also was not poor, as is also ascertained from the jewelry that she owned. For this reason, it is significant that the officials who performed the assessment repeatedly described her possessions as “ordinary.” It is not clear if they were seeking to diminish the value of Joana’s assets, or if they wanted to make some other statement with regards to African life. When read as a case produced wholly from the perspective of White state officials in the absence of a recorded testament dictated by the African woman herself, Joana’s case constitutes an interesting historical exercise in looking for African voices within an official White Brazilian narrative. This fact will become clearer in the analysis of Joana’s material wealth counted in money and precious metals.
III.IV. Currency and Precious Metals Raimundo, Laurinda and their anonymous friend also possessed money. The inventory indicated that they had owned six bronze patacos,228 and a pataco and a half in silver. A sum of Rs. 21$495 in copper was also found in the house. In a teapot, there were another
1,040 réis in copper. That this money was found in a teapot is indicative of the ways in which freed Africans kept their money in this time period. In fact, it seems that keeping it
228 Not to be confused with a pataca, the pataco was an old bronze coin which corresponded to 40 réis in the nineteenth century, unless otherwise specified as in the case of the bronze patacos.
218 at home or in the hands of trusted persons was the norm for the greater part of the century. An important part was also kept in the form of “credit” and “debt.” Only towards the end of the century do we see a few people keeping their money in Caixas or banks.
This also points to the fact that the freed Africans had gone to some length in order to hide their money. We cannot be certain that Raimundo was aware of the existence of these copper coins, nor if they were his or if they had rather belonged to one or both of the deceased freed African women. It is a possibility that they had only been found as a result of the meticulous search conducted by the state officials. Since money constituted the single major form of wealth among the three libertos’ assets, it was highly probable that it was the primary reason why Joaquim had resorted to the inventory in the first place.
Table 2.7. Money Owned by Libertos
Total Number Those who Those who Those who Money kept at Those for of people owned did not own had debts the Caixa whom no money money owed to them Econômica information by others was provided 307 129 115 38 3 22
% 43 37 12 1 7
As Table 2.7 shows, a high percentage of libertos (43 %) directly indicated their ownership of money in their testaments. Another 12 % possessed money in the form of debts owed to them, which was a common phenomenon in the Atlantic World, and which made a lot of sense in a context where the real primarily existed as a money of account.
Finally, 1 % of the sample kept their money in the bank. Together, they made up 56 % of all the testators. Of course, this number could have been much higher. People might have
219 owned money at different points in their lives, and chosen to invest it in other ways later.
They could have invested and become indebted as a result. As was the case with all sorts of wealth, they could have deliberately chosen to not cite money among the assets they listed in their testaments, or they could already have handed their money over to others, or planned to do so prior to their deaths. A few other factors should be underlined here.
Trends changed as the century moved on. The phenomenon of keeping one’s money in the Caixa Econômica was a late-nineteenth century phenomenon for all members of
Bahian society, and even more so for libertos. In addition, the role of credit networks within Atlantic World economies that have been studied in detail by numerous scholars also make themselves evident in Table 2.7 which demonstrates that 12 % of the libertos included in the sample had kept their money in the hands of others, as debts that were owed to them and that they would be able to reclaim at a given point in time. Similarly, out of 307 African libertos who registered their testaments in the nineteenth century, 70 people at 23 % indicated that they themselves owed debts to others. It is quite probable that the actual number and percentage were much higher. Freed Africans could have planned to take care of these prior to their deaths, or chosen not to include them in their wills for a variety of reasons.
Table 2.8. The Debts of Libertos
Total number of people Those who indicated debts Those who did not indicate debts 307 70 237
% 23 77
220 In the inventory which took place on 2 May 1863, the last name of “Joana africana” was not given, but she was stated to be Nagô.229 In contradistinction to the relatively meager furnishings of her house, Joana had opted for keeping her material assets in the form of currency in precious metals. This exceptional way of storing wealth in the nineteenth century would also cause Joana’s post-mortem inventory to become highly problematic, and indicative of the many complexities of liberto lives in Bahian slave society. Table
2.9.a. shows that the freed Africans who owned wealth in jewelry and precious metals constituted a minority within the sample at only 11 %. It is against this knowledge that
Joana’s wealth should be understood. Table 2.9.b., on the other hand, is broken into the different metals that made up the total wealth in precious metals owned by this minority group. I have not made a distinction between jewelry and coins made out of precious metals. This is because while jewelry items could certainly have served as ornaments, they also constituted a major depository of wealth in the nineteenth century. Jewelry often served as a woman’s saving account. It could be pawned or sold when needed, and it was easy to both carry and hide. In Joana’s case, it also went beyond being her source of financial security in times of need. It was also her business capital.
229 In the absence of her official Brazilian identity, Joana was offered her ethnic identity back. This was often the case when no other descriptions were available for Africans. In these cases, individuals would either be described by their ethnicity, or simply through their “Africanness,” as in the official registration of this Nagô liberta as “Joana africana” for example. We cannot speculate as to why no last name was listed for Joana, except for the fact that since she did not compose her testament, she had not referred to her former owner whose last name she would have taken. Another possible reason could have simply been that this did not matter to the authorities.
221 Table 2.9.a. Ownership of Jewelry and Precious Metals by Libertos
Total number of people Those who owned jewelry/ Those who did not own precious metals jewelry/ precious metals 307 35 272
% 11 89
Table 2.9.b. Specific Kinds of Jewelry and Precious Metals Identified
Total number of Gold of some kind Silver of some kind Other kinds of people who owned metals/items wealth in precious metals
35 8 6 21
23 17 60 %
In actual currency in the form of coins and bills, Joana possessed a 1,030 réis in copper.
She also had a hundred and fourteen Portuguese patacos, twenty-seven Brazilian notes of
two thousand réis each, as well as an additional 345 notes of a thousand réis each.230
There were also smaller notes: 57 notes of 500 réis; two of 1200 réis; two of 540 réis; two
of 320 réis; one of 160 réis. Joana also owned twenty-one gold coins of different values,
as well ten different small foreign coins of unspecified value. She had also stored her
wealth in the form of jewelry: Two pairs of gold earrings, two silver chains, as well as
two other items left unclear in the inventory—one sewn in gold and the other one in
silver. This was a lot of money in contrast with the modest furnishings of Joana’s room,
230 The coexistence of both Portuguese and Brazilian currencies, along with foreign coins, within Joana’s assets points to the financial dynamics of the time, which were still in flux in the recent aftermath of Brazilian independence.
222 described in the previous section. While it may not have constituted a particularly large legacy, Joana’s material wealth was certainly of a level that was worth being recorded in an official testament. Why had she not chosen to record it? Perhaps she did not think that she was close to her death, or imagined that her heirs were evident and that consequently no legal document was needed for them to claim her assets. Another possibility is that the money was in fact not hers. The absence of an official document meant that there existed no clear explanation as to how the money had been earned or to whom it had actually belonged. It also opened up the possibility for others to claim the money as their own.
That is exactly what took place. On 11 June 1863, the freed African Joaquim Ribeiro da
Costa opposed the inventory. He stated that officials had broken into the room he slept in while he was absent. They had also opened by breaking the three wooden trunks in which he kept all his clothes, diverse objects, gold and silver, as well as all the currency that he owned. Joaquim complained that the breaking-in was in itself against the law, since the officials had followed none of the required legal procedures. But their greatest mistake had been to confuse his room for Joana’s. As a result, they had taken his belongings and money to be hers as well. The report stated that the total value of all the objects in the room did not reach Rs. 200$000. But the valuables and currency found in the room were indicated to be worth Rs. 600$000. In this instance, Joaquim da Costa also had his clothing, and especially a major item of jewelry with corals valued at Rs. 120$000 included in the assessment. Joaquim cited the fact that the officials had also found the records for the entries of his money, as well as his carta de liberdade (freedom papers) in his room as proof of his ownership over all the assets that had been apprehended. He
223 explained that his wealth came from the three slaves that he had conditionally liberated in return for their alforria, in addition to another one that he had previously sold.231 He also claimed having sold two canoes and a house he had owned in the Bahian city of Nazaré, in the interior of the state. He also offered a significant explanation as to why he had kept his wealth in currency, gold, and silver. He claimed having lent money to others, and benefited from its repayment with interest. From this description, usury appeared to be an accepted form of sustenance for freedom Africans.232 Joaquim also states that Joana had been completely dependent on him during her life, and that she had possessed no assets whatsoever to her name. She was thus claimed to have been a free African agregada, part of Joaquim’s household, living under both his social protection and economic patronage.
Joaquim Ribeiro da Costa produced five witnesses to back up his claims. This was the number of witnesses required in all legal transactions. These witnesses were White and crioulo, but in their testimonies, they primarily referred to what they had heard from other freed Africans and not to first-hand knowledge of any kind.233 For this reason, the
“evidence” they provided could easily be dismissed as hearsay, depending on the leanings of the authorities who considered it. All five witnesses seconded Joaquim’s
231 The accounts that are offered in the different pieces of documentation attached to the inventory differ as to how many slaves there had existed, as well as to who among them had been sold or freed.
232 Therefore, usury would have been many of the freed African occupations that were never referred to in the testaments. While all such references were rare and almost always in the third person, even such such indications would not have normally referred to livelihoods that were clearly part of the city’s non-formal economy.
233 Freed Africans could not formally serve as witnesses. In the cases where they were absolutely needed, they were classified as “informants.” Their testimonies were taken, but it was up to the authorities to take these into account or not. In a context where the legal process often worked against them, the authorities often ended up discrediting the testimonies of Africans, even when they had had to resort to them in the first place. Therefore, if Joaquim da Costa wanted his claims to be taken into account, he was actually obliged to produce Brazilian-born witnesses, and if possible Whites or near-Whites.
224 claims that Joana had no assets of her own. They indicated that she had been liberated by
Joaquim da Costa himself from her owner Cypriano de Tal in the city of Nazaré, and from then on always lived in his company.234 The witnesses also agreed as to the source of the money found in the room, stating that it derived from the house and canoes sold in
Nazaré, and the sale and alforria money of Joaquim’s slaves. Rather than being reinvested, the proceeds from these sales had been kept as capital in order to assist
Joaquim in his business of offering loans with interest, most probably to other freed
Africans in their great majority.
Up to here, the evidence seems to support Joaquim’s claims. The fact that Joaquim was said to have paid for Joana’s alforria also suggests that the two had been partners. This understanding is enhanced by the fact that they had always lived together (in spite of
Joaquim’s stating that his room had been confused for Joana’s and not that it had belonged to both of them), although the claim was never made openly either by Joaquim or his witnesses. Yet, as seen above, items of a female nature had also been found in the room. Their relationship would have made their material belongings into joint assets, and they would have consequently remained under Joaquim’s ownership. In the absence of an official document, however, Joaquim only had his own words and those of others similar to himself to back up his claims. The White and crioulo men who served as witnesses on
Joaquim’s behalf referred to what they themselves had known to be true. While they might also have been connected to Joaquim through business or personal networks, they based their claims primarily on what they had heard from Joaquim’s peers—other freed
234 The specific nature of this information in the way it was registered in the documents actually inspires confidence in its verisimilitude.
225 Africans. While the testimonies of these witnesses would normally have been heeded to a greater extent for being more powerful social and political actors, the actual information that they referred to had been provided by the freed Africans who had been part of
Joaquim’s personal networks, and who were not legally permitted to serve as witnesses.
Like the majority of libertos in the nineteenth century, and as was evidenced by his co- inhabitance with and protection on Joana, Joaquim also lived in a world primarily composed of other freed Africans. In this case, the White and crioulo witnesses served primarily as legally sanctified intermediaries.
People within Joaquim’s close personal networks would have been expected to strive to protect him and his assets. Joana had already passed away, and there was nothing to be gained by agreeing with the authorities that the money had actually belonged to her. No mention was made to any children, or to a legal union that would have made her spouse into her heir. She had died intestate, and had not named any other heirs of her personal choice. It is quite probable that the Africans who were part of Joaquim’s close community acted strongly and willfully against the danger of the money in question falling into the hands of the State and its officials. If it could no longer go to Joana, at least it should remain in the hands of Joaquim, even if he did not actually hold the rights to its ownership. Probably, Joaquim also provided protection and patronage to other freed
Africans, among whom were members of this very group. They would all have been connected to one another through their personal networks, and would defend each other in times of hardship or danger. In addition, what they asserted was certainly possible, even probable. The money could have constituted Joaquim’s own business capital. In any
226 case, libertos seem to have been determined that the money would remain in liberto hands, rather than being confiscated by the State.
The vicious cycle that had been initiated by the absence of Joana’s testament continued.
The law by itself, just like the State and its officials, almost never tended to support the claims and rights of freed Africans against the interests of other more privileged members of society. The only way libertos could contest this slant of the law was by the ownership of clear official documentation that did not open any space for doubt in order to back their claims. If legal documentation existed, the officials were bound by law to respect it.
In its absence, however, they had the leeway in which to exercise their own choice and agency. Their preferences almost never favored the interests of Africans, and strongly privileged those of the Brazilian ecclesiastical-state apparatus, and the values of White
Brazilian slave society. In addition, the Brazilian officials who would break into a liberto household and carry out such an inventory would themselves be poor and probably close in social standing to Joaquim and Joana. They could themselves have prohibited from the confiscation of the assets. More probable though was that they would have harbored a certain degree of resentment against libertos of some financial means. Since the setting to these events was crowded urban quarters within Salvador’s city limits, they might even have lived close by or heard about the usury activities conducted by these freed Africans from their own acquaintances. They would have used this knowledge to prepare an official break-in. In the cases were Whites or near-Whites found themselves too close in social and economic standing to Blacks, they often joined in racial solidarity and discrimination. Africans also came together against the inherent racism of Brazilian
227 society in order to protect and help one another. In this process, the double-fold process of community and identity formation was once again evident, since the identities of the libertos in question as that of Africans in Brazil were greatly enhanced and they came together around their common Africanness.
Laurent Dubois, and Rebecca Scott235 have successfully argued in different instances that in the absence of official freedom papers, a Black person was directly equated with and often treated as a slave in slave societies all over the Atlantic World. Even if they were actually born free or later received their freedom, they continued to live in perpetual danger of re-enslavement. The only way to counter the proof of Blackness was by official proof in the form of freedom papers. The Brazilian historian Sidney Chalhoub makes a similar argument specifically within the Brazilian context, when he refers to the
“precariedade da liberdade” [the precarious nature of freedom] experienced by libertos in
Brazil, from whom their hard-earned freedom could be taken away relatively easily.236 As evidenced in this chapter, the nineteenth century in Bahia abounded in laws that limited the freedom and rights of Africans, as well as in efforts directed at policing them. Where the State positioned itself directly against the freedom of slaves, even freedom papers could not always guarantee that a liberto would be able to remain permanently free. If a liberto or liberta did not possess an official carta de liberdade, they would be considered as slaves by the sheer fact of their Blackness. In the case of the African “foreigners,” the
235 Laurent Dubois. A Colony of Citizens: Revolution & Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804. Durham: The University of Carolina Press, 2004., Rebecca J. Scott, and Jean M. Hébrard. Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012.
236 Sidney Chalboub. A força da escravidão: ilegalidade e costume no Brasil oitocentista. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2012.
228 stigmas of race and enslavement were even greater. This reality was evident in the triple linguistic equation of africano=preto=escravo that has already been discussed in this dissertation. African witnesses that would (unofficially) testify to the freedom of people within their personal networks would simply be seen as acting in solidarity with their peers, and their words would not be heeded. No oral statements—even on the part of
Whites— could make up for the lack of official documentation, which was the sole guarantor of freedom in the Atlantic World. This was the exact danger that the crioulinha
Luiza, who had lived in the company of Raimundo, Laurinda, and their anonymous liberta friend, faced at the time. In the case of Joana and Joaquim, the same argument vis-
à-vis the lack of legal documentation could be extended to other contexts also involving freed Africans. It was the same absence of legal documentation that would probably end up taking the material assets of a freed African household out of the hands of its members, and put them into those of the Brazilian state and/or its officials.237
Both the Brazilian law and its officials chose to actively ignore the claims of freed
Africans, even when voiced by more powerful White and crioulo witnesses. This also meant that they chose to ignore the informal economy that surrounded the lives of freed
Africans in nineteenth-century Bahia. Naturally, non-formal economies and independent
237 Joaquim was unable to produce official documentation as to the sale of the house, canoes or slaves, and was thus unable to prove that they constituted the source of the money. As expected, the legal authorities decided that these could not belong to Joaquim Ribeiro da Costa. On July 9, the fiscal attorney Joaquim Jerônimo Fernandes da Cunha do Olympio declared that Joaquim’s claims were “absolutamente inconsistentes e improvados” [absolutely inconsistent and unproven]. He indicated that in Joaquim’s petition and in the claims of his witnesses, all proof of possession was limited to simple oral assertions. No documents or titles had been presented, even in the cases where Joaquim had referred to very specific origins and modes of acquisition for the assets. If the money had belonged to Joana, it was natural that Joaquim would not have any papers in his hand. But if the money was in fact his, just like so many of his peers all over the African Diaspora, Joaquim must have wished he had known better: The only secure way to guarantee a liberto’s ownership of his freedom or his ownership over assets of any kind that he was legally permitted to own passed through the possession of clear proof in the form of official legal documentation.
229 business ventures were not solely ignored in Atlantic slave societies. They remained easy to dismiss and to not take into account everywhere in the world. However, what differed within the context of Brazilian slavery was the attitude of the White Brazilian authorities, who did not endow Blacks with the same leeway they would have allowed Whites in their legal proceedings. Africans and their descendants were not seen as worthy of the benefit of the doubt. This would have been the case to an even greater extent in the cases where they owned material assets that could have caused the envy of White Brazilians in similar social and economic standings. The judge therefore decided that Joaquim’s witnesses were all vague and ill informed. Their knowledge came either from hearsay or from Joaquim Ribeiro da Costa himself. That the sources of the hearsay were other
Africans only made matters worse. These witnesses, the fiscal attorney argued, “did not inspire confidence.” It is certainly true that the witnesses were mostly vague and ill informed in their claims. They lacked the kind of “proof” that the authorities were looking for. But the question remains open as to whether the consequences would have been the same if the same claims had come directly from a White member of society, or if such blurred testimonies had been directed to favor their causes.238
The judge decided that it was Joana’s belongings that had been found in the chest, and that the money had been wrapped in her clothes. Since Joaquim was unable to prove his ownership, the state officials considered Joana to have been the owner of the money. That
238 The divorce case of Ana Maria da Silva Rosa which will be discussed in detail in Chapter IV will underline the same dubious and prejudiced stance of Brazilian law against freed Africans.
In addition, the fact that the legal authorities used the same arguments of “vagueness” in favor of the old and sick enslaved woman in whose behalf Joaquim strongly interfered also enhances the idea that they sought to bend the law to their own advantage and understandings.
230 was of course a possibility. Joana could have lacked papers asserting her ownership just like Joaquim did. It was improbable for anyone to be able to produce legal documentation with regards to their participation in informal economies. Any occupation Joaquim could have engaged in to earn his livelihood, including usury, could have been Joana’s occupation as well. As a liberta, Joana was not limited by colonial society in her endeavors as White women were. Her color and status as an ex-slave endowed with a greater amount of liberty, as well as a certain capacity to trespass the boundaries of more traditional Brazilian society. This was also evident in the fact that the judge never made a statement implying that Joana could not have engaged in usury herself for being a woman. Neither did Joaquim nor any of the witnesses make similar arguments. Joana had already been an active and visible member of the city’s economy when she had earned her own money as an escrava de ganho, either peddling on the street or hiring out her labor. If it was not Joaquim who had paid for her alforria, and even if she had been assisted by others, her own earnings must have also played a role in both her survival and the acquisition of her freedom. From the beginning, she had been in control of her own labor and income to a much greater extent than many other women in the Atlantic World.
Lending money to others for profit through its interest could have constituted a practice that would not have been socially acceptable for a White woman of a certain social standing in Brazil. But the specific place occupied by Joana within the social ladder of
Bahian slave society through being an African liberta endowed her with a greater degree of freedom and mobility. Since she already had so little of it, Joana would not have feared for the loss of her social status through having usury as her means of sustenance. Joaquim and Joana had lived together under the same roof, and both were freed Africans. Since
231 African women participated in the city’s economic life as much as African men, there was no foundation for thinking that Joaquim had been the only active worker and primary provider within the household, or that Joana had no income of her own and had been incapable of acquiring any material assets to her name. It was much more probable that
Joaquim and Joana had divided the responsibilities of their household, and perhaps even shared them with others who had been part of it. Joaquim only referred to “his room,” which probably meant that he and Joana had rented a room or rooms in a sobrado or in a sobrado loge. Freed Africans often shared such crowded urban living quarters with several other people, so there may indeed have been others living in the room. In such limited space, the personal belongings of people could easily be confused. None of this meant that much anymore, now that Joana had already passed away. It now became essential to secure the resources in question in freed African hands. Joaquim’s future would largely depend on this capital, and it could also play a significant role in guaranteeing the livelihood of other Africans.239
This was not going to be possible under the existing circumstances, since the judge decided against Joaquim’s claims. It seems highly unlikely that the Bahian authorities would be so eager to protect Joana’s interests. They would have been little to prone to protect a woman’s interests over those of a man, let alone those of an African woman.
The fact that the authorities proceeded to an inventory that was followed by a significant legal process also showed that the wealth in question was considerable, and not only by
239 That Joana’s assets were being inventoried meant that there existed nobody who could claim to be her family and thus had a direct right to inheritance. Since she had also not named any specific heirs in an official testament, it would also be in Joana’s interest for the money to assist Joaquim and other libertos. These Africans would certainly have been part of her community and personal networks as well.
232 liberto standards. They seem to have been eager to reclaim the money for their own benefit, or for that of the legal state apparatus. Even if the money would not directly serve them, it would appease the grudge they felt against the freed Africans who had engaged in usury and had been capable of assembling a significant amount of money, and thus trespassed their social limitations. Accordingly, the language of the procurador fiscal’s response to Joaquim Ribeiro da Costa’s claims was replete with the commonsensical racism of the society. He stated that the difficulty of getting at the truth was quite natural because of the tendency of “occultar os Africanos a todos os olhos aquilo que possuem”
[“the tendency of Africans to hide their possessions from all eyes.”]240 Both this statement and the whole series of events and proceedings that ensued from Joana’s death provide evidence for the fact that this “tendency” was a strategy of survival on the part of most Africans. Their money and material assets could be taken from them so easily. On the other hand, the “tendency” to see them through such a lens constituted an exclusionary strategy on the part of the state officials and the more privileged members of
Salvadorean society. In many cases, authorities of the state-ecclesiastical apparatus were prone to a very high degree of prejudice towards the freed African population. This was even more enhanced in the nineteenth century, in the shadow of emancipation, and in the
Bahian capital where the Malê Revolution had so deeply marked the psyche of the city’s elites.
The non-African witnesses who supported the claims of Joaquim da Costa, even if they were paid for their testimonies, were most probably conscious of their role in preserving
240 It was also stated that, in addition to juridical proof being given vis-à-vis its legality, the breaking-in had been necessary for the same reason, so that the assets could be immediately verified before anything could be taken or hidden by the Africans.
233 the interests of freed Africans. Living within the realities of the Bahian slave society, they must have been keenly aware of how vital these material assets were for Joaquim and other Africans, and how fragile their claim to ownership was in the absence of legal documents. Even though they might have been partially influenced by the possibility of materially benefiting from a positive outcome themselves,241 both Whites and Brazilian- born free Blacks had sought to give their word in Joaquim’s favor. In retrospect, Joana would have probably done so herself. Libertos often depended upon one another for their survival. The State’s reclaiming of the money and other assets, which had clearly belonged to one or another freed African, would signify difficult times to come for more than one person. In the expected sad turn of events, legality, officialdom, and the dominant discourse won against the informal statements, solidarity, and survival strategies of freed Africans, and Joaquim da Costa’s claims were fully and conclusively denied by the Bahian authorities.242
When read in this way, a post-mortem estate inventory—which does not even embody the personal voice of a testator, but rather only a simple listing of assets—and the legal
241 This would also imply that this was a considerable capital, from which many people could have benefited in the long run.
242 But Joaquim da Costa and his defendants also did not give up that easily. The process continued with more petitions, proofs, testimonies, negations and so on. In the end, Joaquim was only able to prove his ownership over a slave. The other clauses remain inconclusive in the existing documents, or may have been lost over time. It is not clear what happened to the money in the end. But we can safely assume that the process had not been concluded in favor of the libertos. The fact that kept trying to legally protect and defend their interests provides further proof for the fact that freed African men and women in nineteenth- century Salvador had a significant knowledge of the legal systems of the land, and of the ways in which they needed to negotiate it. They were aware of their rights, and of how much they would need to fight for their interests within a legal framework that was inherently against them. They knew how fragile their existence, their freedom, and their possessions all were. They did their best to protect themselves and the members of their communities in every instance. This is also the reason why they dictated their testaments. African biological families were fragile, life expectancies short, reproductivity rates low, and child deaths rampant. If Africans wanted to have a say in who became heirs to their material assets, they would have to participate in the legal system and leave behind official documentation.
234 proceedings that ensued from it, can go a long way in shedding light on the lives of freed
Africans. This is because their possessions constitute direct reflections of their material worlds, within which they spent their Bahian lives. Freed Africans took their material assets seriously. They took account of them, registered them; they sought to make sure they were received by the people that mattered to them upon their own deaths. It is only natural that a discussion of these assets would point in the direction of much more complicated questions and understandings. As seen above, these insights almost always extend themselves into their worldviews and personal networks. It is evident that within their community, it was important for freed Africans to protect each other’s financial interests. In a context where they all depended on one another, this would also mean protecting themselves by extension. They also simply sought to protect those to whom they had affective ties. Libertos also made a political point of protecting their legal interests and rights against Brazilian authorities. Within the legal process, the dominant legal understandings of Bahian slave society and its prejudices against the African population of the state also became evident. It was also against this understanding that freed Africans came together. It worked as an outside force that once again pushed for group identity formation among the African population.
At this point, we can also reach several specific conclusions with regards to the ownership of money and precious metals on the part of libertos. An important percentage among the freed African population kept money in some form (currency, jewelry, metal coin) in their possession. While some openly attested to not having any money in their testaments, it is safe to assume that this had not been the case at every point in their lives.
235 As seen in the inventory involving Joana and Joaquim, people also could have reasons to hide their money or to simply hand it over to members of their personal networks rather than registering them in a testament. The people who did not provide any direct information as to their ownership of money, or even those who stated not having any, could also have held at least limited amounts in their possession. As to the ownership of precious metals in the form of coins or jewelry, most of these cases also carried along with them a significant element of religiosity. One such case presented by the testament of Ana Maria dos Prazeres will be discussed from this specific angle in Chapter IV. But wealth in precious metals was not the norm for freed Africans in nineteenth-century
Bahia. Rather, it was owned in special circumstances as in its use for usury in the case discussed above, or for religious/ornamental purposes as in the case of jewelry.
Sometimes, it could also serve as a portable savings account for women.
In many cases, it was simply the more privileged members of the African liberto population in Salvador who owned money in currency, precious metals or jewelry. Those who kept their wealth in money constituted a small minority within the population, and even among the privileged, this remained an uncommon choice. Even Joaquim de
Almeida, whose highly privileged status was discussed above through being an African liberto who pursued close trade links with the African Coast and owned a substantial number of both plantation and domestic/ganho slaves as will be discussed in the next chapter, had not chosen to keep his money in the form of gold and silver. His wealth was still reflected in his possession of the high sum of Rs. 4:720$850 in currency. He also owned the interest relevant to this capital, which was currently in the hands of a captain
236 and a ship owner with whom he had carried on business dealings. In this way, Joaquim de Almeida also took his place among the complex credit networks that crisscrossed the
Atlantic World in the nineteenth century.
IV. Conclusions
Studying the material lives of freed Africans through the assets found in their testaments and post-mortem inventories is a worthy exercise. Their houses and plantations, furniture and other household objects, money, precious metals and jewelry, all function as an important window into the daily lives libertos led in nineteenth-century Salvador. But these material assets also have much further repercussions. Liberto lives in Salvador brought together worldviews and understandings that emanated from both the African and the Brazilian contexts, which became evident in the ways in which they chose to invest their wealth. Chapter III will show that opting for slave ownership, or towards wealth in people, was the primary norm in this regard. While this was the norm for
Bahian society as a whole, it had different implications for libertos, as a form of wealth that continued both African preferences and conformed to the dynamics of the slave society.
While the commitment to slave ownership constituted the one instance where African and
Brazilian understandings merged together most clearly, the two systems intertwined in complicated ways at many other points. For instance, the need to own one’s proper place of dwelling was a direct consequence of Brazilian slavery, which often left libertos defenseless and economically dependent on others even in the cases where they had been
237 able to gain their alforria. But freed Africans successfully molded this need to their own worldviews, in creating more African settlements, dwellings, and ways of life in the semi-rural areas of the city where they could live more independently and far from the watchful eyes of the authorities. The other forms of wealth discussed in this chapter— furniture, money, and jewelry—were also products of the Brazilian context. But once again, an important number of continuities could always be traced between Africa and the
Americas, from women who indulged in jewelry that also served as their savings accounts to valuable religious items that could have belonged to “bi-religious” understandings of faith.
Each testament and inventory that forms part of the sample studied in this chapter shows that freed Africans in Bahia lived in a world that was composed primarily of other
Africans. They always sought to surround themselves by their peers, be they enslaved or free. They protected each another, and depended on one another. In order to do so, they successfully operated and sought to take advantage of the legal system, even when it was clear that it worked against them. Propelled by a system that sought to limit their rights and mobility, and clearly defined their spheres of social existence, Africans came together in a solidarity that grew around the experience of having come to Brazil from the
African continent. They thus reconstructed their identities as Africans in Bahia—an identity different from being Africans in Africa, as well as from being Afro-Brazilians who were born in the land of their enslavement.
238
CHAPTER III
FREED AFRICANS WHO OWNED SLAVES
A Complicated but Naturalized Component of Life in a Complex Slave Society
I. Introduction This chapter elaborates on the argument that “Africanness” or being born in Africa was a primary shaper of identity for libertos throughout the nineteenth century in Bahia. This identity was reinforced from both directions—that of the agency and choice of libertos on the one hand, and the impositions and limitations of the State and society on the other.
Within their newly constructed identities as Africans in Brazil, the notions that libertos brought together from both settings and which they merged in selective ways were especially evident in their commitment to slave ownership. The primary sources studied in this dissertation confirm that in the context of the hegemony of slavery in Brazil, libertos’ acceptance of and commitment to the idea of slave ownership was highly naturalized. It also shows that this commitment was strengthened to an even greater extent by the naturalization of slavery that these individuals had already experienced on the African continent, and consequently brought with them to Brazil. Plantation or chattel slavery in Brazil was different from African understandings of slavery in many ways, which is why the title of this dissertation suggests that libertos had moved from freedom in Africa to enslavement in Brazil. While that freedom may not have been total on the
239 African continent either, the enslavement itself was total in Brazil. Additionally, the freedom achieved with the acquisition of freedom papers was also not complete. It often lacked its necessary counterparts of legal, social and economic freedom. Enslavement left its mark on freed people in the form of stigma and discrimination, while their Africanness made it so that they continued to be perceived as foreigners in Brazil in spite of all their efforts to fit in, while they also remained proud bearers of African pasts and identities.
Conversely, all freed Africans had been born into slave societies, and understood slavery as a naturalized part of life and society. They probably had not held a place of complete freedom within the long spectrum of different levels of dependency that existed all over
Africa.1 While their experience of enslavement in Brazil would have differed from what they seen of slavery in Africa, both in their own lives and around them, in certain important respects, the idea of enslavement itself was not all foreign to them. In this chapter, then, I argue against the different layers of “exceptionalisms” that have marked the study of slave ownership by ex-slaves in Bahia, which will be explained in greater
1 For a better understanding of the structures and complexities of slavery in Africa in general, see for example: Martin A. Klein. Ed. Breaking the Chains: Slavery, Bondage, and Emancipation in Modern Africa and Asia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993., Martin A. Klein. Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press,1998., Martin A. Klein., and Suzanne Miers. Eds. New York: Frank Cass, 1998., Paul E. Lovejoy. Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
For a more specific understanding of these structures as they related to the Portuguese slave trade and Brazil, see for example: Alberto da Costa e Silva. A manilha e o libambo: a África e a escravidão, de 1500 a 1700. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 2002.
Within the context of the Atlantic slave trade, people of certain wealth and importance within Africa could sometimes be ransomed by their relatives and other people of importance acquainted to them. The fact that none of the libertos who remained enslaved in Brazil were ransomed in itself points to the fact that they did not belong within the upper echelons of African societies.
240 detail below. In the process, I also highlight and argue against the other
“exceptionalisms” that have more generally shaped the study of slave ownership.
There seem to be no easily traceable templates in the context of the relationships between
African masters and their slaves. These are first and foremost inter-personal relationships, and thus they are as varied and multi-layered as can be. However, my documents still lead me towards certain significant patterns that appear to be more common and significant within liberto slave ownership. Freed African slave owners almost always sought to provide their slaves with the possibility of alforria upon their death, if these enslaved Africans and crioulos had not been able to acquire their freedom beforehand.
But they did so to the extent that their wealth in people did not put the realization of their own final rites in jeopardy, or put at risk the people who were close and important to them within their personal networks. The decisions of who to “sacrifice” in these occasions were extremely complex, and depended on numerous factors that were often intrinsic to their lives and socio-economic realities, as well as to the personal connections between the freed Africans and their slaves.
Within these complexities, libertos generally continued the pattern of privileging their
“crias”—Brazilian-born slaves born into their household, both in alforria and as heirs. In this context, it is the youth of these slaves and the close connections they had developed to their masters that seem to have been the primary reasons for their being favored, rather than their being Brazilian and not African-born. Finally, libertos almost unanimously sought to guarantee that their slaves would not be sold upon their death at all costs. With
241 regards to this fact, I argue that while freed Africans saw nothing wrong with slave ownership, the fact that they had experienced enslavement firsthand still impacted their understandings, as well as the ways in which they related to their own slaves. Kátia
Mattoso makes a similar argument when she also states that freed Africans stored their wealth in slaves in their great majority, but almost always sought to free them upon their deaths “por quantias insignificantes, quase simbólicas” [for insignificant, almost symbolic sums]. Additionally, she states that a certain difference in mentality separated freed African slave owners, from both Whites and crioulos. The freed Africans who had been born free were more sensitive to the hardships of enslavement, and did not perceive
(at least the Brazilian variant of) the institution to be as natural as it was to others.2
Further, it is important to remember that African libertos had fully belonged within the community of enslaved Africans until the acquisition of their alforria, and their personal networks continued to include both enslaved and freed Africans in its aftermath. Several examples of exceptionally close relationships between African ex-slaves and their former owners have also been discussed in Chapter I. These understandings and solidarities also shaped liberto slave owners’ decisions to avoid the worst possible evils such as that of the praca or being sold outside the state for their own slaves. Not only had freed Africans experienced the hardships of Brazilian slavery firsthand, they had also often bought their freedom, which meant that they had shaped their own lives and efforts around that very same objective that they had set for themselves. They knew how precious their painstakingly acquired freedom was, but also how fragile. Therefore, they understood
2 Kátia M. de Queirós Mattoso. “No Brasil escravista: relações sociais entre libertos e homens livres e entre libertos e escravos.” Da revolução dos alfaiates à riqueza dos baianos no século XIX: itinerário de uma historiadora. Eds. Soares, Arlette, and Rina Angulo. Salvador: Corrupio, 2004: 277.
242 what it meant for others who currently were in the position that they had fought to get themselves out of. They also had loved ones who were still enslaved.
In order to better contextualize these complex discussions, a brief discussion of the historiography of “exceptionalisms” regarding slavery in Salvador da Bahia is offered below. I use the word “exceptionalism” in this chapter not to say that dynamics as those experienced in Salvador were not experienced anywhere else. While they existed in many urban settings in the Americas, they were more robust and pronounced in the Bahian capital. However, the distinctiveness of these dynamics have marked Bahian historiography to a great extent, positing slave life in Salvador within a framework of exceptionality. It is against this understanding that this chapter argues against over- exaggerating their distinctiveness.
II. Bahian Exceptionalism and Non-Exceptionalism An important number of recent studies on slave societies in the Americas have sought to move away from discourses dominated by the power of the masters, choosing instead to focus on the agency of the slaves themselves. The oppressed members of a system dominated by the racially privileged members of their societies, slaves and libertos claimed their rightful roles as the shapers of their own histories and lives. Of course, this agency could only be exercised within the clear limits prescribed by the State and Church apparatuses, as well as the highly hierarchical nature of slave societies. This is clear in the lives of the freed Africans studied in this dissertation, whose processes of identity formation also receive a major impetus from the impositions of these powers. While the limitations of life within slavery are evident and important, it is an important choice to
243 focus on resistance and resilience from bottom up rather than on power from top down.
As vital as this shift has been, it is also prone to pitfalls as with every approach, especially because an over-emphasis on slave agency can take away from an awareness of the primary dynamics of the system. More importantly for the purposes of this dissertation, an extreme focus on slave agency, resistance and solidarity can also turn into a perspective that argues for slave or liberto “difference” in the relationship of freed
Africans with their slaves, who were often Africans themselves. It is possible to conjecture that Africans would be more lenient towards their African slaves, cultivate closer relationships with them, etc. This of course happened at times, and certain such examples have been studied in Chapter I, in the context of exceptional relationships. But the primary frame of reference in this regard was made up of the hegemony of slave ownership in both Brazilian and African societies that also dominated the relationships between enslaved Africans and their freed African masters.
Before moving on to a more in-depth textual analysis of the documents at hand, it is important to remember certain key concepts that marked slavery in Salvador, and that will keep coming up within these analyses. The greater freedom and mobility that existed within slavery in Salvador was indeed exceptional. Urban slavery in the capital existed as an extension of the plantation slavery in the interior—and thus shared important dynamics with the former, but it certainly provided enslaved Africans and their descendants with greater freedom than they could have ever experienced in the plantations. Urban slaves could engage in many different professions, and were extremely visible on the streets of the soterópolis. They were only exempt from a few
244 occupations that were the prerogative of the highest-ranking members of society, such as medicine, law, or high military offices.3 The active and visible participation of slaves in the professional and commercial life of the city was made possible by the ganho
(earnings) system, whereby slaves were free to work, and sometimes even live, on their own in return for supplying their masters with a set quota of their earnings.4 These slaves were called ganhadores, and they composed the majority of the enslaved Blacks who lived in Salvador. In addition to their participation in numerous professions, many among them—mostly women—also worked as vendors on the streets of the Bahian capital.
Other slaves in Salvador were domestic slaves or as they were called, “escravos de casa” or house slaves, who worked in close proximity with their masters and their mistresses.
While they suffered from the closer vigilance and sometimes the greater abuse that could emanate from this line of work, they were also in a position to construct closer relationships with their owners. As a result, they could be treated better during their
3 The specific nature of these limitations was referred to in previous chapters, and the impossibility of freed Africans joing the legal profession was touched upon in Chapter I. With regards to this second issue, I have stated that such an idea was considered so improbable due to the different layers of stigma that followed freed Africans that no need was even felt to put it in the form of law.
4 A discussion of how these quotas were decided upon has been offered in Chapter II.
The ganho system not only benefited the slaves, but also worked to the great advantage of their ownerswho thus had access to direct monetary earnings through their slaves. Masters and mistresses were also thus liberated of their responsibilities to provide them with sustenance—and even lodging at times. Except for the poorest among them, most slave-owners were able to keep one or more domestic slaves for what they considered as their fundamental needs, while the labor of their ganhadores added to their ability to keep up or even increase their access to a certain life style by the significant monetary additions brought to their households.
While the possibility of gaining their freedom was obviously much desired on the part of the slaves, the system also worked very much to the advantage of the masters. Already having received regular cash payments from the labor of their ganhadores, by the time they agreed to grant alforria to their slaves, most masters and mistresses had already gained several times the initial value they had paid for them. These dynamics made both the ganho and the alforria systems were extremely advantageous for the masters themselves. It did not take slaves more than three years of work to endow their masters with the original capital they had paid for them. Slaves who worked for themselves or who hired out their labor also meant no expenses for their owners. These expenses could in fact be significant for the masters, as became evident in turbulent contexts such as the Brazilian war of independence, when many masters had to abandon their slaves because of their incapacity to take care of them.
245 everyday lives, or more favorably when time came to purchase their freedom or upon their masters’ deaths. Of course, poor treatment was also a constant possibility, and for exactly the same reasons.
The possibility of alforria (the system that allowed for the purchase of one’s own freedom) was a direct consequence of the existence of the ganho system. Slaves who worked as ganhadores were the ones who were usually able to assemble the necessary amount of money within the allotted space of time. However, as Mattoso has argued in many of her studies, slaves often needed assistance for the purchase of their alforria— from their masters, other people within their personal networks, or their irmandades.
Both the “valor” (value/sum to be paid) and “prazo” (time frame) were decided upon by their masters, but certain general cultural guidelines existed as to what was acceptable with regards to the alforria system. These guidelines were usually followed except when slave owners had a stake in making the process more difficult for their slaves, often for personal reasons. While alforria was not an accepted right, but rather a privilege that masters could choose to withhold, the sum that they would receive for the alforria would actually endow slave owners not only with compensation for the loss of slave labor, but actually with additional profits. Most slaves were not given the possibility to purchase their alforria until a certain age where they had already provided their owners with sufficient labor and capital, which often largely surpassed the expenses their initial purchase had entailed. The slaves also often needed a considerable length of time in order to be able to put aside the sums necessary for purchasing their freedom. These factors made it so that by the time they were allowed and capable of paying for their alforria, the
246 slaves in question were no longer that productive to their masters. Endowing enslaved people with their freedom usually ended up being much more profitable than continuing to be responsible for their lodging or upkeep.5
Slavery dominated all sectors of Salvadorean life, from the domestic sphere to the organization of public life, from work arrangements to the understandings of religion and legality. It constituted a completely hegemonic system and the main referent of society in
Salvador. This was especially the case for life in the nineteenth century, which as all historical periods that precede the dismantlement of a system, saw its crystallization to its most concrete and defensive form. As with all hegemonic systems, the exceptions within slavery often served to strengthen the actual norm. The fact that some slaves had greater mobility than others underlined the limits that marked the life of the great majority; the capacity of becoming escravos de ganho with greater control over the fruits of one’s own labor and greater participation in a monetary economy pointed to the exceptionality of such control and participation on the part of the slaves within a capitalist economy based primarily on their labor. Similarly, the ability to purchase one’s own freedom through the possibility of alforria highlighted the realities of enslavement, since while it constituted one of the most important aspirations in the lives of enslaved people, it almost without
5 These were responsibilities that, in any case, slave owners could often easily forsake for their slaves who labored for them as ganhadores. In addition, while a domestic slave who did not have direct access to earnings or the market economy could be a more likely candidate for unconditional alforria, ganho slaves were seen as capable of taking greater control over their own lives and the acquisition of their own freedom.
In this dissertation, I have repeatedly referred to Kátia Mattoso’s argument vis-à-vis the absolute necessity of outside assistance for gaining one’s alforria. However, I argue that in doing so, Mattoso takes away from the efforts and agency exercised enslaved people in paying for their freedom. Mattoso’s emphasis on community networks and solidarity is certainly valid, but so is personal agency and the earnings of the slaves themselves.
247 exception worked to the advantage of the seigneurial class. Further, while some were able to gain their freedom, they left behind the majority of their companions behind in enslavement. Their acquisition of freedom in fact depended on others remaining enslaved.
Since no slave owner was actually bound by law to free his/her slaves, alforria was never perceived as a right but rather as a privilege. As all privileges, it required gratitude in return. In fact, gratitude dominated many understandings that were highly pervasive within master-slave relationships. It played a role in the way masters treated their slaves, as well as in the ways libertos remembered their ex-masters. With regards to gratitude, and other expected behaviors, a sense of “justice” also infiltrated all intra-African relationships. Certain behaviors were seen as both acceptable and “just,” and they would be corresponded with other righteous comportments. These understandings also emanated directly from hegemonic understandings of slavery, and did not differ from one another with regards to whether the slave owner was a freed African, a crioulo or a pardo, or a
White Brazilian. This was also because these understandings of “justice” were directly tied to those of honor, and to being respectable members of Brazilian society who were also deserving of its rights and privileges. This idea is illustrated in this dissertation through the analysis of several testaments.
The scholarly insistence on “exceptionalism” within the context of urban slavery in
Salvador is prone to the danger of considering certain experiences of enslavement as
“better” from others. Discussions that revolve around how slavery was experienced more
248 harshly in a certain geography or religious/cultural setting while it was more
“benevolent” in others, or that compare the lot of domestic slaves to those of plantation gang members in order to highlight the points where one was “better” or “worse” than the other do little to add to our knowledge on the complexities of slave life in the Americas.
Moreover, they actually often end up ironically falling victim to structuralist understandings of slave societies, in the midst of their emphasis on the dynamism of these as well as on the agency on the slaves as the main shapers of such diverse societies within the African Diaspora. If a certain structure is simply seen to generate a distinct set of mindsets and relationships, not much room is actually left for the agency of the people who exist and act within it.
III. Professions and Work Arrangements Speaking about ganho slaves warrants a better understanding of labor arrangements, especially as they are manifested in libertos’ testaments. When looking at the trends for the living and working patterns of freed Africans in the city’s different parishes, it becomes noticeable that semi-rural areas were home to a significant number of people.
This is even more noteworthy in consideration of the fact that an important number of libertos seem to have moved to these areas by choice, even if they had lived as enslaved people in more urban parishes. This might be seen to represent a pattern of choice towards a rural lifestyle among freed Africans, which would have involved planting, working the land, and farming as their main occupations in these areas. An important number of the testaments that were analyzed in the previous chapter demonstrate this pattern, especially with regards to the parish of Brotas. When writing about this freguesia, Renato da Silveira states that Brotas was the most extensive parish within the
249 city limits, and that “em nada se distinguia das grandes freguesias rurais que cercavam
Salvador” [did not in any way differ from the large rural parishes that surrounded
Salvador]. This is the same argument I have made about life in Brotas in Chapter II.
Silveira also adds that it encompassed a lot of land, but few people.6 Certainly, such living arrangements had their advantages. They provided greater independence to freed
Africans through being distant from the city’s urban centers and not as easy to access.
They offered larger spaces of dwelling, where a larger number of people could live together. They could even serve to hide people, as well as participation in forbidden religious and communal activities of African origin. In addition, rural settings provided
African libertos with greater freedom and control over their labor and subsistence. All over the African Diaspora, vegetable gardens and fruit plantations provided both enslaved and freed Africans with subsistence and/or surplus, access to consumer goods, and greater control over their own labor. It was no different in Bahia, and many Africans and their descendants turned towards small-scale agriculture and raising livestock for their subsistence. This was only possible in the rural outskirts of, or the semi-rural areas within, the city. Just like in Africa, agricultural labor did not constitute a “profession” in
Salvador. When it was not slave labor on the sugar plantations, planting was something that people did naturally, and so was farming. For this reason, it was never listed as a profession, and may partly account for the absence of references to professions in the testaments left behind by freed Africans in nineteenth-century Salvador.7
6 Renato da Silveira. O Candomblé da Barroquinha…: 261.
7 In her studies of libertos’ testaments, Mattoso alo underlines the fact that references to professions are very few and far between in libertos’ wills.
250 Conversely, many studies have also shown that both free and enslaved Africans were very active in numerous professions.8 Unfortunately, the testaments under study rarely refer to the professions of the libertos who chose to record their final wishes prior to their deaths.9 In the cases where we encounter references to certain professions in the testaments, these are almost never those of the testators themselves. This might point to the fact that the professions they exercised perhaps did not constitute an important reference point for the self-identification of many freed Africans, since they were often a direct consequence of their enslavement, and consequently more a part of how they were perceived by others rather than how they understood themselves. But Maria José de
Souza Andrade, João José Reis and Richard Graham have convincingly argued that
Africans and their descendants were often capable of having their own hierarchies and work arrangements that were independent from those imposed on them by White society.
If this were the case and Africans did possess significant amounts of agency within their work arrangements, they would also have seen their occupations as an important part of
8 While almost all Bahian historians have written on the significant participation of both Africans and Brazilian-born Blacks in the labor market, the work of Maria José de Souza Andrade remains the main reference for scholars working on the subject. Maria José da Silva Andrade. A Mão de Obra Escrava em Salvador de 1811 a 1860. São Paulo: Corrupio, 1988.
9 Other inferences vis-à-vis liberto livelihoods have been made in Chapter II with regards to the freed African Antônio Mendes’ ownership of a small building which contained an oven for turning manioc into farinha, and then baking it; participation in the informal economy through usury, and the possible fabrication of religious ornaments/artifacts. We can imagine that an important percentage of freed Africans were active participants of the informal economy of Bahia, primarily through smaller business interactions. Another source of income was the renting of dwellings to others, freed Africans themselves for the most part. Finally, participation in the Atlantic trade—in slaves and/or commodities—is also cited in libertos’ wills.
Following James Sweet’s lead in his book Domingos Álvares, we can also assume that several among the freed Africans could also have been healers and/or religious leaders, which would have provided them with their livelihood, but could clearly not have been stated in their testaments. James H. Sweet. Domingos Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
251 their identities. However, the professions Africans held in Bahia could still be capable of not carrying much meaning for them. They might have chosen to identify themselves by other professions, by their ranks within the professions rather than the professions themselves, and/or in completely different ways—ethnic, cultural, religious, communal, etc.10
When professions were actually mentioned in the testaments, they were usually those of other people included in the testaments. These could be heirs, possible executors, other members of the personal networks of libertos, individuals to whom they owed money or vice-versa, as well as the people who came forward to present their testaments after the death of the testators. Since this was information recorded by officials in all instances, it demonstrates that professions were in fact relevant information for state authorities. In addition, the professions of slaves were almost always mentioned within inventories, as well as when slaves were taken to the praça in order to be sold. From this perspective, I believe that the listing of professions was similar to the references to ethnicity in libertos’ wills, as will be analyzed in more detail below. It was significant especially with regards to the market value of slaves. In this way, it was also part and parcel of the repertoire of understandings that directly emanated from the Atlantic slave trade and slave societies.
The freed Africans were primarily seen as ex-slaves, understood through their slave pasts, and defined accordingly in the documents. This was why the freed Africans themselves
10 Also possible is the fact that the professions of freed Africans may not have constituted significant information for the scribes that recorded their wills. Concentrating solely on the Africanness of the testators, they may have overlooked parts of their Brazilian identities, especially in the cases where the libertos did not make an explicit point of these. I do not find this argument convincing, however, since it was the officials themselves for the most part who actually listed professions in the rare cases where such information was actually offered in accompanying documents. This means that this information must have mattered more to them than it did for the freed African testators. In addition, I have already argued against the role of a personal voice on the part of of the scribes as an important factor in shaping the testaments.
252 did not include this information as part of their own identities in their wills. Table 3.1 shows all the references to professions offered in the wills of libertos, including the people who were listed in the additional documents that accompanied these, as long as they were freed Africans themselves. I have not included the occupations of the slaves that were listed in the inventories.
Table 3.1. References to Liberto Professions
Number of % People Alfaiate (tailor) 2 11
Artista (Artist/Artisan. Not 2 11 specified in the documents) Barbeiro (Barber) 9 46
Carniceiro (Butcher) 1 5
(Oficio de) Carpina 1 5 (Carpenter)
(Oficio de) Cónego (Cannon 1 5 maker) (Oficio de) Ferramenta 1 5 (Tool Maker) (Oficio de) Ourives 1 5 (Goldsmith) Negociante (Merchant) 1 5
Total number of people 19 6~%
The fact that out of the testaments of 307 individuals, we only encounter direct references to the professions of only nineteen individuals or around 6% of the sample (which
253 actually refer to those of people mentioned in the wills but not of the libertos themselves) is very telling in itself. As is often the case with historical documents, what is not mentioned is as important as what is included. Freed Africans in the nineteenth century clearly chose not to define themselves through their professions in the testaments that they composed with the objective of leaving behind documents that would survive them into eternity. Their professions did, however, constitute an important element in how the more privileged members of Bahian society saw and understood Africans and their descendants. In any case, even this extremely small sample bears testimony to the range of occupations occupied by freed Africans in nineteenth-century Salvador. Since these references are extremely scattered and belong to people who are very different from one another in their roles as well as in their relations to the testators, no meaningful grouping was possible here. The table thus serves solely to give a general idea of the variety of professions that were present in the personal worlds that libertos’ occupied in Bahia.
Among such scattered documentation, it is still worthwhile to briefly highlight a few examples, with some additional information in order to shed some light on the lives led by these libertos. Afonso José Joaquim Machado, who died as a single man, was identified as an artist/artisan.11 He had lived in the Ladeira de São Roque, which was also the place where he passed away. He was to be buried at the cemetery of the Quinta dos
Lázaros. In another will, a certain Sr. Antônio Pereira, was reported to owe money to the
11 01/102/152/16
As seen in the discussion of the urban parishes of Salvador, both were possible occupations for freed Africans.
254 testator Ana Ludovina de Oliveira, a resident of Taboão.12 Pereira was identified as a goldsmith by profession. Maria da Conceição’s husband Francisco was listed as an alfaiate—a tailor.13 As few as these references are, they correspond to some of the occupations most exercised by freed Africans in Salvador in the nineteenth century. In this context, João Reis has argued that the ways in which libertos exercised agency in choosing to remain in or continue the professions they held as slaves differed greatly, as well as the possibilities they possessed to be able to do so. Life choices and agency were limited for Africans in slave societies. Nevertheless, Africans—both free and enslaved— were everywhere, both geographically and in multiple occupations. From the most urban to the most rural of Salvador’s parishes, they were always present and often greatly visible.
IV. Slave Ownership in the Testaments of African Libertos The testaments studied in this dissertation demonstrate that the majority of the slaves owned byfreed Africans in nineteenth-century Salvador da Bahia were also born in
Africa, and later brought to Brazil as slaves. They also show that while there are a few important exceptions to this trend, most notably in the person of Joaquim de Almeida,
African libertos also followed the general Salvadorean pattern of pervasive slave ownership of small numbers of slaves—less than five. As João José Reis asserts while referring to an eighteenth-century testimony, the inequalities that were evident in
Salvadorean society did not mean that slave ownership was limited solely to certain privileged segments of society:
12 Book: 15 – pp: 115v to 120v
13 Book: 27 – pp: 148v to 151v
255 In spite of the dense concentration of wealth, slaveholding interests were spread throughout Bahian society. One need not have been rich to own a slave. Only the very poorest people had no slave. Jose da Silva Lisboa commented in 1781, “It is considered a sign of extreme mendacity not to have slaves. One might endure all sorts of domestic hardships, but slaves are a must.14
While Reis also argues that Silva Lisboa’s argument was exaggerated—, it is certainly true that the ownership of slaves was so widespread in Bahian society that, as is the case with all truly hegemonic systems, its existence was not questioned. Clearly, saying that slave ownership was both rampant and commonsensical does not imply that all free members of Salvadorean society owned a large number of slaves, for the purposes of domestic labor or trabalho de ganho. As Reis once again states, most Salvadoreans owned less than five slaves, following the pattern that was also encountered in the primary sources studied in this dissertation. Further, these slaves were vital to the survival of many, and not in and of themselves an insignia of their commitment to the values of White society, nor a demonstration people sought to make of their higher standing within it:
Contrary to what Silva Lisboa wrote, however, it was not for the sake of ostentation that those people kept slaves. Many Bahians were sustained by the one, two, or three slaves they owned.15
However, owning a single slave throughout the nineteenth century was equal to bare survival within general poverty. João Reis asserts that the highest yearly earning that was possible for a slave at the time was of a hundred and twenty thousand réis.16 The
14 João José Reis. Slave Rebellion…: 12. 15 Ibid.
16 Op.cit. 12-3.
Keeping this sum in mind is significant for a perspective on the alforria prices granted to slaves in the testaments of freed Africans, which thus can be understood to often average the yearly earnings of an
256 testaments that make up the documentary sample for this dissertation themselves attest to this fact, while they also demonstrate most clearly that more than houses and plantations, more than money or jewelry, slaves constituted the main repository of wealth in nineteenth-century Salvador.17
In any case, the idea of being a free member of Salvadorean society often implied slave ownership, and thus a direct or indirect acceptance of the premises of slave society. As
João Reis asserts, “It is quite likely that at least 40 percent of the free population, many of whom were poor as well, owned slaves. It was so common that all free persons probably aspired to own at least one.”18 This aspiration derived to a significant extent from the fact that owning slaves often became a symbol of freedom, in positioning oneself in contradistinction to the unfree members of society. Within the context of social ascent through both the acquisition of freedom and that of higher living standards, slave ownership sometimes acquired even greater symbolic value for freed slaves in Bahian society than for those already privileged by place of origin or free status. This enhances our understanding that freed Africans constantly sought to fit in within Brazilian society
escravo de ganho. In most cases, however, the slaves in question were far from being able to earn this money within a single year, which was also evidenced by the fact that a time frame of three years was usually offered them in which they were expected to bring the said sum to the executors and heirs of the testators who were also their former owners. Often, their task was also hindered by difficulties related to advanced age or health.
17 There is no discussion as to the hegemonic nature of slave ownership in all Brazilian slave societies, in rural, urban, or mining regions. Yet, it is a case in point that it was actually in the latter two cases, which offered the more dynamic and “exceptional” structures and experiences among these societies, that we see a significant degree of slave ownership on the part of freed men and women, and even slaves in exceptional circumstances. Thus, an argument could in fact be made even towards greater commitment to the premises of slavery in these exceptional settings, where both slaves and libertos possessed more rights and greater freedoms.
18 João José Reis. Slave Rebellion…: 13.
257 and to assert themselves as honorable Brazilian citizens who were deserving of its rights and privileges. Their identity as Africans in Brazil, as people who actually fought to stay in Brazil when faced with the danger of repatriation in the aftermath of the Malê uprising of 1835, marked them with a specific understanding of Africanness as the primary shaper of their identities.
Table 3.2. Slaves owned by Libertos
Total number of people People who stated owning slaves People who did not state owning slaves 307 191 116
% %62 %38
Table 3.2. demonstrates the the expansive nature of the wealth that libertos owned in people. While 62 % is an important ratio in itself, the fact that many freed Africans could also have owned slaves in previous periods in their lives should also be taken into account in this regard. These individuals might have died, or been sold, provided with the opportunity of buying their alforria, and in rare cases freed unconditionally prior to the preparation of libertos’ wills. As additional information, Table 3.3. provides the gender breakdown of libertos’ slaves.
Table 3.3. The Gender Breakdown of Libertos’ Slaves
Total Number of Women Men No Information Slaves Provided
647 394 232 21
% %61 %36 %3
258
Here, the fact that enslaved women surpassed enslaved men by the high margin of 25% can be explained primarily by predominance in urban settings through their roles as house slaves and their importance ganhadeiras, especially vendors, in addition to their being indispensable as housekeepers, laundresses, and through their participation in other professions socially perceived as “female” occupations. Clearly, the greater presence of women within urban slavery settings presents dynamics that were very different from the male-dominant population of the plantations.
Except for a few additional cases that I find illuminating in other ways, I will continue to elaborate the analysis of the testaments already studied in Chapter II, in order to preserve a certain continuity among the testaments as historical texts, while also presenting a certain comparative framework. While the nineteenth-century testaments of African libertos contain significant individual differences regarding slave ownership, certain common trends can also be traced within them. In studying these, I refer to the more general aspects of slave ownership by freed Africans, as manifested in numbers or ethnicity. However, I pay particular attention to alforria patterns. Since direct descriptions of master-slave relationships are rare, decisions regarding the eventual freedom or continued enslavement of Africans constitute an important window into intra-
African relationships within my sample of primary documents. Within an analysis of alforria patterns, we see first of all that freed Africans in their great majority actually tended to free their slaves upon their deaths. We do not know to what extent they had already done so prior to the time at which they composed their testament, since they certainly had previously endowed some of their slaves with their freedom. This is evident
259 in the fact that many of the libertos themselves had acquired their own alforrias while their owners were still alive, as it can also be witnessed in the existence of many libertos who did not possess slaves at the time they composed their testaments. Considering the highly pervasive nature of slave ownership in Salvador, it is not likely that these libertos had never owned slaves. It is much more plausible that they had simply liberated their slaves beforehand. Similarly, we can suppose that even those libertos who did own slaves at the time they registered their wills had probably owned larger numbers of slaves at previous times.
But freed Africans also depended on the labor of at least some of their slaves until the last moments of their lives. Further, this dependency often went beyond their deaths, and also defined the particular fates of these enslaved people. Rarely, freed Africans could decide that some of their slaves would be sold upon their death. More frequently though, some would remain in captivity, under the ownership of the libertos’ heirs and/or executors.
But the most common trend was for one slave, or sometimes a small number of slaves, to be set aside for the purpose of paying for the realization of their owner’s final rites and other provisions. They would be provided with the opportunity for their alforria, often set at a reasonable sum and prazo (time during which the person would need to come up with the payment), and the sum they needed to pay would go to the funerary expenses of their owners.19 While some owners also sought to clear debts accrued through business or
19 Obviously, funerals and other associated final rites could not wait. In these cases, the executors would pay for these from their own money and would later be reimbursed from the alforria values of these slaves. This is a major reason why choosing the right executors was essential for freed Africans, and why executorship constituted a major responsibility. Chapter I has demonstrated that at times, people could refuse to act as executors even for their parents. This fact also points to the reasons why most executors were chosen from among the well trusted members of libertos’ own close-knit communities, while certain
260 personal ventures through the post-mortem alforria of their slaves, the majority resorted to these arrangements mainly to guarantee decent funerals and last rites for themselves.
While some asked for elaborate masses, everyone expected funerary arrangements that at least corresponded to the norms of what was deemed a dignified burial. Certainly, for people who often belonged to distinct belief systems which were impossible to register in the official documentation, their spiritual needs might have been at times differed from those of the Roman Catholic creed even though they often intersected. But in spite of all such possible differences, these rituals are central to the arrangements requested in libertos’ wills. To be discussed in greater detail in Chapter IV, these last rites had extreme significance for everyone in nineteenth-century Brazil, but especially for those born in Africa. In a context where it was of utmost importance to provide a safe passage to the afterworld and put one’s soul to rest, libertos also asked for masses for other people who had played important roles within their lives from the alforria money they set aside for these purposes. The delayed emancipation of these enslaved people was a step taken to guarantee the lasting wellbeing of the souls of their owners and of the close members of their personal networks.
It is probable that the majority of libertos who made such arrangements did foresee this conditional captivity of their slaves as temporary. In none of the testaments do we see a freed African offering an explanation as to how they had settled on a specific person to fulfill the task of paying for their debts or last rites with their alforria money. In all cases, they simply indicate the need for these debts to be paid, and name a specific person. We
other individuals opted for people who were socially more powerful and thus more capable of realizing their wishes.
261 can imagine that libertos had to be highly selective in whom they chose to free and whom they decided to keep enslaved, and that they would have engaged in very complex calculations to this end. In addition to personal reasons such as affection, trust, gratitude etc., these calculations would have involved the age, health, and productivity of slaves, just as when their ganho quotas were decided upon. In these instances, these same attributes would symbolize the relative capacity of someone to come up with the necessary alforria payments. This capacity was important for both sides: it would guarantee the acquisition of freedom for the enslaved person, as well as the realization of their owner’s dispositions.20 As in the case of the more direct debts that they owed, libertos were guided by reasons that were simply pragmatic, while more spiritual concerns were associated with their last rites. No executor, however close in familial or affective ties, could be trusted to realize the conditions of a testament in the absence of the promise of a financial compensation of some kind. Still, it is significant that almost all payment arrangements for executors were made through post-mortem alforria payments, and not in the form of money or some other asset being set aside for this purpose.21 It is almost as if it were both socially accepted and expected that executors would be compensated through alforria payments.
Within this arrangement of compensating one’s executor through the alforria payments of one’s slaves, certain detectable patterns were also present. The libertos usually
20 One wonders if there existed mutual arrangements between slaves and their owners with regards to post- mortem alforrias. It is possible that enslaved individuals might ask for being chosen for such tasks, in order to protect others, but most probably to guarantee the eventual acquisition of their freedom. An eventual alforria would nevertheless be preferable to one that never took place.
21 Certain examples of executors being compensated through land and/or real estate have been referred to in Chapter II.
262 liberated, and often unconditionally, their minor crioulo slaves whom they referred to as their crias. In Brazil at the time, the term referred to the children of one’s slaves who were born into their household. Often, the masters who were in the process of dictating their testaments spoke about the “amor da criação” [love of nurture] that they felt towards their crias, whom they saw in a manner similar to their own children. Unlike in the cases where slave children were born from the sexual relationships that White masters had with their slaves as evidenced all over the Americas, these slave children were usually not related to their owners, even though this could of course have been the case in a few exceptional cases. In fact, libertas refer more to crias in their testaments than do libertos.
Most of these freed African women had had no children of their own, which is probably an important reason why they came to see these children born within their household as almost their own. Kátia Mattoso argues that among the various factors that assisted libertos in the process of acquiring their freedom was the smallness of their families. Not having biological children actually worked to the favor of libertas, who could concentrate their resources on paying for their alforria, and later on personal survival. From this perspective, crias could be seen to have filled an important void in the lives of freed
African women. Having known these slave children since their infancy and having spent significant amounts of time living with them meant that significant levels of affection were developed on both sides. Often, these bonds would have come close to family ties, and would provide a clear reason why crias were almost always favored over others in decisions concerning the manumission of libertos’ slaves.22 We can additionally imagine
22 While crias constituted a major instance of novel kinship ties proper to the Brazilian setting that were present within the lives of libertos, I have once again made a practical decision as to discussing them here rather than in Chapter I, since I believe that their discussion is much more essential to an in-depth
263 that crias had probably had a very different experience of enslavement, from that of their parents or other African-born slaves, prior to the deaths of their masters as well. Their experience could even have been one approaching de facto freedom in many instances.
But since there was no guaranteeing their privileges in the absence of legal freedom papers upon the deaths of their masters, their owners would almost invariably seek to provide them with their legal freedom through their testaments. While the favoring of crias is more than evident in the documentary sources studied in this dissertation, this preference appears to be shaped by close bonds as well as the youth of these slaves, rather than their status as Brazilian vs. African-born. In fact while many studies refer to the preference towards crioulo slaves in manumission decisions, I have not found evidence that supports this argument within my documents, except for the case of crias.23
When libertos owned both African and crioulo slaves, it was not usually the latter that were given priority in being offered their freedom. Complex calculations took place, and the enslaved people chosen for the task of providing for final rites could equally be
African as Brazilian-born. However, since the majority of slaves owned by African libertos were Africans themselves, they are the ones that appear more frequently in the documents.
IV.I. The Alforria Priorities of Freed Africans
Illustrations of master-cria relationships, and the ways in which crias were favored over other slaves in alforria arrangements, are abundant among the primary sources under
understanding of slave ownership by libertos than to the addition of greater depth to an introduction into their personal networks.
23 This may be because the studies in question do not focus specifically on the African liberto population.
264 study. One example is presented by the case of Rita Friandes24, who had been the slave of the late Manoel Friandes da Silva prior to the acquisition of her alforria. She had her testament recorded in 1857. Rita did not state the sum she had paid for her own alforria in her testament. While this may have simply been an omission on her part, it might also mean that she had been unconditionally manumitted by her former owner, during his lifetime or upon his death. This arrangement constituted an exception to the patterns encountered within my sample of documentary sources. But Rita herself operated mostly within more established patterns in her own arrangements. She stated that she was the
“mistress and owner” of a crioula slave named Maria, who would be “coartada”25 for the sum of Rs. 200$000, a sum well within the accepted parameters for post-mortem alforrias. As was often the case with such determined coartaçoes, Maria was also allotted the relatively long period of three years, during which she was expected to come up with the necessary sum of money while she would remain free from subjection to anyone. This meant that Maria would not be responsible for any ganho quotas during this time, and could fully concentrate on collecting the money necessary for her alforria. Rita Friandes also sought to increase Maria’s chances of acquiring her freedom by doubly extending this already considerable length of time. If Maria were not able to collect and hand over the Rs. 200$000 within those first three years, she would also be given a second chance with an additional three years. In case of her repeated failure, however, Rita’s executor would bring her back to captivity. This would mean that Maria would be re-enslaved after a de facto freedom of six years, and by a new owner to whom she most probably did
24 3/1228/1697/3
25 The coartação was the payment fixed for the conditional alforria of an enslaved person. He/she would be coartado/a at a set sum, which in Maria’s case was Rs. 200$000.
265 not have any long-established relationship. It is possible that Rita sought to protect Maria from such a difficult fate by including favorable alforria provisions in her testament. It is also possible that such provisions were necessary, since Maria was also probably advanced in years by then, and not easily capable of collecting her alforria money through her ganho labor. In any case, her alforria would have almost invariably depended on outside assistance as on her own earnings.
Rita’s testamentary provisions had favored her African slaves over the crioula Maria.
This also demonstrates that the libertos who composed wills in the nineteenth century did not conform to the generally established alforria patterns for the Brazilian population of slave masters as a whole. In a later clause of her testament, Rita Friandes stated that her
Nagô slave Maria had been in possession of her her carta de liberdade for a long time. It was common for libertos to take advantage of these legal documents that would continue their existence upon their deaths to ratify the legal freedom of those ex-slaves whom they had already freed. In the cases where the existence of freedom papers was so paramount to someone’s existence, legal repetition could play an important role in guaranteeing their continued freedom. Additionally, Rita also named Maria as her second executor, pointing to the actual close affective ties that must have existed between the two.26 Indeed, the bond between Rita and the Nagô Maria must have been exceptional, because this was not a generalized attitude that Rita had towards her African slaves.27 Rita Friandes was the
26 Other such cases where the master-slave relationship appeared as more elaborate in the documents have been discussed in greater depth within the context of exceptions and complexities within libertos’ personal networks in Chapter I.
27 A major argument I seek to make in this dissertation is exactly that there existed no generalized pattern regarding liberto interactions with their slaves.
266 owner of another enslaved African woman of the Gegê nation, a third Maria. The price of the latter’s alforria was set at a much lower sum than that of her crioula namesake—at only Rs. 50$000. Perhaps she was older; perhaps she was less skilled. She was also given three years in which to earn the money necessary to acquire her freedom. The price for which the Gegê Maria had been coartada would be much easier to earn within this time frame if she possessed the necessary skills and health. At the end of this period, if she had not fulfilled the requirement, she would also be called back to captivity by Rita’s executor. It almost seems like Rita was fulfilling a formality by not letting Maria Gegê go free without an alforria payment. Perhaps she needed to show her executor that he would be compensated for his efforts no matter what. This is not to say that Rs. 50$000 was a completely insubstantial amount, but it was considerably lower than other alforria values that encountered in the documents—values which Kátia Mattoso has determined to be almost symbolic. Rita had done her best to facilitate the freedom of both Maria crioula and Maria Gegê without letting go of her own needs and requests, which also required her executor to be appropriately compensated in order to guarantee their realization.
Libertos clearly operated within the hegemonic system of slavery and slave ownership that prevailed in Salvador in the nineteenth century. However, within those parameters, they sought at least the relative wellbeing of their slaves upon their deaths. Table 3.4 presents the total number of alforrias offered, in one way or another, in libertos’ wills.
267 Table 3.4. Alforrias Offered by Libertos to their Slaves
Total number Those offered Those who of slaves their alforria were not offered their alforria
647 235 412
% 36 64
As seen here, while 235 among the 647 slaves cited, and thus 36 % of slaves owned by libertos were offered their post-mortem alforrias, the significant number of 412 at 64 % actually did not receive this privilege. Of course, 56 of these belonged to Joaquim de
Almeida, which has an important effect on the sample as will be seen below. Table 3.5, on the other hand, offers a basic breakdown of the alforria conditions, in reference to the
235 soon to be free slaves.
Table 3.5. Alforria Conditions and Prices of Libertos’ Slaves*
Total number Those whose Those for Other of slaves set value is whom we conditions for offered their known have no freedom alforria specific information 235 64 101 70
% 27 43 30
* This table also includes sale values
The average values set for the 64 slaves whose set sums of alforria and sale values were known are stated in Table 3.6, in three approximate groupings. We see here that while those valued at over Rs. 300$000 were 28 in total, 36 people at 56 % had been given their alforria for values that were largely accessible, proving once again libertos’ attemps to
268 facilitate the acquisition of freedom for their slaves. In addition, the relatively high numbers evidenced in the other two categories all refer to the sale value of these slaves, rather than to their alforria sums. I did not find any alforria demands that surpassed
Rs.300$000 in any of my documents, while sale values could go and usually went well beyond.
Table 3.6. Alforria and Sale Prices of Libertos’ Slaves
Total number of people: 56.
Under Rs. 300$000 Between 300-600 mil-réis Over Rs. 600$000
36 12 16
56 19 25
Tables 3.7.a. and 3.7.b., in turn, refers to the prazos or time allotted for the payment of alforria values. Table 3.7.a shows that prazos were set 420 out of 647 or for 65 % of libertos’ slaves, while they were not specified, or were inapplicable (probably due to provisions for sale) for the remaining 35 %. Table 3.7.b., on the other hand, demonstrates that from the 420 people for whom prazos were set, these were specified in the majority of the cases, namely for 354 people at 84 %.
3.7.a. Number of Slaves whose Alforria Prazos were Set
Total Number of Those For Whom Those For Whom Slaves Prazos Were Set Prazos Were Not Set
647 420 227
% 65 35
269
3.7.b. Number of Slaves for Whom the Specific Prazos Are Known Total Number of Those Specified Those Not Specified Prazos 420 354 66
% 84 16
Finally, Table 3.8 shows the specific arrangements or the already existing statuses of the
331 slaves owned by libertos, and thus offers more detailed information on the specific provisions made by freed Africans.
Table 3.8. Specific Arrangements Made Concerning the Freedom of Libertos’ Slaves Those for Will Liberated Already Upon Will Will Others whom we go unconditionally free Testator’s Stay be have to for good Death Enslaved Sold specific heirs services information 16 15 120 175 3 19 21 369 % 4 4 32 48 1 5 6
Going back to her testament, the fact that Rita sought to facilitate the lives of her slaves upon her death becomes even clearer in light of the fact that she also included an additional clause in her testament with regards to the alforria of Maria Gegê. She stated that even if Maria were not able to fulfill her responsibilities, her executor would never be able to sell Maria. Almost without exception, African libertos sought to avoid the fate of the praça for their slaves. While it is impossible to argue that people who had lived their whole lives within slave societies in both Africa and Brazil would have a lesser commitment to, or acceptance of slavery, it is also true that freed Africans in Brazil had
270 all experienced slavery firsthand, and were consequently more sensitive to its perils and harships. Even in the cases where they had been free in Africa, they had arrived in Brazil as enslaved individuals. Even in the cases where they lived their African lives within the large spectrum of non-freedom that existed on the continent, the experience of plantation slavery in Bahia, and even its urban extension in Salvador, had represented a much more traumatic experience of total enslavement. This firsthand experience was the one factor in which they did differ from other slave owners, and their commitment to avoiding the most traumatic experiences among the fates available to their own slaves mostly derived from this significant difference. Even if Maria Gegê were not able to earn her freedom, therefore, she would remain the slave of Rita’s executor until her death or until she was provided by an alternative alforria arrangement by the latter. Her mistress had sought to protect Maria from the fate that slaves most feared at the death of their owners. She would never be taken to the praça and have to face the difficulties of another separation or repeated separations, from the surroundings she had grown familiar with over time, and from the kinship and personal networks she had probably spent years building. She would never have to face the fear of belonging to a completely unknown master or mistress, who could have been equally capable of treating her with great cruelty as much as with relative lenience. Because even if the executor who would bring her to captivity were unknown to Maria Gegê, he had at least been connected to her ex-mistress Rita, and they would thus be tied to one another to some extent through the her former owner’s understandings and concerns. An even better case scenario would be that the executor and Maria Gegê were already acquainted.
271 With regards to the question of freed Africans favoring the slave children born into their households, Rita Friandes also had six crias—slave children born to her own slaves, and with to whom she held ties that could almost be described as familial. Mathias, Marcelo,
Manoel and Vicência were all children of her liberta Maria Nagô, whom Rita had already favored by providing her with her freedom papers prior to her own death.28 The crioula
Maria also had a daughter of the same name, and a son named Procópio. Just like his mother Maria Nagô, Mathias already had his carta de liberdade “passada em notas”
(already certified by the notary). The others, with the exception of Procópio, were also in possession of their freedom papers, but these had not yet been certified. Therefore, the testament also served the purpose of their ratification, and sought to guarantee the fragile freedom of freed people in Bahia. Rita also used her will to declare Procópio to be forro, stating in the language of the time that he would be considered as free “as if he had been born to a free woman’s belly” [como se de ventre livre tivesse nascido]. In this way, Rita
Friandes actually demonstrated the same attitude towards all slave children born in her household. No matter what the specific provisions regarding their mothers were, all
Rita’s crias were provided with their freedom papers upon her death, with no alforria conditions attached.29 But Rita did not limit herself to providing her crias with their freedom papers in her quest to guarantee their wellbeing and facilitate their lives upon her own death. She also left them the material assets that would remain once her debts were cleared and the final rites she wished for were fulfilled. Her liberta and second executor
28 This does not mean, however, that Maria Nagô had been freed unconditionally. It is quite possible that she had already paid for her alforria, and even for one higher than the others set in Rita’s testament, for having been given the permission to acquire it earlier.
29 In this regard, adulthood and skills are also important factors that should be considered. Rita certainly did care a lot for these children, but it is also not likely that they possessed the skills necessary for the acquisition of their alforria through their own labor. The three Marias, on the other hand, most probably did.
272 Maria Nagô, who was also the mother of four of the crias/heirs, would also be their tutor upon the death of Rita Friandes. She thus made sure that they would be provided with their freedom, financial survival, education, and protection. Rita knew firsthand that while legal freedom was essential, it was rarely sufficient in Bahian slave society—a factor that has been discussed in greater detail in Chapter II, with regards to the importance of a place of dwelling and other financial guarantees for actual independence.
Finally, the need for a tutor points to the fact that all these slave children were still minors at that time. This clearly constitutes more reason as for the affection and care Rita had for them, as well as a reason why they could not be expected to come up with alforria payments. Most importantly, it underlines the quasi-familial ties that brought crias and their mistresses (much more than masters) together in nineteenth-century Bahia where the biological family remained a most fragile institution (as discussed in Chapter I).
IV.II. Enslaved African Partners as the General Norm
In many slavery settings, White male masters were more prone to free the crioula women with whom they had had sexual relationships while these had remained their slaves. It was also because of their familial ties that they tended to free those children who corresponded to the crias of the Salvadorean setting. African liberto masters in Bahia do not seem to have operated around similar concerns or relationships. As asserted above, in the great majority of the cases, crias were not actually related to their owners, and libertas often built closer ties to their crias than did libertos. Similarly, as argued throughout this dissertation, freed Africans inhabited a primarily African world in Bahia.
They married within their own communities, and also chose each other as their life
273 companions or short-term sexual partners. For this reason, divergences from this pattern have been studied as exceptional in Chapter I. Therefore libertos were actually not more prone to having relationships with their Brazilian-born slaves. Nor do they seem to have been driven by concerns of racial and social Whitening in choosing their partners. Once again, it is not easy to discern where this was an actual choice on their part and where it was primarily an imposition on the part of society. It is possible that some people could have opted for such partnerships if they were available to them. At the same time though, in the cases where they were masters and mistresses, and thus could mostly impose their will on the people whom they held in captivity, they still did not follow a pattern of involving themselves more with their Brazilian-born slaves. In fact, the few cases within my sample where libertos referred to having relationships with slaves—either theirs or those of others—demonstrate that these individuals were almost always other Africans.
This once again enhances the understanding that the personal networks of libertos were mostly composed of other Africans, be they enslaved or free.
The argument that freed Africans preferred African partners, even when these partners remained enslaved, also comes across in the most exceptional testament with regards to slave ownership that I have encountered within my sample. This is the will of Joaquim de
Almeida, composed in 1857, who is also the richest person that I have come across.30 As already explained in the previous chapter, Joaquim de Almeida was at the point of leaving for the African Coast when he decided to record his testament. He stated “not having the certainty that he would be able to survive the voyage,” indicating that travel back and forth from the African Coast remained difficult and dangerous in the mid-
30 03/1228/1697/13
274 nineteenth century, even when it was made in circumstances completely different from those of the Middle Passage. The fact that Joaquim de Almeida had his testament registered in Salvador, that the Bahian capital was clearly the place where he hoped to return in spite of all the risks, and that he cited only Salvadorean living quarters among his material possessions indicate that by this time he clearly considered Salvador as his home and that he had assumed a primarily Brazilian identity. This was also evident in the fact that Joaquim de Almeida specifically asked for his final masses to be said in
Salvador in case he died abroad. On the other hand, registering an official document in
Brazil, Joaquim would have naturally concentrated on Brazilian ceremonies and rites, as well as on his Brazilian possessions. However, he could have certainly referred to something as unproblematic as the ownership of a house on the African Coast for example, had he actually counted one among his material assets. Joaquim’s commitment to slave ownership was also in line with this apparent Brazilianness. However, his continuing links to Africa must also have connected him to Africans both in Brazil and on the continent in ways that were no longer part of the realities of the majority of other libertos. Most people lost their linkages, including familial, kinship, or friendship ties when they were enslaved and brought to Brazil. While there also exists significant historical evidence as to the continuing transatlantic connections between Africa and the
Americas, these usually applied to the more privileged members of the African population in Brazil. We cannot know what had made Joaquim de Almeida different from the others. Perhaps he had certain privileges from the start, while it was also possible that he had solely been lucky and resourceful enough to construct a much better life for himself in Brazil. In the case of the Agudás, it is evident that this was in fact possible for
275 people who had arrived in Brazil as children, thus having lost all familial ties or any privileges that they may have had.31 As in Joaquim’s case, several among these individuals has been able to build their fortunes, as well as a higher social status for themselves, through their participation in the Atlantic slave trade.
Joaquim de Almeida’s almost certain participation in the slave trade was not only evident in his recent preparation to cross the ocean, but also in his links to other corners of the
Atlantic World. It was even more significant that these connections were to Cuba, a setting that manifested many dynamics that were similar to those of Brazilian slave societies. These two highly productive Atlantic slave economies still remained firmly committed to slavery and the slave trade at mid-century when Joaquim composed his testament, and consequently were the last two that accepted its abolition. In addition, while plantation slavery remained the norm in rural Cuba, Havana presented dynamics shaped by both its urban setting and Roman Catholicism, which in turn were highly similar to those of Salvador. Links regarding slavery and the slave trade between Brazil and Cuba were actually quite common in the nineteenth century. Accordingly, Joaquim de Almeida asserted having the “product” of thirty-six slaves, thus clearly counting his wealth in people, as indicated even by the language that he used in his testament. These slaves were currently in Havana, in the hands of José Mazorra. Joaquim had ordered that the value of twenty-six of these slaves would be handed over to Joaquim Alves da Cruz
Rios, who was also based in Salvador like himself. The revenues coming from the remaining ten would be handed over to Manoel Joaquim de Almeida who also lived in
31 For example, Tibério Lisboa de Pinho stated in his will that he had arrived in Brazil as a child. His parents had already passed away at that time, and he did not remember their names (05/2185/2654/44).
276 the Bahian city—Joaquim’s namesake, his first executor and also his previous “patron.”
Their sharing of the same last name and his being described as Joaquim’s “patron” points to a former master-slave relationship that connected the two men. The relationship between the two had certainly become much more equal over time, and had come to include both mutual protection and respect, probably partly as a result of joint business ventures. We cannot discern if these went back to the time when Joaquim had been enslaved, and if his master had played a direct role in his manumission and entry into the
Atlantic slave trade. He probably had also been involved in the trade. Their business arrangements and personal connections had continued over the years. Since Joaquim de
Almeida’s reason for composing his testament had not been the usual assertions of old age or sickness, he might have been younger than the majority of libertos when they started to ponder their deaths. It is possible that the two Joaquims, ex-master/patron and slave, were not too far off from one another in years since the former also seemed to be professionally active. It is also a possibility that he was more advanced in years, and that
Joaquim might simply be paying off a debt—either a material one or one of gratitude— in supplying him with the “product” of his slaves.
Joaquim de Almeida’s commitment to slavery was further underlined by the fact that he had twenty more slaves back in Brazil, in the state of Pernambuco. Since these enslaved individuals currently found themselves in the sugar plantation state of Pernambuco, and also not in a city, indicated that they were employed almost certainly in plantation labor.
This was also indicated by their large number, as was also valid for the slaves in Cuba.
The Pernambucan were currently under the “authority” of Miguel Joaquim Ramos da
277 Silva, and their “product” was also to be handed over to Joaquim Alves da Cruz Rios, already mentioned above. Joaquim de Almeida did not indicate if these revenues would be handed over in return for debts that he had acquired through his business ventures, or if they were simply part of the legacy he wanted to leave to his friends and acquaintances.
The former case seems more probable, since Joaquim had probably operated his business ventures mainly through a capital stored in slaves. This would have been the case both for his trade engagements, as well as any other business negotiations in which he might have participated. Joaquim did not refer to the ownership of any plantations himself, which in any case would have been difficult for a liberto to state openly in his will. It seems more likely that he owned the slaves, whose labor he rented out to the plantation owners in
Pernambuco, as well as to his business associates in Cuba. The occupations of the enslaved people Joaquim owned in Cuba are not clear, even though their location in the urban setting of Havana points to a greater possibility of ganho or other kinds of urban/domestic occupations, even though their large numbers could have also implied plantation labor.
Since both the slaves in Cuba and in Pernambuco were located far from Joaquim’s own
Salvadorean setting and were placed under the direct control of others, they were not a part of his daily life. Joaquim would not have had any kind of personal relationship with them, except in the improbable case that they might have been sent there after an initial stay in Bahia.32 Even then, they still would not have spent a significant period of time in
Joaquim’s company, certainly not enough time to forge any close relationships.
32 This could take place in some instances, especially as a punishment, but also if the relocation of slaves appeared to be more profitable as had also been the case for many sold into the internal Brazilian slave trade along the North-South axis.
278 Therefore, Joaquim could dispose of these slaves quite easily and in impersonal terms— simply as “product” or “revenues.” This was also why he provided no actual information on these enslaved individuals, such as their names or “nations.”
Under Joaquim de Almeida’s own “authority,” on the other hand, there were nine other slaves, four women and five men, and his description of these people were completely different from his references to his slaves in Cuba and Pernambuco, as his relationship to them must also have been. These enslaved individuals were all Africans themselves, and were stated to be Marcolino and Maria of the Gegê “nation,” João, Felipe, David,
Jesuina, and Benedita who were all Nagô, and Feliciano and Felismina who were indicated to be Mina.33 Since they were under the direct ownership and control of
Joaquim, these five men and four women must have been either house slaves or escravos de ganho. They also probably lived under the same roof as their owner. Joaquim gave no indications as to the possible acquisition of alforria for seven of these enslaved Africans, which went against the usual norm involving those slaves who had been more connected to their masters during their lives. One possible difference in Joaquim’s case might have been that he also spent a lot of time in Africa in spite of considering the soterópolis as his primary home, and that the relationships that he had developed with his Salvadorean slaves had consequently ended up being less close than those witnessed in other cases.
Another explanation is that Joaquim’s attitudes derived directly from his links to the
Atlantic slave trade and to plantation slavery, and that his understandings of slaves primarily as “product” was also evident with regards to most of his house/ganho slaves as
33 Once again, a complex question arises as to the differences between the Gegê and Mina slaves, ethnic terms that were almost interchangeable in may settings in the Americas, and to the factors that marked the differences in their perception.
279 well. He also referred to no crias in his will. Since it is highly unlikely that none of
Joaquim’s slaves had borne children, this was probably because the slave children born to his household had already been manumitted. This might equally have been the case for adult slaves that Joaquim had already provided with their alforria, and who were thus not listed in his testament. Seven of the nine enslaved Africans listed in Joaquim’s testament would presumably constitute the legacy Joaquim left to his heir, who will be referred to in more detail below, and thus would simply change hands upon his death. Nevertheless, they clearly differed from the slaves in Cuba and Pernambuco in the more personal and detailed terms in which Joaquim described them in his testament. They were not solely referred to as “product,” with their eventual sale being a given as in the case of the plantation slaves. Nevertheless, Joaquim’s approach to even to these nine slaves differed from other cases encountered within my primary sources. While he might indeed have manumitted other slaves prior to this date, he also seems to have been influenced in his understandings of the experience of enslavement by his role in the slave trade and his commitment to the system of slavery in the Atlantic World as a whole.34
In addition to its many exceptions with regards to slave ownership, Joaquim’s testament is also incredibly significant with regards to the previously mentioned point of African men entering into romantic and/or sexual relationships primarily with African women, even in the cases where these women remained enslaved. This is evident in Joaquim de
Almeida’s case, whose social position would have easily permitted him to engage in
34 The slaves owned by Joaquim de Almeida in Cuba and Pernambuco constitute the single reference to plantation slaves in all the documents contained within my sample. This is one of the main reasons why I sought to include his case in this dissertation, since I believe that it provides us with a necessary counterpoint to all the othet cases that follow the Salvadorean norm of pervasive slave ownership on a small scale.
280 relationships with non-Africans if he had chosen to do so. Perhaps some of his relationships had in fact been with people of differing social ranks including non-
Africans and even Whites and/or near-Whites at times, but Joaquim did not refer to ever having opted for a Church-sanctified marriage.35 In his will, Joaquim referred to a relationship he had had with a slave woman owned by somebody else. The executor who accepted Joaquim de Almeida’s testament was immediately required to provide Rosa
Nagô with her freedom, who was currently the slave of Miguel Raposo Ferreira, “a custa dos meus bens” [at the cost of my assets]. Joaquim would thus be directly paying for
Rosa’s alforria, seconding Mattoso’s argument that libertos’ acquisition of freedom often depended on the assistance they received from others as has also been seen in other testaments analyzed in this dissertation. The executor would also hand over the sum of
Rs. 200$000 to Rosa “in discharge of my conscience for the good services she has lent me.”36 Joaquim’s statements almost definitely point to the existence of an intimate relationship between the slave Rosa and the liberto Joaquim de Almeida. This was a relationship that had probably taken place primarily while Joaquim was free and Rosa was enslaved, even if it had started while both were slaves. The guilt that Joaquim felt for not having sought to free Rosa earlier on is also apparent in his testament. In any case,
Joaquim was strongly dedicated to Rosa’s finally acquiring her freedom upon his death, and asked his executor “to execute all diligence” in order to liberate her even if she had
35 Chapter IV will demonstrate that in this way as well, Joaquim had opted for a more African pattern within the context of his partnerships. The same idea has been touched upon in Chapter I, while Chapter II has also referred to Joaquim’s urban living arrangements within which he nevertheless chose to surround himself by other Africans.
36 Other testators could refer to “good services and good friendship [“boa amizade”],” as was the case of João da Silva, when he stated his reasons for leaving his house to his former slaves Guilherme Jesuíno and Miquelina de Andrade (Book: 54 – pp: 91 to 93).
281 ended up changing owners within the city of Salvador.37 Further, in case she happened to be already free prior to Joaquim’s death, she would also be given the sum that had been required for buying her freedom in addition to the Rs. 200$000 stated above. These hypotheses with regards to Rosa’s location and alforria make it clear that Joaquim had not been in touch with her for a while by then. He had also not sought to free Rosa prior to this time, in spite of the close ties he clearly had to her. It seems quite clear that this had been weighing on Joaquim’s conscience, since he made elaborate and generous arrangements with regards to her freedom and wellbeing.
The high probability of the sexual nature of Joaquim’s relationship to Rosa is enhanced by the fact that he had also had a child with an enslaved woman who had been his own slave. The only two among Joaquim de Almeida’s own slaves that were to be provided with their freedom upon his death were Felismina Mina and Benedita Nagô. They would both “enjoy their freedom for the good services they had offered” their master, a language similar to what he had used with regards to Rosa, and probably with similar implications.38 In another clause, Joaquim de Almeida also asked the minor Sutério, son of the Mina slave Felismina, to be provided with his full freedom upon his death.
Sutério’s actual legal status had been that of a freed person ever since his baptism, and
37 He specifically referred to changing owners within Salvador, meaning that the executor would not have to try and look for her if she had been sold out of the city. Most probably, in consideration of the kind of occupation she engaged in, Joaquim did not see such an occurrence as likely. Further, looking for Rosa outside of Salvador and its close surroundings would probably have been too much to expect from any executors. Joaquim was ready to do a lot for Rosa, but his willingness still had its limits.
38 Another example of a freed African who had engaged in sexual relationships with his slaves is provided by the will of Ignácio Soares de Sá. He stated having been legally married to Emília Venceslau Miguel de Almeida, but that they had never had any children. While he was single, on the other hand, Ignaácio had had three children from three different women. While he stated that all three women were Africans, he specified that two of them had been his slaves. The same testator freed all his seven slaves unconditionally through his will, pointing to the possibility that enslaved vs. free status had possibly not been central to his connections to other Africans. (Book: 55 – pp: 38v to 42).
282 Joaquim made use of his will to instituteSutério as his heir to all his assets. He was also concerned with the minor’s education, and asked each of his executors in turn to be the child’s tutor. There is clearly reason enough to be almost certain that Sutério was
Joaquim’s own illegitimate son from his slave Felismina. Like most masters who had been intimately involved with their women slaves, Joaquim refrained from openly stating this fact. In this way, Joaquim acted in a way that was similar to the non-African slave masters who gave themselves the right to enter in such relationships with their slaves, but rarely accepted the children that ensued as legitimate or actually married the mothers. It is quite possible that Joaquim had engaged in simultaneous sexual relationships with more than one enslaved woman. While making the decisions concerning the future of his own slaves—as well as that of Rosa who belonged to another owner—, Joaquim followed the trend common to most slave masters in Brazil of privileging the women with whom he had had intimate relationships. He had corresponded even more to this norm in favoring his illegitimate son born to his slave Felismina over everyone else with regards to his legacy. While he did not recognize the child as his legitimate offspring, Joaquim took all the necessary provisions to guarantee Sutério’s wellbeing. Joaquim differed from other privileged slave owners in Brazil in the way in which all the enslaved women with whom he entered into relationships were Africans like himself. At least the ones he cited were.39 In spite of his social standing, Joaquim had also inhabited a primarily African world in Salvador, and in this way he had had a lot in common with other African libertos in the nineteenth century. Even a liberto who was most probably engaged in the slave trade in addition to his being the owner of a significant number of both plantation
39 It is a small possibility that he might have freed crioula women with whom he had had sexual relationships beforehand.
283 and domestic slaves, had forged affective ties to other Africans which crossed the boundaries set by free vs. slave status in Salvador. While Joaquim remained highly committed to slavery and slave ownership and clearly identified with the norms and values of Brazilian society, he still inhabited a world that was primarily composed of
Africans. From this perspective, Joaquim de Almeida may be perceived as the one person among nineteenth-century liberto testators who brought together both African and
Brazilian identities par excellence. He was a privileged, dignified, and respected member of Bahian society to a much greater extent than many other libertos.40 But he also remained a person who was also highly marked by his Africanness, living in a primarily
African world within Salvador composed of both freed and enslaved people, engaging in sexual relationships with African partners one of whom was also the mother of his child and heir, and being constantly connected to the African coast through his transatlantic trade networks.
IV.III. Concerns of Justice, Honor, and Gratitude
In analyzing the testaments left behind by freed Africans, it also becomes clear that certain understandings of justice were of concern to the great majority, in their dealings with everyone. In my understanding here, “justice” acquires a larger as well as more nuanced sense. It refers to operating within the internalized norms of accepted behavior in all relationships, including those between masters and slaves. It also invokes notions of the comportments that were required from honorable members of Brazilian society, as well as their notions of how they should be treated in return for being such dignified
40 In consideration of Joaquim’s more privileged status within the larger Brazilian society, we can also imagine that certain power dynamics had been part of his sexual relationships with his female slaves.
284 individuals. In these ways, these concerns penetrate all inter-personal relationships.
While the testaments tell us little about how African conceptions of honor could have influenced the understandings of freed Africans in this regard, they clearly demonstrate the efforts of libertos to be accepted as deserving members of Brazilian society, and to be treated as such. These desires seem to be even more enhanced in the cases where the freed Africans demonstrate a stronger commitment to Brazilianness, sometimes in the form of its extension into the Roman Catholic faith.
In this regard, members of irmandades sought to make sure they had paid all their dues by the time they passed away, a point that will be discussed in greater detail in the context of religion in Chapter IV. Almost everyone similarly sought to make sure their worldly debts had been taken care of by the time they died. They wanted to make amends, and when possible leave something of material or emotional value to the people who had mattered to them during their lives. They sought to make sure that the religious officials who provided them with their final rites were also justly paid, and that executors were appropriately compensated for their efforts. Their insistence on appropriate final rites also found greater meaning in their desire to assert themselves as honorable and dignified members of Brazilian society. At the same time, though, libertos also used their testaments to demand justice for themselves. This was once again linked to the concept of honor, since what they considered as just or unjust was clearly defined within this framework. If they were honorable individuals, it was only just that they be treated as such. At the most basic level, for instance, libertos could take advantage of their testaments to collect debts that were not paid back to them until that time, since they
285 considered it important to be justly and honorably treated even if this took place only post-mortem. These sums might also come in truly useful to make concrete changes in the lives of the people they left behind. While all people everywhere in the world composed testaments to provide for family and friends upon their deaths, Chapter I and II have provided primary evidence for the argument that such concerns became even more essential within the precarious worlds inhabited by Africans. Those with some means almost always sought to make sure that their less privileged peers were protected and provided for. But the repayment of these debts were even more essential to their understandings of what they perceived to be the appropriate treatment they deserved to receive. In both cases, honor was a major concern. Dignified individuals would provide for the people they cared for, as well as those in need within their personal networks.
Honorable persons would also make sure to equip themselves with dignified passages to the afterworld.
Libertos additionally made use of their testaments to bring into light greater injustices committed against their persons. When put into official documentation, such mistreatments would survive freed Africans into eternity and would provide evidence as to the injustices that had been committed against them. From this perspective, the simple fact of recording them must have provided these testators with a certain sense of justice being reclaimed. A significant case in point analyzed in this dissertation is that of Ana
Maria da Silva Rosa41 who was only offered a conditional divorce by the Ecclesiastical
Court from her cheating husband who had also dispersed her material resources on his sexual adventures. I study this case in greater detail in Chapter IV, since Ana Maria’s
41 Book: 09- pp: 59 to 62V
286 sense of personal honor seems to have been deeply linked to her sincere commitment to the Roman Catholic faith. In addition to repeated affirmations of faith, and her active participation and offices in the Bahian irmandades, Ana Maria da Silva Rosa had always been part of Church-sanctified marriages and had seemingly not engaged in any extra- marital relationships. Having lived an honorable life as a Christian member of African origin in Brazilian society, Ana Maria saw the way in which she had been treated by the authorities of the state-ecclesiastical apparatus as a gross injustice against her person. By eternalizing these occurrences in her will, she would at least end up being acknowledged by the authorities upon their death—an acknowledgement she had not been granted during her life. She would be able to tell her own story from her own perspective, and have it survive her death.
Ana Maria da Silva Rosa’s testament is also indicative of the concerns of justice that infiltrated the relationships between freed Africans and their slaves. Ana Maria’s life had been deeply marked by her Africanness, in the ways in which she had been a victim to
Brazilian prejudices about African life, but also in how she had been able to find protection and assistance in her intra-African network, which had also included members of her biological extended family.42 Both African and Brazilian understandings of acceptable behavior on the part of one’s slaves must have played a role in her expectations from the enslaved Africans she held under her ownership and control, which once again remained highly complex. In the final clause of her testament, Ana Maria da
42 Ana Maria da Silva Rosa’s Bahian networks had also included someone who was exceptional within the context of the primarily African worlds that libertos constructed for themselves, as has been previously discussed in Chapter I.
287 Silva Rosa indicated that the “moleque” (young boy) José, of the Benin “nation”43 currently found himself arrested at her request. The liberta stated that she had provided
José with his conditional freedom, even though he had depleted/racked her fazenda
(plantation/farm). But José had continued with his offenses, and actually engaged in violence towards Ana Maria in the form of “bofetadas and pontapés” [slaps and kicks].
Her young slave had thus acted very much against Ana Maria’s understanding of what was “right,” and very much outside the “acceptable” limits of slave behavior. In consequence, he was now perceived as highly “unworthy” and “undeserving” of her favors, and especially of the great gift of freedom. Within the frame of reference regarding justice and honor in place here, the biggest of José’s wrongs had been his lack of gratitude, which was seen as a must on the part of slaves, especially with regards to the privilege of acquiring their freedom. Ana Maria da Silva Rosa therefore requested that
José be brought back to captivity, since he had proven himself to be highly “undeserving” of the benefits that Ana Maria had generously offered him.
José had certainly been incapable of understanding what a great privilege his freedom would have represented as a young enslaved African in Bahia. The dictionary sense of
“moleque” is that of an adolescent. In addition, many other primary documents within my sample demonstrate that the term referred at the oldest to young teenagers in the period in question. So we can infer that José must have been a young African boy, probably around fifteen or so, very recently arrived from Benin. He most probably had a very hard time getting used to his new condition as a slave in the Bahian setting. This would have been
43 This is important, if we keep in mind that Ana Maria herself might have been Gegê, and thus also ethnically close to this young enslaved African boy.
288 the case even if he had not been totally free back in Africa, since Brazilian slave society came with a much stricter understanding of enslavement which derived directly from plantation slavery, with a completely new set of rules and expectations. José must have additionally possessed some of the natural rebelliousness proper to his age, and he probably could not easily grasp why he would have to forcibly serve an African woman who had previously been completely unknown to him. We cannot really speculate as to the kind of role their ethnic closeness might have played in José’s frustrations, but it might also have constituted a factor if he was unable to grasp a sudden change in his realities and in the sort of connections he had previously been exposed to. He must also have been quite incapable of understanding why and how he would have to “deserve” his freedom. In any case, he had clearly acted against Ana Maria’s understandings of
“justice” with regards to her slaves. He had not shown her the necessary “gratitude,” for which he would now be punished.44
José’s case presented dynamics that differed from the usual pattern of slave children usually being treated with greater lenience, although this was more strongly the case for the crias born into one’s own household. However, Ana Maria had initially endowed José with the greater privileges that could be offered to slave children even though he had not been born into her household, but later taken these back when faced with certain attitudes that she did not consider acceptable. In this case, understandings of justice, honor, and gratitude had overridden her other concerns. This was also proven by the fact that, as was often the case, Ana Maria had made more favorable decisions regarding other enslaved
44 José’s case is a clear example of how easily conditional freedom could be revoken in Brazilian slave societies, especially through the invocation of the absence of gratitude on the part of its recipients.
289 children. In her testament, she asked that Alexandre—of around six or seven years of age—was to be considered free, “as if he had been born to a free belly” [como se de ventre livre nascesse], in the common linguistic usage of the time. Alexandre was to live in the company of her executor José Pereira, who was also her niece’s husband, and her niece (and heir) would provide him with the necessary education and apprenticeship in a trade/occupation. In this way, Ana Maria’s wishes with regards to Alexandre underline the difference that the acquisition of occupational skills could make in his life, as well as the need for economic freedom to accompany freedom papers. Probably, Alexandre was a cria, which might have also partly accounted for the more favorable attitude with which his future had been considered in Ana Maria’s testament.45 But he might have equally been African-born like José, since the latter had also initially been provided with certain privileges, which included the gift of being able to acquire his alforria prior to the death of his owner. What was acceptable and what was not within her framework of justice and honor seems to have been the main determinant with regards to Ana Maria da Silva
Rosa’s decisions concerning her slaves who were minors. In contrast to José, Alexandre must have been seen as “dutiful,” “deserving,” and especially “appreciative” and
“grateful”—the characteristics that were most often capable of leading to the reward of freedom.
In return, the slaves who had been able to acquire their freedom often showed gratitude in their own testaments. As discussed in the context of exceptional master-slave relationships in Chapter I, they were capable of leaving small amounts of money as
45 These dynamics could certainly go both ways: Young crioulo slaves could be more obedient for actually having been born into the Brazilian system of slavery and could be favored for being so. Or they could already be favored among other slaves, which would also reflect itself in their attitudes.
290 symbolic tokens of gratitude to their former owners who had provided them with the possibility of gaining their freedom. Similarly, when requesting their last rites, they would sometimes remember benevolent ex-masters—but more often mistresses—,46 who had treated them well. They would refer to kindness and to the education47 that were provided to them, in addition to the possibility of alforria. In all cases, when pondering their own deaths, libertos would remember those masters and mistresses who had helped make the experience of slavery more endurable, and their freedom easier to gain.
Everybody on both sides knew that good treatment, and especially freedom, constituted privileges, not rights, in the worlds of slavery. As masters themselves, freed Africans would also demand obedience, gratitude, and appreciation from their own slaves. These understandings of justice were not part of a system of beliefs that was proper to freed
Africans, but rather to all participants in Brazilian slave society. They serve to demonstrate how libertos internalized the prevalent understandings regarding slavery within Brazilian society, and this internalization also serves to underline the hegemonic nature of slavery and slave ownership within slave societies all over the Atlantic World.
As already stated above, libertos’ understandings of slavery emanated as much from their
African pasts as they did from the Brazilian context. The experience of enslavement was naturalized and a given, while everyone kept seeking out freedom as one of their most important objectives in life.
46 At this juncture, it is also significant that the majority of such arrangements were made by women, and with regards to their former mistresses, pointing to a certain female solidarity perhaps, an argument I have sought to avoid so as to not take the risk of engaging in a certain essentialism of a “female” nature.
47 Several cases studied in this dissertation have demonstrated that such an “education” often referred to the assistance former owners provided their slaves with in their process of adaptation to Brazilian slavery and their incorporation into African communities in Bahia.
291
IV.IV. The Ethnic Dynamics Present in Liberto Slave Ownership
The freed African Bento da Costa, who recorded his testament in 1866, has already been referred to in the previous chapter.48 As with the majority of libertos who referred to sickness and old age as the reasons for composing their testaments, Bento stated being gravely sick and in fear of death at the time he asked for his last wishes to be put into writing. He indicated being from the African Coast and of the Gegê “nation.” I have repeatedly argued in this dissertation that the statement of ethnic identity on the part of freed Africans generally constituted an exception, and that the fact that the majority of these statements came from the Mina/ Gegê essentially derived from their minority status and perceived self-differences in the nineteenth century. In the case of someone like
Bento da Costa, his ethnicity constituted an essential element of his identity, in addition to his Africanness. This indication of ethnicity provides a good place to draw attention to the role it played within the definitions of libertos’ slaves, if not in the self-definitions they provided, in their testaments. While freed Africans exercised their own capacities of choice when deciding if they would define themselves in ethnic terms or not, they would almost invariably provide this information vis-à-vis the slaves they listed among their assets. We have seen that this was even the case for Joaquim de Almeida, whose definitions of even the nine slaves he held under his direct control had been relatively impersonal. Even so, he had not failed to provide their African “nations” among his descriptions. He had also done so with regards to Rosa, who was not his own slave, but still an enslaved person. This significant difference in descriptions derives from the fact
48 04/1465/1934/08
292 that slaves were primarily seen as depositories of wealth in the slave societies of the
Americas. Since Western understandings of African “nations” were mainly the product of
“ethnic clustering” through processes of stereotyping that revolved around the productivity, attitudes, and personality profiles of slaves with regards to their labor and obedience, freed Africans in Salvador also internalized these understandings of ethnicity that were prevalent in Brazil. This was why, even when listing their slaves for reasons of alforria provision, they still referred to their “nations.” But they clearly did not perceive of themselves as repositories of wealth, nor would their self-definitions refer to concerns of obedience or productivity.49 Libertos merged their African and Brazilian identities in order to reconstruct themselves as honorable Brazilian citizens of African origin. For this reason, ethnicity was mostly stated by people who still continued to see it as an important component of their identities in Brazil as in the cases where such descriptions were offered by the state authorities, and to a minor extent by those who were led to do so by the implications of their status as ethnic and cultural minorities among the African population.50
Table 3.9. lists the ethnic identities of the slaves listed by freed Africans in their testaments. While this table provides important information from the perspective of ethnic identifications prevalent in the hegemonic understandings regarding African
49 An argument that goes against this understanding is provided by the fact that libertos list the ethnicity of their spouses/partners more than they refer to their own ethnic identity in their testaments.
50 The exceptional master-slave relationships referred to in Chapter I do demonstrate that some of these took place among members of the same ethnic group. However, there is no sufficient evidence to make such a claim, since ethnicity is never mentioned as a reason why libertos might have favored certain slaves over others, had closer relationships to them, or provided them with the opportunity to gain their alforria to a greater extent than in other cases.
293 slaves, it is essential to underline that ethnicity was never openly asserted to factor into
the decisions regarding the alforria arrangements for libertos’ slaves.51
Table 3.9.a. The Basic Breakdown of Libertos’ Slaves into Brazilian and African Born
* Total number of slaves: 647
Crioulos Africans 100 547 15 % 85 %
Table 3.9.b. The “Nations” of Libertos’ Slaves as Specified in their Wills
Total Angola Calabar Cotocori Gegê Minas Moçam- Nagô Tapa Ussá Unspecified number bique in the of documents African slaves
547 10 2 1 51 8 1 111 3 6 354 % 2 1 1 9 2 1 17 1 1 65
While Table 3.9.a. points to the large majority of the African-born among the slaves
owned by freed Africans in nineteenth-century Salvador, Table 3.9.b. is important
primarily for demonstrating the wide range of ethnic groups present among libertos’
slaves. It also shows that while the Nagô and Gegê/Mina slaves clearly dominated and
surpassed the number of crioulo slaves owned, other non-West African groups (such as
51 Mieko Nishida gives greater importance to ethnicity with regards to the alforria arrangements of African masters: Mieko Nishida. “As alforrias e o papel da etnia na escravidão urbana: Salvador, Brasil, 1808- 1888.” Estudos Econômicos 23.2 (1993): 227-65; Mieko Nishida. Slavery and Identity: Ethnicity, Gender, and Race in Salvador, Brazil, 1808-1888. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003.
294 that made up by enslaved Angolans) still continued to be present in this sample. In addition, many other “nations” were represented in smaller numbers, which testifies to the ethnic diversity of the time period in question.
Ana Josefa do Rego, upon stating that she was from the African Coast in her testament, also added that she was from the Gegê “nation.”52 She had been legally married to Rafael
Cordeiro, whom she stated to (also) be a native of the Mina Coast.53 Rafael died before
Ana, leaving her behind as a widow. As often was the case with Africans, both enslaved and free, the couple had no children. Ana clarified in her testament that this had not only been the case during her marriage, but that she had never had children even as a single woman, and that for this reason she did not have any direct heirs who would be entitled to her material assets. Ana Josefa did not have any specific requests as to how her final rites should take place, but rather left them to the will of her executor, who would take care of her funerary arrangements as they saw fit, which implies that spiritual concerns were not the main reason why she sought to register her last wishes in the form of an official
52 Book: 23 – pp: 7v to 10v and 20v to 30
As discussed earlier, there might be two main reasons for finding this additional information in the testaments belonging to libertos. It might have been a choice on the part of the scribe or the notary, who may have not found it important to record the “nation” of the freed man or woman, who in any case declared herself as being clearly naturalized and a believer of the Catholic faith, as a requirement of such official documentation. On the other hand, it could be a possible indicator of the actual importance the Africans themselves gave to their ethnic identity. Moreover, while many different factors could be at play in the context of such a self-identification, the fact that such assertions are often made by Gegês is in fact significant. As seen earlier, in the Yoruba-dominated nineteenth-century Bahia, Gegês constituted both a minority and one that had been inimical to the Yoruba in West Africa. They often continued to assert themselves as enemies of the Yoruba in Bahia as well, as evidenced by their testimonies in the aftermath of the Malê Rebellion. Most often, minorities cling to their identities with greater strength in different historical contexts. They feel the need to assert their difference, specificity and identity. It is my argument that this was also the case for the Gegê in Bahia at this specific period in time.
53 This fact once again points to minority status, as well as to a certain degree of Slave Coast endogamy.
295 testament. While citing the material assets that she possessed, Ana first referred to some
“insignificant furniture,” and then moved on to indicate in the continuation of the same sentence that she had primarily counted her wealth in her slaves. Among her four slaves,
Antônio was from the Ussá (Hausa) “nation,” Rita and Angélica were also Gegê like Ana
Josefa herself, and Esperança was Nagô.54 Ana also indicated that she was currently the owner of several other slaves, but that she did not include them in her testament for having already provided them with their cartas de liberdade. Among these were also
Felicidade Gegê, to be discussed in more detail below. These documents were currently in the hands of the Sr. Custódio da Silva Ferraz, which probably meant that he would keep them in his possession until her death. In case the latter failed to deliver the freedom papers in question, this verba (clause) of her testament would serve as legal entitlement to freedom for each of Ana Josefa’s libertos. Ana specified in her testament that under no circumstances were Antônio, Rita, Angélica, and Esperança to be inventoried among her post-mortem material assets. The way in which Ana insisted on avoiding such a possibility points once again to the constant danger of losing one’s heard-earned freedom, ever present in the lives of libertos in slave societies all over the Atlantic World. It also underlines libertos’ efforts to protect their slaves at least from the worst of the destinies that could have been their lot—that of resale. Ana Josefa also took advantage of her statement to free Antônio, Rita, Angélica, and Esperança as well. They would gain their freedom eight days after Ana’s death, when the executor of her testament would endow each of them with their cartas de liberdade. And once again, in case the executor failed
54 Once again, we see that libertos were almost as prone to having slaves from their own “nations” as they were prone to owning slaves from others. These occurrences seem to have been more coincidental than anything else.
296 to do so, Ana’s testament itself would serve to guarantee the freedom of these four enslaved Africans.
Finally, Ana Josefa named as her only “universal heir” to the assets that would remain after the execution of her final rites, the above-mentioned Felicidade of the Gegê “nation” who would have continued to live as her slave up to the moment of her death, in spite of having been formally offered her freedom papers. This certainly was reflective of the close bonds that had tied the mistress and slave to one another. Within these bonds, ethnic solidarity could also have played a certain role. While being Gegê had not factored in equal ways into Ana Josefa’s consideration of Rita and Angélica who were also members of the same ethnic group, it could still have factored into their closeness. Ana
Josefa stated having given Felicidade her freedom, “pelo muito amor que lhe tinha”
[because of how much love I had for her], rather than referring to gratitude or good services. For the same reason, Ana Josefa chose Felicidade to be the sole heir to her estate. She also named her ex-slave as her second possible executor, which also pointed to the high level of trust she had in Felicidade. Finally, she even asked her first executor to “defend and protect” her liberta heir in every way possible to him. In all these ways,
Ana Josefa’s testament once again made clear the complexities that dominated
Salvadorean slave society, and for this reason has been analyzed in greater detail in the context of exceptional master-slave relationships in Chapter I. From the perspective of the possible ways in which ethnicity might have factored into master-slave relations, the argument remains the same as what has already been repeated with regards to other bases of kinship formation in Brazil. Ethnicity was probably important in how freed Africans
297 constructed their Bahian lives—more important for some and less for others. In all cases, it was one possible common denominator that brought people together within their identities as Africans in Brazil within a plethora of possibilities. Godparentage, crias, irmandade membership, or close bonds that simply ensued from life experiences were equally as important.
IV.V. Protecting Family Members Or Other Kin (Including One’s Slaves)
Within established understandings and clear limitations, freed Africans in Salvador often related to the plights of enslavement that they had experienced firsthand, and usually did their best to ease the difficulties of their own slaves. The testaments are replete with examples of such efforts. Another reason why masters sometimes chose to keep their slaves in captivity upon their deaths was to ensure the wellbeing of loved ones within their close personal networks. Most of the freed Africans who composed their testaments were old and/or sick by the time they did so. This was often why they were actually pondering their deaths, and many among them indicated already being on their deathbeds.
While they were highly concerned with their final rites being fulfilled in the appropriate ways that would ensure their peaceful transition to the afterworld and while emphasizing their status as honorable and dignified members of Brazilian society, they were often concerned with those who they would be leaving behind as well. I have already argued that while this was usually the case for people approaching their deaths everywhere in the world, it was especially important for African libertos who had lived in the precarious worlds of Brazilian slavery, and known firsthand the predicaments the people they cared for would face. Most freed men chose slaves to accompany their wives or companions
298 until their death. There were also cases where wives or female partners required their slaves to accompany their husbands, although these are more rare to come by in the documents. These spouses/partners were most probably also advanced in years, and often not capable of taking care of themselves, physically or economically. Libertos sought to ensure that they did not leave them behind in difficult conditions. When they had other material assets, they left them these. More often however, they left them slaves. One reason for this was once again that these Africans had counted their wealth primarily in people. Another was that these enslaved people were capable of taking care of the health, daily lives, domestic work, and especially of the sustenance of people whom they greatly cared for, all at the same time.
Bento da Costa himself stated having been the slave of the late Matheus da Costa, to whom he had paid Rs. 150$000 in return for his alforria. When placed in a comparative context, we have seen that this sum could be stated to be even on the lower side of the well-accepted norms for alforria values, as well as constituting a quite manageable amount of money for an escravo de ganho to put together in nineteenth-century Salvador.
In his turn, Bento was the “senhor e possuidor” [“master and owner”] of a slave named
Guilherme whom he indicated to be Nagô. On the event of his death, Bento offered
Guilherme his freedom, with no conditions involved, “in recognition of the good services that he had always offered him.” Bento da Costa must have also been sufficiently fond of
Guilherme, since he also sought to guarantee his financial wellbeing by leaving him the sum of Rs. 40$000. It was not common for masters to also leave money to the slaves whom they had already provided with the gift of (especially unconditional) freedom. Not
299 only had Bento done something exceptional in freeing Guilherme unconditionally,55 he had also left him a sum that was not negligible, and capable of making a difference with regards to Guilherme’s survival and wellbeing. In other ways though, Guilherme’s case presented some of the dynamics common to the slave alforrias offered by African masters, in that it underlined the appreciation for life-long good services. Accordingly,
Bento da Costa had even included the offering of a monetary token of gratitude for
Guilherme in his will. While Bento felt grateful for Guilherme’s attitude (which must have included gratitude) and services, he would also receive post-mortem gratitude from
Guilherme for his efforts. Here, good services were understood within the context of
“justice,” which formed a constant subtext for almost all master-slave relationships, and included complex calculations of obligations and appropriate responses. The relationship between Bento and Guilherme could have been one of great friendship and camaraderie; it might indeed have been one that could have been included within the discussion of exceptional master-slave relationships provided in Chapter I, had there been more descriptive evidence in the testament. In this case, Bento da Costa did not offer any additional details or reasons. Rather, he has simply placed his decisions within the widely accepted framework of gratitude and deserving.
But Bento da Costa was also able to act in this way, simply because he was sufficiently well off to be able to free Guilherme without any limiting conditions. Of course, it is also
55 Ignácio Soares de Sá, who registered his will in 1879, liberated his seven slaves unconditionally. However, he stated that if the required sums were greater than his “third,” the said slaves would be required to pay the remaining sums themselves. Ignácio’s case constitutes another clear example of libertos seeking to facilitate their slaves’ alforria as much as possible. It also shows that this could only take place within their possibilities, and once again that these arrangements would take place only as long as they did not intervene with other personal provisions that were important to the testators (Book: 55 – pp: 38v to 42).
300 possible that Bento’s attitudes towards freedom, and his relationship to his slave, were different. This is likely, since his testament shows that Bento da Costa only had three slaves at the time he registered his will. All three must have been either in household service or escravos de ganho who hired out their services. The loss of even one of them could have directly affected the wellbeing of Bento himself or of his dependents, had his financial situation been more precarious. Yet we also cannot know if his attitude would have been different if he had depended on Guilherme’s alforria money for paying off a debt, or for the realization of his final rites. In this specific instance, Bento da Costa had the financial means to be openly generous in his demonstrations of appreciation and gratitude. As Guilherme became free, he would be given both his carta de liberdade and the above-indicated sum by Bento’s executor, while he would also be free of any
“desconto de sellos” (legal stamp fees) or any other charges that might result from the legal proceedings. If necessary, these and other expenditures would also be paid for by the money Bento left purposefully for such dispositions.
Meanwhile, Bento da Costa also left his slave Raimundo the smaller Rs. 10$000.
Raimundo had been offered his freedom papers by Bento’s late wife upon her death, although on one common condition—that he accompany and remain in the service of her husband Bento da Costa. While there are many cases of freed African men making such provisions for their wives or partners in their testaments, those of libertas making such arrangements for their spouses are few and far between. This might be because wives often survived their husbands as women often tended to live longer, and/or because they needed greater amounts of support in order to survive alone in patriarchal Brazilian
301 society. The dynamics must have been different in Bento’s case however, since he had outlived his wife and she had been the one who had sought to protect him after her own death. Since Bento da Costa only had three slaves, the presence or absence of each one could have affected his wellbeing. It is also possible that one or two of the other slaves had been acquired after the death of Bento’s wife, and that at the time of her death, she had seen Raimundo’s accompaniment of her husband as essential. As a result, in spite of already having been given his legal alforria, it would only be upon Bento’s death that
Raimundo would actually acquire his de facto freedom. We do not know how much time had passed since his wife’s death by the time Bento prepared his will nor how much more time would have passed by the time he actually passed away. It could have been years. If this were the case, the gift of freedom, which had previously been offered on paper would have meant little to Raimundo, and it was only now that he would actually be able to enjoy its privileges. But it was also possible that little would change in Raimundo’s life.
He could have also had a close relationship to Bento da Costa, and had primarily accompanied him more as a friend or a companion than a slave. Under such conditions, freedom would not have made a major difference in Raimundo’s life. In fact, as in some cases, it could have even represented a turn for the worse, as could sometimes be the case for those enslaved people who were old, with little occupational skills and labor capacities remaining, as well as with very meager financial resources or other support networks. Since they could not have envisaged constructing a truly independent life for themselves, their acquisition of freedom would mainly imply a different kind of dependency, which would change principally in name, and not so much in actual
302 substance or reality. In worse cases, they would not even have anyone on whom they could depend.
Beyond all such possibilities, however, these arrangements on the part of African slave owners remained a common occurrence. While freed Africans might indeed have sought to provide protection for their slaves as well in making these arrangements at times, they especially sought to ensure the wellbeing of their loved ones and the members of their more intimate personal networks upon their deaths. Slaves proved to be an essential instrument in this process. In making the decisions as to who would remain in captivity or be sold in order to take care of whom, or who would be protected by whose alforria money, libertos once again engaged in complex calculations. Their decisions had a lot to say as to who the people who were more important or closer to them were, or as to whose freedom could be sacrificed or put on hold for the wellbeing of those who mattered more.
In these ways, these clauses in libertos’ wills point to the different levels of personal relationships that dominated in their worlds. They are also reflective of the ways in which freed Africans were capable of exercising important degrees of agency in shaping these very worlds, and to a certain extent the lives of other people within them. For Raimundo on the other hand, these complex calculations could either signify the acquisition of his long-awaited freedom upon Bento’s death, or a difficult time to come in the absence of his former master’s patronage and protection.
The difficulties of being truly free even when possessing de jure freedom are also demonstrated by one of the clauses that appear towards the end of Bento’s will. The
303 arrangements he sought to make here also point to the ways in which Africans, enslaved and free, rich and poor, sought to look out for each other in nineteenth century Salvador, where relationships of patronage and protection were a necessary part of life and became even more evident with regards to the perils of life in a slave society. When pondering life after his own death, Bento da Costa also remembered the “velha” [old woman] Joana, who was blind, and lived in the same neighborhood as Bento and many other libertos—
Rio Vermelho, located within the peri-urban parish of Brotas. An esmola (alms) of Rs.
10$000 would also be handed to Joana, independent of any possible expenses, upon
Bento’s death. This sum was equal to the legacy Bento had left his ex-slave Raimundo, who had accompanied him throughout his life, in spite of being legally manumitted upon his wife’s death. Judging from the description, Joana was a freed African close to the end of her life just like Bento, but she had ended up in different financial circumstances. Her blindness had probably caused her to be incapable of working (even though she might have gone blind when she was already old and unable to work), causing her to be dependent on others who were part of her personal networks and surroundings. In addition to being a symbolic token, this relatively small sum of money could still have been capable of making a difference in the life of an old, poor, and sick African woman.
This was not an exceptional bequest on Bento’s part, since freed Africans often sought to help their counterparts in more difficult circumstances throughout their lives, and not only when they were close to their end. Most probably, Bento had been of assistance to
Joana in different ways during his lifetime as well, and she must have mattered to him in affective terms. In any case, she was on Bento’s mind as he reflected upon his death, what he would want to out in writing for it to survive into eternity, and the mark he
304 would want to leave upon life post-mortem. Bento chose to leave Joana at least a small sum of money, and the fact that she was chosen over many other people within his close community of people (which could easily have included others in situations similar to
Joana’s) pointed to life-long bonds of affection and friendship that had existed between the two libertos.
Bento da Costa’s efforts to reduce the hardships that could be witnessed by his slaves upon his death did not stop there. In addition, while the complex calculations he engaged in did not make provisions for the freedom of one enslaved person, they still sought to better his lot within those limits. The small mud house covered with straw that Bento possessed was already discussed in Chapter II within the context of the material lives and living arrangements of freed Africans. Bento left this house, all its “trastes velhos” [old junk] and anything else that may be found in it, as well as the products of the surrounding plantation/vegetable garden, to his slaves Guilherme and Luiz, once again in consideration of their good services. This arrangement is an example of how alforria was not the only element that factored into the calculations of libertos, even though it usually was the most important element. But even in the cases where other obligations made it so that offering freedom to an enslaved person was not a viable option, freed Africans could seek to make other arrangements geared towards bettering their lot. Along the same lines, after indicating the funerary services that he requested, Bento da Costa asked for the remainder of his material assets to be handed over to his godson Tibério José de Espírito
Santo, and once more to his slaves Guilherme and Luiz.56 No mention at all was made of
56 This complicated bequest on Bento’s part that left a legacy to be divided among two of his slaves and his godson (whose status with regards to freedom we do not know) also points to compadrio as an important
305 Luiz’s alforria, while he was clearly taken into consideration in Bento da Costa’s bequests of his material wealth. He would most probably end up as the slave of Bento’s godson Tibério, from whom he would have to seek his alforria according to the latter’s own conditions. It is also possible that he would not even do so, if his relationship with
Tibério would in any way come to resemble the one that Bento had probably had to his slaves. Additionally, the three individuals were now directly connected to one another through Bento’s bequests, and it is quite possible that this had also been a protective arrangement on the part of Bento da Costa. The fact that Bento had included Tibério and his two slaves in the same clause when bequeathing his assets could make for interesting relationships to develop among the three. Bento had probably envisaged these to work in
Luiz’s favor, but in his continued status as an enslaved person, Luiz would also be much more vulnerable to any mistreatments that could result from grudges or other such feelings, especially on the part of Tibério. The nuances in a master’s relationship to his/her slaves could often be highly complicated and paradoxical, and translated into many complicated calculations on the part of the testators when the time came for putting down their bequests. In this case we cannot know what, for Bento da Costa, differentiated
Guilherme from Luiz. Yet, it was clear that he favored the former over the latter.
Raimundo was also favored in Bento’s testament, but his situation seems to have represented different dynamics. Already in possession of his freedom, he was offered a much smaller sum of money as a gift. It may have been that he was in better financial circumstances, and required less assistance than Guilherme did. Perhaps, Bento had already assisted him in other ways. The three enslaved people in question probably found
institution of kinship in freed African life, but only one among many bases of kinship networks, as has already been argued in Chapter I.
306 themselves in distinct economic and social circumstances, as well as in different moments within their lives and in varying states of health. Added to these were probably other differences in the ways in which Bento da Costa had related to them on a personal level. Now, they were forever tied to one another through the provisions Bento made in his testament.
IV.VI. Complicated Calculations and Selectivity with Regards to Libertos’ Slaves
Bento Martins da Costa,57 a single freed Gegê man who lived in the Ladeira do Carmo, had been the slave of Antônio Martins da Costa, to whom he had paid the once again reasonable sum Rs. 150$000 in return for his freedom. To his ex-master, for the
“education” he had received from him, Bento Martins da Costa left a small token of his gratitude—a small sum of a thousand réis to be handed over to him or to the “sucessores dos seus bens” [the successors to his material assets] in case of his having passed away before Bento.58 With this symbolic token, Bento sought to show his appreciation for the benevolent ways in which he had been treated by Antônio Martins da Costa, in addition to having been provided with the opportunity to buy his freedom, a right that could easily be and was often withheld. Antônio had set Bento’s alforria at an attainable price, and perhaps had helped him in other ways as well during and after his enslavement. The education Bento Martins referred to would have had a lot to do with his process of adaptation to the system of slavery in Brazil, while it could also possibly refer to the fact that his African master had provided him with occupational training and other skills
57 03/1017/1485/3
58 Many such arrangements are encountered within my documents, a few more detailed and exceptional cases having been studied in detail in Chapter I.
307 necessary for his survival in Brazil. It could have also referred to the relatively good treatment he had received from his ex-master, put in the linguistic formula of slavery where masters would “educate” their slaves in return for their labor. In any case, Bento
Martins da Costa had remembered his ex-master while reflecting on his own death and on the people who had shaped his life in Bahia. However, since Bento Martins did not know if Antônio was still alive or if he had already passed away, the two had drifted apart and their relationship had not been particularly close. Bento Martins was mainly propelled by his wish to provide his former master with a symbolic token of gratitude.
For Bento Martins da Costa, as well as for the majority of libertos who had spent their lives in worlds of slavery in both Africa and Brazil, intra-African master-slave relationship were not at all unnatural. They did not impede close connections between masters and slaves, nor did slave status serve as a barrier in the creation of personal networks among Africans or in the ways they related to one another. Bento Martins da
Costa himself owned six slaves, among whom three were African-born like himself, and the other three Brazilian-born. Joana, Maria and Domingos were all Nagô, while Luiza and Saturnina were crioulas. Camilo, was stated to be cabra and therefore was a
Brazilian-born enslaved person of mixed race. With the exception of Maria Nagô, all five were to be given their freedom papers upon the death of Bento Martins da Costa. Maria then, was the single slave who Bento had selected as the person who would serve as guarantee to the realization of his final rites by his executor. Freed Africans could not expect or trust that their executors would pay for their funerals, as well as for the masses and other final rites that they requested from their own resources, simply out of a sense of
308 duty or obligation if they were not guaranteed their eventual financial compensation.
Often, their executors were also freed Africans in similar financial circumstances, and would not have had the resources to do so even if they had the willingness or the necessary sense of duty. The libertos needed to provide for their own final rites, and as they often possessed the majority of their wealth in slaves, that was how they were able to pay for them. Chapter IV of this dissertation will elaborate on the centrality of funerals and other final rites in the lives of the majority of African libertos in nineteenth-century
Bahia, and will clearly posit that the preoccupation with the safe passage of one’s soul to the afterlife constituted one of the main reasons why libertos composed their testaments in the first place. Accordingly, Maria Nagô was “coartada” for the sum of Rs. 200$000, upon the payment of which she would be immediately handed her freedom papers. Bento
Martins da Costa clearly indicated that the money that came from Maria’s alforria would be used for the funerary services, including Bento’s burial and all the required masses that he specified were to be held upon his death. As usual, the testament offers no indication as to what could have differentiated Maria Nagô from Bento’s other slaves.
Perhaps a greater ability to pay for her alforria was at play here, or perhaps a less favorable relationship with or less acceptable attitude towards her master. Once again, the two Africans could have also made the arrangement together. In any case, Maria was also offered the possibility to purchase her freedom once she had financially compensated
Bento’s executor for the funerary services that her master had specifically requested.
In addition to the allocation of the proceeds from the alforria of one of his slaves towards his last rites, Bento Martins da Costa also followed the common pattern of favoring his
309 crias in the manumission arrangements that he made. He openly stated in his testament that he considered Luiza, Saturnina, and Camilo as his own children. As explained above,
Luiza and Saturnina were Brazilian-born minors, while Camilo was also of mixed race.
But Bento did not make any differences among his three young slaves, and left his
“trastes de casa” [household knickknacks] to be shared among them. All these Brazilian- born children had either been born into Bento’s household, or at least spent an important part of their lives there. Bento did not make any references to the ages of Luiza and
Saturnina, but he clearly stated that Camilo was a minor at the time the testament was put into writing, a specification which could possibly suggest that the two others were no longer minors. Once again, there is no indication as to any possible familial ties that might have tied the crias to their master. Bento Martins simply explained that he considered his crias to be like his own children and included them in his bequests. Their being crioulos also seems to have mattered only to the extent that he had been able to know them either since their birth or as young children, and had spent many years in their company, assisting their growth, and participating in their education and daily lives. It was expected that he would feel more protective towards them in ways he did not feel towards his African slave Maria. As an adult with sufficient skills and connections through which she could be expected to pay for her alforria, Maria Nagô would also have needed less protection than these young slave children. In this way, Bento Martins da
Costa also followed the prevalent pattern in libertos’ testaments of favoring crias over adult African slaves. But as in most cases, origin does not seem to have been the primary shaper in these decisions. Rather, it was the youth of these enslaved youngsters, and the affective ties that Bento had developed to them over the years, that were primarily at
310 stake. Another very probable explanation in this specific case is that Maria Nagô was mother to at least some of these slave children, and had sought their freedom by offering her alforria money to cover the final rites of Bento Martins da Costa.
In spite of the fact that all of Bento’s other slaves were favored over Maria, her alforria had also been set at a reasonable price, in addition to there being no specified limit of time within which she needed to pay for her freedom at the risk of being returned to captivity had she not been able to do so. This provides stronger proof for the idea that
Bento and Maria might in fact have come to personal arrangements regarding Maria’s alforria, and that Bento trusted her to do so as soon as possible. Most probably an escrava de ganho, the payment of her alforria would not have been extremely difficult for Maria. If she had actually been able to secure the freedom of her children in this way, this arrangement had certainly been an advantageous one for Maria. From Bento’s perspective, on the other hand, Maria’s continued enslavement and the payment of her alforria represented a necessary condition for his dignified and safe passage to the afterworld. It was almost like a necessary evil. Most probably, these decisions were actually not so complicated and philosophical for a liberto like Bento who had spent his whole life in the worlds of slavery on both sides of the Atlantic, and who himself had had to pay to free himself from bondage from his former master. He simply needed the money for the realization of his last rites, and it would have to come from his wealth in people. He still sought to make provisions to guarantee that Maria would be able to gain her freedom. In any case, Maria’s Brazilian-born and African companions in slavery, even his crias, had also had to wait for their freedom, which they were only able to
311 acquire upon the death of their master. And so had Bento Martins da Costa himself remained enslaved until he was able to pay for his own alforria, even though he had still been able to receive his freedom papers while his master was still alive.59
Similar complex calculations and arrangements were also present in the case of José
Paraíso who was a freed African baptized in the Freguesia do Pilar.60 While he did not mention any land or real estate among his material assets, he indicated that he possessed the majority of his wealth in people. He owned a total of eight slaves, which was a relatively significant number for a freed African. Of these enslaved people, Joaquina,
Joana, Felicidade, Maria, and Antônio were all Nagô, while Francisca, Vicência,
Gertrudis and Luiz were crioulos. It is worthy of note that José did not own slaves of any other African “nation.” While this might have indicated that José himself was Nagô, it may have also implied more specific bonds going further back among these enslaved
Africans themselves. Perhaps they had been sold as a group, or they may have had familial ties to one another. This fact may of course have been purely coincidental as well. In this case, José Paraiso privileged his Brazilian-born slaves over his African ones in his testament, but their alforrias were also conditional. He wanted Francisca, Vicência,
Gertrudis and Luiz to begin to “enjoy their freedom” right upon his death, with the common condition that they would agree to live in the company of José’s companion
Maria Angélica de Aleluia. Maria Angélica was also a freed African of the Gegê
59 However, in this context, the testaments once again constitute a flawed sample, since the slaves freed prior to their composition are mentioned only very rarely within their clauses. Almost always, the testaments solely refer to the slaves who will be freed upon the death of the testators and to the slaves whose alforrias were set at the time of the testament’s dictation, as well as occasionally to the individuals whose cartas de liberdade were passed so recently that the testament was actually necessary to ratify their status as freed men and women.
60 Book: 42 – pp: 91 to 93
312 “nation,” which made it a greater possibility for José to be Gegê himself, in light of the greater assertion of ethnic identity and ethnic endogamy evidenced on the part of the members of this ethnic group in the nineteenth century. While this might also have implied complex dynamics within José’s relationship to his Nagô slaves, even constituting a possible reason for their alforria not being among José’s testamentary provisions, there are no direct references to such dynamics in the documents, as is unexceptionally the case in my entire sample. It is also possible that the reason why José chose to liberate his Brazilian-born slaves over his African ones was simply that these were also his crias, but they were never openly stated as such in his testament. If this were the case, their staying with Maria Angélica de Aleluia would be no punishment, since they almost certainly had close bonds to their mistress. While the inability to be able to make their own decisions concerning their own lives could have been a source of frustration for some, there being no major changes in their lives and not having to face any news worries with regards to their livelihood (such ashaving to look for a new place of dwelling, etc) could also have constituted positive factors from the perspective of the four crioulos. Presumably, Maria Angélica de Aleluia would not have treated them differently than how José Paraiso had. These arrangements would also work clearly to
Maria Angélica de Aleluia’s favor, as she would be protected and accompanied, and most probably also financially supported, upon her companion’s death. José had made it a point that his long-time companion would not be lonely and without protection. Since their relationship was not a Church-sanctified marriage, providing for Maria Angélica was probably among the main reasons why José had prepared his will. If he had not done so, Maria Angélica de Aleluia would not have been able to assert herself as José’s
313 legitimate heir. On the other hand, José did not mention the possibility of alforria for his remaining four African slaves in the remainder of the document, pointing to the fact that their fate would be in the hands of his long-time companion. There was a large possibility that they would remain enslaved.
This understanding is enhanced by the fact that Maria Angélica de Aleluia had José
Paraíso’s material wealth, consisting only of his slaves, inventoried upon his death. This inventory provides us with significant and more detailed information on the conditions and occupations of these slaves, as post-mortem inventories always do in contradistinctions to testaments. The most valuable of the slaves assessed was the Nagô
Antônio who was stated to be “moço” and thus a young man in his prime at the height of his productivity. He also had a profession, which would also have increased his price;
Antônio was a barber. Consequently, he was valued at the high sum of Rs. 1:200$000.
Joana Nagô, in turn, was indicated to be of serviço de ganho. She did not have any sicknesses, and was also valued at the high sum of one conto (Rs. 1:000$000). Joana was also capable of providing a valuable source of income through her ability to hire out her labor. Joaquina Nagô was indicated to possess the exact same characteristics and was thus valued at the same amount. They two women might have been valued at less than
Antônio on account of their gender or age, or most probably for not being as skillful in the absence of a more specific occupation. The high values they were given were in stark contrast with the alforria prices that were set for most slaves by their masters. This fact enhances the argument that these prices were often simply set at the necessary minimum necessary to guarantee payment of debts, the final rites of their masters, or a certain level
314 of protection for their loved ones. On other hand, it is also true that libertos’ wills never refer to the slaves they might have sold at higher prices prior to the time of their composition, nor to the ones they may already have manumitted conditionally or unconditionally. I continue to argue that while African masters did not really differ from
White or Brazilian-born Black slave owners in their understandings of slave ownership and their general attitudes towards their slaves, they often did seek to facilitate the acquisition of their freedom within limits that corresponded to their sense of “justice” and did not put their own needs at risk. While this might also have been the case for all
Brazilian slave masters independent of their origin or race, the firsthand experience of slavery certainly factored into the understandings and decisions of libertos.
In the same inventory, Maria, another Nagô slave working outside of the house, was valued at a bit less: Rs. 800$000. Since she was also a ganhadeira, it is not probable that this was because she was less skilled than the others. It is much more likely that she was more advanced in years, which in her case had translated to being valued at Rs. 200$000 than the other two women. Finally, Felicidade Nagô was valued at an even lesser amount—Rs. 550$000. In her case, the reason was clearly given when it was stated that she was not in good health like the others.61 Felicidade Nagô was “afectada do ar”
[affected by air], which probably meant that she had asthma. Her state of health was taken into account in the assesment, and substantially lowered her price. While their values differed to a certain extent depending on their gender, ages, occupations, earning
61 This fact directly points to the ways in which sickness and disease factored into the lives of both enslaved and freed Africans, in whose testaments sickness immediately followed old age as the main reason for preparing these in the first place.
315 capacities, and health conditions, even the least expensive of these enslaved Africans was valued at more than half a conto de réis. Taking into account that the majority of alforrias were set for under Rs. 300$000, these calculations serve as evidence to the fact that most masters made the conditions of their freedom as easily attainable as possible for those slaves whose alforria revenues were needed to realize the conditions of their wills.
IV.VII. Differences in the Degree of Commitment to Slave Ownership
Commitment to slave ownership was not only a question of having the necessary material means to own slaves or not. In fact, there were some relatively rich freed Africans who had chosen not to invest their wealth in slaves, or who at least had provided these individuals with their freedom prior to registering their testaments. Antônio da Silveira, for example, had a total of nine houses, as already discussed in Chapter II.62 Some of these were quite small, yet their total value was still significant, especially when considering that Antônio also possessed land of his own. His houses and plantations constituted the main form in which he had chosen to invest his wealth, and he owned no slaves at the time that he started fearing for his imminent death. But the fact that Antônio da Silveira counted almost all his wealth in land and real estate, at a time when he was not even legally allowed to invest his money in this way, points to his having exercised a certain degree of agency in this regard. In general, most libertos who were not slave owners were also much poorer than he was. Antônio da Silveira had the means to have wealth in people, and he seems to have consciously chosen not to do so.63
62 Book: 11 – Pp: 32v to 33v
63 In this sense, he was probably similar to the group of libertos within João Reis’ sample among which only one African was the owner of a single slave.
316
Gertrudes Vaz de Souza,64 who was over ninety years old when she had her testament recorded, had been the slave of Manoel Vaz de Souza. The material assets she owned only included the slave Bemvinda from the Nagô “nation,” in addition to the straw house she owned in Itapuã, already discussed in Chapter II. Since she was the only slave that
Gertrudes owned, Bemvinda was most probably a house slave. Gertrudes Vaz de Souza did not refer to the possible alforria of Bemvinda in her testament, indicating the possibility that she might pass on to her heirs as their slave. However, once again this appears as one of those cases where the lack of alforria provisions did not mean that
Gertrudes was simply not concerned with Bemvinda’s freedom or wellbeing. One of the factors that shaped her decision could certainly have been that since Bemvinda was the only asset in addition to the straw house that Gertrudes was able to leave her heirs, she did not want to deprive them of half of what already a meager legacy. But a more plausible explanation as to why Gertrudes acted in this way is that Bemvinda was also probably approaching the end of her life, having accompanied a mistress who by then was over ninety years-old, as Gertrudes openly stated in her testament. This represented an exceptionally long life within the comparative context of the time, and Bemvinda could not have been a young woman either. If this were the case, if Gertrudes actually freed Bemvinda, her chances of being able to create an independent life for herself would have been very little, unless she had a good support system within her community of enslaved and freed Africans. Freedom did not always represent the best option in the lives of enslaved people, and not providing someone with their freedom upon one’s own
64 Book: 41 – pp: 42 to 44
317 death did not necessarily imply that they cared less for these individuals.65 In Bemvinda’s case, this would have meant that Gertrudes was in fact being considerate with regards to her slave. Once again, the discussions involving freedom presented highly complex dynamics which are very hard to decipher from libertos’ wills. Relationships among freed African masters and their slaves encompass a realm that covers all the complexities proper to human relationships. While it is important to identify certain patterns among these, it is also essential to remember that the possibilities are myriad.
What makes the above interpretation even more credible is the fact that, on various previous occasions, Gertrudes Vaz de Souza had given their freedom to Sabina Maria do
Sacramento and to her daughter Maria de São Pedro, to Felipa Vaz de Souza, and to
Helena de Souza. Gertrudes’ specific references to the slaves that she had previously provided with their freedom also points to the fact that this might have been the case for other freed Africans, even though it was not openly indicated in their wills. The reason why these arrangements were openly stated in this case was that Gertrudes took advantage of her testament in order to confirm the freedom of the slaves whom she had previously provided with their alforria. Even though they had already been in possession of their freedom for quiet some time by then, the danger of re-enslavement was a black cloud that constantly loomed over the heads of all freed people in the African Diaspora.
Freedom was fragile, and the presence of freedom papers was its sine qua non. Even when they did exist, such official documentation could disappear or at times even be conveniently ignored. If freedom could be confirmed in more than one document, it
65 In fact, examples from all over the African Diaspora abound as to the cases where slave owners only chose to free their slaves when these had largely lost their productivity and when, as a result, they no longer wanted to be responsible for their accommodation or upkeep.
318 would invariably be to the advantage of libertos. This was the main reason why libertos often sought to use their testaments to reaffirm the freedom of their former slaves.66 In
Gertrudes’ case, it also seems to underline a greater concern about their wellbeing.
Like Gertrudes, Luiz Mendes67 stated that he was the owner of a single slave named João.
Since he was the only slave in existence, it was expected that he would be required to pay the quantities necessary for Luiz’s burial and other funerary requests to his executor upon the death of his master. Once these requirements were satisfied, the executor would have
João’s carta de liberdade prepared. However, if João was unable to do so within the space of one year, which constituted a relatively short time frame in comparison with other such provisions encountered in libertos’ wills, the destiny that awaited João was the one most feared by enslaved people upon the deaths of their masters. He would be taken to the praça in order to be sold, and Luiz’s requests would be paid for from his value. As stated above, this fate is very rarely encountered among the provisions that freed Africans
66 This might also have been de facto rather than de jure, meaning that they would be in danger of losing it upon the death of their former master in the absence of an official document. The danger of losing one’s freedom in the absence of the necessary papers to constantly prove it to the authorities almost always accompanied Africans and African-descendants in the Atlantic world has been cites at numerous points in this dissertation.
Another testament that is noteworthy with regards to this question of the “precarious nature of freedom” in Atlantic slave societies is that of Gertrudes Maria do Espírito Santo, which I do not analyze in detail in this chapter, since I consider it primarily important not with regards to Gertrudes’ own slaves, but especially vis-à-vis the African woman Joana da Conceição, who lives in her company. At the time Gertrudes composed her testament, Joana was “coartada,” which meant that her alforria and the time frame for its fulfillment were set, and the payments parceled. In this state, while Joana could live as a free person in many aspects—hence her being part of Joana’s household—, she still remained in an intermediary position between slavery and freedom. In her testament, Gertrudes assets to having lent Joana the money necessary for her freedom, which she normally would also be required to pay back in parts. However, she also adds that even if Joana is unable to pay her back, she pardons her debt and thus guarantees Joana’s freedom in a testamentary clause. Moreover, Getrudes also portrays a similar attitude towards her “crias”—the female children of her female slaves—, using her testament to guarantee their freedom, stating that even of here executor fails to provide them with their cartas de liberdade, their freedom is to be guaranteed by that specific clause in her testament (Book: 13 – pp: 9v to 15).
67 Book: 44 – pp: 66 to 67
319 made in their testaments. While Luiz Mendes had his slave face a scary destiny through the possibility of being sold at the slave market, this did not mean that he did not care at all about his freedom or wellbeing. Luiz in fact established João as the heir to his house made of straw, as well as to the small plantation that he possessed on the same land, both of which were previously discussed in Chapter II. These assets—and especially the garden— could go a certain way in assisting João in the acquisition of his freedom, and thus have a significant effect in altering his destiny. Conversely, the expenses for the testament and inventory were also to be paid for from João’s sale value unless he was able to provide the necessary sums himself. As we have seen, slaves often constituted the main collateral that would guarantee a dignified passage to the afterworld for their owners. It was clear that these provisions were of central importance to Luiz, and since he owned only owned a single slave, all the responsibility fell on João. The only real difference from the cases where libertos owned more than one slave was that Luiz
Mendes had not faced any complex calculations in deciding whose alforria money would be set apart for the payment of his last rites. Either he had made the decision much earlier when he freed other enslaved people he might have owned, or the decision was actually made for him in their absence. Necessities often collided with good intentions and wishes in the complex world of slavery. Thus, someone could simultaneously be an heir to a liberto and potentially face the nightmare of the praça. In addition, João was Luiz
Mendes’ only heir, which clearly points to the fact that in making these decisions Luiz was solely moved by his need for dignified funeral, which he must have considered highly important. The sums that João was required to pay would probably still end up being lower than an alforria settlement as well as much lower than his market value, and
320 along with the addition of the legacy his master had bequeathed him, his freedom would have been largely facilitated. This conclusion is also enhanced by the information provided in the post-mortem inventory that ensued upon the death of Luiz Mendes. Here,
João is stated to having been older than thirty at the time and employed “ao serviço de lavoura” [in plantation/farm labor]. He was also valued at the very high sum of Rs.
1:200$000. This shows that his financial responsibilities to his late master were in fact much lower than his value. Also, since he was a farm laborer and was allotted land (and probably tools, etc), there existed no real reason why he would not be able to come up with the necessary sums. Indeed, the successive documents attached to the testament and inventory demonstrate that João was able to fulfill all his post-mortem responsibilities to his master and to receive his freedom. The wide gap that existed between his financial responsibilities and even the reasonably set alforria amounts usually encountered in libertos’ testament (and especially the even wider gap between those responsibilities and his actual market value) confirm the understanding that guaranteeing his freedom had actually been important to his ex-master, even though he had chosen a very unusual way to do so while also guaranteeing the fulfillment of his final rites.
With regards to the gaps between sale values, alforria prices, and other arrangements regarding freedom, another significant case is presented by the intestate death of the freed
African Antônio Mendes.68 His heirs proceeded to the amicable partition of his material assets, which was already analyzed from the angle of his other material assets in Chapter
II. Among these were several slaves, none of whom were younger than forty years old, which would have normally been the case for the majority of the slaves that belonged to
68 Book: 30 – pp: 32v to 36v
321 African libertos who died in old age, except for their crias. This inventory is both significant and relevant for the actual descriptive details that it provides on the enslaved people in question. The youngest among them, the 40 year-old Nagô man named Felipe was valued at Rs. 800$000. The inventory indicated that his right leg was crooked, which was probably the reason for his somewhat lower market value. Then came the Angola
Delfina, who appeared to be around forty-five. She was valued at the same price as Felipe with no reason being stated, so both gender and an age difference of five years, which may have implied lower productivity and earnings, could have factored into this decision.
No professsions were provided for either Felipe or Delfina. While these two enslaved
Africans were still relatively young and productive, the two other slaves Antônio Mendes left behind were stated to be very old. Both were Nagô. Constantino was valued at Rs.
150$000 and Domingas at Rs.100$000. The latter also had the misfortune of being sick at the time, which was also a factor in her being valued at such a low price.69 From this perspective, the majority of alforria values that were set by libertos for their slaves seem to be quite close to the sale values of those slaves who were very advanced in years and no longer capable of work for the most part.
69 The evaluation also included a sad detail, which is however useful as a basis of comparison. Antônio Mendes had also left behind a male calf among his material assets, and it was valued at the exact same price as Domingas, namely Rs. 100$000. Such clear calculations provide us once again with the important perspective that by the time African libertos approached their own deaths, providing their slaves who also were no longer young in most cases with set alforria prices almost always worked to their own material advantage. Moreover, it also demonstrates that the provision of alforria was not always the best option for slaves who had already reached old age. A slave like Domingas would not have been able to survive alone in Salvador, let alone pay for her freedom. Domingas might have had a support network that could have protected and assisted her, but it is equally possible that many members of her community had also passed away by then, and that she would be bound to lead a lonely and precarious existence.
In Caetana Says No…, Sandra Lauderdale Graham also writes about how alforrias could separate family members or other people with close bonds to one another within a community. While some were freed and moved away, others would remain in the place of their enslavement (42).
322 IV.VIII. The “Precarious Nature of Freedom” and the Terrifying Prospect of the Praça
Another significant example among the documents that sheds light on the “precarious nature of freedom” in nineteenth-century Salvador can also help us better understand the traumatic prospect of being resold at the praça or slave market. On 14 June 1866, there took place the official gathering of the material assets of Helena, an African liberta who had recently passed away.70 There was a major impediment to the legal process, however, since a crioula slave named Maria had chosen to flee and hide away from the state officials, taking her three children with her. The authorities would certainly have taken possession of her and aken her to the slave market for sale in the absence of freedom papers, or alforria provisions that were officially recorded in a testament. Since Helena had died intestate and also did not have any direct heirs, there was nobody else who could intervene and make more favorable decisions on Maria’s behalf. The state officials thus started a search, and already on the following day, June 15, they had received notice as to the whereabouts of the four fugitives. Maria would not have been able to go too far in any case, especially since she was accompanied by young children. Her surroundings must have been known to her friends and acquaintances, who had probably sought to protect her and even help her escape. But as people who were probably also in precarious social positions, they would not have been able to resist the pressure of the security forces for a long time. Consequently, the authorities had probably been able to locate Maria and her three children in a relatively easy manner. For a slave woman with a family of her own, the prospect of resale would have gone beyond the already tragic outcomes of having to face the unknown, start all over again, and rebuild relationships. It would have also
70 05/2118/2587/04
323 represented the likeliness of much feared separation from or the loss of her children. This was what most probably had prompted Maria to try to execute this almost impossible escape in order to protect herself and her children. Once again, legal documentation appears as the sole possible protection against the (re) enslavement of Africans and their descendants. We do not know what Maria’s legal status actually was, but in the absence of her carta de liberdade, she was directly considered a slave. In addition, if the freed
African Helena had not died intestate, the destiny of Maria and her children could have been quite different. Maria was a Brazilian-born Black herself, and it is quite likely that
Helena would have considered her children as her crias. But in the absence of an official testament, there also existed no references to any arrangements regarding the alforria of any of them. Consequently, they were all sequestered and submitted to monetary assessment, with an “álvara de praça” (market order) being passed on July 3. In their case at least, the worst case scenario did not take place, and Maria and her children did not have to face separation since they were sold all together as a family to the same owner.71
71 From the assessment, we learn that Mariana was a forty-two year-old Brazilian-born woman, with a profession: She was an engomadeira—she worked in ironing, and was thus stated to be “do serviço de rua” [of street work, as in a non-domestic laborer or escrava de ganho]. Taking her skills into consideration, she was valued at Rs. 600$000. Her seven year-old son Januário was considered to be worth Rs. 400$000, while his six year-old brother Antônio was also valued at the same price. The third child, Leonarda, was just a baby: She was a year and eight months old. In consideration of her age and the time it would take for her to become productive as a slave, she was valued only at Rs. 100$000. Meanwhile, a total of Rs. 1:500$000 would be asked from those who would like to purchase them as a family, which of course would signify a relatively better destiny where they would at least not have to be separated from one another.
In any case, their sale took place in the usual way, following the announcements of their sale, characteristics, and value in the newspapers. As a result, on 6 July 1866, the family of four was taken to public auction for their sale. From the detailed description that can be found in the documents, we can gain an idea of the proceedings of a slave auction in Salvador da Bahia. The Judge ordered the warder Luiz Francisco Limoeiro to bring the family of slaves. The latter in a high and clear voice said: “If anyone would like to make a bid for the creole slave Marianna and her children Januário, Antônio, and Leonardo, all crioulos who are currently present, belonging to the recumbent inheritance of the intestate African Helena, who were sequestered by this Juizo dos Ausentes (Court of the Absent), come to me, and I will receive your bid for their public sale.”
324
One final example I would like to provide on the fragility of both freedom and life under slavery relates to the controversial case of the African woman Joana, which was discussed in detail in Chapter II.72 In addition to Joana’s material assets already cited there in great detail, a Nagô slave who was her namesake was also found in her place of dwelling— the same room that Joaquim Ribeiro da Costa had claimed to be actually his along with all the money and other objects that were found within it. Joaquim Ribeiro da
Costa’s claims also extended themselves over to the Nagô woman in question. Joaquim stated having bought Joana at the praça from José Higínio Carneiro, thus providing specific information that could serve to shape the officials’ opinion, as well as an alibi.
Joaquim Ribeiro da Costa stated that from the time of her purchase and the payment of the taxes and other expenses related to her sale, Joana had always remained under his
“dominion.” Since the slave Joana was apprehended along with all of the other assets belonging to either the liberta Joana or to the liberto Joaquim, she was placed in
“depository”73 during the long process of the inventory, petitions, considerations, and
While the warder Luis Francisco kept on repeating this request, Belarmino Luiz de Carvalho Gama came up and added Rs. 5$000 reis in cash to the previously calculated value of the slave family. Since there were no higher offers on Mariana and her children, the Judge ordered for the slaves to be tied up and handed over. After repeating the necessary sentences to finalize the sale, Luiz Francisco Limoeiro approached Belarmino Luiz de Carvalho Gama, repeated the money he was responsible to pay, and asked him to “make a good benefit” of Mariana and her children. Then he handed them over. Thus was sealed the fate of this slave family. Unlike many others in different parts of the African Diaspora, at least they were lucky enough to be able to stay together as a family. However, if they owner Helena had not died intestate, but rather made an effort to shape life after her death for all those connected to her, their destiny would most probably have been much better. This would have probably even more so the case in consideration of the fact that both the mother and her children were all crioulos, and thus belonged in the category of slaves that were most often favored by their African liberto owners.
72 05/2119/2588/13
73 Slave depositories in the African Diaspora referred to the crowded “storage” spaces in which slaves were kept prior to be sold. In this case, Joana was basically “stored” alongside all of the other confiscated assets in question.
325 other legal proceedings that ensued from the forced entry into the freed African living quarters. This was a direct consequence of the logic that brought together people, land and/or real estate, and money in all its forms, into the single heading of wealth or material assets in slave societies of the Americas. Often, the understanding of slaves as material assets could clash with their understanding as people. This was also evident in Joaquim’s attitude towards Joana which went well beyond concerns of property, and pointed clearly to the connections that often united Africans regardless of free vs. enslaved status. During the time in which Joana remained apprehended along with all the other assets found in the room, Joaquim repeatedly asked for her removal in consideration of her ill health and the fact that she could actually die in the absence of medical treatment. While he continued to resort to legal means in order to reclaim all of his possessions, he openly pleaded for “the required removal, not of all the apprehended assets, but only of a slave woman who is currently sick and could die in the absence of treatment.” In this context, it was quite clear that Joaquim’s concern was with Joana’s person, and not with his ownership over a material asset. Joana did constitute part of the wealth that Joaquim sought to defend against its appraisal by the State or its authorities. If need be, and probably at an earlier stage of her life, Joaquim might also have factored revenues from
Joana’s alforria into his provisions. But while such complex calculations always took place, they were not mutually exclusive of the understanding that this was wealth counted in actual persons. As argued multiple times in this dissertation, intra-African relationships in Salvador were clearly inclusive of people who were both enslaved as free, even when these people found themselves in master-slave relationships with one another. Joaquim and Joana had probably lived together for a long time, and in the process developed
326 affective ties to one another. Joana was also probably already quite old, judging from the ages of both of her possible owners. In this instance, Joana found herself at the complete mercy of the Bahian authorities as she waited for them to make a decision on her behalf, in the midst of the legal discussions found in the urban freed African dwelling. The case of the forced inventory into the assets of the libertos Joaquim and Joana is a clear demonstration of the dangers faced by libertos on many different levels in the absence of legal documentation providing clear and undeniable proof to their favor. While this has been witnessed repeatedly in the context of the fragility of freedom for freed Africans in
Brazil, in Joaquim’s case it also extended itself to questions of establishing proof over the material assets of African libertos. With regards to an enslaved person like the second
Joana, the fact that Joaquim was unable to provide proof of ownership put her in a highly precarious situation, especially in consideration of her ill health. Luckily, the final decision reached by the legal authorities actually worked in Joana’s favor. Subsequent documents that were part of the process stated that it was “undeniable that she was of the dominion of the appellant.” There was no title available that legitimized her belonging to
Joaquim, yet all witnesses swore “validly” that she belonged to him, and that she had been “bought in a slave market auction.” The papers concerning her sale and purchase, it was argued, had been “removed and hidden” along with all the other papers—bills of sale and titles of ownership—that belonged to Joaquim Ribeiro da Costa. Ironically, the same authorities who had reached this decision had claimed that the “vagueness” on the part of the witnesses, and the absence of the documents herein stated to be “removed or hidden” impeded the acceptance of Joaquim’s claims with regards to his ownership over the money and other material assets found in the room. The very same “vagueness” and the
327 idea that the required papers may have been misplaced resulted in consquences that were the exact opposite with regards to Joaquim’s only slave. The case of the Nagô Joana was the only instance in which Joaquim Ribeiro da Costa’s claims of ownership were actually accepted by the Bahian state authorities. While Joaquim’s other assets were valuable and productive, this was certainly not the case for an old and sickly enslaved woman. The authorities were probably willing to circumvent the law at least as much for this reason as they were motivated by humanitarian concerns. Nevertheless, the tension that existed between the two distinct understandings regarding enslaved individuals—as material assets and as persons—also clearly factored into the decision of the authorities.
Joaquim’s insistent legal pleas clearly demonstrate that he was sincerely worried about
Joana, whose ill health could significantly deteriorate in the absence of medical care and under such bad conditions. The State itself was clearly far from willing to provide any kind of health care for an enslaved African woman whom they had placed in depository.
Close ties must have also existed between the two Africans, cutting beyond the barriers of enslavement and extending themselves over long years of acquaintance and coexistence. Joaquim’s solidarity with Joana must have also been rooted in the fact that he himself knew firsthand of the perils of enslavement, even though he had been able to free himself from them. What happened to Joana in the end cannot be ascertained from the documents, since they do not offer any additional information once the decision was reached to return her to Joaquim. Presumably, she had gone back to her previous life under his roof. However, a considerable time had passed between her apprehension and the decision of the state officials. Her health may have gotten worse during this period, since there is no evidence as to the fact that she actually received any medical treatment
328 while she was held in captivity. The “procrastination of the legal process” put Joana’s health and the rest of her life at great risk, once more underlining the perils of life for
Africans and their descendants all over the African Diaspora. The petitions for Joana’s removal from captivity and for her treatment are also indicative of how freed Africans successfully operated within the limited spaces offered them within the legal processes of nineteenth-century Bahia. They also demonstrate very clearly how the very same understandings of legality could be bent in different ways by the authorities according to the specific situation at hand. The law was not geared to protect the interests of Africans, and in the cases where the interests of the authorities went against those of libertos, these legal understandings could only be countered by the clear indication of official proof.
VII. Conclusions The great wealth of information included in the testaments left behind by libertos in nineteenth-century Salvador da Bahia serves to illuminate the many complex ways in which freedom and enslavement constituted porous and interconnected categories within
African lives throughout the slave societies of the Americas. Africans built close relationships to one another, which went beyond the barriers of free and unfree status, even in the cases where they were each other’s owners or slaves. Slavery was a given in nineteenth-century Salvador, and slaves constituted the most common and important repositories of wealth. Beneath this overaching reality, however, the stories of enslavement and slave ownership offered by libertos’ wills point to the complexities that defined every instance of these relationships. The testaments left behind by freed
Africans provide numerous examples that serve to highlight the main patterns and commonalities, as well as the large variety of experiences that existed within the general
329 framework of master-slave relations for the Bahian capital’s freed African population in the nineteenth century.
One of the most important dynamics that shaped the nineteenth century in Bahia was the extremely hegemonic experience of small-scale slave ownership by almost all its members—a dynamic in which freed Africans also actively participated. Once past the
“exceptionalisms” that might cloud an accurate understanding of slave ownership by
African libertos, a couple of patterns also become detectable. Important among these are the efforts of masters to offer and facilitate alforria upon their death, and of trying to avoid at least the more extreme evils of the praça, of being inventoried, or of being sold outside of the state, for their slaves. Within the prevalent practice of “sacrificing” the freedom of usually one slave in the first place for the realization of libertos’ final rites, in the second place in order to guarantee the well-being of loved ones and close members of their personal networks, and in the third place with the purpose of being able to secure the payment of debts, freed Africans’ decisions were also shaped by complex calculations. While they almost invariably favored the “crias” or slave children born into their household over their adult African slaves in offering them their freedom, they were also guided by the intrinsic dynamics that more specifically shaped their personal relationships to their slaves. While specific life experiences and bonds of affection were important determinants of the relationships between liberto masters and their slaves, certain cultural and religious commonalities also played a major role in these connections and the decisions regarding the treatment and eventual freedom of the latter group of individuals. Among these, ethnicity or having belonged to the same broad cultural areas
330 in Africa seems to have played a complex role, while ethnicity made its primary appearance in libertos’ wills within the definitions they provided of their slaves. I have argued here that this implied a direct acceptance and application of the hegemonic understandings that were apparent vis-à-vis African labor capacities and personality profiles in slave societies all over the Americas. Concerns of “justice” and “gratitude” also greatly factored into the relationships between African masters and their slaves, and were equally capable of prolonging someone’s enslavement or of bringing them back to captivity, while providing someone else with their unconditional freedom and sometimes even with financial compensation.
The triple cycle of freedom-enslavement-freedom that was evident in freed African lives made itself clearly felt in the context of their slave ownership. Many libertos had passed from freedom to slavery, and then back to freedom, within their lifetimes, and often they played a role in this transition for those to whom they were connected in myriad and complex manners. While the fact that they had spent their whole lives in slave societies on both sides of the Atlantic World made Africans in Brazil accept slavery as a given, their firsthand experience of enslavement in Bahia made them more understanding of its perils and hardships, as well as more solidary and sensitive with regards to the alforria and wellbeing of their own slaves. Many of these people had themselves set freedom freedom as one of their most central life objectives, and they certainly understood how important it could be for others. Within the limits that were marked by the efforts to not put their own priorities at risk at the expense of others, libertos often played a role in the transition from enslavement to freedom for the people within their communities to whom
331 they were connected in highly multi-layered and complex manners. These African personal networks in Bahia encompassed both freed and enslaved Africans, and also included the libertos’ own slaves. Consequently, they also sought to facilitate their survival and almost invariable made sure to spare them from the worst possible destinies that could exist within the experience of enslavement.
Bahian slave society was certainly exceptional in many ways, but the same argument could well be extended to every complex society in the Atlantic World. Within the sample composed of nineteenth-century libertos’ wills, which in many way represents a microcosm of African life in nineteenth-century Salvador, master-slave relationships appear as highly multi-layered, while they encompass all the innumerable possibilities that are existent within human relationships everywhere. Efforts at protection and demonstrations of affection are as evident as the grudges felt or the unwillingness to let go of one’s own priorities for the sake of others. Slavery as a system has historically been capable of bringing humanity to its barest level, in its best and worst manifestations, and libertos’ wills clearly attest to this fact. They are compassionate, calculating, affectionate, and utterly realistic, all at the same time.
The specific processes proper to the city’s freed African population that were formed around the efforts of asserting themselves as rightful and deserving members of Brazilian society of African origin (who were also dedicated to their African pasts, culture, communities and religious systems) are evident at every level of their participation in
Bahian slave ownership. Freed African understandings of slavery derived directly from
332 both Africa and the Americas, and extended themselves into their notions of justice, honor, and dignity. Their strong and insistent participation in the Brazilian justice system, with the purpose of protecting their own rights and those of other Africans, also attests to this fact.
Another reflection of the processes of identity formation in liberto’s lives as Africans in
Brazil is also present in the fact that freedom functioned as one of the primary referents within their lives. While they were even named as a social group via the experience of having freed themselves from enslavement, they were now the members of a society that solely encompassed the free and the unfree, with no other social positioning available in between, unlike in Africa.74 Slave ownership was often a direct extension of free status in
Brazilian society, and an important part of its rights and privileges. Redefining themselves as Africans in Brazil, libertos constantly strived to be accepted as deserving members of Bahian society and a great many of their choices and decisions were shaped by this very effort. If they were to be like any other free Brazilian, libertos needed to be committed to slave ownership. If you were free and had the means in Bahia in the nineteenth century, you were almost invariably a master as well. Finally, in a context where Africans were considered as “foreigners” and even risked repatriation in the aftermath of the Muslim uprising of 1835, they sought to emphasize their commitment to the dynamics of Brazilian life and the values of Bahian society. Those who had greater stakes in the system could more convincingly assert that they would have a lot to lose upon its upheaval. In this way, freed Africans in Bahia could easily give their
74 Even agregados or “dependents” were primarily marked by their status as free members of the society, in spite of their relative lack of social and economic privileges. A free person remained first and foremost a free person in Brazil.
333 commitment to slave ownership as proof of their Brazilianness to the authorities who, in any case, would have had little to no knowledge of the role played by slavery in African societies.
334
CHAPTER IV
THE RELIGIOSITY OF FREED AFRICAN TESTATORS
Concerns with Death and the Afterlife, Faith-based Fictive Kinship Networks and Communities
I. Introduction Many important works have recently tackled the religiosity of Africans and their descendants in the Diaspora, making clear that questions of faith were often deeply linked to questions of community, kinship, and resistance. As stated by Mariza de Carvalho
Soares, “social formations, alliances, and institutions adopted by urban slave societies
(like that of Salvador) are far more complicated than have previously been imagined.1
Scholars, with James Sweet on the forefront, have studied the processes of retention, continuation and adaptation experienced by African religions in the Diaspora, and insisted on the role of faith as a main shaper of kinship and other personal relations.2
Sweet’s main argument about African-derived religions in the Diaspora has been for a
“bi-religious” faith experienced by the majority of Africans and their descendants, where they participated in both the Roman Catholic religion and African beliefs, in different
1 Mariza de Carvalho Soares. People of Faith: Slavery and African Catholics in Eighteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2011. P.146.
2 In addition to the framework that Sweet set in Recreating Africa, he also underlined in Domingos Álvares the impact of public healing practices within extensive community building in eighteenth-century Rio de Janeiro: James H. Sweet. Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441-1770. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003., James H. Sweet. Domingos Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
335 ways, and often in separate spheres. However, Sweet has also seen sufficient leeway within the State-imposed faith for Africans in Brazil for them to find meaningful spaces and roles for themselves, as well as enough similarities to facilitate the process of conversion, while their beliefs still remained “bi-religious” to a great extent.
With regards to the religious beliefs and community formations of Africans—especially those from West-Central Africa, but towards the end of the century also from the Slave
Coast of West Africa—, James Sweet has insisted on this “bi-religious” cosmology that defined the faith and worship practices of Africans in Brazil. He states that
Kongolese Christians and practitioners of traditional beliefs were often one and the same, sliding seamlessly from one belief system to another, a process that was informed by a common core cosmology that emphasized earth-bound pragmatism over faith.3
Sweet elaborates on the most central elements of West-Central African religions, among which divination came first and foremost, but which also included others such as different healing practices or the wearing of protective amulets. He finds many parallels between West-Central African divination practices and those that emanated from the
Mina Coast, and states that “there were […] a number of rituals that were similar to one another, transcending ethnic groups and wide geographic spaces in Africa.”4 Over time, we witness the gradual coming together of these practices of different origins, which come to constitute a more less specific idea and repertoire of African religions in the
Diaspora, grouped around their commonalities and shaped according to the requirements
3 James Sweet. Recreating Africa…: 114.
4 James Sweet. Recreating Africa…: 131.
336 of the worlds of slavery.5 As Sweet argues, this did not mean that their constituent parts disappeared in the process, since these were often well-known and could be traced back to their specific African origins. We can therefore even argue for “multi-religiosity” here, since while African religious practices came together for reasons of survival around their most similar aspects, their components did not simply melt into one generic African whole, but continued to appeal to different extents to different groups within the African population. Roman Catholicism and African-derived religions in the Diaspora constituted parallel repertoires and vocabularies that could be summoned for different situations. As
Sweet asserts, Africans in their great majority “viewed their religions as a way of explaining, predicting, and controlling events in the world around them.”6 Religious and spiritual solutions and practices were often applied to their daily lives and their material worlds, while Africans would move smoothly and selectively along the continuum of different repertoires that were available to them.7 While a specific problem, such as the need to assert honor within Brazilian society for example or the navigation of the justice system would be countered with practices that were more Roman Catholic in nature, social evils or injustices, as well as dishevel within their community, that directly
5 In many ways, this process is highly similar to the one evident within the dynamics of “ethnic clustering.” It had also been possible for the very same reason, since broad cultural areas with common regional approaches to religious and faith-based practices made themselves present in Brazil in a more concentrated manner at different points in time.
6 James Sweet. Recreating Africa…: 108.
7 This idea of adapting, changing, molding itself to specific necessities, moving in between different religious repertoires, and being open to other influences also constitutes the general understanding vis-à-vis most African-derived faiths in Brazil today. Even a Candomblé priestess like Maria Stella de Azevedo Santos, who is a traditionalist in many ways, testifies to the openness and adaptation capacity of African- derived religions when she states that the strength and adaptability of the Orisha faith is what has enabled both its survival and expansion in the Diaspora. Maria Stella de Azevedo Santos. “Reavaliação e atualidade dos cultos afro-brasileiros na Bahia” in Tânia Lima. Ed. Sincretismo Religioso: O Ritual Afro. Recife: Editora Massangana, 1996: 136.
337 emanated from the experience of enslavement and slave society would demand more
African-derived rituals as their solutions, since their causes were primarily seen to be spiritual in both Africa and Brazil.8 As James Sweet argues in Domingos Álvares:
The decision of slaves to draw upon African discourses of health and healing was neither arbitrary nor rote. Enslaved Africans inherited these discourses from the past, but they made “an active decision to say that they are meaningful at this moment, to select a particular form of discourse as opposed to certain other possible forms, and to shape the inherited language anew to explain current problems.”9
Indeed, for most African religious leaders and healers in the Americas, “the structure, symbolism, and ritual of […] healing practice[s] were thoroughly etched in [their]
African past[s]; however, by necessity, [they were adapted] to accommodate new social and political conditions.”10 The same argument is valid for the freed Africans who constantly exercised agency as to when they would refer to one among the many possible repertoires that were open to them, when they would privilege their Brazilianness over their Africanness, and vice versa. Not only were they successful in readapting African practices to Brazilian realities, they also moved in and out of these different frameworks as they saw fit, and also brought them together within their identities and communities.
Within the mutually inclusive spaces afforded by religion and faith, they found a partial replacement for “the broken bonds of kinship” that were a direct consequence of the
Middle Passage and plantation slavery in the Americas. But similar social disruptions had
8 This was also often the case with physical diseases, which were seen to have spiritual causes in almost all African religious practices.
9 James Sweet. Domingos Álvares…: 228. Sweet quotes Steven Feirman. Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990: pp. 3.
10 James Sweet. Domingos Álvares…: 123.
338 been present in Africa as well, and the practices that had been employed in their solution and appeasement could easily be translated into the setting of Atlantic slavery.11 Once again, the capacities of simultaneous adaptation and resistance of Africans and their descendants in the Diaspora worked to their favor.
From the perspective of the need to mend broken personal networks and kinship structures, Mariza Carvalho Soares has understood Black lay brotherhoods and sisterhoods in Brazil as important spaces for community formation as well as political activity. Concerning the activities of the irmandades,12 she has insisted on funeral processions as significant spheres for community building, reaffirmation of identity and rank, as well as personal relations, while emphasizing their centrality to African (and
Afro-descendant) social visibility and political participation in the public and religious spheres. Along the same lines, Vincent Brown has concentrated on death as a primary shaper of Atlantic societies and of life for everyone under slavery, underlining the specific meanings given to death, its related ceremonies and rituals. Within Brazilian historiography itself, the historical and anthropological studies of Pierre Verger,13 along
11 The case of Domingos Álvares himself, as well as that of others discussed in Sweet’s book, demonstrates that many of the African-derived rituals practiced in Brazil had in fact been banned back in Dahomey.
12 Irmandades were Roman Catholic associations of lay people that originated in the Iberian Peninsula and were later transferred to the New World, where they were also opened to Africans and their descendants and became central to their community formation. While the Catholic Church initially took advantage of the lay brotherhoods and sisterhoods to alleviate its own responsibilities of indoctrination vis-à-vis the the African population, the irmandades soon became autonomous spaces for the active participation of Africans in social and political life, as well as for the enactment of African values and social structures. This phenomenon was facilitated by the fact that Africans were initially divided into their “nations.” The irmandades, therefore, soon became veiled ethnic societies that made religious and cultural retentions possible.
13 Pierre Verger. Flux et Reflux de la traite des nègres entre le Golfe du Bénin et Bahia de Todos os Santos du XVIIè. Au XIXè. siècles. Paris/La Haye: Mouton & Co., 1968., Pierre Verger. Orixás. Deuses na África e no Novo Mundo. São Paulo: Corrupio: 1981.
339 with the ethnographic research of Roger Bastide and Nina Rodrigues,14 have laid the groundwork for understanding African-derived religious practices, a line that has been continued by many contemporary scholars ranging from João José Reis, Lisa Earl
Castillo, Luis Nicolau Parés, and Renato da Silveira.15 Many of their works have looked more closely at African religious practices and organizing principles within very specific religious and faith-based specific communities, but also looked at the importance of the continuation of transatlantic networks for their constant nourishment, and in providing a much stronger basis for African community formation in Brazil. Similarly, J. Lorand
Matory has understood Candomblé as an African-derived religion of the entire Atlantic
World.16 With regards to the intrinsic connections between death and religion in the manner of Vincent Brown, João Reis has looked at the centrality of death and the changing attitudes with regards to its perception in the nineteenth century through the perspective of mentalités.17 He has also enhanced our understanding of death rituals to community formation, as well as to African and Afro-descendant identities by connecting what came to be known as the Cemiterada18 protest of 1836 in Salvador to the social visibility and political participation in Bahian life through irmandade membership and the
14 See for example: Roger Bastide. Estudos Afro-Brasileiros. São Paulo: Editora Perspectiva, 1973.; Nina Rodrigues. O animismo fetichista do negro da Bahia. Rio de Janeiro, 1939.
15 All these Brazilian scholars will be referenced through specific works and to different extents within this chapter.
16 J. Lorand Matory. Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and Matriarchy in the Afro- Brazilian Candomblé. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.
17João José Reis. “O Cotidiano da Morte no Brasil Oitocentista” in Novais, Fernando A. and Luiz Felipe de Alencastro. Eds. História da Vida Privada no Brasil. Império: a corte e a modernidade nacional. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1997.
18 João José Reis. A morte é uma festa: Ritos Fúnebres e Revolta Popular no Brasil do Século XIX. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1991.
340 “spectacle” of death.19 All scholars working on the subject have suggested that the rituals and organization of the Roman Catholic Church offered Africans a space in which to enact some sets of values that made sense to them from an African perspective.
Altogether, these studies provide an important framework against which to understand and problematize the religiosity of freed Africans in nineteenth-century Salvador da
Bahia.
While the testaments of libertos once again provide a somewhat skewed sample of documentation from the perspective of religion as well, they also constitute important windows into African understandings of faith in the nineteenth century. For having been composed by a more privileged segment of people among the African population, and for being official documents where certain things could not be openly stated, they certainly encompass some very important limits. In fact, the sphere of African religiosity constitutes perhaps the most poignant case as to their limitations, since Africans needed to include at least a minimum of formulaic statements proving their faith in the Roman
Catholic religion in the initial clauses of their wills. In addition, they could not openly refer to any other beliefs (in African-derived religions, and especially in other monotheistic religions) in their testaments. Finally, the libertos who sought to put their last wishes into writing were often those who were more socially and politically active within Bahian society, and those who were used to take advantage of legal channels and operate within the society’s dynamics. While I have previously argued that the highly legal slant of Brazilian society extended itself to all social groups within it, people who were already social and politically active, within the irmandades for example, would
19 From the Portuguese word cemitério meaning cemetery.
341 have been more prone to be legally more assertive as well. These were also the individuals who were most worried about death and the afterlife, since concerns for their soul and proper final rites were often their primary motivation for putting their last wishes into writing. Still, as partial as the information that they provide may be, libertos’ wills still offer significant degrees of insight into how libertos saw their worlds and shaped their communities around notions of faith in nineteenth-century Bahia. Therefore, they also assist us to a certain extent in gaining a better conceptualization of their cosmologies and ensuing worldviews. This understanding provides the essential backdrop against which to understand libertos’ wills from the perspective of religiosity and faith.
When I refer to religiosity here, I primarily mean the religious repertoire of Africans in
Salvador, which they brought together beliefs, worldviews, and rituals from different specific sources, and adapted these to the realities of slave societies. Within this conglomeration of religious practices, Africans were highly selective as to what they would accept and use, and what they would leave aside. They also exercised agency in associating certain practices with distinct realms within their lives.
In the context of the turmoil, extreme hardships, and constant struggles that were part and parcel of enslavement in the Americas, African-derived faiths and religious practices found a well-deserved place, and became part of the multi-layered cosmology of the newly formed identities of Africans in Brazil. In connection to these, funeral rites provided Africans with a ritual/communal space where both components of their religious, cultural and social repertoires came together within their identities, and where people joined together in order to make sense of the events and associations that had
342 marked their lives. The fatality and finality of death was confronted in funerals, which also served to redefine and make sense once again of the kinship networks and personal bonds that had brought Africans together during their Brazilian lives. Africans and their descendants also encountered spaces for being politically active and socially visible within these rituals, as well as accepted by the society at large for the roles that they played. While asserting themselves as “honorable” Brazilian citizens, Africans in Brazil also underlined their unique identity in the ways in which they exercised agency on the specific ways in which they organized and enacted their rituals. These became illustrations of their specific social values, of the social and political hierarchies within their community independent of the impositions of the State and slave society, of what specific individuals had meant and how they had related to different people within their community. Funerals reaffirmed the hierarchies and social roles that existed within the
African community itself.20 The identities thus bestowed extended the same notions of
“honor” and “dignity” to Africanness, since these were necessary attributes within the specific communities built and personal networks constructed by freed and enslaved
Africans in Brazil.21 The fact that different groupings could have and often had distinct rituals, shaped primarily by their economic capacities, also underlined the divisions within the personal networks of Africans in Bahia. But these differences took place within African communities who encompassed people from many different social
20 The nature of last rites depending on rank presents another complex question within libertos’ wills. While I have seen no indication of socio-economic status actually extending itself to more elaborate funerals, this is almost invariably the case with active irmandade membership. On the one hand therefore, it seems mainly connected to the greater centrality of faith to people’s lives. On the other, the active social and political roles taken by freed Africans in their religious communities were also translated into elaborate funerals and other connected last rites.
21 While the centrality of “honor” to African societies is in itself undeniable, it remains somewhat elusive to trace in the Brazilian setting.
343 statuses, but were formed primarily around personal networks centered in the experience of Africanness.
While we cannot construct parallels between different ethnic and cultural origins of religiosity and faith from libertos’ wills in order to later juxtapose these to funerary traditions or requests, the centrality of death as a major rite of passage in the lives of
Africans remains undeniable. Hence, their insistence on proper burials and elaborate last rites to the extent that they set aside important portions of their wealth—most frequently in people, but also in land and real estate—for this purpose. Being carried and accompanied by their peers in their own funerary processions was also essential for those libertos who understood faith as directly connected to kinship and community, as well as a direct mirroring of social rank. Through the communal ritual of carrying the coffin, the loneliness of death could also be thwarted to a certain extent by the reaffirmation of community values.22 In this way, libertos’ once again sought to act in a dignified manner by underlining the role of the other people within their communities. This same desire was also evident in the provisions with regards to debts and other kinds of responsibility present in their wills, since they all wanted to enter the afterlife with clear consciences.
The final rites of libertos profoundly reflected their understandings of morality, merit, justice, and honor. Funeral rites put an end to a life that was also supposed to have been guided by moral concerns, and in this way they came to construct a symbolic realm where all of the community’s principles and guiding referents were reenacted. Last rites
22 In case there was nobody to carry her body to the cemetery out of charity and without material compensation, Justina Maria da Conceição asked in her will that they be paid. Up to twelve people were to be given Rs. 10$000 each to carry her body to its place of sepulture. The communal nature and importance of the ritual is clear in Justina Maria’s case, especially in consideration of the fact that she only asked for a simple but decent funeral in her testament (05/2180/2649/41).
344 became microcosms of life, but they also reenacted African utopias. If enslavement had kept freed Africans from living the lives they deserved, they would make sure that both their wills and their funerals manifested what they should have been, rather than what they had simply been permitted to be.
We have little direct evidence as to the “bi-religious” or “multi-religious” beliefs of libertos in their wills, since freed Africans were barred from making any such open assertions. This is also the reason why I rely on secondary sources in this chapter to a greater extent than in others. Other than underlining the linkages that existed between irmandade membership and ethnicity, and by extension their connections to other centers of African-derived worship in Bahia, the presence of religious objects, ornaments, or other artifacts that could found among libertos’ possessions can also point in the direction of “bi-religiosity” at times.23 Other than that, it is impossible to make any direct inferences as to the particular “bi-religious” practices of these individuals from the documents at hand, which makes it even more important to accept Sweet’s conceptualization of “bi-religiosity” as the primary framework against which to analyze the different degrees of Roman Catholic faith present in libertos’ testamentary clauses, as well as the general centrality of faith to freed African lives.
II. The Centrality of Death and of the Soul The centrality of death to the lives of Africans and their descendants in the Atlantic
World, and the importance they gave to a safe and dignified passage to the afterlife have been mentioned in the Introduction and also discussed within the general framework
23 A case significant from this perspective was discussed in detail in Chapter II.
345 offered above, in addition to the role played by funerals and other last rites as sites for the building of kinship and community. Vincent Brown understands death rituals as microcosms that presented in condensed form the personal networks and community formations of enslaved and freed Africans in the Diaspora. Death rituals, in this sense, composed anything and everything from the preparation of testaments to the actual funeral processions, from inheritance processes to masses said for the souls of loved ones. In this way, Brown’s understanding corresponds directly to the one offered in this chapter with regards to libertos’ wills. He affirms:
Burial ceremonies, as final rites of passage and ritual farewells, provide an outlet for anguish and an opportunity for commiseration. Yet they also shape social order. At each stage in a customary sequence—determining the cause of death, preparing the body for burial, accompanying the corpse to the grave site, eulogizing and sermonizing, celebrating life, mourning loss, and consigning the departed to the spiritual world—last rites for the dead help individuals and groups confront death as universal and final, while, even more important, encouraging them to contemplate publicly what it means to be alive. Death rites thus provide an opportunity for people to enact social values, to express their vision of what it is that binds their community together, makes its members unique, and separates them from others. That is why final rites of passage are a powerful source of moral guidance. As one of the most basic obligations, burial customs have a privileged role in determining ideals and standards of human conduct.24
For Vincent Brown, “last rites articulate[…] the first principles of slave society.”25 They underline social standings and values; they re-enact dynamics of community formation.
In this way, they are indicative of differences, as much as they are of similarities.
Depending on whose funeral they are, they determine who are the insiders and who are
24 Vincent Brown. The Reaper’s Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008: 61-62.
25 Ibid: 62.
346 the outsiders, who belongs within the community and who can/should be excluded.26 The last rites of Africans, then, once again brought them together around their distinct identities as members of Brazilian society who were marked by their African pasts and culture, as well as social understandings and structures. They also clearly reflected their moral and faith-based universes.
The testaments under study in this dissertation constitute direct extensions of the extreme concerns with death under slavery,27 which emanated from the hardships and calamities of the Atlantic slave trade and enslavement, as well as the perils of life in tropical climates. In a world where life was fleeting, death took on increased meaning and became a major site for community formation, for the assertion of principles, and for exercising agency. In the precarious world of slavery, the afterlife took on even greater meaning for
Africans than it had back in Africa. Libertos’ wills only acquire meaning when juxtaposed to this reality. Mariza de Carvalho Soares states that
The preoccupation with death, particularly understandable in a slave regime characterized by high mortality, led many blacks (even those with limited or no property) to record a testament that specified their final wishes and their preferred conditions of interment.28
26 Ibid: 64. Emphasis mine. The dynamics of funerals as reflections of community and spaces of reaffirmation as to insiders and outsider are complicated in Brazil by the high levels of patronage from other more privileged, and even White members of society experienced with regards to the irmandades.
27 The direct association of slavery in the Americas with death was prevalent in the understandings of the Africans who witnessed it in some form in the African “ports” from which slaves were shipped to the New World. Many Africans thought that they would be victims of White cannibalism as they set aboard the slave ships. Similarly, the possibility of return to the “homeland” upon one’s death constituted a primary reason for the prevalence of suicide among Africans. See for example the narrative of Olaudah Equiano: Olaudah Equiano. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001 (1789).
28 Mariza de Carvalho Soares. People of Faith: Slavery and African Catholics in Eighteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011: 126.
347 Death is a phenomenon which brings the bare level of humanity in people to the forefront, highlights their fragility, their fears, and leads them to ponder subjects that perhaps were not previously central to their thought processes. While Chapters II and III have shown that the great majority of the freed Africans who composed their wills in nineteenth-century Bahia possessed at least some material assets of value, it was the constant reality of death that led them to think of those they would be leaving behind. But in the majority of the cases, their main concern was with the ways in which they themselves would be leaving the material world and transitioning to the next.
In his book Domingos Álvares: African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the
Atlantic World, James Sweet studies the ways in which the African healer’s capacities and talents were able to translate to very different realities, which included a seamless transition into the worlds of Atlantic slavery. While certain religious practices were geared towards correcting situation-specific social ills on the Mina Coast, in Portugal and
Brazil, they came to directly address the ills of enslavement.29 Within his analysis, Sweet makes the additional argument that this seamlessness and capacity to move easily between different contexts was also linked to the equally “seamless dialogues [that existed] between the living and the dead, staving off the isolation and loneliness wrought by the forces of the Atlantic World.”30 This is also a very significant insight for an understanding of what the “soul” could often mean to Africans, and accordingly
29 James Sweet. Domingos Álvares…: 232.
In this context, it is also important to underline the high adaptation capacity of the religious repertoire that emanated from the Slave Coast of Africa, which was also directly evidenced in the formation of the Brazilian Candomblés.
30 Ibid.
348 constitutes one of the most basic premises of African cosmologies in the Americas. With regards to the main commonalities that dominated Central African cosmologies, Sweet explains that
[…]the universe was conceived as divided between the world of the living and the world of the dead. These two worlds were separated by a large body of water through which the dead had to pass in order to reach the other world. Though the souls of the dead moved on to the other realm to join the souls of deceased ancestors, they never completely abandoned the world of the living.31
While there could exist few metaphors better than “a large body of water” that separated two distinct worlds for the Middle Passage that brought Africans as slaves to the
Americas, the centrality of the “soul” as a primary shaper of African cosmologies ties in directly with the overwhelming importance of death in the worlds of Africans and their descendants in the Americas. Sweet explains that alongside the earthly, visible shell/life that they possessed, Central Africans saw the “soul” as the essential existence, and the eternal force which actually defined a person and their being.32 With the soul being such an essential component of African cosmologies, as well as the rite of passage from the material world to the spiritual one, it is no wonder that Africans and their descendants were so deeply concerned with ensuring secure and dignified passages to the afterlife, while providing for the wellbeing of the souls of loved ones, as well as their own. While
Sweet also explains that “the notion of Heaven, in the Judeo-Christian sense, was unknown in African religions,”33 earthly life not being seen in any way as inferior to that which would be enjoyed upon one’s death, the freed Africans within my sample clearly
31 James Sweet. Recreating Africa…: 104.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid: 108.
349 gave equal importance to the two realms, and strongly sought to translate characteristics that had been important to them in the former to the one that would follow, as in the case of dignity and honor. As João Reis also asserts, death was not simply seen as the end of the body, since the soul was to simply move to another world, another life. For this very reason, it was even met with joy, and was thus reflected in wakes and funerary processions.34 In this way, the centrality of the “soul” to human existence constituted a major point of convergence between African-derived religions and Roman Catholicism, even though these understandings actually differed to a great extent.
III. Searching for Understandings of Faith in Libertos’ Testaments: Methodologies My overall view with regards to the commitment to the Roman Catholic religion on the part of nineteenth-century African libertos in Salvador is that the level of commitment to faith clearly differed from individual to individual, and that even within such a sample that clearly bends towards official discourses regarding religiosity, it remains very hard to trace patterns. This is due to the high levels of diversity within a population whose members were divided according to ethnic groups, had had different experiences back in
Africa, arrived in Bahia at distinct periods within their lives, experienced varied processes and degrees of creolization, acculturation and adaptation, and also found themselves within different personal networks and community formations upon their arrival. In order to understand these individual approaches to faith within their testaments and still reach certain conclusions, I depend primarily on the following strategies.
34 João José Reis. “O cotidiano da morte…”: 96.
350 Firstly, I look at references to baptism in the documents, which I consider as proof as to the centrality of faith to people’s lives, as well as an emphasis on both locality and faith- based networks of kinship. Sometimes these are also coupled with indications of the place where the Roman Catholic ritual took place in the documents. Along the same lines, I consider the affirmations of faith that go beyond the necessary formulaic statements as an indicator of faith and/or commitment to Roman Catholicism. The mandatory formulaic paragraphs concerning faith applied to all members of society, and simply constituted a necessary component of the testaments. No scribe would have put any last wishes into writing without the affirmation of Roman Catholicism in the beginning of the testaments, but they would normally have remained within the basic models and parameters.35 Personal voices can often be detected in libertos’ wills with regards to religion and faith. This can be in the form of repeated assertions of belief, but is especially apparent in the detailed nature of these statements, i.e. when the freed
Africans in question repeatedly invoke Jesus and the Saints, Virgin Mary and the Angels, and voice a sincere preoccupation with the wellbeing of their soul and sometimes with
35 As was also the case with the annotations of ethnicities, places of birth, baptism and lodging, or other details, it is also possible that some agency on the part of the scribes was also exercised in what was to be included in the testaments. But as stated in the Introduction, I have looked for patterns of preference in documents prepared by different scribes, and have concluded that individual scribe voices could not be distinguished in libertos’ testaments. The narratives provided, and the specific requests made, by libertos themselves were almost always loyal to their own words and voices, which is why Kátia Mattoso has argued for their being considered as mini life stories.
Specifically with regards to the question of faith, I have compared the individual voices of scribes in different freguesias, in order to see if they followed certain patterns in these introductory paragraphs. All scribes are listed in the Almanak Administrativo, Mercantil, E Industrial Da Bahia, Para O Anno de 1855, which made a comparative analysis feasible. My conclusion was negative, that no personal style and pattern was the case for any scribe. While their tendencies could also have differed each time, this also leaves sufficient space for an argument in favor of a personal voice on the part of libertos.
351 those of loved ones.36 Specifications with regards to post-mortem rituals, as in the
(sometimes large) number of masses, by whom they should be said in return for set amounts of alms also constitute proof in this regard. Even more evidence comes from the indications of how people asked to be accompanied to their places of burial, if they should be shrouded in the habit of an irmandade, and from their other related arrangements. I consider such testaments to belong to people who professed a greater faith in the Roman Catholic religion imposed on them by the State and the society at large, while I continue to understand the very same Roman Catholicism from a “bi- religious” perspective. I also understand such assertions as an indication of the centrality of faith to libertos’ processes of recreating their personal identities and ideas of self, to their community formations, and to the recreation of kinship networks in the Bahian setting.
This conceptualization gains greater strength from the fact that such detailed affirmations of religiosity and faith, coupled with concerns with the soul and the afterlife, were generally accompanied by participation in one, and often several, irmandades in
36 Kathleen Higgins makes a similar argument when she sees “unique individual provisions and bequests [as confirmations of adherence] to a Catholic identity.” Kathleen J. Higgins.“Licentious Liberty” in a Brazilian Gold-Mining Region: Slavery, Gender, and Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Sabará, Minas Gerais. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999: 121.
Sandra Lauderdale Graham states in Caetana Says No… that dynamics of intersession that were also quite common in Africa were important in this regard, and thus constituted a major point of conversion: “Like other Catholics, Brazilians learned to pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints to intercede for them in their appeals for God’s grace. By extension, supplication and intercession provided a religious grounding for the tough but flexible network of […] patronage […]” (45-46).
From this perspective, it is also important to underline that it was often the aspects that most resembles one another as well as the most material ones within their repertoire that came together within the context of “bi-religious” systems of faith.
352 nineteenth-century Bahia. “True believers” would often take part in such lay brotherhoods or sisterhoods, would ask to be shrouded in their habits at their funerals, and accompanied by their members to their burial spots. On less frequent occasions, they would also state that they had held posts within the irmandades, such as that of a juiz/a
(judge). They would almost without exception seek to make sure that they owed no dues to their irmandades at the time of their deaths. In spite of the high level of complexities presented by the irmandades, the liberto participation in these Bahian institutions directly refers to the capacity of freed Africans to find for themselves, and choose to occupy, a greater space within Roman Catholicism, and to exercise their agency in the social and political spheres that derived from religion and faith. Within my discussion of the Bahian irmandades in the nineteenth century, I will also expand on their linkages to ethnicity, and through that very linkage their connection to Candomblé terreiros.37 But the aspect that I will underline the most is the fundamental role played by the lay brotherhoods and sisterhoods with regards to the funerals and last rites of freed Africans.
Finally, I look at liberto lives spent clearly within Christian precepts, and especially the decision to participate in holy matrimony by the Catholic Church as proof of a greater engagement with Roman Catholicism. Choosing Church marriages, rather than non-
Church sanctified unions that might have been considered more African in certain ways, constitutes a demonstration of a greater commitment to Catholic values, as well to the general rules and precepts of Brazilian society as a whole—values that were openly stated and generally accepted, if not always respected. However, in the context of
37 Terreiro, meaning yard, referred to centers of transculturated religions in the Brazilian setting. The name derived from the fact that many of the ceremonies, sacrifices, rituals, and other associated activities actually took place outside of buildings, as was often the case in all parts of the African Diaspora.
353 libertos’ wills, official Church marriages also function as instruments to legitimate the status of children, and to mark spouses and offspring as direct heirs whose rights to inheritance cannot be open to question by Brazilian law. Still, partnerships not sanctioned by the state-ecclesiastical apparatus constituted the norm for many members of Brazilian society in the time period in question, but especially for slaves and ex-slaves, and even more so for the Africans among them. I follow James Sweet in arguing that this was a continuation of African ways of life in the Diaspora. From this perspective, choosing holy matrimony over other such unions does point to a greater acceptance of the norms of
Brazilian society, as well as a higher extent of belief and faith in the Roman Catholic religion. However, in certain instances Church marriages could also point to close and deep bonds among Africans, rather than or in addition to the acceptance of Catholic precepts. This, for example, is the case of the liberto Viana couple discussed in Chapters
I and II, from the perspectives of intra-African marriages and the option for wealth in real estate, respectively. The case made by holy matrimony for a greater commitment to the
Roman Catholic faith, and the above-cited intersections, will also be exemplified through the analysis of testaments below.
It is a difficult feat to approach an understanding of religiosity—and especially of faith as a concept that surpassed religion and expanded into identity, community formation, and political agency—from the testaments left behind by libertos in nineteenth-century Bahia.
Faith by nature is already a concept that is as strong as it is elusive, but this is also the reason why it remains such an important referent within individual lives, thus making its study essential for any analysis that concentrates on the lives and worldviews of Africans
354 and their descendants in the Diaspora. Since we cannot hope to find any direct details on non-Catholic religiosity on the part of African libertos, I stay away from making certain assumptions, such as seeing correlations between the assertion of ethnic identity and a commitment to a certain more African spiritual tradition, from what is stated in my primary sources. I believe such conjectures to be far-fetched and unreliable, but still refer to a limited extent to the ethnic component within my discussion of the Bahian irmandades. Even though the lay brotherhoods opened themselves to more inclusive membership over time (in addition to the complex patronage dynamics they had always embodied), they essentially remained community associations built around ethnic identity, and shared cultural and social values, at their core.
IV. Tracking Religiosity in Libertos’ Wills Taking these multi-layered insights as my point of departure for the analysis of religiosity and faith in the testaments of freed Africans, I now move on to in-depth textual analyses of relevant testaments in order to illustrate the different points that are part of the analytical framework that I have sought to construct. Before doing so however, Table 4.1. offers my calculations as to the percentage of libertos who could be considered more committed to the Roman Catholic faith vs. those individuals whose Catholic religiosity did not come across strongly in their testaments, through my analysis based on the points of reference cited above—namely the multi-layered elaborations and details offered in libertos’ wills, their greater specifications of funerary masses and other final rites, irmandade membership and active roles within these, a higher level of acceptance of
Roman Catholic premises for the structuring of one’s life. In addition, I also consider the appearance of material assets of a religious nature in libertos’ wills as another very
355 important indication. These freed Africans, while they remained “bi-religious” to varying extents, were those who had gone through greater processes of acculturation and experienced increased amounts of commitment to the Catholic faith. The second group, on the other hand, could be stated to have leaned more towards African-derived religions or experienced more significant degrees of multi-religiosity. On the other hand, it is also possible that this group of people simply did not see faith as central to their identities and communities.38 The majority of those for whom I have encountered religious data appear to have been more sincere participants in the Roman Catholic religion, than those who did not appear to be so. However, this should not lead us away from taking into account that Africans found place for religious practices of African origin within Catholicism as well, and that transculturated religions like the different versions of the Bahian
Candomblés also testify directly to this phenomenon.39 Perhaps, a better way to understand the below table is to assert that these 216 individuals that make up 70 % of my sample were actually the people to whose lives faith was central, within the Catholic sphere as well as within that of African-derived religions. In accordance with the importance they gave to faith and to the communities that derived from it, they referred in their wills to the only constituents of their religious universes that they were officially allowed to indicate.
38 Faith is primarily a personal choice and attribute. In Africa as well, its importance to different people would have been to varying degrees.
39 As stated earlier in this dissertation, “transculturation” is a term coined by Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz in his book Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar in 1940 (Durham: Duke University Press) to describe the phenomenon of merging and converging cultures. Different cultures come together to form new cultural phenomena of which the constitutive parts can no longer be identified, as in the Santería religion in Cuba or Candomblé in Brazil.
356 Table 4.1. The Importance of Religiosity for Libertos
Total number of Those who can be Those who do not Those for whom we people considered religious appear to be religious do not have reliable (and as tending more information regarding towards Catholicism) their religiosity 307 216 80 11
% 70 26 4
In order to better explain how I make these distinctions, I will first provide an analysis of some wills where I have considered the testators to not possess a significant level of commitment to the Roman Catholic Church. As asserted earlier, these freed Africans opted for simpler introductory paragraphs where they only provided a minimum of affirmations of religious acceptance and faith. The same people would also usually be curt in their demands for final religious rites, and often simply leave them to the understandings of their executors who were to realize these as they saw fit or “sem pompa” [without pomp]. While this could demonstrate a general trust in the executor for the appropriate realization of a decent funeral—which was important for everyone, and not only for devout Catholics—, it constitutes another of those cases where what is not being said actually means more than what is openly stated. The fact that these freed
Africans did not ask for elaborate last rites often meant that they did not see these as especially important. Along these lines, I argue that even these people’s having followed
Catholic precepts, such as that of Holy Matrimony, can be explained in other ways when placed within a more nuanced analysis of their testaments.
357 The joint testament of the married couple Adriano José Viana and Mariana Maria do
Sacramento Viana has been studied from different angles in each of the preceding chapters.40 The couple chose to dictate their wills, due as usual to having reached a certain age. Adriano was over sixty years of age at the time, while Mariana was over fifty.41 They were also both sick at the time, hence the greater urgency they felt for composing their testament. The fact that they chose to dictate a joint testament was exceptional among the body of testaments that make up this nineteenth-century sample. I see several possible strategies for understanding this exceptional venture. Firstly, as discussed earlier, the fact that they had been united in a legal Church marriage mostly provided an exception to the general trends of the time, which was that of “common law” marriages42 and long-term partnerships (in addition to other short-term unions that certainly existed) that did not have the legal acceptance of the Catholic Church. This could, of course, point to a greater and more sincere commitment to the religion on the part of the testators. However, while the Viana couple did add an extra paragraph to underline the fact that they had spent their lives as conscious members of the Catholic faith, their affirmations were far from being as elaborate as those present in the testaments of those libertos whose religiosity came across much more strongly.
Moreover, the husband and wife asked for their funeral to take place in simplicity with the masses ordained by the “rites of our Church,” and did not make any other specific requests. Like everyone, they wanted their funeral to represent them as dignified
40 02/886/1355/01
41 While there are a few exceptional cases of libertos living much longer in the testaments, for almost everyone in Salvador in the nineteenth century, these ages would be considered advanced. 42 This is a term frequently used to describe such unions that take place in Brazil even today, in the relevant anthropological literature.
358 members of Bahian society, but they did not seem to need any more than that. They also did not mention their membership in any of the Bahian irmandades.
My understanding of the Viana couple is that they were not especially religious, but that they shared a closeness that surpassed many partnerships among freed Africans. This also extended itself to their religious understandings, since they also clearly trusted each other in realizing their last rites in ways that corresponded to shared notions of what was acceptable or necessary in each the one who would outlive the other as both executor and heir. The main reason for joining in holy matrimony was probably to guarantee each other’s rights as direct heirs, while their joint testament sought to make sure that the image they projected into the future reflected their close affective ties. The contents of their will showed that they had a very clear bond and deep connection that extended itself over many years. As previously stated in Chapter I, their relationship seemed to go a long way back in time, since their testament claimed that they had arrived together in the
Bahian capital in 1836. We can even imagine that their companionship might have gone even further back in time to already having been partners on the African Coast or at least having known each other there. Much more probably, they had met during the Middle
Passage and thus were malungos as well as spouses, which provides one of the most plausible explanations for their having arrived together in Salvador. Equally as probable was that they had been purchased together by the same owner and had actually been parceiros within the same household. This understanding is supported by the fact that they shared the same last name in a context where these were usually inherited from slave masters. If this were the case, they might also have met while held in the Bahian city’s
359 depositories or slave markets. While we cannot be sure of the exact occurrences, the fact that they gave a single date for their arrival is quite significant. The joint testament of the
Viana couple seems to prove that their connection to one another most probably went beyond any others they had formed in the Bahian setting, and that their primary allegiance was simply to one another. Their testament does not offer sufficient proof with regards to religiosity as a main shaper of their lives in Salvador. Their Church marriage seems to have been more of a reflection of their own personal bond than a demonstration of the will to lead their lives within the precepts of Roman Catholicism.
Ana Josefa do Rego,43 upon stating that she was from the African Coast, also added in her testament that she was of the Gegê “nation.” She had been legally married to Rafael
Cordeiro, whom she stated to be a natural of the Mina Coast.44 Rafael died before Ana, leaving her behind as a widow. As was often the case with the African population as a whole in Salvador, the couple had no offspring, and Ana also asserted that she had also not given birth to any children while she had remained a single woman. She also did not have any very specific requests as to how her final rites should take place. She simply left them to the will of her executor, who would take care of her funeral arrangements as he/she thought fit. It might be a little too far-fetched to argue that Ana Josefa’s insistence on her African ethnic identity—as well as the fact that she referred to the ethnic identity of her late husbands as well in her will, coupled with the fact that they had arrived from the same broad cultural area in West Africa— was connected to a lesser acceptance of
43 Book: 23 – pp: 7v to 10v and 20v to 30
44 This is once again both significant and problematic in terms of the repertoire of ethnic definitions that existed at the time.
360 both Brazilianness and of the Catholic faith by extension. It does seem clear, however, that Catholic final rites did not hold great meaning for her.
Ana Josefa’s late husband Rafael Cordeiro’s will was also included in the same folder of documents, since it served as both proof and explanation for her material assets. Rafael himself also repeated having been born on and having come to Brazil from the Mina
Coast. As often was the case, Rafael had been quite sick when he decided to have his last wishes registered in an official document. He stated that he had been baptized in the parish of Conceição da Praia. Rafael did not refer to his wife Ana’s ethnicity, but rather stated that she was a native of the African Coast as was the most common assertion in the documents. Perhaps, ethnic identity did not hold the same importance for Rafael that it held for Ana, or he might have also seen her Africanness as a more important point of reference, both for their intra-African companionship as well as the ways in which they had constructed their communities in Bahia. Rafael also explained that he had never had any children outside of his marriage either, and he instituted his wife Ana Josefa as his unique and universal heir. He added that Ana Josefa do Rego would also be responsible for taking care of Rafael’s funeral arrangements according to her own understanding of what was appropriate. While the couple had opted for a legal Church marriage and followed Catholic precepts by not having had children outside of their marriage either
(even though their lack of joint offspring also points to the fact that this might have been either due to infertility, or to a different kind of deliberate choice), their lack of irmandade membership, as well as the simplicity of their requests for final rites, also puts them in the group of libertos who did not appear to be sincere participants in the Catholic
361 faith within my framework of analysis. Their insistence on their ethnic/African identities also enhances this understanding.
Another African liberto, Agostinho Afonso de Carvalho,45 related that he was from the
African Coast, and that he had remained single throughout the years he had spent in the
Bahian capital and never fathered any children. Agostinho also chose not to elaborate on his funeral arrangements. He only asserted that after the payment of his funeral expenses, the expenses of the seventh day mass,46 and upon the payment of several debts that he specified, his universal heir was to be his first executor named. His heir and executor,
Maria Lucinda da Conceição Nogueira, was most probably also his life partner at the time. While Agostinho asked for the bare minimum of required funeral rites, he also seemed to be involved in a non-Church sanctified relationship. This partnership, however, seems to have been both steady and durable, which as James Sweet has argued was the case for many intra-African romantic/sexual relationships that existed outside the official boundaries of Holy Matrimony in Brazil. Agostinho also did not specify membership in any of the Bahian irmandades. His testament seemed to indicate that he was only willing to fulfill his responsibilities as a member of Bahian society and meet the obligations of the Catholic Church in face of the Brazilian authorities, but that he would cede nothing more to the institutions that were probably not that meaningful to him in the first place. His dignity, and its mirroring in his final rites, was certainly important for
Agostinho Afonso de Carvalho as well, in the same way as it was for almost all Africans
45 Book: 49 – pp: 56 to 58v
46 A decent funeral, a funeral mass of corpo presente in the presence of the body, and the seventh day mass represented the required minimum for last rites in the nineteenth century.
362 in Brazil and for the great majority of the members of the society as a whole. Nobody would have wanted to settle for the anonymous burials in crowded churchyards referred to by Mariza de Carvalho Soares. However, Agostinho’s requirements and necessities do not seem to have gone beyond this basic understanding, and faith does not seem to have played a central role in his life.
This interpretation is supported by the knowledge that while testaments were directed to a certain extent towards possible executors who were asked to fulfill their conditions, and towards the heirs who were to be the main recipients of their legacies, often these two groups of people already knew the testator, their convictions and beliefs, as well as their possible belonging to non-Catholic religious communities in Salvador. Therefore, when asked to take care of the funeral arrangements “as they saw fit,” they were probably also being asked to follow the “bi-religious” understandings, beliefs, and wishes of the testators themselves—those that could not be openly included in their wills. Who knows what secret religious ceremonies derived from African traditions could actually be accompanying these official requests for simply the necessary minimum of Catholic final rites. A lot of these would have taken place behind closed doors, while others could actually be included to a certain extent within the spaces taken over by African religions within the greater sphere of Catholic rituals. No indications as to any of these possibilities are present in the testaments. The statements made in these documents were primarily directed to the religious and state authorities of the Bahian capital. They were the ones who would read the testament, approve of its legality and its conditions, and who would preside over its fulfillment. These authorities were the ones who needed to be convinced
363 by the testators. There were certainly many more individuals like Agostinho Afonso de
Carvalho among the freed African testators in nineteenth-century Bahia who did not give that much of an importance to Catholicism as a shaper of their worldly lives and their passages to the afterlife. They could have constructed their communities in multiple other ways. Even in the cases where faith was actually among these different referents around which their communities were built, its origin, nature, and meanings could also vary to a great extent. But there were also many libertos in the nineteenth century who were more towards the opposite end of the spectrum, in varying degrees. Some of these cases presented in libertos’ wills will be analyzed in detail below, with attention being paid to different elements within them. It is important to read their stories against the template provided by the analysis of these introductory testaments, which belong to those freed
Africans who chose to be brief in their assertions of faith. While they did provide the necessary formulaic statements and asked for dignified burials that would posit them as honorable members of Brazilian society, they did not go beyond these basic obligations and necessities.
IV.I. Baptism and its Ties to Religious and Communal Identities In her testament, Ana Rita Gonçalves da Silva47 stated that she was from the Mina Coast.
She had been baptized in the parish of Conceição da Praia. Before anything else, the open indication of baptism in a liberto’s will is indicative of the importance of this ritual to their personal identity. It can also indicate the importance they gave to the kinship networks that derived from the Roman Catholic ritual and to its associated institution of godparentage—a subject that has been broached in greater detail in Chapter I. Within the
47 Book: 10 – pp: 208 to 211v
364 body of primary documents analyzed in this dissertation, out of 307 testaments, 117 individuals at 38 percent openly referred to baptisms, as demonstrated in Table 4.2. These calculations emphasize the argument that baptisms constituted an important rite of passage in the lives of freed Africans as well as a major basis for their community formations, which constituted the reasons why many among them made a point of referring to these within the brief life stories they offered in their testaments.
Table 4.2. Direct References to the Ritual of Baptism in Libertos’ Wills
REFERENCES TO BAPTISM Total number of Direct references to No direct people baptism references to baptism 307 117 190
% 38 62
As stated in the Introduction, scribes did not exhibit preferences as to what they included in the wills they recorded, in addition to the few formulaic statements that were repeated in every testament. Therefore, libertos had leeway as to what they would state in their wills, as long as these remained within the clearly prescribed societal guidelines.
Therefore, we can take these open statements with regards to baptism as an indication of the importance played by the ritual for the individuals who made a point of mentioning it openly. From this perspective, 38 % constitutes a significant ratio in itself. This fact is also enhanced by the fact that 66 people or 22 % of my sample also referred to the specific freguesias where they had been baptized.
365 Table 4.3. Direct References to the Places of Baptism in Libertos’ Wills REFERENCES TO THE PLACE OF BAPTISM Total number of People who People who made people indicated their no such places of baptism indications 307 68 239
% 22 78
The statement of the place of baptism is equally indicative of the centrality of place and of local identities to liberto community formation in nineteenth-century Bahia, in addition to constituting proof for the importance of faith within their identities and definitions of self. As Nascimento explains, rather than simply being geographic neighborhoods, freguesias were parishes, corresponding to an agglomeration of parishioners, and thus to both an administrative and religious division of the city. Later, the parishes were divided into quarteirões or quarters, which encompassed racial and socio-economic divisions that could differ greatly from one another. These constituted the next sub-division within the city as a whole, and are closer to today’s understanding of neighborhoods.48 The inhabitants of a freguesia were linked to the “igreja matriz” or mother church of their parish, where they had their baptisms and wedding ceremonies.
Therefore, their identification with their respective parishes went beyond a simple attachment to locality, and was directly constructed around the centrality of faith to their lives. The testaments of libertos clearly demonstrate this identification with the parish and the religious communities formed around both its igreja matriz and its irmandades.
This also played a major role in libertos’ continuing to reside in the same urban parishes
48 Anna Amélia Vieira Nascimento. Dez freguesias da cidade do Salvador: aspectos sociais e urbanos do século XIX. Salvador: EDUFBA, 1986: 44-46.
366 where they had been enslaved, in the cases where they did not make a conscious choice by moving to the peri-urban parts of the city that presented more rural dynamics, as already discussed in detail in Chapter II. Freed Africans often asked to have their final rites at the igreja matriz, and/or to be buried within its grounds. Within the parish, the vicar constituted the highest authority, and we also see that some of the freed African testators had direct connections to their vicars.49 Finally, and perhaps most importantly for our purposes, the “matrizes” of each parish also oversaw the socio-religious activities of all their irmandades. As Nascimento asserts, “Rara era aquela igreja matriz que não contasse com uma ou mais irmandades, filiadas aos seus padroeiros” [“Rare was the matriz church that did not count one or two lay brotherhoods/sisterhoods, affiliated with its patron saints”].50 This is why many parish names contained the names of saints within them, and also why so many of the libertos in this study, which in many ways represents a microcosm of Salvador, belonged to at least one irmandade and several to more than one, as will be studied in greater detail in the following section. Participation in the Black irmandades symbolized identification with the Bahian setting and with Brazilian life, as much as it was an indication of religiosity or a demonstration of faith. More than that, it was a statement of clear belonging within a local community of people who came together through their Africanness. However, that identity went also well beyond local boundaries, creating a community that spread throughout the urban and suburban areas of
Salvador, and even into the interior of Bahia. Faith was central to the self-understandings
49 In line with the freguesia being both a religious and administrative unit, it was the cradle for decisions and activities of many kinds—religious, political, social, and economic, and at times even military. Anna Nascimento explains that preventive actions concerning the health of their parishioners were also among the responsibilities of these local religious/administrative authorities.
50 Anna Amélia Vieira Nascimento. Dez freguesias…: 45.
367 of the members of the state’s African population, and a major referent around which its members chose to build their communities. The people who were able to find a greater place for themselves within faith-based associations, and were also able to take on political functions and social roles within these, could adapt with a greater degree of ease to the dynamics of the slave society in which they lived. Others were not equally capable, and some simply did not prefer to do so. These individuals opted to live their lives within the confines of African-derived faiths and their ensuing communities, even though this meant greater secrecy and even persecution at times.
A closer look at the indications made by libertos as to their places of baptism offers some interesting results. There were three people who only referred to Salvador or to Bahia as their place of baptism without providing any additional information. Five individuals indicated already having been baptized on the African Coast: Three in Angola, one in
Benguela, and another one in Kongo. This clearly exemplified the fact that West-Central
Africans often arrived in Brazil already as Christians. Some were only nominally so, having received simply their baptism and the basic sacraments, while others had had a longer experience with the West-Central African variants and understandings of the
Roman Catholic religion. In reference to baptisms within the specific urban freguesias of
Salvador, Conceição da Praia was the freguesia most mentioned in references made to baptism by libertos. Sixteen people indicated having been baptized there. The parish of
São Pedro followed with eight baptisms, and the Freguesia da Sé came up next with seven. Five freed Africans stated having been baptized in the Pilar parish, and another five in Santana. Another five indicated having been baptized in Santo Antônio Além do
368 Carmo, one of whom specifically indicated that this had taken place in the Pirajá neighborhood within the parish. Only three individuals indicated having been baptized in
Brotas, a possible reason for which might be my argument that libertos often consciously chose to move to this semi-rural parish for reasons of greater freedom and a more rural and/or African lifestyle. There was only a single reference to a Penha baptism within my sample, since this was a parish primarily occupied by poor Whites, as explained in
Chapter II. Both Vitória and Rua do Paço were also referred to only once among the mentions of baptism within libertos’ wills. Possible reasons could be the parish’s high level of elitism due primarily to its Western European inhabitants for Vitória. Rua do
Paço, on the other hand, was the traditional parish of the city, occupied primarily by large patriarchal families, which were led by liberal professionals or businessmen. It would have been hard for freed Africans to construct independent lives for themselves in such a setting, or to see such a parish as central to their Bahian community formation. In addition to these urban (and in the case of Brotas peri-urban) references, there was also one reference to Itapuã, already mentioned in Chapter II (for being a more rural area in the outskirts of the city, bordering on the parish of Brotas). There also existed references to baptisms that had taken place outside of the soterópolis’ city limits and outskirts. One person stated having been baptized in the church of Nossa Senhora da Encarnação, situated in the town of Passé, which was located at a significant distance from Salvador within the state of Bahia. Other references to baptisms outside of Salvador were in one case to Veracruz (closer to Salvador than Passé). In addition, two freed Africans directly referred to having been baptized in the Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Coração do Monte
Formoso, which was the actual name of the Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos
369 Pretos, located in the Recôncavo town of Cachoeira, and founded in 1846 by African libertos themselves. This church gave rise to one of the first Candomblé terreiros of the
Recôncavo, as well as to the Irmandade da Boa Morte, an important conglomeration of women practitioners of African-derived religious beliefs. The specification of this specific church in libertos’ wills almost certainly points to the importance of the church, irmandade, and most probably of the Candomblé terreiro to both their identities and community formations. In their case, we can strongly argue for a multi-religious system of faith that was present in their lives, which also played a central role in shaping their personal networks.
VI.2. Repeated Evocations of Faith and Elaborate Pleas for One’s Soul Another valid strategy for discerning faith and religiosity through in-depth readings of the testaments implies finding a stronger personal voice in the usually formulaic opening paragraphs that were mandatory parts of all wills in the nineteenth century. Some of these encompass a greater amount of details, direct pleas to God, Jesus, Mary, the Saints and the angels, while they also convey a greater desire for the safe passage of one’s soul to the afterworld. In these cases, a case can in fact be made as to both personal choice and agency on the part of the testators with regards to their religiosity, and the spiritual pleas and affirmations they sought to eternalize in their testaments. This argument is supported by the analysis of Kathleen Higgins who, while she also accepts the introductory paragraphs of testaments as primarily formulaic, also sees a greater amount of religious commitment in the cases where it comes across as much more detailed, strong, and personal. When referring to the will dated 1 January 1761 by Luiza Pereira do Lago,
Higgins states:
370 Although I have argued […] that the formulaic openings of eighteenth-century wills are insufficient proof of a testator’s religious values or commitment, in the case of Luiza Pereira do Lago, the unique individual provisions and bequests that she made in her will confirm her adherence to a Catholic identity in colonial Sabará.51
The same argument is valid for the nineteenth-century testaments left behind by libertos in Salvador da Bahia. In addition to the detailed and repetitive assertions of faith in the opening paragraphs of testaments, requests for elaborate funeral masses and processions also constitute proof of religiosity (an important ratio of which was actually Roman
Catholic).
Going back to the testament left behind by Ana Rita Gonçalves da Silva, the liberta explained that she had arrived in Salvador from the Mina Coast. She had been married to
Francisco Pires, who was a “homem livre” (Ana Rita chose this terminology, rather than that of “liberto”), also of the Mina “nation.” We know that “livre” normally referred to having born free. However, this would have been almost impossible in the case of
Francisco whose African ethnic identity was clearly stated. Francisco must have arrived in Brazil as a slave, and then gained his alforria. If he had come to Brazil as an African merchant or in a similar position, he would have probably not married a freed person.
Also, in the absence of clear documentation from Brazilian sources, staying in the country without freedom papers would have represented a risky feat. It is open to question whether this implied a choice on Ana Rita’s part; that is that she wanted to underline her husband’s social status as a free man. The choice of the term “livre” was certainly exceptional. No children had resulted from their legal union, but Ana Rita had
51 Kathleen Higgins. Licentious Liberty…: 121.
371 had three children as a single woman. Their names were Manoel Gonçalves, José
Gonçalves, and Maria Anacleta da Silva. They were all free at the time she registered her testament. As dictated by Brazilian law for all direct descendants, they were to be Ana
Rita’s legal heirs. Therefore, making bequests with regards to her material assets and to whom they would go upon her death was not Ana Rita’s main motivation in composing her testament.
Ana Rita’s requirements for her last rites were quite lengthy. Interestingly, she asked to be shrouded in a habit that was to be chosen by her husband—which says something about the closeness of their relationship, her husband’s own religiosity, and the fact that she clearly expected him to survive her own death. She asked to be buried in her own freguesia of Conceição da Praia where she had indicated having been baptized, and to be accompanied by the Reverend Vicar and twenty other priests in her funerary procession.
They would each receive the customary alms, which exact amount she did not find necessary to indicate in her testament. One of the reasons was certainly that she trusted her husband to correctly take care of the necessary arrangements. From the content as well as the tone of her testament, it seems as if Catholic faith played a major role within the union of Ana Rita and her husband Francisco. Perhaps, he had even played a role in the development of Ana’s faith. Ana Rita Gonçalves da Silva had trusted her husband
Francisco Pires with all her funerary arrangements. Further, while she had previously had three children out of wedlock, she had united with Francisco in a Church-sanctified legal marriage. The difference between the arrangements regarding her relationships could possibly mean that Francsico Pires’ belief in the Roman Catholic religion and his
372 acceptance of its precepts and requirements had shaped their marriage, while they affected Ana Rita’s understandings of faith and community to a significant extent as well.
Ana Rita’s religiosity also came across in the fact that she was a member of two of the irmandades of the city of Salvador, of both Rosário and Redenção. She requested the members of both irmandades to join in her funeral procession, and in carrying her coffin to its place of sepulture—important factors that will be expanded upon in their own section below. Independent of her irmandade membership, however, Ana Rita demonstrated a genuine commitment to the Catholic faith in her specification of elaborate final rites as well. She asked for the large number of twenty-five masses of “corpo presente” (funeral masses) to be said for her soul at the Igreja Matriz of Conceição da
Praia. She added that in case it was impossible to have the total number of masses delivered in the mother church of the parish, the remainder could also be completed in other churches, an arrangement which did in fact point to the exceptionally numerous corpo presente masses that she requested. Ana Rita did not stop there with her requests for specific final rites for her own soul, and those of others who had been part of her personal networks in Salvador. Three more capelas of masses were required for her own soul, while six of these were to be “applied” to the soul of her late master, another six to the soul of the late Teresa Gonçalves, and another twelve to that of the late Manoel
Duarte Silva. Ana Rita did not provide any more information on the identity of these people in her testament. Yet, we can suppose that, similar to the gratitude she chose to show her late master through the request of masses—which would probably have taken the shape of a small monetary token of gratitude if he were still alive as was the case in
373 the majority of libertos’ wills, the latter two individuals were probably also people who had either been close to her, or individuals who had assisted or supported her in some way during her life. For example, they might have helped Ana Rita Gonçalves da Silva in paying for her alforria. As will also be seen in other cases below, Ana Rita also followed another pattern encountered in several testaments in requesting twelve additional masses for the souls of all those with whom she had carried her business affairs, as well specifying four for the soul of the late Antônio Pires who had been a business partner, and four for his late wife Ana Maria de Almeida. This was once again linked to honor.
Upon her death, Ana Rita Gonçalves da Silva sought to make sure that any injustices she may have committed towards others would be taken care of. One also wanders if there was a deeper meaning to this idea of carrying business affairs with people, in cases where none were actually specified—a meaning marked by the context of the slave trade and slave society.
Antonia de Araújo passed away on 12 June 1823, in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.52 She stated that she had come to Bahia from the Mina Coast. She also specified having been baptized in the freguesia of Nossa Senhora da Conceição da Praia where she currently also lived, thus following the pattern of freed Africans often staying in the places where they had been enslaved upon gaining their freedom. I see this as a demonstration of the importance of locality for both African identities in Brazil and for their community building efforts. However, in a context where local communities clearly revolved around the main churches of a parish and its irmandades (as well as Candomblé
52 Book: 10 – pp: 91 to 96v
374 houses and other centers of African-derived belief systems), identity, community, and kinship almost always encompassed an important dimension of faith. Choosing to remain in the same parish upon one’s alforria was a commitment to the religious life of that community, and to its faith-based kinship networks, much more than it was a question of familiarity and/or acquaintances at a more basic level. Among her religious provisions,
Antônia requested that her dead body to be shrouded in a Franciscan habit,53 and buried at the Franciscan Convent in Salvador da Bahia. On a certain level, this could mean that even if Antônia was also “bi-religious,” as she most probably was, the Roman Catholic part of her faith tended towards more generally accepted and European-derived understandings of the religion. She was listed there as a member of the Irmandade de São
Benedito. On the other hand, Antônia was also a member of the irmandade of Redenção in the parish where she lived. Therefore, she might have brought together a more
European Christianity together with a more localized/African understanding in her life, and in the religious associations and communities that she chose to be a part of. This was probably a major reason why she had chosen to continue to live in Conceição da Praia.
She wanted to be accompanied in her funerary procession by the members of the said irmandades, along with her Reverend Vicar, Sacristan, and other priests. When her active irmandade membership was added to Antônia de Araújo’s requests of a religious nature which were already very elaborate and detailed, she certainly came across as a “person of faith” from her testament. However, up to this point, these requests are mostly ordinary in their contents. The masses that she requested, on the other hand, include several interesting details. She asked for two capelas de missas to be said for her own soul, one
53 For the importance of shrouds and funeral palls in funerary processions in Jamaica, see: Vincent Brown. The Reaper’s Garden…: 65.
375 of them would actually be reserved for the soul of her late husband, thus pointing to an eternal connection that Antônia wanted to create between the of them through bringing them together in her final rites. All possible remaining masses for her own soul were to be said on the same day that she passed away, which meant that they would be “missas de corpo presente,” said in the company of her dead body. Most interestingly, however, she asked for eight more masses to be delivered for the souls of her late slaves, and six more for the souls of her late “patronos.”54 This is the only reference I have encountered so far to a request for masses to be said for the souls of one’s dead slaves. It is highly possible that Antônia felt a certain amount of guilt for not having provided her slaves with their freedom prior to their deaths, or for any kind of treatment towards them that she herself might have considered “unjust.” But the first possibility of feeling remorse for not having provided them with their alforria appears as more likely, especially in light of the fact that Antonia de Araújo remembered her late “patronos” at the same time as her deceased slaves when requesting masses for their souls. They probably had provided her with the opportunity. In Chapters II and III, the case of Joaquim de Almeida has shown that he had a close relationship with his ex-master, whom he also considered his “patrono.” Even though Antônia de Araújo referred to more than one person, it is possible that at least one of these individuals had been her former owner or that they had owned her jointly.55 If she had felt grateful for the opportunity to gain her own alforria and remembered this at the time of her death, it could also be expected for her to be reminded of the fact that she
54 These could have been her ex-masters with whom she had remained in a relationship of patronage, or they might also have been people who had provided her with support and protection at different stages in her life. The former is a greater possibility, since in this way she would have left masses both for the people who had held her in captivity as well as for those she kept in enslavement.
55 While couples (especially legal spouses) often jointly owned their slaves, Chapter I has also referred to the case of a liberta who had been jointly owned by two women.
376 had not provided her own slaves with the same privilege. It is also possible that she might have wanted to remember her ex-slaves to whom she had offered their freedom, but in this case the way to refer to them in the language of the time would have been “meus libertos” and not “meus escravos.” It is quite clear that these enslaved people had actually died as slaves. On the other hand though, different relationships of patronage seem to have played a central role in Antônia de Araújo’s life. Because not only did she request masses for the souls of her “patronos,” but she also made additional requests for masses to be said for the souls of her late godparents: Three were to be said for her late padrinho
Onofre de Oliveira and one for her late madrinha Rita de Tal.56 Antônia’s requests thus underlined the importance of godparentage as a major institution for the construction of kinship networks among freed Africans, as well as a principal form of patronage in
Brazilian society as a whole. This aspect of patronage was enhanced by the fact that
Antônia not only referred to the people she received it from, but also to the people whom she provided with protection. One more mass was to be said for the soul of the late
Maria, who had been her agregada, and thus lived under her protection and patronage.
Finally, three more masses were to be delivered for the souls in purgatory who needed them the most, and each of these many masses were to receive the customary alms of a pataca each. This also represents the single case among all the testaments under study where a freed African asked for masses to be said for the souls of people unknown to her.57 Antônia de Araújo’s detailed requests for funerary masses are especially significant from the perspective of funerals and last rites representing a microcosm of the
56 As stated earlier in this dissertation, De Tal implies slave ancestry in almost all cases.
57 While this request for masses for unknown people is exceptional, there are cases of libertos who asked to be accompanied by poor people who would be paid for the task if there were not enough people who participated in their funerary processions.
377 communities inhabited by Africans in Salvador. It demonstrates that these were often formed around notions of faith, and that people consciously used death as a way to reconstruct and reaffirm the realities of their lives, in terms of their personal networks, bonds of affection, understandings of rank, cultural values and beliefs, and social understandings. I would now like to use Antonia de Araújo’s will as a jump-off point for moving on to a discussion of the role of irmandade membership in the lives of freed
Africans in nineteenth-century Salvador.
V. Irmandades as Centers for Social and Political Visibility, and for the Formation of African Communities and Kinship Networks In line with her detailed funerary arrangements as well as her elaborate requests for masses which constituted a direct reflection of her networks of patronage, Antônia de
Araújo left a sum of twenty thousand réis and two vinténs58 to the irmandade or lay sisterhood of Nossa Senhora da Conceição da Praia located in her own freguesia, ten thousand réis to the Nossa Senhora do Rosário, ten thousand more to the Senhor Bom
Jesus da Redenção do Corpo Santo, and another ten thousand to the Glorioso San
Benedito, all located in Conceição da Praia.59 Simultaneous membership in five different irmandades certainly constituted a significant number. The fact that she left alms to all the irmandades of the freguesia in which she had been baptized and been enslaved, along with her having chosen to continue to live there as a free person, demonstrate both a clear
58 The vintém corresponded to one twentieth of the Brazilian real at the time.
59 Especially towards the end of the century, other freed African testators left much larger sums to their irmandades. For instance, composing her will in 1875, Joaquina Rosa do Sacramento left Rs. 100$000 to the irmandade of Nossa Senhora das Brotas. She also left the same sum to the Franciscan convent of the city. Joaquina Maria also stated having provided regular sums towards the maintenance of the shrine of Nossa Senhora das Dores do Encanto, which was located within the Chapel of the Corpo Santo (Book: 50—pp. 17 to 17v).
378 commitment to place and to the personal networks she had constructed in the place where she had spent the majority of her life, as well as a clear involvement with its community/religious life. More than anything else, Antônia de Araujo seems to have built her Salvadorean life around associations of faith. She had been a member of several irmandades that brought people together for purposes of community, mutual aid, protection and patronage, while providing a sphere where Africans and their descendants could be visible and accepted in the social and political roles that they took on. The irmandades provided the opportunity for their members to replace the siblings they had left behind in Africa with Bahian irmãos and irmãs (brothers and sisters). In the case presented by Antônia de Araújo, the self-identification with the local setting of Salvador once again intersected with the self-understandings of libertos as Africans in Brazil, in contradistinction to Africans in Africa or Afro-Brazilians born in the colony/country of their enslavement. In return, these complex identifications also interacted in multi-layered ways with libertos’ participation in the Catholic religion, and their membership in the spiritual and communal spheres of life that were associated with it.
James Sweet credits the emergence of Black Catholic lay brotherhoods, created by both
Africans and their descendants born in the Americas, as one of the most central shapers of the “bi-religious” understanding of religion within the State-sanctioned spaces allotted them by the Roman Catholic religion in Brazil. Associations directed towards both religious activities and social work, their members were endowed with special privileges, among which came first and foremost a decent Christian burial, and appropriate final rites including masses, both of which are factors that also come across very clearly in libertos’
379 wills.60 Vincent Brown makes a very convincing argument as to the centrality of death in the slave societies of the exploitation colonies of the Caribbean, where in addition to the highly precarious nature of life under slavery, the tropical climates of these colonies also meant that people were constantly exposed to disease. While Salvador was not as tropical as some locations, or as subject to extreme weather such as hurricanes, it did demonstrate similar dynamics to those described by Brown around questions of mortality and disease, which directly emanated from the realities of enslavement and slave labor. Brown elaborates on funerary festivities as the most important site of social communion in
Jamaica, where Africans and their descendants engaged in great ostentation.61 In this sense, these last rites were true festivities, encompassing wakes, dances, and feasts. The same was true in Brazil, as is evident even in the title of João Reis’ book A morte é uma festa (Death is a Celebration),62 where he elaborates on the nature of these death-related festivities of community, social visibility, and the transition of the soul to a different, and perhaps better, realm. While some libertos openly asked for “solemnity” or for the absence of “pomp and circumstance” in the wills, what this usually meant was that they wanted to abstain from too many exaggerations. Because in fact, everyone wanted their funerals to be a communal affair to at least a certain extent, as well as a microcosm of the dynamics and personal/kinship networks within which they had spent their lives. They also wanted them to reflect who they had wanted to be in contradistinction to who they had been allowed to be. In addition, while the nineteenth century meant that the dynamics
60 James Sweet. Recreating Africa…: 206.
61 Vincent Brown. The Reaper’s Garden…: 63.
62 Even though the English language version of Reis’ book is entitled Death is a Festival, I believe that “celebration” works much better to convey a true understanding of the argument that he seeks to make.
380 of creolization had been much more advanced and Catholicism better engrained in
Brazilian society, the constant influx of Africans in large ethnic clusters played a major role in keeping religious traditions and practices alive, among which those associated with death remained in the forefront.
The centrality of irmandades to the provision of decent burials becomes all the more acute when considered from the perspective of what usually took place in the absence of their intervention and assistance. In her book People Of Faith: Slavery and African
Catholics in Eighteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro, Mariza de Carvalho Soares provides detailed descriptions of how the dead were buried, and the historical changes that these processes went through. She writes about the slave corpses that overflowed from Rio’s open-air cemeteries, how poor people (including poor Whites, but especially Blacks) were carried in rented coffins, until the Black irmandades of the city gradually acquired the rights to purchase coffins. “This made the process cheap enough for Rio’s slaves that many could have an actual burial ceremony, and escape the fate of the anonymous collective pits, owned by the Santa Casa da Misericórdia, where those of the humblest means were interred.”63 In a setting where death was a constant presence, then, the irmandades played a major role in securing a safe passage to the afterworld and the necessary requirements for one’s soul, while they could also be relied upon to provide both material and communal support for the people their deceased members left behind.
As seen in Chapter III, being able to provide for loved ones upon one’s death was a major concern for libertos, for which they would frequently set aside a slave that they owned.
63 Mariza Soares. People of Faith…: 125.
381 These enslaved individuals would either be required to care for spouses/partners until their own deaths, and/or their alforria money would go to their protection and wellbeing.
In the cases where libertos were incapable of such provisions, and sometimes in addition to these, the irmandades would help their members’ dependent survivors. Irmandades could also play a role in purchasing the alforria of their members who were still enslaved.64 Even though their origins resided in the efforts of the Roman Catholic Church to hand off the responsibility for religious teaching to African slaves, freed people, and their descendants, rather than having to allocate their own resources as well as their time to the matter, the irmandades quickly became settings where Africans could construct their own communities, and where they were also able to carve spaces for social visibility and political activity for themselves. Sweet also argues that while the formation of the lay brotherhoods was encouraged by the Church as a way in which to bring Catholicism to
Africans, the main purpose and contribution of these organizations ended up being their central role in forging African social and political spaces of participation and visibility within the dominant White and near-White communities.
VI. Irmandades and Ethnicity James Sweet argues that many among the Brazilian Black brotherhoods functioned as veiled ethnic societies where membership depended on ethnic affiliation, and the main objective of the irmandades actually continued to be the conservation of African religious
64 James Sweet cites some such specific cases in Recreating Africa… Certain researchers have attributed great importance to the role of the Black brotherhoods in providing their members with their alforria (see for example Antônia Quintão in Lá vem parente. As irmandades dos pretos e pardos no Rio de Janeiro e em Pernambuco (século XVIII). São Paulo: Anna Blume/Fapesp, 2002). Lucilene Reginaldo has argued that this was not always the case, and that alforria purchases were not among the most important roles of the irmandades (206).
382 and social forms.65 While writing about slavery in Minas Gerais, Eduardo França Paiva also asserts:
[A]ssim, a herança cultural africana estava sendo preservada entre os escravizados vindos para o Brasil, mesmo com adaptações, o que pode ter significado, em última análise, a formação de comunidades parcialmente fechadas ao universo branco e cristão.”66
[In this way, the African cultural heritage was being preserved among the enslaved who had come to Brazil, even if with certain adaptations, which could have meant, in the final analysis, the formation of communities partially closed to the White and Christian universe.]
Although the latter phenomenon had many other manifestations in colonial Brazilian slave societies, the Black brotherhoods constituted an alternative space which was much more integrated within White society for the retention of African social organizations and cultural practices, while engaging in active community building which revolved around both racial solidarity and Africanness.
Many studies regarding the relationship between African “nations” within the Bahian irmandades have been undertaken since the second half of the twentieth century. João da
Silva Campos has underlined the Angola predominance in the Irmandade do Rosário das
Portas do Carmo, as well as the Gegê supremacy over the irmandade of Senhor Bom
Jesus das Necessidades in the freguesia of Conceição da Praia.67 Edison Carneiro
65 James Sweet. Recreating Africa…: 207.
66 Eduardo França Paiva, Escravos e libertos nas Minas Gerais do século XVIII: Estratégias de resistência através dos testamentos. São Paulo: Anna Blume, 1995: 99.
67 João da Silva Campos. Procissões tradicionais da Bahia. Salvador: Publicações do Museu da Bahia/Secretaria da Educação e Saúde, 1941.; João da Silva Campos. “Ligeiras notas sobre a vida íntima, costumes e religião dos africanos na Bahia,” Anais do Arquivo do Estado da Bahia, 29, 1943.
383 confirmed Campos’ findings with regards to the Angola predominance within the
Rosário.68. Pierre Verger, on the other hand, introduced a major Nagô dimension to all these discussions, especially with regards to those from Kêto in the irmandade of Nossa
Senhora da Boa Morte and the Nosso Senhor dos Martírios.69 Other scholars like Renato da Silveira have also elaborated on the Keto.70 Lucilene Reginaldo has similarly stated that the Senhor Bom Jesus da Redenção was initially completely closed off to crioulos, while it remained open to people from both Mina and Luanda origins.71 Later studies have shown however that the Redenção was in fact open to Whites and pardos, in spite of the reality of it being predominantly Gegê in its membership.72 Reginaldo also adds that
Africans from Angola and the Mina Coast once again joined together in founding the
Irmandade do Senhor Bom Jesus da Ressurreição dos Pretos Naturais da Barra Fora in
68 Carneiro, Edison. Candomblés da Bahia. Rio da Janeiro, Edições de Ouro, without date.
69 Verger, Pierre. Orixás. Deuses na África e no Novo Mundo. São Paulo: Corrupio: 1981.
70 For Casa Branca, another among the oldest of the Keto Candombles in Bahia, see Lisa Earl Castillo and Luis Nicolau Parés, see “Marcelina da Silva e seu mundo: novos dados para uma historiografia do Candomblé Ketu.” Afro-Ásia, 36 (2007): 111-151. The Casa Branca is one of the oldest in Bahia. The legends surrounding it assert that its foundation goes back to a voyage taken to Africa by two of its priestesses, an oral tradition rarely proven by historial evidence. The authors trace the life trajectories of Marcelina da Silva, one of the two priestesses, from her early experiences as an enslaved person in Bahia in the1830s, all the way up to her transatlantic voyage, and her return to Bahia in the 1840s as a person of wealth and power, active in a transatlantic Yoruba network of freed Africans engaged in promotion Orixá religion and networks in Brazil. Castillo and Parés also provide new archival discoveries with regards to the other priestess—Iyá Nassô.
Also see: Lisa Earl Castillo. “Entre Memória, Mito e História: Viajantes Transatlânticos da Casa Branca.” Escravidão e Suas Sombras. Eds. Reis, João José, and Elciene Azevedo. Salvador: EDUFBA, 2012: 65- 109. Here, Lisa Castillo elaborates on the Atlantic voyages back to Africa taken on by Casa Branca members after having acquired their freedom in Brazil. She demonstrates that in the nineteenth century, and especially the period between 1860 and 1880, cultural and religious affinities and resemblances between Lagos and Bahia played an important role in these, as well as the general framework of political and economic events, as is always the case.
71 Lucilene Reginaldo. “Os Rosários dos Angolas: Irmandades negras, experiências escravas e identidades africanas na Bahia setecentista.” Phd. Diss. Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 2005: 95.
72 Ibid.
384 1783.73 While we are well aware of the dynamics of “ethnic clustering” that were at work all over the Americas, the ethnic dimension of faith-based community formation in the
Bahian lay brotherhoods and sisterhoods directly refers to the agency exercised by their members in asserting themselves as members of a determined social group, also in possession of a certain set of cultural and religious understandings. In this way, just like
Africanness constitutes a referent for identity formation that was reinforced from both sides—that of Brazilian society who sought to limit Africans and that of the society’s
African members who responded in engaging in a solidarity formed around those same
African origins—the socially constructed designations imposed by the slave societies of the Atlantic World as to the broad cultural similarities among certain groups of people also became realities accepted by their members, who carved for themselves spaces for social visibility and political action within their confined parameters.
In her doctoral dissertation on the Irmandades do Rosário da Bahia,74 Lucilene Reginaldo argues that from their establishment in mid-eighteenth century until the end of the nineteenth, these specific lay brotherhoods were dominated by Africans of Angola origin, as well as by the crioulo members that they accepted in their midst. Only these two groups of people were allowed to take on the posts of judges within the irmandade.75 The
73 Ibid: 96.
74 For a more general discussion of Black irmandades in Brazil during the colonial period as a whole, see: Renato da Silveira. O Candomblé da Barroquinha…: 146-152.
For the Portuguese antecedents of the Black Rosário irmandades in colonial Bahia, see Renato da Silveira’s chapter “Antecedentes europeus nas Irmandades do Rosário dos Pretos da Bahia colonial” in Escravidão e Suas Sombras. Eds. Reis, João José, and Elciene Azevedo. Salvador: EDUFBA, 2012: 15-63. For their Keto origins, see the above book as a whole.
75 Reginaldo Lucilene. Os Rosários dos Angolas…: 101.
385 fact that Brazilian-born Blacks were accepted within a primarily Angola irmandade is indicative of the better acceptance that West-Central Africans received in Brazilian society, as well as the greater degree of identification they themselves felt with its premises. While the well-accepted understanding of a more deeply rooted interaction with Catholicism in West-Central Africa is an obvious reason for this phenomenon, it also points to the intersections between ethnicity and faith in the formation of communities and kinship networks in Brazil. This fact also enhances the understanding of the irmandades as veiled ethnic societies all the way to the end of the nineteenth century in Bahia.76
Certainly, the understanding of Christianity that Africans construed and practiced within the irmandades was a multi-religious and transculturated one. While African belief systems would have been more dominant in earlier periods, by the nineteenth century
Africans were immersed in Catholic beliefs and precepts to a much more significant degree. This did not mean, in any way, that multi-religiosity disappeared however. This was evident in the connections between irmandades and Candomblé houses. Yet, it is possible that the lay brotherhoods did come to encompass larger degrees of Roman
Catholicism in their teachings and practices while they continued to conserve a certain
“bi-religious” aspect. Simultaneously, there came into existence other faith-based
76 For a comparison between vodun cults in current-day Benin and their transitions in the context of their translation into the context of the Bahian candomblés, see: Luis Nicolau Parés. “Memórias da escravidão no ritual religioso: uma comparação entre o culto aos voduns no Benim e no candomblé baiano.” Escravidão e suas sombras. Eds. Reis, João José, and Elciene Azevedo. Salvador: EDUFBA, 2012:111- 141. For the Gegê element within and its contribution to Bahian Candomblés in the nineteenth century, see: Luis Nicolau Parés. A formação do candomblé: história e ritual da nação jeje na Bahia. Campinas, SP: Editora da Unicamp, 2007.
386 conglomerations within which African-derived beliefs were much more dominant. These, of course, could not be openly mentioned in libertos’ wills.
A summary of the irmandade membership on the part of freed Africans who left behind their wills in the nineteenth century in Table 4.4. offers the following results. 97 out of
307 people at a significant ratio of 32% stated that they were irmandade members in their testaments. This number already points towards the continuing centrality of the lay brotherhoods for faith-based African networks and community formation in nineteenth- century Salvador da Bahia. In addition to these, there could always be other members who did not indicate being brothers or sisters. Possible reasons could be that they did not include their irmandades in the specific funeral rites that they requested, or that they did not have posts within them or any remaining debts. Their membership could also be already known to the people who were left with the responsibility of realizing their funerals as “they themselves saw fit.” However, in the specific case of the lay brotherhoods or sisterhoods, it seems more probable that the people who were actually members would have indicated this fact in their wills. This is because irmandade membership seems to have been truly central to liberto identities, communities, and understandings of faith.
Table 4.4. Irmandade Membership among Libertos
Total number of people Those who indicated irmandade Those who made no such membership indications 307 97 210
%32 %68 %
387 It is also significant that out of the 97 individuals who openly stated being members of the Bahian irmandades, only sixteen did not choose to indicate the specific lay brotherhoods or sisterhoods to which they belonged, and probably did so simply because these were already known to the people within their own communities. The specific breakdown of their irmandade membership is presented in Table 4.4 below. The specification of one’s irmandade(s) enhances the above understanding of their centrality to personal identity, the formation of kinship networks, and the construction of community in freed African lives. Table 4.5 does not distinguish among people who belonged to a single irmandade and those who simultaneously belonged to more than one. It also does not refer to the divisions of these memberships according to the irmandade chapters that existed in different freguesias. The predominance of the Rosário and São Benedito irmandades is very evident in the table.
Table 4.5. The Breakdown of the Irmandades Specified in Libertos’ Wills Total Nossa Nossa Santa São São Unspecified number of Senhora Senhora Efigênia Benedito Francisco people who da do specified Redenção Rosário their irmandades
97 5 38 5 35 4 16
% 5 37 5 34 4 15
Renato da Silveira explains that lay brotherhoods were formally understood in Brazil as voluntary and monetized organizations, where annuities were paid, and the adherents themselves saw over the selection of new participants, as well as over the direction, and
388 maintenance of the conglomeration, although under official supervision by the state authorities. To these were added the devotional and festive responsibilities, political functions, burial and financial assistance, which have already been enumerated above among the services provided by the irmandades to their members. Silveira also states that in Bahia, while the term “confradia” referred to more modest associations, “irmandade” came to refer to larger and more important organizations over time.77 In the nineteenth century, the majority of officially sanctioned African organizations of a religious nature belonged in the latter category. In the time period covered by this dissertation, Salvador came to have around a hundred these lay religious associations, all with an intense annual program and a dynamic religious economy. Silveira adds that especially the most powerful among them, like the Santa Casa da Misericôrdia, Carmo, and São Domingos, also worked as financial and business establishments.78 This characteristic would have certainly aided the lay brotherhoods in the financial assistances they offered their members with regards to alforria and the post-mortem protections of the dependents that their deceased members left behind.
The internal rules of the irmandades stipulated that only people with material assets and good behavior be accepted. While there could be some exceptions to this pattern, all members had to pay regular dues. In addition, irmandade members must not have been accused by the forces of justice of having committed major crimes or participated in political contestation in order to be chosen to direct the brotherhoods or sisterhoods, or to
77 Renato da Silveira. O Candomblé da Barroquinha…: 143.
78 Ibid: 145.
389 take on important posts within these.79 In the context of the nineteenth century, not engaging in political contestation alreday had clear religious undercurrents, especially in the eyes of the Bahian ecclestiastical-state authorities who engaged in greater vigilance vis-à-vis both Islam which they primarily perceived of an as African religion and other
African-derived faiths. In fact, it was the Africanness of Islam in Bahia that led them to take on harsher attitudes towards these African-derived belief systems. Essential to these conditions of membership in the Bahian irmandades are their linkages to understandings of honor and of being deserving members of Bahian society. In order to be irmandade members, Africans needed to prove themselves worthy, as dignified and honorable individuals. They sought to abide by these understandings during their years of membership as well. They also wanted their funerals to be reflections of the same dignity and honor, and even surpass the limits that slave society had put on Africans’ being perceived as such during their earthly lives. They also made sure that in paying debts and irmandade fees, they remained worthy upon their deaths. They also demanded the same sort of comportment from the other people to whom they had been connected, personally or through business ventures.
Within an irmandade, elected “juizes” or judges were vested in official ceremonies. As
Renato da Silveira states, their positions were not “cargos fictícios” or fictive posts without actual weight or agency as argued by some researchers. These people publicly represented the irmandade, assumed political positions in official rituals, and even
79 Ibid: 149.
390 participated in liturgy in certain cases.80 Several libertas who are part of my sample referred to being juizas, and were extremely concerned with making sure that their dues had been fully paid by the time they passed away. This is once again important from the perspective of honor, but is also highly significant in the context of the social and political roles that could be presided over by African women. In this way, it also underlines irmandades as spaces for political activity and social existence for both
African mean and women, and for the formation of specifically African communities with their own rankings, all within a specifically Brazilian context.
On 10 September 1827, Ana Ludovina de Oliveira81 found herself sick in bed.
Interestingly, she asserted being from the Costa do Leste (The Eastern Coast). While she did not further specify her ethnic identity, therefore, she made sure to distinguish herself from the West African population of the city. “Costa do Leste” could refer to several things. Africans from Angola or Kongo did not identify themselves as West-Central
Africans in nineteenth-century Bahia. They usually either openly stated being Kongo or
Angola, or they indicated the “Eastern Coast” as their place of origin, especially in contradistinction to the ethnicities and identities emanating from West Africa. However, the first case of directly stating Angola identity was much more common, especially from the perspective of the greater acceptance of the people from this group by the Brazilian society at large. Ana Ludovina de Oliveira might in fact have been Angola, but she might also have been a Moçambique, a definition which would coincide more closely with the geographic understandings that we have today. However, it was equally common for
80 Ibid: 144.
81 Book: 15 – pp: 115v to 120v
391 people who came from this area to directly refer to their broad cultural/geographic areas.
Therefore, we cannot reach any clear conclusions with regards to Ana Ludovina’s
African “nation.” She indicated being an “irmã” (sister) in the irmandades of São
Benedito and São Francisco. She also held the post of Juiza (judge) in the same irmandade. As explained above, this was an important post, with legal, political, social, as well as faith-based ramifications. Freed Africans took these responsibilities very seriously, and saw them as simultaneous proof of their faith, dignity, and honor, and accordingly sought to be equally worthy of the privilege. In composing her testament,
Ana Ludovina seemed deeply concerned with the fact that she had not yet been able to pay for her juizado (the dues for the office that she held). The qualms of freed Africans with regards to the debts that may possibly leave behind have already been referred to in this dissertation, as well as how central their payment was to their sense of personal dignity. This was even more enhanced in the context of the posts they held within their irmandades, due to all the communal and faith-based implications of these responsibilities. These understandings also corresponded directly to the concerns of
“justice” exhibited by the freed African testators, and this linkage was all the more clear when the post held was that of an irmandade “juiza.”82 Ana Ludovina asked her executor to pay for her juizado after her death in case she had been unable to do so before.
82 Lucinele Reginaldo states that until mid-nineteenth century, the Irmandade do Rosário das Portas do Carmo was primarily an irmandade of slaves, since 84,9 % of its adherents found themselves under captivity.82 She also refers to the patronage of their masters, both White and Black. “Por devoção o por interesse, e certo que muitos senhores avalizavam a participação de seus escravos nas irmandades de cor” [By devotion or by interest, it is true that many masters made it available for their slaves to participate in the irmandades of colored people] (113-4). However, enslaved individuals were not permitted to take on offices with the brotherhoods, except for that of “consultor.” As with every other function within the irmandades, the consultores needed to be prudent, dignified individuals, who could counsel all members. On the other hand, higher roles such as being juizes or procuradores were generally out of the reach of enslaved brothers and sisters. This fact directly points to the importance of freedom as a main societal referent in the nineteenth century (205).
392 Expectedly, she also requested to be buried at her irmandade, in line with the important role it was sure to have played in her life. Her role as a judge represented an important responsibility, and it weighed on Ana Ludovina’s consciousness that she had not yet been able to pay her dues, while she lay in her sick bed and awaited her imminent death. She asked her first executor to arrange her funeral as he saw fit, keeping in mind that he would be responsible to pay for all the expenses. In such cases of final rites being entrusted more confidently to executors without more detailed specifications, we also have reason to believe that these people had been members of the same kinship networks as the testators, and probably of the same irmandades. Nevertheless, Ana Ludovina did not fail to specify certain additional rites for her passage to the afterworld. The Reverend
Vicar himself would accompany her to her place of burial, and in return would be presented with the customary alms. The sexton would receive half of that amount, once again corresponding to what was customary at the time. If Ana Ludovina de Oliveira could request to be accompanied by the Vicar himself in her funeral procession, she not only had the necessary financial means, but she probably also held some religious and social clout within her parish. Her executor would arrange for three masses of corpo presente that would be said for her soul, for alms of 320 réis each. She also requested two more masses of the same amount of alms to be said for her former mistress Leonor
Francisca da Rocha who had already passed away, once again engaging in an act of simultaneous piety and gratitude. Ana Ludovina was another liberta who asked for four more equal masses to be said for those people with whom “she had conducted business,” with the objective of “relieving my conscience.” Perhaps Ana Ludovina felt like she had not always been as just and honest as she should have in these business dealings, or she
393 simply sought to make up for any dishonesties that may have occurred outside of her knowledge. However, I believe that these statements, encountered with a certain frequency in the libertos’ wills could refer to business dealings concerning the slave trade, and that people like Ana Ludovina might actually be requesting masses for the souls of the people in whose enslavement and sale they had played a role.83 While she could have considered these transactions as a totally accepted part of life in the Atlantic
World, in addition to being a lucrative business, the imminence of death is often capable of changing the outlooks of many people everywhere in the world, while it also often brings them closer to faith. This could certainly have been Ana Ludovina’s case as well.
All the masses that she asked for were to be said in the Freguesia da Nossa Senhora do
Pilar, where she had also been baptized. In light of her clear religiosity, the importance she gave to her membership in the spiritual community represented by her irmandade and the active role that she had played within it, it is clear that Ana Ludovina felt committed to both Roman Catholicism and to the norms and understandings of Brazilian society.
There was a clear “local” element to her Salvadorean identity, which placed the Pilar parish at the center of her life, from the time of her baptism to to the time of her death.
There were also clearly African elements to that identity, linking the “Costa do Leste” to
Salvador da Bahia, which influenced her understanding of Christianity, her networks built around faith, and her commitment to her specific local community.
83 Her higher socio-economic status emanating from her participation in Atlantic trade networks could also have reflected itself in her election as a juiza.
394 In her requests for funeral rites, Ana Francisca da Conceição84 was also quite elaborate, and they closely resembled those of Ana Ludovina. She asked to be wrapped in a white shroud, carried over to her place of burial at the igreja matriz of the Freguesia of
Conceição da Praia by the members of her irmandade of the Nossa Senhora do Rosário which was located in the same parish. She also asked to be accompanied by the
Reverend, the Vicar, as well as the large number of twenty-nine priests, and the sacristan/sexton. Ana Francisca sought to make sure that they would be given the customary alms, which varied depending on the rank of the religious officials.85 Since this constitutes a major funeral procession, it warrants some illustration of what burial processions and their associated rituals could look like in Brazil.
When describing the funeral processions of the irmandades in Rio de Janeiro, relying also on the impressions of Jean-Baptiste Debret from the nineteenth century, Mariza
Soares recounts:
On the day of the event, the burial procession only set out late in the afternoon. Groups of friends, supporters, and brotherhood members would gather early in the morning at the house where the dead lay. African musicians often brought instruments and would keep the music and singing going for hours. […Debret] noted that most of the accompanying mourners were women, who seemed also to be charged with collecting the money to pay for the funeral, and he noted the phrase repeated throughout the wake: “We are weeping for our kin [parente].”
84 Book: 4 – pp: 158v to 163
85 Vincent Brown gives detailed accounts on how “death” constituted the main source of income for the members of the clergy in Jamaican slave society, through the requests for elaborate final rites which often included a great number of masses.
In A morte é uma festa…, João José Reis offers vivid descriptions of funeral processions in nineteenth- century Bahia.
395 In Soares’ understanding as well, funerals and all their accompanying arrangements appear as important sites for the building of kinship networks, and for emphasizing the social places and roles occupied by Africans within their own communities. Irmandade membership represents one of the strongest bases for new kinship formations evidenced in Brazilian slave societies. Within the limits set by enslavement and the dynamics of slave societies, Africans were left with small spaces for the preservation and recreation of identities, for self-determination and socio-political existence. But they managed these spaces well, and constantly enlarged them, while they also carved out other parallel spaces for themselves within Bahian society. Religious communities and affiliations, and the continuation and adaptation of religious practices, were of essential importance to liberto identities and community formations.86
Ana Francisca’s long list of the religious final rites that she wished to have performed upon her death were listed in several other detailed clauses as well. Fifty masses would be delivered either on the second or on the third day following her death, while another twenty-five would also be said at the Convento de São Francisco in her own freguesia.
Twelve more would be performed at Santa Barbosa. Each one of these would have to be compensated with the customary alms. Interestingly, and rare within the body of the
86 When writing about the festivities of the Rosário irmandades, Lucilene Reginaldo also states that they were the primary responsibilities of the lay brotherhoods and sisterhoods (113-4). Within these, processions also came to the forefront, right behind the celebrations of the “padroeiros” or patron saints. The Irmandade do Rosário da Conceição da Praia had its own coffin to bury its “brothers,” and if anyone chose to not use it, they would have to pay five patacas, although people could pay less depending on their circumstances. In his important work on death and final rites in Brazil—A morte é uma festa, thus indicating already in its title the centrality of death to African life in Brazil, as well as its festive nature as in all parts of the African Diaspora. He explains that the grandeur of funerals and mourning was a significant part of the ceremonial traditions of the brotherhoods, as well as one of their major sources of prestige (144). In fact, all irmandades—White and Black—were the primary entities responsible for the grandeur of funerals, while these major public spectacles constituted a major part of their day-to-day activities.
396 testaments under study, she also asked to be accompanied by thirty-three poor persons in her funeral, who would each receive eighty réis in return for this service.87 Ana also “left for her [own] soul” two more complete capelas of masses for a total alms of three hundred and twenty réis. She seemed to be very much marked by her fear of death and her concerns for her soul. She did not state specific places for these last masses, but rather asked them to be said where it was convenient for the executors of her will. Twelve more masses were to be said for the souls of people “with whom she had had business dealings while alive”—a subject already broached above—, and they would be compensated by the same amount of alms. These provisions demonstrate that she had communal ties within several different settings in the Bahian capital. They also show that Ana Francisca made a point of underlining her honor in the arrangements that she made for the souls of other people, while also remained strongly concerned with her own soul, perhaps due to certain past actions that currently weighed on her conscience. She put aside considerable sums for her final rites, and she definitely sought to make sure that her last rites presented her as an individual who had remained within the realm of justice and dignity during her earthly life. Another demonstration of the importance of both faith and honor to this testator can be found in the fact that Ana Francisca left her former mistress Maria
Custódia the sum of Rs. 40$000, as a token of appreciation and gratitude, and this sum exceeded many other such tokens encountered in libertos’ wills. At the time, the lady in question had retreated to the Convento do Desterro, which also points to her former mistress’ own religious leanings. If we accept the argument in favor of a certain
“education” provided by owners to their slaves, this must have been the case for Ana
87 In this, Ana Francisca seems to have followed a more African pattern of making her funeral into a highly communal affair. It remained important for many Africans everywhere in the Diaspora to be accompanied to their final places of rest by a large number of people.
397 Francisca and Maria Custódia and probably encompassed a significant dimension of faith. Leaving this sum of money to her ex-mistress who was now retired at a convent also constituted a way for Ana Francisca to also assert her Christian values of piety.
Ana Francisca’s lengthy dispositions did not stop there. While membership in more than one lay brotherhood or sisterhood was highly common among African libertos in Bahia in the nineteenth century. Ana Francisca had the highest degree of simultaneous membership that I encountered in my whole sample, since she had belonged in six at the same time. She left her primary irmandade where she had also asked to be buried, the
Conceição da Praia chapter of the Nossa Senhora do Rosário alms of Rs. 10$000. She also left the same amount to the Irmandade do Senhor da Redenção do Corpo Santo. She also left smaller amounts of alms to the Nossa Senhora de Santa Ana, to São Joaquim, to the Nossa Senhora da Boa Hora, and to the Nossa Senhora da Piedade, all situated within and affiliated with Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Ruy Barbosa. All these sums, of course, would have been in addition to her life-long support of the irmandades, her payment of her annuities, as well as the specific payments that would be made upon her death for the realization of her funeral expenses and other last rites. Finally, Ana
Francisca also asked for a corpo presente mass to be said for her from the altar of the matriz church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição da Praia, for which she set aside a high sum of alms of two thousand réis. It seemed highly important for Ana Francisca for her corpo presente to be said in the igreja matriz, which was a clear symbol of her communal identity linked to both faith and locality. It also pointed to her relatively high social and political status, as well as her considerable economic standing which made itself clear in
398 all the alms she had been able to set aside in her will. Of course, she had exercised clear deliberation and agency in deciding that her money would primarily go to religious institutions and funeral arrangements. The extremely detailed final rites requested by Ana
Francisca in her testament left no doubt as to the sincerity of her Roman Catholic faith, and in her active participation in the Catholic Church both as a religious institution and as an important sphere of community building in nineteenth-century Salvador.
IV. Irmandades and Candomblé Terreiros When referring to the first Keto candomblé which came to exist in Bahia—that of the
Barroquinha,88 the Bahian historian Renato Silveira states that its origins go back to worship grounds, built by an irmandade of lay Whites at an unknown date. It was located in the neighborhood from which it took its name, that of the Barroquinha which came to be included within the historical center of Salvador from the eighteenth century onwards.
At the same time, Renato da Silveira also offers the universally repeated version of its foundation story,89 which relates that the Nagôs from the Keto area of West Africa who had started the center of worship had belonged to the local irmandade. The legend said that the terreiro had been established in a forested area, situated right behind the church.
In the very beginning, the faith-based association was said to have operated simply from
88 One of the libertas already studied in this dissertation, Maria Joana das Chagas, indicated that she owned a morada de casas—a living compound made of several houses— in the freguesia of Sāo Pedro Velho, in the area that turned upwards towards Sāo Bento, right around the Barroquinha. It is certainly possible to imagine that she had had links to the terreiro.
89 In her book Entre a oralidade e a escrita, Lisa Early Castillo counteracts the generally accepted argument that asserts Candomblés as spaces primarily dominated by orality, which she juxtaposes to the “cadernos de fundamento” (foundation books) of these terreiros. Within the context of the transmission of knowledge and secrecy, such a change of perspective has very important implications with regards to African-derived religions in Bahia. Entre a oralidade e a escrita: a etnografia nos candomblés da Bahia. Salvador: EDUFBA, 2008.
399 the house of a mãe-de-santo who lived close by.90 This story, communicated orally over the centuries, is clearly indicative of the linkages between the Bahian irmandades and
Candomblé terreiros, especially within the ideas of community formation on the part of
Salvador’s African and African-descendant populations. In fact, both organizations and centers of worship probably existed along a continuum in Bahia. While the lay brotherhoods were grounded primarily in, and defined themselves through, the Roman
Catholic faith, the terreiros of the transculturated Afro-Brazilian faiths were built around
Africanness as their primary signifier and referent. “Bi-religious” practices were present in both cases, even though to varying degrees. It was the irmandades that had provided the space in which African-derived religions could redefine themselves and flourish once again. It was only through the initial existence of that sphere that African-derived religions had been able to carve larger spaces for themselves, and Candomblé houses had come to exist as centers of community, faith, and worship, built around the identity of being Africans in Brazil.
Beyond the legend, historical evidence on the Barroquinha indicates that there existed a
Black irmandade called Senhor Bom Jesus dos Martírios that shared the responsibility of administrating the Barroquinha Chapel along with the White brotherhood, whose members took on the responsibility of founding the terreiro. Silveira states that it is known that this irmandade first functioned in the church of Nossa Senhora dos Rosários dos Pretos das Portas do Carmo, later having been transferred to its lasting site in the
90 Renato da Silveira. O Candomble da Barroquinha…: 275.
400 Barroquinha.91 The clear connection between a Black irmandade and a Keto candomblé terreiro directly points to the mutual non-exclusivity and complementary relationship of the Roman Catholic faith and African-derived religions. We clearly cannot study Black
Catholic lay brotherhoods in Bahia without special attention being paid to these linkages.
James Sweet’s argument with regards to the relationship between Christianity and West-
Central African religions in Brazil, stating that these “spheres continued to operate separately, with most adherents being “bi-religious”” is clearly reflected in the relationship between the Bahian irmandades and Candomblé terreiros.92
Silveira also elaborates on the situation of Candomblé houses/terreiros by saying that domestic centers of worship in African hovels must have been very common, since even by the end of the seventeenth century their existence was a publicly known fact. He quotes the contemporary moralist Nuno Marques Pereira who condemned the slave masters who endorsed the ganho system.93 When slaves were permitted to live in their own houses, he argued, they frequently took advantage of the lack of vigilance that accompanied this privilege to engage in their own practices of worship emanating from
African-derived religions. Pereira understood these as spaces of witchcraft, centers of evil, and places inhabited by thieves, thus reflecting all the stereotypical understandings of his time regarding African culture and religiosity.94 This whole argument should also be understood against the background of the intricate connections that existed between
91 Renato da Silveira, O Candomblé da Barroquinha…: 127.
92 James Sweet, Recreating Africa…: 114.
93 Pereira, Nuno Marques. Compêndio narrativo do peregrino da América. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1979. 94 Renato Silveira. O Candomblé da Barroquinha…: 236.
401 irmandades and ethnic identities in Brazil. If we consider ethnicity as a repository for
African-derived religions, practices, worldviews, and cosmologies, the fact that these would compose primary referents in the formation of the worship centers of transculturated religions in Bahia becomes an expected occurrence.
IV. The Fear and Discrimination Associated with Clear Non-Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Salvador
The Introduction to this dissertation has set the stage for the analyses of libertos’ testaments by providing a general picture of the nineteenth century in Brazil as a whole, but specifically in the state of Bahia and its capital city of Salvador. In addition to the events and ideas that marked the time within the general Brazilian setting, the Malê
Revolution has been discussed as of primary importance to the time period in Salvador, while it had also been referred to numerous times elsewhere, for being the single most important specifically Bahian event of the nineteenth century. Additionally, within the context of Bahia’s “rebellious century”, I have also written about the different measures taken to put the freed and enslaved African populations under control. Some examples have also come up in Chapters I, II and III with regards to African-derived religious practices in the semi-rural parish of Brotas and in the outskirts of the city. The concerns and fears of the Bahian authorities were also reflected in the plethora of laws through which they sought to bring the city’s African population under control and into subordinance. Differently from these discussions, below I would like to discuss a case that brings into light the complex interactions that could exist between religion and ethnicity, while it also enhances our understanding of inter-religious interactions in the
Bahian setting.
402
If we accept the premise that the Roman Catholic faith interacted in compatible ways with African-derived religions and that the two mutually infused, changed, and shaped each other in the process, we can make no such case for the interactions between
Christianity and Islam, as two major monotheistic religions that did not lend themselves to transculturation with one another. In the already much-discussed context provided by the 1835 uprising in Salvador, Muslims were defined as major enemies, while Islam came to be understood as a primarily African religion. But as explained by both James
Sweet and Renato da Silveira, the Portuguese and later Brazilian “hate” for Muslim infidels went much further back in history. While African-derived religions were seen simply as polytheistic pagan practices, which were spiritually less dangerous, Islam represented direct competition as a universal religion with its own book and prophet.
Islam historically represented much greater degrees of political and social concurrence as well, which in Bahia became evident only within the context of the 1835 uprising. While state authorities also increased their vigilance over African-derived religious activities in the aftermath of the rebellion, they directed the greater part of their efforts of control and oppression at Muslim slaves and freed people. In a context where certain ethnic identities, among which the Hausa (Ussá in Brazil) was in the forefront, were directly associated with the religion, the members of these “nations” found themselves in the constant need to prove that they were not Muslims. Such strong assertions also testify to the wish of the great majority of freed Africans to remain in Brazil, and by extension to their specific identities as members of Bahian society of African origins.
403 One such example is presented by the case of Caetano Carlos Teixeira, whose testament has already been referred to in Chapter I.95 Caetano Carlos Teixeira had dictated his testament in 1833, two years prior to the Muslim uprising as well as to his own death. In his testament, he defined himself as “verdadeiro Cristão criado e conservado” [a true
Christian who had been raised and conserved himself] within the precepts of the religion.
Caetano said that in the process of pondering his passage from one world to the other, he had sought to put his dispositions and final wishes into paper. The formulaic paragraphs at the beginning of Caetano’s testament are exceptionally lengthy and detailed, extending themselves over two entire pages and becoming very repetitive at times. In fact, they are the longest I have encountered within my sample of primary sources. There is no doubt that they reflect Caetano’s own personal voice. Caetano kept repeating that he was a true
Christian to the extent that he even reiterated more than once the fact that he had actually been baptized. Only after this highly detailed introduction to his will that Caetano finally offered some more information on himself. He explained that he was from the Mina
Coast, and of the Hausa “nation.”96 This factor is extremely significant as well as central to his insistent assertions of true faith. Considering that the great majority of the Hausas were Muslims, and especially that they would play a major role within the Muslim uprising of 1835 two years later, Caetano must have felt a very strong need to underline his deep commitment to the Catholic religion in the context of the complex ethnic- religious dynamics and tensions that were currently coming into existence.97 Caetano
95 Book: 23 – pp: 118v to 122v
96 It is also interesting that Caetano referred to the broad cultural area of the Mina Coast before citing his Hausa ethnicity.
97 The religious aspects of the Malê Revolution were emphasized in subsequent periods, while at the time the revolt was primarily perceived of in ethnic terms. However, the links between ethnicity and religion
404 most probably felt a strong need to assert his difference from his Muslim countrymen, to repeatedly underline his “true” faith. His faith might have been genuine of course, which would have constituted another reason for asserting his difference from the other members of his ethnic group. But his reiterations come across as exaggerated, even for the truest of believers.98 The fact that Caetano was Hausa probably did mean that he had originally been a Muslim, and had later converted to Christianity, perhaps in order to be better accepted by Salvadorean society, within which he had built himself a life and a family. If he had indeed converted and been baptized, this would mean that Caetano was now an apostate from Islam, who would not have been accepted anymore within the
Islamic umma or community, nor by his own God. He would not have been able to go to the Muslim heaven. As a consequence, it is quite likely that Caetano Carlos Teixeira not only lived in fear, but that he probably also died in fear.
In line with this understanding, Caetano’s testament demonstrates not only an especially strong and almost exaggerated affirmation of his Roman Catholic faith, but also an associated and profound fear of death and of what would become of him in the afterlife.
While Caetano’s feelings could partially be explained by the importance given to the dignified passage of the soul from this life to the next by Africans and their descendants all over the Diaspora, it certainly does point to an idiosyncrasy in character as well:
Caetano seemed to be genuinely terrified of dying, and his testament does not offer any
were always clear, and many of the dynamics that would be crystallized in 1835 were already present in many ways in 1833.
98 In this context, it is interesting however that Caetano still indicated his ethnicity. He could have easily stated that he was from the Mina Coast or from the Guinea Coast like several other Africans did. Perhaps he somehow felt obliged or pressured to do so, or perhaps he wanted to insist on the sincerity of his new Christian faith—not only to the authorities, but also for posterity.
405 evidence in favor of the argument that last rites and death could even be understood as joyous occasions in nineteenth-century Bahia. This fear of, and importance given to death, which often constituted a point of intersection where the premises of African beliefs and those of the Catholic faith met and reinforced one another, it was equally present in Islam—another major monotheistic world religion. If Caetano was not a full convert who still harbored some doubts with regards to the decision that he had made, his fear of death would have been much greater than that of other libertos. It is quite possible that this was actually the case, because in his testament Caetano seemed genuinely scared. He was scared in a way that surpassed common concerns with the afterlife, with providing for the wellbeing of one’s soul, and for leaving the material world in a dignified manner. In spite of all its specificities, however, Caetano’s case serves to emphasize to a greater extent the centrality of death to all the cosmologies of Africans and their descendants in the Americas.
VII. Living According to Catholic Precepts, and Especially Holy Matrimony: Concerns of Honor, Dignity, and Justice
Ana Francisca da Conceição indicated being in perfect health and in full possession of her capacities at the time she dictated her testament. She stated that she simply wanted to make sure that her material assets would be disposed of according to her own wishes at the advent of her death. It was never too early to do so, since death constantly loomed over the heads of Africans and their descendants in every corner of the Atlantic World.
Ana Francisca’s lengthy assertions of faith and her elaborate demands regarding her last rites have already been discussed above. Additionally though, she also repeatedly
406 referred to her life-long efforts to conserve herself within the laws and precepts of the
Roman Catholic faith. These efforts were also reflected in the fact that she had joined her husband—whom she defined as “Senhor Francisco da Silva Guerra,” thus endowing him with an honorific not at all common in libertos’ wills with regards to their spouses—in a legal church union. She also elaborated on this fact, when she stated that she had lived with her husband “conforme manda a Santa Madre e a Igreja” [according to the rules of the Holy Mother and the Church]. Ana Francisca had strived to respect Catholic precepts, and to be a worthy member of her Roman Catholic religious/spiritual community in
Salvador. She sought to make sure that these efforts would be put into writing and survive her into eternity. In the process, she established herself clearly as an honorable and dignified member of Brazilian society of African origins. In case she died before him, Ana Francisca da Conceição asked her husband and herdeiro/testamenteiro (heir and executor) to take care of her funeral arrangements, asserting that she fully trusted him in every way. The bond of marriage that she shared with him must have been most important to her, while the husband and wife had probably also shared similar understandings as to what constituted proper religious last rites, as well as with regards to the importance of Roman Catholic precepts within their lives.
The testament left behind by Ana Maria da Silva Rosa has already been studied in
Chapter I in the context of the extended biological family and the personal networks of
Africans that surpassed multiple boundaries, and in Chapter III in the context of the understandings of justice, honor, and gratitude present in the relationships between freed
407 Africans and their African slaves.99 Here, her testament will be analyzed from the perspectives of Roman Catholic religiosity and faith. Her case, more than any other encountered within my sample, is that of an African liberta who made a concrete point of insisting on her sincere faith in the Roman Catholic religion, while demanding that she be considered as such and awarded with its associated rights. While Ana Maria considered herself a good Christian who sought to live according to the prescriptions of her faith, she was not perceived and treated as such by the Bahian authorities. Consequently, her story highlights the collisions that often existed between the self-understanding of freed
Africans and their perceptions by the slave society and its legal and religious representatives.
In her testament, Ana Maria da Silva Rosa indicated that she was “natural do Gentio de
Guiné” [a native of the people of Guinea], which represented a complicated denomination at the time, as already explained elsewhere. In Ana Maria’s case however, when put in the context of the time, it probably meant that she was Gegê, or at least from the broader Mina cultural area. She had been baptized as a minor in the Freguesia da Sé.
Her faith in the Roman Catholic religion came across most clearly in her will. She had been a sister in four different irmandades in the city of Salvador, namely São Benedito,
São Francisco, Conceição da Praia, and Bom Jesus das Necessidades no Corpo Santo.
Additionally, she had also held the post of juiza or judge in the irmandade of São
Francisco. While her membership in several lay brotherhoods, and the important responsibility she had taken on in one of them, constituted a clear indication of the centrality of the communities formed around faith to Ana Maria’s self-identifications and
99 Book: 09- pp: 59 to 62V
408 personal networks, her religiosity was also apparent in the specific requests vis-à-vis her last rites that were included in her testament. She specified that six masses of corpo presente were to be said for her soul. She also requested to be shrouded in the habit of
São Francisco, which was her primary irmandade, since she was also a judge there.100
While making the specific provisions for her funeral, Ana Maria added that the remainder of her last rites would take place according to the understandings of her executor and heir, in the way that they judged proper. For someone as clearly religious as Ana Maria da Silva Rosa, this must have meant that she had complete trust in her niece and in her niece’s husband with regards to the “wellness of her soul,” in the language that she herself used in her will. This also probably pointed to the fact that they all had similar understandings of religiosity, or even that they may have been part of similar personal networks founded around faith. In any case, it is evident from her testament that Ana
Maria saw herself as a true Christian, and that her faith made up a major component of her identity as an honorable member of Brazilian society of African origins. This is an important subtext against which to read the rest of her testament.
Up to here, the indications as to the religiosity of Ana Maria da Silva Rosa have all been previously discussed in the context of other libertos’ wills. But Ana Maria’s case is different in the extent to which she insisted on having lived her life within the prescriptions of her religion, and in the way she saw this to be central to her self- understanding as an honorable, and consequently deserving, individual within Brazilian
100 Similarly, Ana Maria might have chosen for her funeral to take place within São Francisco, since this was where she would have been provided with the most elaborate final rites as a result of the role she had played within the irmandade.
409 society. Accordingly, she stated in her will that she had been married twice in her life, and that both had been Church-sanctified unions in holy matrimony.
This is a good place to remember that the ways in which African and European approaches to sexuality and relationships could often differ from one another. James
Sweet writes about the rites of passage that were present throughout the African continent, which were geared towards preparing young men and women to being sexually active and productive members of society.101 As Sweet affirms, “[u]pon reaching adulthood, sexual activity was celebrated and encouraged, with little social stigma to what Westerners would call “promiscuity.” Even in “marriage,” sexual monogamy was not always practiced.”102 Such understandings of sexual relationships and/or romantic unions went strongly against the norms of Christian morality in Brazil. Even though the actual reality of these relationships could often approach African ways, the legal/religious discourse of Brazilian society insisted on holy matrimony and condemned non-marital unions. In this context, the stigmatized understandings of “promiscuity” mentioned by
Sweet were seen to be an innate characteristic of African life, and Africans were consequently blamed for contaminating White Brazilian society through their heathen ways. While the Roman Catholic Church sought to impose Church-sanctified marriages on Africans and their descendants in Brazil, Sweet’s study of baptismal records, among other studies, points to the low rate of Christian wedlock and to the high percentage of
101 James Sweet. Recreating Africa…: 34.
102 Ibid: 35.
410 out-of-wedlock births.103 While these baptismal records belong to the initial years of the eighteenth century, indications of relationships outside of marriage are also strongly present within my sample. This is even more significant when we consider that the primary documents studied in this dissertation all belong to African libertos who sought to engage in the legal process for recording their post-mortem wishes, for which the successful realization of their last rites constituted a major reason. While this could point to greater degrees of “acculturation” or religious conversion, there were still many freed
African men and women who had chosen not to be joined in holy matrimony. Sweet also insists that “even though the majority of slave women gave birth out of Christian wedlock, this does not mean that they were not involved in stable relationships, and argues that the opposite was evident in the frequent readiness of African men to readily acknowledge these children and their mothers.”104 This is also clearly evidenced in my documents. In Chapter I, for example, I have understood the will of Benedito José
Cardoso, and his relationship to his long-time African companion Francisca d’Aguiar from whom he had an illegitimate daughter named Henriqueta, as presenting the case of an African family who conserved their own understandings of what affective relationships and family formations should be like. Africans had their own understandings as to how they would construct both their relationships and their families, which they had brought with them from the continent. Often, these attitudes were also enhanced by what they saw in other Africans in Brazil—understandings which slowly came together within a new African culture formed in Brazil, and also encompassed other significant elements from within Brazilian society. In the creation of this new culture that
103 Ibid: 36.
104 Ibid.
411 was equally rooted in Africa as in Brazil, ethnic differences and more detailed practices gradually disappeared, and the broad similarities and main elements were enhanced. In the process, Africans redefined their culture and their ways of life, while the Brazilian state and slave society also lumped them together as African “foreigners” without any real attention being paid to their differences. Once again, the process of identity formation went both ways: While Africans resisted their enslavement and oppression by sticking to their own understandings and retaining and reshaping these within clearly defined social spaces, societal forces also defined them through, and placed them within a rubric, of Africanness.
The fact that Ana Maria da Silva Rosa had opted twice for holy matrimony in her life, and the way in which she sought to underline the fact that she had always engaged in
Church-sanctified relationships in her testament, reinforce our understanding of a strong faith and religious commitment on her part. While describing these unions, Ana Maria indicated that she had first been married to Domingos de Almeida. He had been sick, which may also have been the reason why they had no children, even though this obviously constituted no exception for African lives in nineteenth-century Bahia. The marriage had ended with the death of Domingos, upon which Ana Maria had married for a second time. This second marriage, to Mathias de Souza, had not been a happy one.
Ana Maria stated that her former husband had engaged in repeated adulterous relationships during their marriage, and profusely spent the material assets that she herself possessed on his “concubines.” It is also interesting that she insisted that these were her own possessions, as in several other cases analyzed in this dissertation where
412 freed African women were indicated to own assets that surpassed those of their spouses.
Mathias had also treated her badly [which also probably meant violently], reasons for which she had determined to have a divorce. As stated by Sandra Lauderdale Graham,
“[w]hat the nineteenth-century Brazilian church referred to as divórcio [meant] only the separation of bed and board without the right to remarry […].”105 Therefore, Ana Maria da Silva Rosa was not actually interested in remarriage; rather, she simply sought to free herself from an abusive husband who had lacked respect for her person. This testament constitutes the first reference I have found to unfaithfulness and adultery in all the documents that I have studied. However, we do know that adultery was a regular part of many relationships in Brazil in this period in time, which means that such personal information was often simply omitted from the testaments of libertos. This was mainly because such occurrences were generally accepted by most members of society, and even though there certainly existed many people who were not happy with these, few individuals actually recurred to the law in order to counter them. But Ana Maria da Silva
Rosa put her decision into practice, taking her demands for a divorce to the state- ecclesiastical court. To her disappointment, she was only given a conditional divorce sentence. The legal decision made on Ana Maria’s behalf contained a clause specifying that the divorce might end up not being a perpetual decision or condition. It could be reversed if her husband made amends for the errors and offenses he had committed against Ana Maria, such as the adulteries and “other thousand unrighteous actions,” as she herself chose to define them in her testament.
105 Sandra Lauderdale Graham. Caetana Says No…: 62.
413 Nineteenth-century Brazil was a state of law, where legality mattered greatly and where it influenced all areas of life. The morals, prejudices, and the actual “justice” of that legality were a completely different question, however. The issue was not the existence of laws or legal principles, but rather their content and the ways in which they could be manipulated according to different circumstances, and especially with regards to different groups within society. In entering into legal contracts such as that of marriage, African libertos often sought to guarantee the civil rights that such contracts could secure for them, just as they were bound to do for every member of Bahian society. In the process, they also asserted themselves as honorable members of Brazilian society, deserving of its rights and privileges. The same argument is valid for their testaments, through which they sought to secure the legal distribution of their material assets upon their death according to their own wishes. As argued previously, freed Africans also sought to look for justice, and to denounce the injustices committed against them, at least for posterity in their wills.
In the process of fighting for what they deserved through legal means, they once again insisted on their honor as dignified members of Brazilian society. Yet, of course, the limits of these legal rights were clearly defined, especially as they applied to the members of the social group which most intensely faced discrimination within Bahian society. We have seen an example of this, albeit in a very different context in Chapter II with regards to the confiscated assets that had either belonged to the liberta Joana or to the liberto
Joaquim. The inequalities and biases that existed within the legal system became all the more acute when a freed African woman was in question. While Ana Maria da Silva
Rosa’s Church marriage did endow her with the right to seek out a legal recourse to free herself from her unhappy marriage, the ecclesiastic tribunal decided to not make the
414 divorce into a permanent one. The husband was seen as capable of curing himself of his sins and redeeming himself of the offenses committed against his wife.
But perhaps more importantly, such offenses were not actually perceived as serious crimes her husband had committed against Ana Maria by the religious/legal authorities.
Adultery was a common element in the lives of many Brazilian women of different origins, races and classes, and since men were those who yielded the actual economic and social power within the society, they were often the ones who decided how they would dispose of the financial resources of a couple—which, albeit remaining legally separate, still came under the power of the male head of the household through custom and practice. When slave women and libertas were concerned, moreover, there was a whole other dimension to the issue at hand. Blacks in Brazil as elsewhere in the Diaspora, whether enslaved or free, were stereotyped as lazy individuals who easily spent their money; adultery was seen as their general way of life; and not much was expected to come out of their marriages in any case. Therefore, the religious/legal authorities most probably did not think much of Ana Maria’s grievances. It took Ana Maria Rosa even greater courage to pursue a legal divorce in face of all these odds. Ana Maria certainly must have been quite dissatisfied and disappointed by the court’s decision, and she sought to use her testament as a last resort to bring into light what she must have perceived to be a major injustice against her person. Her feelings of injustice seems to have been even more acute, in light of her understanding of herself as a dignified member of Brazilian society and of the Roman Catholic community. Her whole life, she had done everything she could to live within their precepts. She had also sought the right and legal
415 way out of her Church marriage. She had not been treated accordingly by the representatives of the state-ecclesiastical apparatus, and she sought to eternalize the wrongs committed against her by both her husband and the Brazilian authorities through her testament.
In her book Caetana Says No: Women’s Stories from a Brazilian Slave Society, Sandra
Lauderdale Graham relates the story of the house slave Caetana in the Rio Claro province of the state of São Paulo, who had refused to marry Custódio, her parceiro (a slave that belonged to the same master as herself), who had been chosen as her groom by her master Captain Tolosa who actually forced her to marry. While she first succumbed to her master’s desire, Caetana later ran back to him after refusing to engage in sexual intercourse with her husband, thus creating the grounds for the annulment of the marriage. As a consequence of many interferences both to her favor and to her detriment by the male members of her compadrio networks, in the end it was her owner Captain
Tolosa himself who took her side and assisted her in the legal processes of seeking the annulment of the marriage that he himself had initially forced her into. Many complex interactions including both patriarchal domination over women and that of masters over their slaves are present in the complex court proceedings that ensued, while Caetana kept saying no to all these pressures and limitations. In fact, she engaged in a much more radical rebuttal of the premises of Brazilian society by positioning herself outright against the institution of marriage, even though she also stated being especially repulsive to the idea of having Custódio as her husband. In the end, Caetana’s annulment was denied by the male Brazilian ecclesiastical authorities who saw marriage as the path to which all
416 women were destined, without the right to show reluctance in the face of their adult sexual roles and responsibilities. An enslaved woman was also not given the right to actually choose celibacy and a religious life. In addition, as Sandra Lauderdale Graham argues, the case of a slave petitioning a state-ecclestiastical court was not an impossible feat, but it was certainly unusual and consequently not well accepted or seen.106 Just like in the case of Ana Maria da Silva Rosa, Caetana’s race and slaved status (in this case not her Africanness, since she was crioula) joined with her social status as a woman in
Brazilian society to clearly act to her detriment, even in a case where she was supported by her own master in her decision. It is quite probable that in spite of the decision of the legal/religious authorities, Caetana never went back to live with Custódio in holy matrimony. If her “no” was not accepted de jure, it still became her de facto reality. In this case, Caetana was afforded more of a divórcio than an annulment. But in any case, she did not seem to be interested in getting married again. The same must have been the case with Ana Maria da Silva Rosa who would have actually experienced her divorce as unconditional in the company of her family and acquaintances, in spite of its legal status as conditional. Ana Maria had also said no, and she had expected that her being a devout
Christian and an honorable member of Brazilian society would have endowed her with a favorable decision by the court. Consequently, she had been highly disappointed and had interpreted the occurrence as a major injustice against her person.
106 Sandra Lauderdale Graham. Caetana Says No…: 64.
417 VIII. The Possession of Religious Objects On 9 September 1825, the Captain João Pereira Lopes asserted on behalf of his wife
Benedita da Conceição, daughter and heir of the late Ana Maria dos Prazeres,107 that since there was no one to fulfill the provisions of the latter’s testament, it should now be taken to the “Tesoreiro dos Ausentes” (Treasury of the Absent), which was the responsible body for the fulfillment of wills, in the cases where no executor was available. Ana Maria’s testament was analyzed in Chapter I in the context of the fragility of the family as an institution in African life. One of the executors had refused the responsibility, while another one had passed away. The daughter/heir Benedita had first accepted and later rejected the testamentaria or executorship, upon the realization that almost all of the material assets bequeathed her had lost their value by that time, and that the executorship would actually end up being detrimental to her rather than advantageous in any way.
Attached to the series of legal documents was a copy of the testament that Ana Maria dos
Prazeres had left behind, which I would like to analyze here from a primarily religious angle. The testator specified having come to Brazil from the Mina Coast. She was single, and had never been married to anybody at any point in her life. Yet, she had a Brazilian- born daughter named Benedita da Conceição, the heir named above. Benedita who had been single and about twenty-five years of age at the time the testament was recorded had therefore been born outside of a Church-sanctified marriage. In her own status as a single woman prior to her marriage, she was also the mother of a young son named Cypriano. In these respects, neither Ana Maria dos Prazeres nor her daughter Benedita seem to have
107 Book: 13 – pp: 18 to 25
418 afforded much importance to living within Roman Catholic precepts, at least as they extended themselves to societal rules. Faith was often a completely different matter, which often went beyond such precepts.
What is interesting and significant about the testament of Ana Maria dos Prazeres is in the first place the religious objects that were included among her material assets.108 Ana
Maria had an “arma de bentinhos” made of gold, on a thick chain also made of the same precious metal. While the actual nature of these ornaments is not clear from the descriptions, it is possible that they were balangandans, Candomblé amulets made of precious metals.109 She also possessed four more rounds of thin gold chains. Another gold item she owned was a gold crucifix with four rounds of gold chains. This last item was to be handed to her grandson, either before or after her passing away. Ana Maria also had two pairs of gold earrings, as well as one other smaller pair. She possessed another round of gold chain with red coral beads. She also had a round of “padres nossos”
(Lord’s Prayer) made out of gold, as well several other small gold items, such as buttons.
In addition to these gold items that she listed first, Anna Maria included several other pieces of silver jewelry among the assets that she listed in her testament. Ana Maria dos
Prazeres’ will constitutes one of the few cases of a freed African who possessed wealth in
108 While religious artifacts are few and far between in the listings of material assets offered in libertos’ wills, “oratórios” or oratories decorated with religious images are sometimes indicated in passing (and especially towards the end of the century). One such example is present in Joaquina Rosa do Sacramento’s will (Book: 50—pp. 17 to 17v).
109 Like the fios de miçanga found in the loja inhabited by the freed Africans Raimundo and Laurinda that were referred to in Chapter II, this specific religious artifacts could have been solely Roman Catholic in nature, while it was equally possible that its origins were “bi-religious.” If this were the case, the presence of a crucifix and of padres nossos among the material assets of Maria dos Prazeres would once again point to significant levels of “bi-religiosity” with regards to her faith. The fact that she indicated that the crucifix was to be given to her grandson shows that it was an item of special emotional and religious importance to Ana Maria dos Prazeres.
419 gold, as well as in silver. Understandably, all the freed Africans encountered in the documents who possessed gold or silver jewelry were women. The majority of the eighteenth and nineteenth-century depictions of Black Baianas left behind by European travelers marvel at the lavish clothing and jewelry worn by African women and their descendants. It is another example of how Africans resisted the harsh realities of the worlds of slavery in the Americas. As poor as they might have been, African women continued to hold on to their dignity, sense of self, and even vanity. At the same time, as has historically been the case in many settings, gold constituted a safe and practical manner in which to conserve wealth. It could be easily carried, hidden, sold, exchanged, or pawned, while it always kept its value. In spite of this, Chapter II has shown that it was almost never a preferred repository for material wealth among freed Africans in nineteenth-century Bahia.
However, I did not choose to include the gold and silver objects owned by Ana Maria dos
Prazeres in Chapter II, since I find them to be more relevant to a discussion of religiosity.
While some of these items are primarily ornamental in nature, they also significantly include the bentinhos, a crucifix, and the padres nossos. Moreover, Ana Maria made a special point of passing the gold crucifix on to her grandson, as would often be the case of a personal item of faith that mattered greatly to its owner. While the crucifix and the padres nossos are clearly Roman Catholic religious artifacts, the bentinhos could have equally belonged to Roman Catholic or African-derived religious traditions. Probably, they simultaneously belonged in both. These items provide another one of the precious few clues regarding (both Christian and “bi-religious”) faith that can be directly inferred
420 from the testaments of freed Africans in Salvador da Bahia. While Ana Maria dos
Prazeres could certainly have owned other items of religious jewelry and/or artifacts belonging to African-derived religions, she could not have listed these openly in her will.
The reason why the bentinhos were listed was probably due to their vague descriptions.110
All we can know for sure is that she did possess several items that actually belonged to the Roman Catholic creed.
The subject of the simultaneous ownership of religious artifacts belonging to different religious traditions is taken on in archeological studies conducted in the city of Salvador.
In her master’s thesis, Aurea Conceição Pereira Tavares looks at the material vestiges found in the burial grounds in the Freguesia da Sé in order to understand the complex relationship between the Catholic Church and African-derived religions under slavery. In the archeological site of the actual Sé church, fios de contas of African origin were found on the interred bodies, belonging to burials dating back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The fact that Candomblé beads were actually found on people buried within
Church grounds clearly enhances the arguments of different religious systems existing in parallel spheres in the lives of Africans and their descendants. The research conducted by
Pereira Tavares also refers to the findings of human teeth that present mutilations pointing to different African ethnicities, and thus implying that a lot of these people were
African rather than Brazilian-born. As already discussed in Chapter II, Sé was also the urban parish which contained the greatest number of irmandades in Salvador.
110 I have sought the opinion of Brazilianists with regards to these bentinhos. While nobody was able to provide me with alternative explanations, the historical literature on the subject also includes no such mentions. It seems quite likely that bentinho functioned here as a cover-up for balangandans. While Africans openly used these in the nineteenth century, listing them in an official testament would probably have been quite a different matter.
421 Irmandades signified the importance of ethnic associations, while they also played a significant role in the formation of Candomblé terreiros. These individuals, who had most probably been sent off by elaborate funeral processions presided over by their irmandades, and with detailed final rites including significant numbers of masses, had also chosen to be buried with the symbols of their African-derived belief systems. All this took place on the exact grounds of a Roman Catholic church. It is a clear indication of
“bi-religiosity” on the part of Africans extending itself into the nineteenth century. In addition, the fact that they were buried with these items, as well as their high spiritual but often low material value, also provides an explanation for why they were not listed in libertos’ testaments. As stated in Chapter II, many such items had also probably been handed over to the members of their families and personal networks prior to their deaths, or taken away and hidden preceding any possible inventories.
The religiosity of Ana Maria dos Prazeres which manifested itself in her ownership of these relatively valuable religious items also made itself clear in her simultaneous membership in several irmandades: Nossa Senhora do Rosário de São Pereira, São
Benedito, and São Francisco. She asked to be buried in the Rosário de São Pereira
Church, accompanied by the Reverend of her parish and his sexton, in addition to ten priests, all of whom would receive the customary alms. This was one more case of someone who held some importance and respect in the eyes of the more traditional
Roman Catholic religious authorities. Ana Maria also asked for a capela of masses to be said for her soul, the alms for which would be of a pataca each. Moreover, on the day that she passed away, her executor would arrange for a mass of corpo presente, as well as
422 another one to be said on the next day. In addition, Ana Maria also asked to be shrouded in the habit of São Francisco, and to be placed in a coffin covered with the funeral pall of her irmandade.111 Her testament left no doubt as to the Roman Catholic religiosity of Ana
Maria dos Prazeres. In this context, having had a daughter outside the sanctification of a
Church marriage might not have constituted a clear choice on her part, but rather part and parcel of the realities of life in a slave society. As was often the case, however, it could also point to understandings of faith emanating from multiple religious and cultural traditions that were evident in the lives of freed Africans in nineteenth-century Salvador da Bahia. Even if Ana Maria’s bentinhos were actually balangandans, she had probably seen nothing wrong in this, while she also perceived no collisions to have existed between the two different religious repertoires that she had at her disposal in her Bahian life.
Perhaps the biggest issue with her daughter’s decision to refuse the executorship of her mother’s testament, then, is that we do not know if Ana Maria dos Prazeres had been able to receive a funeral as elaborate as the one she wanted, and all the detailed last rites that she had requested. Since her daughter had initially accepted the executorship, she had probably taken care of her mother’s funeral arrangements in ways that approached her desires as much as possible. We can hope and imagine that the passage of Ana Maria dos
Prazeres to the afterworld had taken place in terms that were at least not too far off from those that she had desired and asked for in her testament when she had prepared it almost two decades prior to actually passing away. From this perspective, it is easier to understand Benedita’s later rejection of her executorship. She had already provided her
111 Once again, for a discussion of funeral palls and shrouds, refer to Vincent Brown, passim.
423 mother with her last rites, and she no longer had any reason to actually hang on to the responsibility in a context where little of actual value was left among her mother’s assets.
No matter what their differences may have been, Africans and their descendants generally agreed upon the importance of a dignified passage to their next lives all over the Diaspora. We can assume that Ana Maria’s daughter Benedita would have sought to provide her mother with a decent funeral, even if she were incapable of preparing one as elaborate as her requests. On the other hand, there is also reason enough to believe that
Ana Maria’s irmandade membership and her connections to certain members of the clergy would have also facilitated the realization of most of the elaborate final rites that
Ana Maria had requested for her soul.112
112 We learn from the petitions and certifications attached to Ana Maria dos Prazeres’ will that the second executor to her testament, Agostinho Corrêa Vieira, had passed away on 3 May 1821. These additional documents provide some interesting information as to the religiosity of the other people within a testator’s personal networks, especially when we take into account that these corresponded more closely to the understandings of the authorities of the religious-state apparatus, since they were not dictated firsthand by their protagonists. The documents stated that Agostinho Corrêa Vieira had died with all the necessary sacraments, and the reason for his death was indicated to be an unspecified internal sickness. While still vague, this is one of the most concrete reasons for death that is provided with regards to freed Africans, and it is simply the case because it is part of an official document that was prepared after the death of the person in question and not beforehand, as in the case of a testament. He was very old by the time of his death—98 years of age, which was especially old considering the short life expectancy for Africans and their descendants in nineteenth-century Salvador. I refer to the death certificate of Agostinho, since it contains some very interesting and relevant bits of information both for a general understanding of testaments, and on the religiosity of freed Africans. He was asserted to be a preto forro, legally married to Ana Maria das Neves. While this nomenclature was more common in an earlier period in Brazilian history,112 the fact that he was referred to as “preto,” often equated with “africano,” and to having acquired his alforria, most probably meant that he was also a native of the African Coast just like Ana Maria herself, rather than being a Black person born in Brazil. Moreover, if he had actually been born free, he would have been defined as “livre” rather than “forro.” Such different linguistic usages on the part of the Brazilian authorities offer greater proof for the idea that, in addition to the few necessary formulaic statements, libertos’ wills often mirrored their own voices, choices, perceptions, and worldviews. Agostinho had probably been as much of a believer as Ana Maria dos Prazeres herself, which might also have affected her decision in choosing him as her executor. Lourenço da Silva Magalhães Cardoso, presbyter and vicar of the Freguesia of São Pedro, had passed Agostinho’s death certificate himself on 30 July 1825. Alongside all the other details he offered on the deceased liberto, the vicar also made sure to state that Agostinho Corrêa Vieira had been shrouded in white and buried at the Capela de Nossa Senhora do Rosário of João Pereira, as a dignified member of the religious community, with all the necessary final rites having been provided. Not only were dignified funerals were important for libertos themselves as part of their sense of self as honorable members of society, they also directly influenced how they were perceived by society itself. While Ana Maria dos Prazeres had chosen Agostinho Corrêa Vieira as a worthy executor, he had also been perceived and defined as such by the vicar himself.
424 IX. African Religions and Creolization Processes Angélica da Costa113 had passed away on 16 May 1823, and left behind her testament, which also resulted in a petition, and an inventory that was presided over by Antônio
Cardoso Ramos, who was an inhabitant of the Rua da Poeira. The latter was Angelica’s executor, but had not been previously able to register her testament due to his illness, which had caused him to remain bed-ridden for four years, “living in abandonment and destitution” in his own words. It was only now that he had finally recovered from his sickness that he had been able to come forward with Angélica’s testament, and asked for
“mercy” in order to be allowed its fulfillment. This case of Antônio Cardoso must have been one among many where the executors failed to come forward in time due to different setbacks, which could have ranged from sickness to poverty, confinement or at times even fear.
Going back to the testament of Angélica da Costa herself, we learn that she had been married “in the way of the Church and the custom of the Kingdom” to the late Manoel
Cordeiro Ramos. Through the words she used, Angélica constructed a clear correlation between Brazilianness and Roman Catholicism—an idea that comes across in several other testaments that together make up my sample. The opening lines of her testament also contained a personal flair in addition to the usual formulaic statements of faith, which also serve to underline her commitment to these elements of her identity. While
Antônio was Angélica’s first executor, as well as heir, her faith that comes across in the opening paragraphs of her testament is emphasized by the fact that the second executor
113 Book: 11 – pp: 237 to 44
425 she named in her testament was actually a reverend: the Padre Tomás Gonçalves Lima.
The fact that Angélica must have had a close relationship with the Church and its officials once again underlined the sincerity of her commitment to the Roman Catholic faith. Having had a reverend among her executors was an especially lucky occurrence for
Angélica considering that her first executor/heir had taken three whole years to come forward. The best-case scenario to be imagined would be that Angélica’s funerary arrangements were seen to by her Reverend/second executor, who probably would have taken them quite seriously as would be required by his office, and especially if he had had a long-term friendship/acquaintance with the testator herself.
It would come as no surprise that someone like Angélica with such close links to the ecclesiastical apparatus would have asked for specific final rites for the safe passage of her soul to the afterworld. Her dead body was to be shrouded in white, and carried in the coffin proper to the Trindade do Nossa Senhora do Rosário da Baixa dos Sapateiros where she stated being an “undeserving” sister.114 Angélica also asked to be buried at her church, and accompanied to her place of sepulture by her parish reverend, and by other members of her religious community. Members of her irmandades and of the Senhor
Bom Jesus da Redenção do Corpo Santo would also walk with her to her final place of rest. If it had actually been realized according to her requests, Angélica’s certainly had been a notable funeral procession. Seven masses of corpo presente were be celebrated for her soul on the day that she passed away. While requesting the masses that would be said
114 Similar assertions are present in a couple of other testaments. It is not clear if these descriptions constitute a form of humility or even “false modesty,” or if they referred to concrete circumstances of not having been able to fulfill the responsibilities towards one’s irmandade. In light of the concerns of many freed African testators with regards to the payment of their dues for example, the latter case constitutes as much of a possibility as the former.
426 for her own soul, Angélica stated that she had accompanied her mother to Brazil from the
Mina Coast—a subject which has already been discussed in Chapter I in the context of the liberto biological family. Naturally, as Angélica herself was approaching the end of her own life at this time, her own mother had already passed away. This clearly meant that she must have been very young at the time of her arrival in Bahia, which would have partly explained her familiarity and comfort both with the customs and the religion of the land.
Being very young at the time of her arrival in the Bahian city must have certainly helped
Angélica in her adaptation and incorporation into Salvadorean society. This was evident in her commitment to both Brazilianness and Catholicism that come across clearly in her testament. The process probably had not been as easy for her mother, who presumably had never converted nor adapted as fully as her daughter to her new Brazilian realities.
Similarly, she had probably not afforded so much importance to her funeral arrangements of last rites. In contradistinction to her daughter, she might have also been a more devout follower of African-derived religions, and her “bi-religiosity” might have tended more towards the Mina Coast and been shaped less by the understandings of faith that were prevalent in Brazil. Yet, Angélica did not take these factors into account when she followed her own understandings in making arrangements for her mother’s soul when she asked for five masses to be said on her behalf. If her mother had not cared for the
Christian wellbeing of her own soul, her daughter would in her place. And if her mother had already done so herself, Angélica would still use this opportunity to show her love and gratitude, while she also made a demonstration of her own religious piety. Moreover,
427 as is often the case for most people everywhere as they approached their death,
Angélica’s mind turned towards family. Consequently, Angélica provided another significant detail on her life in Bahia when she stated that she had also had a daughter, but that she had passed away.115 Therefore, Angélica was left with no “ascendants or descendants” as was the case with the majority of freed Africans, since she had lost both to death. She accordingly remembered both when pondering her own death. Angélica consequently also asked for six masses to be said for her late daughter’s soul. The alms for all, including those of the corpo presente, would be said in return for alms of three hundred and twenty réis. Finally, later on in her testament, Angélica once again requested masses for her own soul, in this case twelve more.116
In order to better put the testament left behind by Angélica da Costa into perspective, we need to consider the dynamics of creolization in parallel to time spent in Brazil. Angélica had arrived in Bahia as a child and had lived there for many years during which she would have been able to develop a greater belief in the Roman Catholic religion. On the other hand, she could also have participated in “bi-religious” faith-based communities and kinship networks, which would also have required a certain familiarity with
Christianity. Conversely, Angélica’s mother probably had not had sufficient time to do
115 This was so even though she had not referred to her daughter in the beginning of her testament, but rather simply declared not having any children. Indeed, this might have been often the case in the testaments, which would indicate that libertos/as only cited those children who had been able to survive in the difficult world of slavery in their testaments in order to be able to assume the status of heirs. This fact would point to the great prevalence of child mortality, and the short life cycles that defined the experiences of most Africans and even crioulos, in addition to the low fertility rates that have already been discussed in other parts of this dissertation.
116 Angélica also requested a few more masses, for the souls of her late owners. For this reason, they have previously been discussed in Chapter I from the perspective of exceptional master-slave relationships in freed African lives.
428 any of this. She would have remained more connected to the belief systems she had brought with herself from the African continent, which she would have remembered and known much better than her daughter whose knowledge and experience would primarily derive from her experiences in Brazil, even with regards to African-derived religions. She would have spent a more significant part of her life within these understandings, practices, and traditions, and they would have held greater meaning for her. Angélica probably knew this when she sought to provide her mother’s soul with Roman Catholic masses. This is not to imply an understanding as simple as in the more years that passed the more Christian Africans became. This was certainly not the case, and Africans did exercise important amounts of agency in choosing their religions and building their faith- based kinship networks. They preferred certain practices over others, kept their own religions alive, and selectively moved among different religious repertoires. Even when they did place Christianity in a central place in their lives, they often still remained “bi- religious” to differing extents. On the other hand though, time did matter. Time was needed in order to gain familiarity with the religion and to be integrated into communities of faith. The more time that passed, the greater were the chances of someone to be actually committed to African understandings and ways of worship of Christianity proper to the Bahian setting.
X. Conclusions Taking off from James Sweet’s understanding of “bi-religiosity” evident throughout the history of enslavement in Brazil, this chapter has searched for clues as to the centrality of religion and faith to the lives, kinship networks, and community formations of libertos. I have analyzed the detailed and repetitive assertions of faith, as well as the elaborate
429 requests for masses and funerary processions as proof of such a centrality, and often as an indication of a greater leaning towards the Roman Catholic religion on the part of freed
Africans.
While providing the necessary background for understanding African cosmologies in the
Americas, the centrality of death to these belief systems, and the roles played by irmandades in the lives of Africans and their descendants, I have primarily relied on secondary sources which I then juxtaposed to my primary documentation. Within these discussions, I also sought to problematize the roles played by ethnicity and by the irmandades themselves in the formation of Candomblé terreiros. Later, I have looked at the intersections between the acceptance of Catholic precepts and the centrality of faith to libertos’ lives. The idea of living within the precepts of the religion brought to the forefront discussions of legality and justice, and especially of honor and dignity, while emphasizing the stereotypical understandings regarding Africans of the more privileged members of Brazilian society. Finally, the ownership of religious artifacts by libertos has also contributed to a fuller understanding of their religiosity, while the importance given to these once again pointed to the centrality of faith. A certain vagueness as to the religious repertoires to which they might have been associated also underlined the idea of the prevalence of “bi-religiosity” within the lives of Africans in nineteenth-century Bahia.
Historical discussions of resistance through culture, social structures, and religion in the slave societies of the Atlantic world have been divided into two main schools. The first of these, which may be called creolization school, has underlined the importance of the
430 “social death” experienced by enslaved Africans in the Americas, and asserted that the harsh realities of American slavery often overwhelmed African pasts, and resulted in the creation of new creolized slave societies, built around the experience of enslavement and affording the possibility solely of a certain degree of resistance, and that within the systemic limits set by the dynamics of slavery and slave ownership. Among the historians that I have relied on most in this chapter, Vincent Brown belongs primarily within this group. On the other hand, with James Sweet at the forefront, other historians have insisted on the continuing importance of African religions, societal formations, and cultural practices in the Americas. The majority of the Brazilian histories referenced in this chapter also belong within this second group. Sweet’s argument in favor of retention has been strengthened by the dynamics of “ethnic clustering” in the Americas as described by Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, where people from broad cultural areas in Africa came together and organized themselves around their commonalities upon their arrival in
Brazil.
The argument that I have sought to make in this chapter is a little different, and exists at the intersection of these two understandings. As exemplified by the case of Angélica da
Costa, my analysis does take creolization into account within considerations of African social, cultural, and religious retentions in Bahia. However, I argue that Africanness was the main referent that brought together libertos of African origin, as well as the main shaper of their faiths, communities and personal networks. However, my understanding of Africanness in this dissertation differs to a certain extent from the one offered by
James Sweet, for example. It is true that the majority of Africans brought to Brazil did
431 not constitute one big heterogeneous mass. Arriving in large groups from broad geographic and cultural areas that shared at least some commonalities, different waves of people arrived in Brazil at different points in time, due to events in both Africa and in the
Americas. Once they were in Brazil, they could no longer hold on to ethnic, cultural, and religious differences as much as they had been able to do so back on the continent.
These differences still remained, of course, and people were aware of them in a way quite similar to the manners in which their practitioners often knew the constituent parts of religious practices in Sweet’s understanding. No scholar of Bahian slavery can deny the extremely central role played by ethnicity in shaping the lives of Africans and their descendants. But Africans also needed to come together for survival, mutual aid, as well as for the retention of identities that were different from those of Whites and Brazilian- born Blacks. As Africans, they held on to their Africanness as the primary shaper of their identities. They constructed their communities and kinship networks around the experience of having been born in Africa and brought to Brazil as slaves. But as seen in the aftermath of the Malê Revolution where repatriations were widespread, not many of them wanted to go back to their “homelands.” Over time, they came to perceive of themselves as Brazilians of African origin, who deserved to be accepted as honorable members of Brazilian society. In the process, they also remained proud bearers of African traditions and cultures, social structures, and religions. In the process, they gave being
Afro-Brazilian a different and more nuanced meaning. The nineteenth century would see the end, as well as the culmination, of this identity of being “African-born Brazilians” in
Salvador. With the abolition of the slave trade, and the end of slavery in Brazil, the
432 twentieth century would see a mixing together of Afro-Brazilians, descended from a variety of different genealogies from the era of slavery.
433 CONCLUSIONS
In this dissertation, I have sought to engage in the in-depth textual analyses of the testaments left behind by freed Africans in nineteenth-century Salvador. Considering them as actual narrative texts that provide windows into liberto lives, I have argued that they constitute a representative sample in spite of their limitations. This is because
Brazilian inheritance law touched even the most humble households, and the strongly legal slant that existed to Brazilian culture affected all members of society. Freed
Africans used the legal recourse provided by the preparation of an official testament to make sure their legacies went to the people of their own choice. They sought to guarantee the rights of partners with whom they had not joined in holy matrimony, children born out of wedlock, or people who were important to them within their communities and personal networks, in spite of not being blood kin or extended family, and thus not among the people whose inheritance rights were guaranteed by law. They also wanted to avoid the appropriation by the State of their assets.
While freed African testators usually prepared their testaments because they owned at least a few material assets they would have liked to pass on to others, their reasons often went well beyond questions of inheritance. Equally great in importance were their fear of death and the centrality of faith to their lives, worldviews, and communities, all of which were reflected in their detailed evocations of faith, and lengthy requests for funerary arrangements. On the other hand, libertos also used their wills to eternalize the best possible image they could conjure of themselves and the lives they had led in Bahia. In
434 the process, they sought to emphasize the fact that they were dignified and worthy members of Bahian society. They put honor in a central place within their narratives, and sought to make sure that this image would survive them into eternity in the form of an officially registered document, in face of a society that had constantly sought to deprive themselves of it during their lives. Their insistence on participating in the legal process also constituted a meaningful act from the perspective of reclaiming their rights in a context where these were severely limited, and the legal process often worked against them.
Libertos used both agency and deliberation in deciding how they would be understood and remembered. They also sought in all ways possible to them to play a role in shaping the lives of the people within their personal networks after their own deaths. As was always the case in the lives of Africans and their descendants in the slave societies of the
Americas, they used the spaces available to them to the best of their advantage. They were selective and innovative; they resisted and challenged as much as they accepted and adapted. They took Brazilian values, systems, and institutions, and successfully molded these to their own understandings, cosmologies, worldviews and mentalities. All these aspects can be evidenced in their testaments that provide us with invaluable microcosms of freed African lives, while they serve as the documentary basis for the construction of a microhistory that has implications for the lives of enslaved and freed Africans in slave societies all over the Atlantic World.
435 The documents analyzed in this dissertation enrich the existing histories of African slavery in the Americas from two main perspectives. First, they contribute to the historiography whose purpose is to assess and access the lives of Africans and their descendants in the Diaspora. From this perspective, libertos’ wills shed light upon their material possessions, living arrangements, and occupations, and assist us in creating a fuller and more vivid picture of the lives they may have led in the Bahian capital. But the implications of these more concrete aspects of freed African lives also expand into the field of African cosmologies, worldviews, and mentalities in the worlds of slavery. The decisions they made regarding the ways in which they stored their wealth point to complex interactions between African retentions and processes of creolization in the
Americas. While choosing to count their wealth and real estate may be seen as an acceptance of Brazilian values of more European origins, it also comes across as a basic condition for actual freedom in a slave society of the Americas. The decision to store one’s wealth in people, on the other hand, is indicative of the many overlaps that did exist between African and Brazilian understandings, and of the centrality of slavery to both societies in which Africans had spent their entire lives. In all instances, these decisions emphasize the constant presence and strength of selectivity, deliberation and agency on the part of Africans.
Personal choice and deliberation are present even in the simplest among libertos’ decisions. For example, the favoring of one possible heir over another, the selection of executors, the protection extended to certain individuals, or who freed Africans remember and sometimes acknowledge with symbolic monetary or religious/ritual tokens
436 when the time comes for pondering their own deaths have a great deal to say about the personal and kinship networks they created for themselves in Bahia. References to specific settings within Salvador point to the centrality of their local communities to their lives, indications of places of baptism imply an insistence on communities formed around faith. The list goes on and on, and every detail included in their wills emphasizes libertos’ testaments as precious windows into both their outer worlds and inner universes.
However, the complex question of African religiosity and faith-based communities in
Brazil provides the most intense setting for following these processes of agency and selective deliberation at work. While Africans inhabited “bi-religious” worlds composed of both African-derived religions and Roman Catholicism, they kept both religious repertoires as independent of each other, moving seamlessly from one to the other in consideration of their current situations and needs. In this way, African faith in the
Americas represented the epitome of the processes of deliberate selectivity on the part of
Africans and their descendants.
Throughout this dissertation, I have sought to offer conclusions at the end of each chapter. Chapter I insisted on the fact that freed Africans inhabited a world that was dominated primarily by other Africans like themselves. It demonstrated that this process was bi-fold. Africans were limited in their rights and social existence by the representatives of the state-ecclesiastical apparatus as well as by the larger Bahian society. Considered as foreigners, they were forced to accept Africanness as the main shaper of their identities in Brazil. Conversely, Africans once again testified to very high levels of deliberation and agency in effectively choosing to surround themselves by other
437 Africans whom they would choose as spouses or companions, friends and neighbors.
Together they would create communities that went beyond the limitations of slavery by bringing together both the enslaved and free around the common denominator of
Africanness. The exceptions discussed in this chapter also serve to confirm this general pattern, as in every society where hegemony is fortified by giving a certain leeway to a counter-hegemonic bloc. Chapter I also introduced us to the many complexities that defined liberto lives at every level, from the importance of the biological and extended families to their fragility in the worlds of slavery, from the centrality of compadrio to liberto life to its being only one among a plethora of important associations within freed
African lives. It emphasized the complicated nature of master-slave relationships, which in the middle of the experience of enslavement could also provide enslaved Africans with an important support system for their adaptation to slavery in Brazil and a major starting point for building their new kinship networks and communities. Finally, it also underlined the impossibility of living lives solely composed of Africans in the highly cosmopolitan and dynamic world of nineteenth-century Salvador, and discussed some of the reflections of this reality in libertos’ wills.
Chapter II continued to elaborate on these primarily African worlds within Salvador, and the ways in which they were reflected in the material wealth of libertos that was not stored in slaves, as well as in the individuals chosen to be the recipients of these specific bequests. Not only their places of dwelling, but also the objects that they owned such as household furniture or jewelry have gone a long way in providing us with a more detailed illustration of freed African lives in Salvador. The ownership of money in the different
438 forms of currency, precious metal, or debts also provided significant details on liberto lives. In some cases, the ownership of money or jewelry even pointed towards certain livelihoods or to the religious beliefs of their owners. As a second additional source in this study of material lives, post-mortem estate inventories have also gone a long way in shedding light on the lives of freed Africans, since their possessions in fact constituted direct reflections of their lives in many ways. They comprised their material worlds, within which they spent their daily lives in Bahia. Chapter II also looked at the living arrangements of libertos upon the acquisition of their freedom, the limitations they faced in doing so in the aftermath of the Malê Revolt, as well as the strategies they used for circumventing them. Their opting for more urban or rural lifestyles offered significant insights with regards to their mentalities, priorities, and worldviews. These decisions and the agency that went into making them also demonstrated that while its degrees could always vary according to social standing or lifestyle preferences, freed Africans were almost always committed to the continuation of African ways within their lives, and to living in communities predominantly composed of their peers.
Chapter III touched upon one of the most complex aspects of liberto life in Salvador, which was reflected in the slave ownership of freed Africans. While taking into account the different layers of exceptionalisms that have shaped the common understandings of life in urban slave societies, and the greater mobility and freedoms experienced by both freed and enslaved Africans and their descendants within them, this chapter insisted on the hegemonic nature of slavery in both African and American slave societies. At the same time as it argued against any idea of lenience or better treatment on the part of
439 African libertos vis-à-vis their slaves who were also Africans for the most part, Chapter
III also considered the differences in liberto slave ownership that emanates from having been through similar experiences and strived towards the same goal of freedom. An understanding of the fragile nature of freedom in the slave societies of the Atlantic
World, and its need to be coupled with the necessary economic conditions, also come through in the relevant clauses of the wills left behind by freed Africans. In this chapter, I have also attempted to trace a few major patterns in the alforria arrangements made by libertos, as to whom they favored, how they tried to facilitate the process to a certain extent while not putting their own interest or the wellbeing loved ones at risk, or how they sought to almost always avoid the highly feared prospect of being resold at the praça, which would mean a complete repetition of the processes of “social death,” and the need to start from the very beginning in the construction of new social networks and communities, while adapting to the rule of new masters and labor arrangements. This chapter also insists on the dynamics of ethnicity as a primary referent to slave identities, through its associations with the slave trade and its stereotypical understandings of the labor capacities and personality profiles attributed to different ethnic groups. One final contribution of this chapter is its insistence on questions of honor and justice as important referents in liberto lives, through an analysis of their reflections within master-slave relationships.
Chapter IV demonstrated that libertos’ wills also provide us with significant insights regarding the religiosity of freed Africans, as well as into the ways in which they constructed “bi-religious” universes for themselves by bringing together Roman
440 Catholicism and African-derived religions in their everyday lives. They demonstrate the agency and selectivity they manifested in moving from one religious repertoire to the other in consideration of their needs, while actively translating and adapting their understandings and uses of African-derived religions from their African pasts to their current Brazilian realities. The specific clauses related to religious beliefs within libertos’ wills are reflective of the ways in which the libertos understood the passage from worldly life to the afterlife, placed the “soul” in a central place within their cosmologies, and understood funerals and other related last rites as important spheres for ratifying their kinship networks and community structures. The testaments composed by freed Africans are indicative of the role played by faith in the formation of both their Bahian communities and identities. Their irmandade membership functions in a similar way, while the Catholic lay brotherhoods and sisterhoods represent spaces of central importance for social activity and visibility on the part of freed Africans, as well as for their taking on political roles.
Within the discussions for the many possible foundations for liberto kinship and personal networks in Brazil offered in previous chapters, I had left a detailed discussion of essential role played by the irmandades for Chapter IV, so as to analyze them primarily through the lens of faith and religiosity. Irmandades point to complex dynamics concerning the retention of ethnic identities in the limited institutionalized spaces offered by Brazilian society. They thus form a major steppingstone within the process of the formation of transculturated religions. In fact, they constitute one of the few junctures within libertos testaments that bring African ethnicities understood as membership in
441 broad cultural areas and repertoires to the forefront of African identities. Finally, through their insistence on honor, dignity, and duty—especially with regards to their members who hold offices within them—the Black irmandades once again underline these important aspects of liberto life, while the freed Africans themselves strive to make their funeral processions and accompanying rites into mirrors of these very same understandings.
In many ways, the wills left behind by libertos in the nineteenth century, reflect all the complexities of enslavement in the complex urban slave society of nineteenth century
Salvador. They are full of the paradoxes, contrasts, and complex calculations that were part and parcel of daily life in such a complex context. They are representative of the infinite number of possibilities that shaped human relationships under extreme hardship and oppression, while they directly attest to the sheer will to survive, to resist, and to assert themselves as dignified members of the society into which they were initially brought by force, but of which they now were a part. From this perspective, and via the understanding of Salvador as a true capital of the Atlantic World and a complex slave society par excellence, this study of libertos’ wills points to all the processes of resistance and adaptation, survival and resilience that are evident in the lives of Africans and their descendants everywhere in the Americas, with its implications going well beyond
Brazilian borders. In this regard, it adds to an already existing and very active dialogue, and complicates our understanding of slave life in the Americas from one more perspective.
442 One specific contribution of this dissertation is its insistence on the importance of how libertos understood their Africanness or their identity as an African-born community. In placing itself at the intersection of the two main historiographical schools on African lives in the Americas, it takes both the idea of African retentions and the teachings of the creolization school into account in its insistence on a freed African identity built around being Africans in Brazil. I give equal importance to both sources in the processes of liberto identity and community formation. Similar to an understanding of “bi-religiosity” as addressed by James Sweet in his discussion of African cosmologies and faith-based kinship networks in the Americas, the freed Africans who composed their testaments in the nineteenth century moved back and forth between different repertoires and vocabularies, at times privileging one over the other, at other times giving importance to both, and redefining themselves as honorable members of Brazilian society of African origin, deserving of its citizenship, and ensuing privileges and rights. While this identity was enforced upon them to a certain extent by the exigencies and limitations of the legal system and the state-ecclesiastical apparatus, freed Africans were also active agents in forging communities made up primarily by their peers, creating personal networks and living arrangements that were highly African in nature, all within the prescribed spaces offered them by Bahian slave society. As Africans and their descendants everywhere in the Americas, they were resilient, resourceful, and capable of extreme degrees of adaptation and innovation.
It is also significant that this specific identity of being Africans in Brazil had its roots in the three major distinct points made up their life cycles, which are referred to in the very
443 title of this dissertation. These libertos had gone from being either free or part of a very different experience of enslavement back in Africa (in other words from incomplete freedom), to complete enslavement within the Atlantic system of chattel/plantation slavery in Brazil, in order to strive for and gain free status in the same setting where they had previously been enslaved. Nor was this freedom complete in most cases, since its fragility was a constant in the lives of Africans forever marked by their histories of enslavement, their foreign origins, and their race which equated them with slavery all over the Americas. In addition, they were well aware of the fact that de jure freedom needed to be accompanied by its economic and social counterparts in order for them to live freer lives within a context that already legally, socially, and culturally prescribed their spaces of existence and their mobility. Therefore, freedom remained a major objective within freed African lives even in the cases where they had been able to acquire their alforria.
The freed Africans who composed their testaments in the nineteenth century had acquired their freedom in what was once a foreign land, that of their enslavement and suffering.
By the time they were offered or were able to buy their freedom, these libertos had usually spent many years in Brazil. They had grown accustomed to life in Salvador, forged new friendship and kinship networks, become part of lay brotherhoods and sisterhoods, and members of transculturated religions. They formed a distinct group within, but preserved close ties to the other members of, the African community in the city. Their personal networks encompassed those Africans who had recently arrived, as well as those who had spent many years in Bahia and in other parts of Brazil. They
444 included the enslaved as well as the free. In other ways, however, they had witnessed strong processes of “creolization,” and had come to identify in many ways with the dynamics and values of Brazilian society. They simultaneously resisted and conformed to its norms, hierarchies, and rules. Moving smoothly along two different sets of worldviews and social systems, they felt most comfortable in the spaces where these understandings intersected.
The individuals whose voices were heard in this dissertation also belonged very specifically to the Bahian nineteenth century. Different from prior arrivals from the
African continent, they came to Salvador in the century of social and economic upheavals, and the Malê revolt. They arrived at a time where the slave trade intensified and the slave society reached its most rigid state, as is often the case right before a system unravels. They witnessed the dialogues on abolitionism and emancipation. They became part of personal, kinship, and faith-based networks that had already been in construction for several centuries. They contributed to and learned from the African presence in Bahia.
Mostly West Africans, they were able to surround themselves with people from their broad cultural areas more than they would have been able to at any previous point in time. All these factors were evident in their lives, and reflected in turn in their testaments that provide us with their microcosms. The vitality and strength that emanates from the effort of putting their last wishes into writing, exercising control over their lives, and successfully participating in the legal process is also a product of their time. These nineteenth-century libertos were to be the last group of Africans that arrived in Bahia as slaves. Their children, crias, as well as everyone connected to them through their
445 personal networks were to become Afro-Brazilians, shapers of another culture that would also have its origins in that created in the nineteenth century by the city’s African population. But except for the impetus it could receive through transatlantic voyages and networks, the African element would end up being increasingly molded into the Brazilian framework.
We are very lucky to have the testaments of nineteenth-century African libertos who were able to carve their persons, lives, and networks, as well as their constant struggles and the many injustices and hardships they suffered into official documentation that would survive them into eternity. They were able to leave us with images that were at least close to how they wanted to be remembered, once again within the limits prescribed by the legal, state, and Church authorities. They sought to tell their stories from their own perspectives, which they left behind for posterity. They successfully took advantage of their testaments to emphasize themselves as honorable Brazilian citizens who were also proud representatives of African cultures, values, and worldviews. In this way, they also told their life stories not only as how they were, but also as how they should have been in a more just and better world. Therefore, the testaments left behind by freed Africans are not only mini autobiographies, but also short reflections of their personal utopias.
This group of individuals insisted very strongly on dignified funerals and other accompanying final rites that would serve as mirrors for the people whom they had strived to be in Bahia, and for their efforts to assert themselves as deserving citizens and to reclaim their rights. They reasserted their existence, their struggles, and their right to
446 be remembered in the manner that they deserved. Their testaments fulfill the same purpose, and offer us the opportunity to become acquainted with them and to hear their voices between the lines of officialdom. The detailed analysis of their wills as life histories and narrative texts in their own right also constitutes a much necessary and well- deserved final rite for the freed Africans who led these nineteenth-century Bahian lives. It is our responsibility to make sure that they receive it.
447
APPENDIX A
Nineteenth-Century Freed African Testators in Salvador in Chronological Order
Nome Data 1. Mathias Pires de Carvalho 04/06/1800 2. Manoel dos Santos 31/08/1801 3. Agostinho de Souza Maciel 02/05/1804 4. Maria da Conceição da Cruz 02/01/1804 5. Antônia Josefa da Conceição 31/05/1805 6. Clara Maria da Conceição 16/10/1805 7. Damiana Vieira 03/07/1805 8. Ignácio de Sampaio 25/01/1805 9. Quitéria de Assunção 30/08/1805 10. Rosa Maria Nunes Pereira 23/12/1805 11. Jacinta Maria de Brito 11/01/1805 12. Joaquim Pires Fernandes da Conceição 09/09/1806 13. Rosa da Silva 11/08/1808 14. Elesbão Antonio do Outeiro 22/11/1810 15. Mariana Joaquina da Silva Pereira 10/02/1810 16. Miguel das Neves 13/02/1811 17. Francisca Rosa 26/03/1814 18. João Gomes Fouguinho 18/05/1814 19. José Gonçalves Braga 26/09/1814 20. Luiz da Rocha 11/05/1814 21. Maria Joaquina de Santana 13/05/1814 22. Maria Correia Vidal 06/06/1815 23. Bento Dias Coelho 25/06/1815 24. Bernardina Maria de Jesus 10/04/1815 25. Ana Francisca da Conceição 18/06/1816 26. Joaquina Francisca de Campos 13/08/1817 27. Leonor Francisca da Rocha 29/10/1819 28. Maria Antônia da Conceição 30/03/1819 29. Tereza Maria de Jesus 15/03/1820 30. Francisco Carneiro de Campos 20/02/1820 31. Ana Rita Gonçalves 28/11/1823 32. Luiz de França da Conceição 06/11/1823 33. Antônia de Araújo 04/05/1823 34. Caetano Carlos Teixeira 07/12/1833 35. Felizarda Eugênia 21/06/1823 36. Manoel da Silva 14/12/1823
448 37. Roque Gouveia 24/09/1823 38. Maria Joaquina de Menezes 20/04/1823 39. Ricardo Gomes 03/01/1824 40. Rosa de Paiva 25/02/1824 41. Antônio José da Silveira 04/09/1824 42. Caetana Maria do Nascimento 11/07/1824 43. Francisco da Silva Cunha 24/05/1824 44. Eugênia Maria do Sacramento 04/11/1825 45. Gertrudes Maria do Espírito Santo 28/01/1825 46. Joaquim Batista 12/08/1825 47. Feliciana Maria de Araújo 23/03/1826 48. Francisco da Encarnação 17/03/1826 49. Joaquim Cardoso da Costa 18/05/1826 50. Joaquina Maria da Encarnação 15/06/1826 51. José Ignácio Joaquim 10/04/1826 52. Maria Gertrudes de Santana 02/07/1826 53. Antônia Maria da Silva 30/11/1826 54. Ana Maria dos Prazeres 09/09/1826 55. Ignácia Fernandes dos Santos 07/07/1827 56. Ana Ludovina de Oliveira 17/10/1827 57. José Nunes de Moraes 01/05/1827 58. Pedro Domingues dos Santos 01/05/1827 59. Rita Pereira do Nascimento Campos 28/12/1827 60. Bernardino de Sena 20/08/1827 61. Joaquim Vieira 16/01/1828 62. José Antônio de Etra 25/04/1828 63. Manoel Vieira 05/04/1828 64. Quitéria Maria de Jesus 03/01/1828 65. Rita Joana Maria de Jesus 05/08/1828 66. Theodora Alonção 19/08/1828 67. Rita Rosa de São José 28/11/1828 68. Luiza Cardoza Maria de Jesus 13/08/1829 69. Maria de Freitas Guimarães 07/03/1829 70. José da Costa Ferreira 03/06/1829 71. Francisco da Rocha 09/03/1830 72. Francisco Pires 24/10/1832 73. Rafael Cordeiro 12/11/1832 74. Matheus da Silva Guimarães 23/09/1832 75. Margarida de Araújo Gois 29/05/1833 76. Maria Antônia 13/10/1833 77. Ana Josefa do Rego 21/1/1834 78. José Barbosa 10/08/1834 79. Antônio Xavier de Jesus 02/05/1835 80. Feliciana Maria de Faria 19/01/1835 81. Joaquim Carneiro de Campos 10/10/1835
449 82. José Pereira de Souza 26/01/1835 83. Francisco Rodrigues Gameiro 04/08/1836 84. Quitéria Nunes de Jesus 02/11/1836 85. Joana Maria Ferreira 09/07/1837 86. Maria Francisca da Conceição 23/12/1837 87. Delfina Rosa de Vasconcelos 06/04/1838 88. Florência Dias de Moura 11/07/1838 89. Leopoldina de Moura 16/07/1838 90. Manoel Pereira Lopes 06/08/1838 91. Rosa Maria da Conceição 06/08/1838 92. Bernardina Tavares 03/03/1838 93. Francisca Antônia da Silva 22/10/1839 94. Maria do Bonfim 18/12/1839 95. Mariana da Conceição Lima 28/02/1839 96. Rita Maria da Conceição 06/11/1839 97. Paulo José da Fonseca 15/11/1840 98. Maria do Rosário dos Santos 13/02/1840 99. Luiza de França 05/04/1840 100. Sebastião Alves da Rocha 01/11/1841 101. Joana Nunes 02/10/1842 102. Floreana Antônia Ribeiro 10/06/1842 103. Domingas de Sales 12/05/1842 104. Antônio Mendes dos Santos 21/07/1842 105. Rosa Maria de Paiva e Aleluia 20/05/1842 106. Maria Francisca Teles de Menezes 25/05/1842 107. Maria do Espírito Santo 05/04/1842 108. Lourenço de Oliveira 19/01/1842 109. Francisca Maria da Soledade 18/06/1843 110. Ana Joaquina de Souza 03/04/1844 111. Thereza Benedita de Jesus 01/07/1844 112. Mariana dos Anjos Menezes 29/01/1844 113. Maximiano de Freitas Henriques 06/02/1844 114. Joaquim de Almeida 17/12/1844 115. Maria Joana das Chagas 17/12/1844 116. Antônia Felix de Santana 23/07/1845 117. José Tavares 17/04/1845 118. Claudina Maria de Sena 04/08/1846 119. Romana Maria da Conceição 26/05/1846 120. Maria do Bonfim da Silva de Santana 16/08/1846 121. Júlio Barata 17/12/1846 122. Bernardo José 15/10/1847 123. Alexandre José Vieira 10/11/1847 124. Lucrécia de Amorim 22/12/1847 125. Antônio Serafim dos Anjos 19/08/1848 126. Luduvilla Rebelo 21/09/1848
450 127. Joana Maria da Guia 18/05/1850 128. Ana Rita 30/12/1850 129. Elizeo de Faria 27/08/1850 130. Rita de Lima 01/10/1850 131. Bernardina Joaquina das Neves 27/05/1850 132. Felicidade Maria de São José 19/01/1851 133. Antônio de Matos Guimarães 15/01/1851 134. Rosa Maria da Boa Morte 10/05/1851 135. Constança Francisca Bahia 08/03/1851 136. João Marques 3/12/1852 137. Bernardina Maria de Santana 22/12/1852 138. Rita Friandes 25/07/1852 139. Lusia José Pires 04/03/1853 140. Maria da Assunção 06/07/1853 141. Ana Rita Luciana de Freitas 18/02/1853 142. Antônia Trigueira 21/01/1853 143. Emiliano Grave 10/11/1853 144. José Alves da Silva 2/11/1853 145. Lourenço Domingos dos Santos 12/01/1853 146. Maria da Conceição 04/11/1854 147. Maria da Conceição 19/06/1854 148. Joana Barbosa da Silva 14/12/1854 149. Ana Maria da Cunha 22/10/1854 150. Maria dos Prazeres 22/06/1854 151. Paulo Coelho 10/09/1855 152. Maria Teresa de Jesus 08/09/1855 153. Antônio Mendes da Silva 08/11/1855 154. Florinda Ana da Soledade 19/1/1855 155. Inocência de Santa Anna 31/04/1855 156. Joana Friandes 13/10/1855 157. Luiz Francisco Martins Guimarães 28/04/1855 158. Maria Prudencia de Almeida 20/09/1855 159. Úrsula das Virgens Saraiva 07/08/1855 160. Elena Machado 26/06/1855 161. Inocêncio José da Costa 15/12/1856 162. Maria de Santana 26/10/1856 163. Cassimiro Lisboa 23/03/1857 164. Agostinho Pedro Falcão 18/07/1857 165. Joaquim de São José 13/02/1857 166. João José Lino da Silva 01/11/1857 167. Antônio da Silveira 01/12/1858 168. Tibério Lisboa de Pinho 05/11/1858 169. Lino Ribeiro Sanches e Luiza de Queirós 07/10/1858 170. Vital Pereira da Silva 02/02/1858 171. Maurício de Oliveira 25/06/1859
451 172. Antônia Maria do Espírito Santo 05/01/1860 173. Gertudes Vaz de Sauza 23/02/1860 174. Archanja Maria de São Miguel 18/12/1860 175. Benedito Bahia 05/11/1860 176. Feliciana Maria da Piedade 3/3/1860 177. João Francisco da Costa 25/04/1860 178 Maria da Encarnação Milles 14/03/1860 179. Francisco Lopes Moutinho 05/06/1860 180. Pedro João da França 07/01/1860 181. Primo Mendes dos Santos 23/06/1861 182. Rita Inácia 01/06/1862 183. Joaquim Antônio Mendes 04/06/1862 184. Noberta Pinto da Silveira 09/09/1862 185. Terúbio Gaspar Ferreira de Matos 11/07/1862 186. Bento Martins da Costa 18/10/1862 187. José Paraíso 11/12/1862 188. José da Conceição Soares Pinto 12/11/1863 189. Lazaro Calmon 25/05/1863 190. Luiza Francisca Gonçalves 04/09/1863 191. Rosa do O Freire 11/08/1863 192. Antônio de Santa Isabel 15/07/1863 193. Augusto da Silva Couto 08/01/1863 194. Faustina da Silva 21/1/1863 195. João José da Costa 25/11/1863 196. José de Carvalho Bastos 20/06/1863 197. Marcos de Moura e Maria Josefa de Queirós 24/03/1863 198. Rofina Rosa Friandes 07/07/1863 199. João José de Moura 08/02/1865 200. Lampião da Silva Couto 02/06/1865 201. Maria Francisca 07/07/1865 202. Maria Rita Vaz de Carvalho 05/04/1865 203. Joaquim Pereira Carvalho 18/09/1866 204. Maria Luiza da Costa 21/07/1866 205. Antônio de Almeida 30/08/1867 206. José Rodrigues de Menezes 03/01/1867 207. Lucas Ramos 18/05/1867 208. Luiz Mendes 20/02/1867 209. Joaquim Gomes de Souza 15/07/1867 210. José Alves Matheus 26/12/1867 211. Maria Basília de Leite 30/07/1867 212. Emília Venceslau Miguel de Almeida 03/11/1867 213. Claudina Gomes de Abreo 22/09/1867 214. Delfina de Souza Telles 26/04/1867 215. Florentina Maria da Conceição 05/01/1868 216. Gil Antônio de Almeida 11/09/1868
452 217. Francisco Dias do Nascimento 11/4/1868 218. Lourenço Antunes Guimarães 25/05/1868 219. Josefa da Silva 08/06/1868 220. Thomé da França 26/12/1868 221. Sabina da Cruz 13/08/1868 222. Maria Sabina Gil 30/01/1868 223. José de Souza Neto 29/07/1869 224. Francisca Sale 30/05/1869 225. Miguel Antônio Araújo 01/03/1870 226. Bernardina de Andrade 04/10/1870 227. Maria Simplícia dos Anjos 08/11/1871 228. Felix José dos Reis 15/10/1872 229. Manoel Camilo da Costa 05/10/1872 230. Manoel José de Carvalho 06/09/1872 231. Venância Constança 11/11/1872 232. Constança Teixeira 20/04/1872 233. Alexandre Falcão 27/04/1872 234. Januário Francisco Grave 03/03/1873 235. Domingas Maria da Conceição Teixeira 03/08/1873 236. Pedro Salgueiro 03/10/1873 237. Rita Ignácia 01/07/1873 238. André Pereira dos Santos 07/11/1873 239. Maria Gonçalves Polieiro 08/06/1873 240. Benvindo da Fonseca Galvão 11/02/1873 241. Gonçalo Fernandes de Souza 11/10/1873 242. Romualdo de Cerqueira 16/08/1873 243. Maria do Sacramento Rocha 18/02/1873 244. Maria da Conceição 20/02/1873 245. Barnabé Etre 21/08/1873 246. João da Mata 27/05/1873 247. Frutuoso Vieira de Macedo 28/09/1873 248. Gaspar de Cerqueira Lima 05/02/1873 249. Agostinho Afonso de Carvalho 09/02/1874 250. Joaquina Rosa do Sacramento 15/09/1874 251. João da Silva 11/07/1875 252. Antônio Manoel da Costa 13/11/1875 253. Maria Joaquina Vitória da Conceição 18/03/1875 254. José da Costa de Oliveira 20/10/1875 255. Francisco Guilherme Biber 31/12/1875 256. Delfina Maria da Conceição 24/02/1876 257. Felisberto Alcamim 20/05/1876 258. Justina Maria da Conceição 27/07/1876 259. Ernesto Meireles 14/09/1876 260. Henriqueta Antônia Teixeira do Sacramento 19/05/1876 261. Domingos Lopes Pereira 19/09/1877
453 262. Faustina Lisboa 05/06/1877 263. Felicidade Maria Germana da Conceição 07/05/1877 264. Floripe José Etta 25/08/1877 265. Felisberta Adriana 25/05/1877 266. Caetano Vieira de Lemos 02/02/1878 267. Francisco Bastos 14/03/1878 268. Bento Guilherme Maia 05/09/1879 269. Guilherme Requião da Silva 10/10/1879 270. Ignácio Soares de Sá 17/03/1879 271. Ana Joaquina 07/10/1880 272. Bernardo Joaquim de Souza 10/06/1880 273. Inácio de Cerqueira 04/07/1880 274. Prudência Maria de Jesus 25/08/1881 275. Benedito José Cardoso 29/04/1881 276. Manoel José Parra 11/09/1882 277. Ciro Francisco de Almeida 26/02/1883 278. Felicidade Maria da Conceição 17/01/1883 279. Felisberto Joaquim da Mota 19/11/1883 280. Faustino de Barros 05/09/1884 281. Cornélio Pedroso 21/07/1885 282. José Travessa 20/02/1885 283. Marcolino Antônio Pedroso 09/01/1885 284. Tomás Samuel Marbach 22/06/1885 285. Tibério Manoel de Magalhães 22/05/1885 286. Militão Muniz 21/06/1886 287. Pedro Brites 09/05/1886 288. Mariana Maria do Sacramento Viana 04/02/1887 289. Justiniano Maineto 29/04/1887 290. Adriano José Viana 04/02/1887 291. Jacinta do Amor Divino 24/12/1888 292. Joana Joaquina Manoela da Cunha 09/08/1888 293. Cândida do Nascimento Paim 02/10/1888 294. Felipe Gomes 25/07/1888 295. Antônio Nunes Figueira 28/04/1889 296. César Vitorino Botelho 15/6/1889 297. Bento da Costa 01/05/1889 298. Cesário Domingos de Faria 7/7/1895 299. Ana Maria de Bittencourt 16/10/1896 300. Afonso José Joaquim Machado 12/01/1899
454
APPENDIX B
Tables Presenting the Gender and Ethnic Breakdowns of the Liberto Testators
Table B.1. The Gender of the African Libertos Total number of people Women Men
307 154 153
% 51 49
Table B.2. Libertos Divided by their African “Nations”* Total number of people Ethnicity known Ethnicity unknown
307 110 197
% 36 64
Table B.3. The Ethnic Breakdown of Libertos** Angola Benguela Calabar Congo Gegê (Costa (Costa Nagô Ussá/Hausa de) de Guiné Mina) 11 1 1 4 21 2 49 20 1
10 % 1% 1% 4% 17% 2% 45% 19% 1%
* In Table B.2., the category of “ethnicity unknown” corresponds to the individuals who were simply listed as Africans or from the African coast in their testaments.
**Table B.3. has been structured in exact accordance to the listings, without taking into account the actual overlaps in ethnicities/nomenclature discussed in Appendix D. All these overlaps, and the complex dynamics that they embody, would of course have to be taken into account when seeking to reach relevant conclusions vis-à-vis the ethnic dynamics of the African liberto population in Bahia. This table only offers an understanding of the primary ethnic dynamics evident in the documentary sample made up of liberto testators. It clearly posits the Slave Coast predominance within the ethnic make-up of nineteenth-century Bahia, while it also points to the continuing existence of ethnic diversity among the African population of the city.
455
APPENDIX C
A Brief Critical Overview of the Existing Historical Literature on the Everyday Life of Africans and their Descendants in Brazil and in the African Diaspora as a Whole
This dissertation has primarily relied on the works of Brazilian, and especially Bahian historians, for providing the necessary background for the understanding of libertos’ wills. I have also relied on their work in many instances to complete the information provided by my documentary sources, and especially in Chapters I and IV where the primary evidence was weaker. Their insights have often been very specific to their contexts, and I have also used them for filling specific gaps in knowledge. At this point, however, I would like to take a brief look at the historiography on the everyday life of
Africans and their descendants in the Americas, since no such literature review has been offered, and yet it constitutes a necessary template against which to place the study at hand. My focus, naturally, is primarily on the studies that concentrate on Brazil, but also on the important insights offered by studies that I could not insist upon in this dissertation.
The recent decades in the historical studies of the African Diaspora have seen an important and necessary shift from economic and political histories, to the writing of social and especially cultural histories of Africans and their descendants in the Diaspora.
Starting with John Thornton’s groundbreaking work Africa and Africans in the making of the Atlantic World (first published in 1992),1 studies have mostly concentrated on the
1 Thornton, John K. Africa and Africans in the Formation of the Atlantic World, 1400-1680. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992 (second expanded edition, 1998).
456 specific contributions that Africans have made to New World societies. In his work,
Thornton chose to present Africans not as victims, but as willing agents and central participants in the making of the Atlantic World, its societies and its cultures. He offered studies of the West and West-Central coasts of Africa and their connections to the
Atlantic commerce and the slave trade—the making of the communities that Ira Berlin has termed “Atlantic Creoles,”2 as well as the roles played by Africans and their descendants in shaping the societal structures, cultural practices and economic systems of the Americas. While he perhaps afforded too much voluntariness to his African protagonists, Thornton was successful in underlining the role that they played in the shaping of New World cultures.
In his study, Thornton insisted on the interconnectedness of the Atlantic World, and created an African-centric vision of this world through maps and linkages. In the process, he also turned to Africa as the source of both Creole languages and culture. Most importantly, Thornton insisted on African Christianity in the pre-slave trade period, and looked for its continuations and adaptations in the Atlantic World, a theme that he would later reconsider at various moments both alone and along with Linda Heywood.3
2 Ira Berlin. “From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America.” William and Mary Quarterly 53. 2 (1996): 251-89. While Ira Berlin has used the term for the North American setting, John Thornton and Linda Heywood have successfully applied it to Africa.
3 John K. Thornton, Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500-1800. London: University College of London Press/Routledge, 1999., John K. Thornton,. The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684-1706. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998., John K. Thornton,., and Linda Heywood. Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles and the Making of the Anglo-Dutch Americas, 1580-1660. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
457 Indeed, the most significant aspects of Thornton’s work were his analyses of cultural change and religion. He argued that the creation of religion depended not on religious philosophy but on revelation. Proceeding from this assumption and documenting the different instances of revelation received by different ethnic and religious components of the population of the Americas, Curtin concluded that they ultimately resulted in the expansion of African Christianity on both sides of the Atlantic.
In the two decades that have passed since the publication of Thornton’s work, our understanding of the complexity of the African experience in the Americas during the era of the slave trade has increased substantially. The Brazilian scholarship on cultural retentions in the Americas and the role played by Africans in the development of
Brazilian culture and society has primarily been divided into two branches: studies documenting the interconnectedness of Bahia to the Slave Coast of Africa and the importance of Ewe-Fon and Yoruba ethnicities to cultural creations and religious systems experienced in Bahia as well as in other parts of Brazil, and those focusing on the interconnectedness of West-Central Africa to the South Atlantic branch of the Atlantic slave trade. The ethnic groups that have originated from the Kongo-Angola regions and their impact on Brazilian culture and society in general, and that of Rio de Janeiro in particular, have appeared in great abundance in Brazilian studies on the cultural impacts of Africans and their descendants—a curious development in light of the near neglect these areas have received in slave trade studies (an imbalance only partly redressed by
Josepth Miller and Edgar Conrad). In the following section, I offer to engage in a brief historiographical analysis of some of these works. This analysis is very limited on many
458 levels, yet it serves to underline some main paths undertaken and conclusions reached by the scholars involved. Moreover, following Thornton’s focus on West-Central Africa and the region’s cultural contributions to the Atlantic World, this appears as a logical line of analysis that also permits me to make some comparisons and connections to other scholarship that focuses on different parts of the Diaspora, which I am unfortunately not able to analyze in depth at this point.
James Sweet’s ground-breaking work Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441-17704 set a new trend in studies of the African
Diaspora with Brazil at their center through focusing on the Atlantic World in its entirety.
Sweet connected Portugal, West-Central Africa, and Brazil in order to understand some of the cultural expressions that were manifested by the new African community in formation in Brazil. Sweet argued for the absolute predominance of West-Central
Africans among the different ethnicities that were brought to Brazil before the eighteenth century. Looking at archival sources in both Brazil and Portugal, and coupling them with a sensitive reading of the secondary literature on West-Central Africa, Sweet studied different aspects of this community through looking at how its members constructed novel family ties and kinship networks and organized residential patterns. Most importantly, he looked at how West-Central African religions—that had ancestral and spirit intervention at their core—were adapted to the demands and obstacles presented by the daily lives of the enslaved. Sweet distinguished himself in his familiarity with, and
4 I have referred to James Sweet multiple times in this dissertation, but it has been through a specific view towards African religiosity in Brazil. Sweet has continued and advanced many of his understandings in his book Domingos Álvares: African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
459 understanding of, West-Central African cosmologies, and thus emphasized continuities between Africa and Brazil in religious beliefs and ritual practices. In a manner similar to what Gwendolyn Midlo Hall has argued in her work on African ethnicities in the
Americas,5 Sweet refuted the idea that the recreation of African institutions in Brazil had not been possible due to the great mixing of ethnic groups that resulted from the dynamics of the slave trade. The dynamics of “ethnic clustering” where people came together and formed communities around their commonalities had been extremely strong in Brazil, while the high number of West-Central African priests who were deported to
Brazil through accusations of witchcraft had been active agents in reproducing African beliefs and practices through adapting them to life under slavery with its specific demands and predicaments. Sweet convincingly illustrated how West-Central Africans engaged in the process of the creative modification and adaptation of their beliefs and rituals in response to the continuous assaults of enslavement. They used medicine, divination, and witchcraft as survival and resistance strategies that sought to reduce the damaging impacts of slavery. His concentration on the pre-eighteenth century time frame permitted Sweet to make a stronger argument for continuity and adaptation rather than for “creolization.” However, the same argument can also be extended to nineteenth- century Bahia, which saw a very high volume of arrivals from the Bight of Benin, and a similar cultural and religious dynamism on the part of its African population.
Sweet’s discussion of African influences in New World societies extended itself to their influence on the Catholic Church, and the acceptance and value bestowed upon them by
5 Gwendolyn Midlo Hall. Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005.
460 the Portuguese and White Brazilian populations. At this point, Sweet’s argument for continuity and adaptation becomes somewhat problematic, as this acceptance seems to be shaped in most cases by the commonalities in popular Portuguese Catholicism and West-
Central African religions as well, thus blurring the line between retention and
“creolization.” But Sweet’s main argument that the religion and culture of colonial Brazil was neither Portuguese nor African, but an entity made up of diverse histories, traditions, continuities, and adaptations remains compelling. With regards to religious practices, he posits that their constituent parts did not merge, but remained identifiable to their practitioners.6 Sweet’s African Christianity was not mixed, but had emerged as a parallel system to African beliefs. Once in Brazil, the two branches did not come together, but the
African elements expanded themselves to meet the demands of a slave community that was constantly faced with numerous hardships and struggles. Similarly, Roman
Catholicism made space for the African-derived religious practices and the social visibility and participation of Africans. Consequently, most Africans and their descendants came to be highly “bi-religious” in their beliefs and cosmologies. Sweet rejected Thornton’s formulation of an African-Catholic Christianity that characterized religious practices among West-Central Africans enslaved in the Americas. He also dismissed Sidney Mintz and Richard Price’s notion of diluted African cultural survivals among heterogeneous groupings of enslaved Africans.7 Instead, he contended that most
6 The intersections between Iberian folk Catholicism and African religious beliefs has always been a central tenet for the processes of transculturation at work in the parts of the Americas colonized by the Roman Catholic settlers from the peninsula. Similar processes have also been at work in Haiti. While transculturation is also a process where the constituent parts of the final product can still be identified, Sweet’s insistence on “bi-religiosity” set him apart from other scholars.
7 Sidney W. Mintz, and Richard Price. The Birth of African-American Culture: An Anthropological Perspective. Boston: Beacon Press, 1976.
461 Africans arrived in Brazil sharing common language, religion and kinship patterns.
Additionally, he called attention to the similarities and intersections between the religious practices of West-Central and West African origins, and especially those originating from the Slave Coast.
Mieko Nishida in her study of slave and liberto life in nineteenth-century Salvador da
Bahia gave excessive importance to creolization processes.8 Working on the problematic assumption that Africans had been forced to abandon their original identities, Nishida sought to trace the shift over the course of the nineteenth century, as both African and crioulo slaves and freed people “created and recreated” themselves, relying first on
African ethnicities and later on race/color identities. Her extrapolations with regards to the role played by ethnic solidarity in intra-African relations and alforria arrangements have also been far-fetched, while her understanding of African ethnicities have corresponded to dry and simplistic categories.9 Nishida sought to understand the specific experiences of slavery from the perspective of the self-perceptions and self- identifications of enslaved and freed people, but did not afford the necessary importance to African origins and cultural retentions in the process.10
The work of Mintz and Price has been essential to an understanding of creolization processes in the Americas. Consequently, the main thesis of the creolization (vs. retention) branch of the lives of Africans and their descendants in the Americas has been named after them: The Mintz and Price thesis. 8 Nishida, Mieko. Slavery and Identity: Ethnicity, Gender, and Race in Salvador, Brazil, 1808-1888. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003.
9 Nishida, Mieko. “As alforrias e o papel da etnia na escravidão urbana: Salvador, Brasil, 1808-1888.” Estudos Econômicos 23.2 (1993): 227-65.
10 She also failed to take into account Hall’s contention that slaves that came from the Slave Coast were often divided along ethnic, language, and cultural patterns, a difference that Sweet also did not sufficiently consider.
462 Nishida searched for the dynamics of identity formation in the Bahian irmandades, in patterns of work organization and marriage, religious and ritual practices, and in forms of resistance. An understanding of African cultural and religious retentions has mostly been missing from Nishida’s analysis. Even in the instances where she took ethnicity into account as a shaper of African identities in Salvador, Nishida’s understanding of ethnic identities has remained mostly limited to dry and simplistic categories. Religious associations in Brazil also encompassed the “reclaiming” of specific African identities for purposes of cultural retention, as well as their active adaptation, creation, altering, and reshaping. Nishida also made generalizations about gender identities and corresponding labor organization patterns, as well as the specific points where these transcended, and coincided with, ethnic identities. Nishida’s analysis ended up being deficient in both nuance and complexity with regards to the multi-layered ways through which Africans and their descendants perceived themselves, their identities, and their communities in
Salvador.
A much more successful account of urban slave life was presented by Mary Karasch in her study of slave life in nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro.11 Karasch presented full chapters on the specific labor performed by slaves, on their punishments, their morbidity and diseases, their clothing and diet, their festive celebrations, as well as on their religious beliefs and practices, and their resistance to their enslaved condition. As she openly stated in her Introduction, however, Karasch was reluctant to engage in interpretations, but rather limited herself to detailed descriptions based on documentary
11 Mary C. Karasch. A Vida dos escravos no Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1850. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2000.
463 sources that gave a clear sense of nineteenth-century Rio’s complex world of urban slavery. She also stated her desire to counter the highly hegemonic Freyre thesis, which insisted on the benevolent patronage and patriarchal characteristics of Brazilian slave masters.
Karasch underlined the important understanding that slavery could often become even more inhuman in the Brazilian setting because of the constant availability of new slaves from Africa, due to the proximity of the continent and the continuation of the slave trade for a longer period of time than in other parts of the Atlantic World. Karasch also offered some significant new insight on well-known Brazilian specifics, such as the frequency of manumissions, the high number of those who practiced skilled occupations, and the presence of Blacks within the military or church hierarchy. In her analysis, the predominance of West-Central Africans imported to Rio de Janeiro once again became clear, while she also presented new data on the freed population of the city as overwhelmingly African and male, against the common conceptions of libertos as crioulo and female. In these and other ways, Karasch also demonstrated the interconnectedness of the historical scholarship on the slave trade and slave life in the Americas. In spite of her descriptive approach to slave life in Rio de Janeiro, Karasch also shared a concern common to many scholars in her desire to demonstrate the ways in which enslaved people became active participants in the evolution of their own cultures and communities.
She thus insisted on their agency and on the different instruments available to them in this endeavor. Ethnicity once again shown to play an important role in the construction of culture and identity, since between two thirds and three fourths of Rio’s slave population
464 was deemed to be African, and the majority of these individuals were from West-Central
Africa. Karasch also observed that the foods, dances, and musical instruments of Rio’s
Africans usually originated in Angola, an argument which she convincingly extended to the Brazilian religion of Umbanda, and thus into the contested ground of “cultural creolization.” She thus provided important evidence for the involvement of enslaved people in the creation of new transculturated religions separate from both Roman
Catholicism and West-Central African beliefs. The continued predominance of West-
Central African cosmologies in religious, ritualistic, and cultural developments that could only be understood as New World creations became clear in her careful analysis of archival sources.
The scholarship connecting West-Central Africa to Brazil has opened up novel perspectives of research in the context of cultural retention, adaptation and creation, and especially in that of the overwhelming importance of religious and ritualistic practices to
African identities in the Americas. Similar lines of study need to be extended to the histories linking the Slave Coast to Brazil. These have so far focused primarily on merchant communities’ linkages to different parts of the Atlantic World and to the material manifestations of African and New World cultures. Moreover, studies of transculturated religions with their roots in West African cosmologies and religious systems have often failed to take into account the directions and complex processes considered by Thornton, Heywood, and Sweet in the case of West-Central African influences. The many important insights provided by Brazilian, and especially Bahian, historians, with regards to religion and religious communities in Brazil need to be freed
465 from a certain insularity, and put into conversation with the South Atlantic branch of this historical conversation.
466
APPENDIX D
The Ethnic Dynamics of Nineteenth-Century Bahia
While the schism between the native and the African-born constituted an important distinguishing factor in many African Diaspora settings, in Salvador Africanness did not only define itself in terms of opposition to Brazilianness, but also as a primary source of identity.1 A major reason for why African origins and identity were able to reach such a level of importance lies within the specific dynamics of the Brazilian slave trade as witnessed in the nineteenth century in Brazil as a whole, and specifically in Bahia.
Because of events that took place in both Africa and Brazil, great numbers of Africans from the West Coast were brought to Brazil. Among these, the most prevalent were the
Yoruba (called Nagôs in Brazil) and the Gegê (Ewe-Fon speakers, also known as Mina slaves, originating from the region known as the Mina coast, mainly corresponding to the
Bight of Benin). The domination of baKongo (Congo, Angola, Benguela, Cabinda), and to a lesser extent Mozambique, slaves within the slave trade to Salvador had grown weaker by the last decades of the eighteenth century, even though it continued to be strong in other parts of Brazil, especially Rio de Janeiro. The new wave of forced migration from the Bight of Benin had effects that were similar to those discussed by
1 Within their Africanness, the ethnic identity of West African slaves was also constructed in contradistinction to the West-Central Africans in nineteenth-century Bahia, as was clearly witnessed in the Muslim uprising of 1835.
467 James Sweet with regards to West-Central African slaves in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
While the new West African population became highly significant in Salvador, this formerly dominant group of West-Central African slaves and their descendants also remained important. They also still kept arriving in minor numbers until the very end of the slave trade. However, they did not become as culturally important as the West
Africans in the nineteenth century. This was partly due to their earlier arrival, having gone through stronger processes of creolization, with aspects of their culture having being incorporated into the larger Brazilian culture by the nineteenth century.
Additionally, they had a much longer history of contact with Europeans (and especially the Portuguese) back in Africa, and had also had a much greater familiarity with a creolized version of Christianity, and even if their Roman Catholicism had mostly been a
West-Central African variant2 as well as “bi-religious” in nature,3 it had played a major role in facilitating their adaptation. But it was mostly due to their social and cultural characteristics as has previously been discussed in this dissertation. Having been
2 John K Thornton. Africa and Africans in the Formation of the Atlantic World, 1400-1680. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992 (second expanded edition, 1998)., John K Thornton. Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500-1800. London: University College of London Press/Routledge, 1999., John K Thornton. The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684-1706. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998., John K Thornton, and Linda Heywood. Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles and the Making of the Anglo-Dutch Americas, 1580-1660. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
3 James H Sweet. Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441- 1770. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003., James H Sweet. Domingos Álvares: African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
468 matrilineal farmers and pastoralists back in Africa, their societies were more peaceful and open to adaptation. They were consequently better accepted by Brazilian society.
They had also not had the violent experiences that the Yoruba and the Mina had experienced in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which as argued by
James Sweet, had equipped the latter group with the capacity to transfer their spirituality- based solutions to radical social changes and predicaments to the realities of enslavement in the Americas. In fact, the reason why enslaved and freed people from the Slave Coast have been able to have such a strong impact on Bahian society and culture resides principally in the nature and strength of their African experiences, societal structures, culture, and religious practices. In any case, the nineteenth century in Bahia can more appropriately be called a West African century rather than a West-Central African one; it was much more Yoruba-Mina than Kongo-Angola. The Nagôs and Gegês formed the majority—more than half—of the slaves imported to Brazil in the period under study, although among them there also were significant numbers of Hausa (called Ussá in
Brazil). What is perhaps significant about this last group is that their historical and cultural impact in Bahia, and especially in Salvador, has been far greater than their actual numbers.
Regardless, this pattern of receiving the majority of slaves from a single major African region (that of the Slave Coast) with many cultural commonalities, experienced in
Salvador in the period in question, perhaps found its parallel only in the Rio de Janeiro of the eighteenth century within Brazil, and once again in Cuba during the nineteenth
469 century within the whole context of the Atlantic slave trade. It was a phenomenon that was not experienced in any other part of the African Diaspora. This mass migration that was concentrated in a very limited space of time very much enhanced the capacity of
West Africans to hold on to a strong and cohesive African identity. Africanness in nineteenth-century Salvador had a major social and cultural influence on Bahian culture as a whole, while it remained a primary marker for the processes of identity and community formation for the city’s African population.
In the documents under study in this dissertation, the majority of testators define themselves solely as from the “African Coast.” Possible reasons for this have previously been discussed in this dissertation, as well as the fact that Africans were obliged to do so in contradistinction to crioulos. The fact that temporal changes in trends are witnessed in this regards has also been mentioned, as people tended to talk more about their African places of origin within their testaments as the century progressed. However, among the ethnicities that are cited, the Nagô, and the Gegê/Mina are clearly in the forefront. The latter two are often seen as interchangeable as will be explained below, while certain documents also cite both Gegê and Mina in reference to the same people. Similarly, both the Gegê and Mina, along with the Ussá, are sometimes indicated to be from the Mina
Coast. Another complexity arises from the fact that while the “Guinea Coast” was used to refer to the Senegambia region in previous periods, in later documents we encounter it as interchangeable with the “Mina Coast.” When Guinea is solely mentioned by itself therefore, without any other indication of ethnic identity within the document, it is almost
470 impossible to actually know the specific region to which it refers. Knowing that
Senegambian slaves arrived in Bahia in periods as early as the seventeenth century, however, we can suppose that this interchangeability is often at play. Other designations of minority West African groups also appear in the documents, among the forefront of which are the Hausa, which is expected with regards to their role in the Malê revolt, and to a lesser extent the Tapa. Others are also mentioned, among which there is also a small number of Congo, Angola, Mozambique and Benguela.
But since the nineteenth century was primarily a “Slave Coast century” in Bahia, the region and the enslaved and freed people who originated from the area, warrant further attention. The interactions between Europeans and the different ethno-linguistic groups from areas surrounding the ports of the Bight of Benin already shared a history of several centuries when these slaves started to be transported to Brazil in large numbers. Indeed, before Columbus’ first voyage to the Americas, Portuguese slave traders were already buying slaves from the Slave Coast ports of West Africa, and most inhabitants of this region already also possessed important elements of an “Atlantic Creole” culture.4 While the Slave Coast was a comparatively minor source of slaves to the Americas in this earlier period, the Ewe-Fon5 became increasingly numerous among the slaves transported
4 Ira Berlin. “From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America.” William and Mary Quarterly 53. 2 (1996): 251-89.
5 In Brazil, the term Mina primarily referred to the Ewe-Fon linguistic group. However, there was often a significant amount of confusion in the use of this term, since the slaves from Elmina (from the Portuguese fort of São Jorge de Mina) were also designated as slaves from the “Mina Coast,” and sometimes also as Minas themselves. For an in-depth discussion of the complexities embodied in the use of the term Mina, see “Chapter 5: Lower Guinea: Ivory Coast, Gold Coast, Slave Coast/Bight of Benin” of Gwendolyn Midlo
471 to Brazil from the seventeenth century onwards.6 As Kristin Mann and Edna Bay assert, the trajectory of the slave ships that left the Bight of for Brazil, and especially Bahia, was one of the most heavily traveled migration routes linking the Old World to the New, with a volume of an estimated 2,000,000 persons over the course of two and a half decades.7
Once again, this concentration of slaves from a single cultural and ethno-linguistic region within Africa has occurred extremely rarely in the Americas, and perhaps never to the same extent.
The Voyages: Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade database (TSTD)8 also shows that until the eighteenth century, the great majority of all slave trade voyages to Brazil, and especially to Bahia, appear to have West-Central Africa and St. Helena as their principal region of
Hall’s book Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Also see: Robin Law. “Ethnicities of Enslaved Africans in the Diaspora: On the Meanings of “Mina” (Again).” History in Africa 32 (2005): 247-267.
For more recent developments in the study of ethnicity within the Atlantic slave trade, please see: David Eltis, and David Richardson. Eds. Extending the Frontiers: Essays on the New Transatlantic Slave Trade Database. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008., Paul E. Lovejoy, and David V. Trotman. Eds. Trans-Atlantic Dimensions of Ethnicity in the African Diaspora. London and New York: Continuum, 2003.
It may seem here that the long interactions between the Portuguese and the Africans from the Bight of Benin were similar to those that occurred with those from West-Central Africa. However, while the Portuguese were a constant presence on the Slave Coast, their interactions with the Ewe-Fon ethno- linguistic groups remained much more limited. An important reason for this lies once again in the differences that existed among the societies of these two regions.
6 Gwendolyn Midlo Hall. Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005., James H. Sweet. Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441-1770. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
7 Mann, Kristin, and Edna G. Bay. Eds. Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of the Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil. New York: Frank Cass, 2001:1.
8 http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/index.faces
472 slave purchase. Southeast Africa and the Indian Ocean islands also provided a certain number of slaves, although to a much lesser extent. We know from the secondary literature as well as the Voyages database that in the first two decades of the eighteenth century, imports of Minas began to outnumber the formerly dominant Central Africans.
The majority of these slaves were destined for Pernambuco and Bahia, which also constituted the primary ports of disembarkation in Brazil.9 The ports of Southeastern
Brazil also saw a significant arrival of Mina slaves during this period, with Rio de Janeiro in the leading position among them.
Indeed, if we turn to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, we see that between 1700 and 1851, 920,294 slaves were embarked from the Bight of Benin, out of which 829,103 survived the Middle Passage to disembark in Brazil. Bahia received the vast majority of these slaves: 691,293 disembarked out of the 765,813 embarked. Between 1701 and
1750, 284,221 slaves embarked from the Bight of Benin in the direction of Bahia, out of which 249,319 were able to disembark. This constituted the peak of the slave trade between the two regions, although the following hundred years also saw very high volumes: 255,150 embarked and 236,402 disembarked in 1751-1800; 221,881 embarked and 201,533 disembarked in 1800-1851.
Within the same 150-year period, 79,492 out of 86,730 embarked slaves disembarked in
Pernambuco, as well as 49,072 out of 56,761 embarked slaves disembarked in the ports
9 Therefore, prior to the very high level of concentration in the nineteenth century, Bahia had already received an important number of slaves from the Bight of Benin.
473 of Southeastern Brazil. Those who made the voyage from the Bight of Benin to
Amazônia or other unspecified regions of Brazil constituted a minority of 9,246 disembarked out of 10,990 embarked. However, in all cases the numbers were large enough for us to assume a lasting cultural and social impact on the part of Mina slaves in different parts of Brazil.
Of the slave expeditions documented in the TSTD, the first voyage with the Bight of
Benin as its principal region of slave purchase and Bahia as its principal region of slave landing dates from 1822. Among the documented voyages between 1800 and 1850,
173,858 slaves were embarked from the Bight of Benin to Brazil as a whole, while the majority of these slaves numbering 165,820 \disembarked in Bahia. Within the same period, 3541 slaves disembarked in Pernambuco, while 4909 slaves disembarked in
Southeastern Brazil (373 in Macaé, 2550 in Rio de Janeiro, 444 in Santos and 1541 in
São Sebastião).
If we look at the breakdown of the ports making up the region broadly defined as the
Bight of Benin, we also see that the great majority of these slaves were embarked from what was deemed as the Costa de Mina (112,517), while the slave ports of Ouidah and
Lagos also provided a significant number (18,232 and 31, 317 respectively).10 The
10 These denominations are also problematic in the Brazilian context, since all these ports were often grouped under the heading of the Mina Coast. The testaments of freed Africans do not refer to specific ports of embarkation, but to “nations” and broad cultural areas. For this reason, the slaves listed as embarked from the Mina Coast should be grouped together with the slaves listed as having embarked from the specific ports of the region.
474 remaining ports of the region—Benin, Badagry, Popo, Ife, Oerê and Porto Novo— remained largely in the minority. However, within this fifty year period which represents the apogee of the trade in Mina slaves to Bahia, the eight years between 1819 and 1827 saw the majority of documented voyages: In this period, 556 ships made the voyage, with
161,060 slaves reaching Bahia.
These numbers correspond to slaves coming from the broad cultural area of the Slave
Coast, who constituted a highly heterogeneous group that also shared certain cosmologies and cultural commonalities. Significant numbers of Yoruba and Igbo were transported to
Brazil along with the Ewe-Fon as slaves, and their close interactions both in Africa and the Americas, partly account for the Yoruba-dominated perceptions of Afro-Brazilian culture within the general public. Additionally, as seen in this dissertation, the enmities that existed between the Yoruba and the Mina in Africa also affected to a large extent their interactions in Bahia. Moreover, as Joseph Miller argues, the Mina as well as members of different ethno-linguistic groups often consciously opted to join the ranks of the Yoruba for purposes of survival and cultural retention.11 However, the actual diversity of these complex communities, their experiences under slavery, and the multiple layers of their contributions to Brazilian culture and identity have yet to be more deeply explored.
When different ethnic-linguistic slave enclaves were successfully formed in Brazil, this had a lot to do with the strength of the dynamics of “ethnic clustering,” as well as the
11 Joseph C. Miller. “Retention, Reinvention, and Remembering: Restoring Identities through Enslavement in Africa and under Slavery in Brazil.” Enslaving Connections: Changing Cultures of Africa and Brazil during the Era of Slavery. Eds. Curto, José C., and Paul E. Lovejoy. Amherst and New York: Humanity Books, 2004: 81-125.
475 strength and resilience of the institutions, societal structures, cultural and religious practices of these groups.
Ethnicity and inter-ethnic relations in nineteenth-century Bahia, clearly provide an important lens that helps to uncover the complexities that were part of the processes of cultural retention, elaboration, adaptation, and recreation. The interactions between different ethnic groups, and their relationship to the dominant structures of the slave society, which accepted certain components of the culture of enslaved and freed Africans while rejecting others, also become evident to a certain extent from this perspective.
Unfortunately, these dynamics are quite difficult to discern from the documentation at hand. No statements are made as to inter-ethnic relations other than the rare references of the ethnicities of the testators, and to a much greater extent of the “nations” of their slaves.12 But even though the listings of slaves often contained more ethnic references than the self-descriptions of the testators themselves in the opening paragraphs of their wills, the main distinction is usually simply between africanos and crioulos. A table built on all the available listings of slave ethnicities has been offered in Chapter III, while the ethnic break-down of the testators themselves built from the limited information offered in their wills is presented in Appendix B.
12 However, we can safely assume that the inter-ethnic relationships corresponded to many common patterns discussed by historians of slavery in Brazil. Libertos could as easily own slaves from their own ethnic groups as they could have from others that were inimical to them back in Africa, or simply foreign to them in geography and culture, as between a Nagô liberto and an Angola slave for example.
476 My argument remains, however, that Africanness as a larger category almost always overrode ethnicity in its significance. While the ethnicities of spouses are also cited in the documents in rare instances, the testaments of the freed Africans studied in this clearly demonstrate that Africans almost always married, or entered in relationships outside of holy matrimony, with other Africans.13 This occurrence is supported by Maria Inês C. de
Oliveira’s research on marriage among libertos, the majority of which took place in their great majority within the larger community of Africans.14 It is also underlined by James
Sweet’s understanding of intra-African partnerships, which were even ethnically endogamous to a certain extent.15 This fact becomes all the more significant when one considers the small numbers of women that existed within the African community in
Salvador, and in Brazil as a whole. However, the level of agency exercised in this context by African men remains open to discussion. They might have been rejected by mulatta or crioula women because of all the stigmas that they carried, as much as this having been a conscious choice on their part.
There are indeed many arguments in favor of emphasizing ethnicity, and other equally strong ones that oppose its centrality to identity formation in the African Diaspora. This discussion as a whole coexists and often intersects with one of the most major discussions in the field—that which opposes Africanness to creolization, or African cultural retentions to New World processes of adaptation. In this dissertation, I seek to give equal
13 This factor has been discussed in Chapters I and III. 14 Maria Inês Côrtes de Oliveira. O liberto: seu mundo e os outros (Salvador 1790-1890). São Paulo: Corrupio, 1988.; Maria Inês Côrtes de Oliveira. “Viver e morrer no meio dos seus. Nações e comunidades africanas na Bahia do século XIX”. Revista da USP. Spec. issue “Dossiê Povo Negro” 28 (1996): 174-193.
15 James Sweet. Recreating Africa…. Passim.
477 importance to both of these processes, asserting that they equally influenced identity in the Americas. But I also take this argument further by arguing that in spite of all the numerous differences that may have existed among Africans, and in spite of the strength of the forces of creolization obviously at work in Brazil, the obstacles posed by and the general circumstances which existed within Brazilian slave society caused Africans to come together in ways that they had never experienced back on the continent. As they were perceived as one major group of foreigners within Brazilian society, they also came to consider and perceive themselves as such, in spite of their many differences. It is also in this specific context that they were contradistinguished from crioulos, in spite of their shared experience of enslavement that brought them closer to each other at times. This was even more acute in relation to people of mixed race. This, among others, constitutes a major reason that justifies their study as a group of significance in and of itself. Added to this are the many specific arguments in favor of a “world of Africans in nineteenth- century Bahia, which have been discussed in detail in the body of this dissertation.
478
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Sources
Manuscripts
Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia / Seção Judiciária / Inventários Alexandre Gomes de Brito e Silvana Maria da Paz Bahia 08/3470/01 – 1826 Antônio Luiz Guilherme e Rosa Maria de Jesus 04/1625/2094/03 – 1838 a 1841 Antônio Tavares e Henriqueta Maria Sucupira 05/2180/2649/54 – 1886 Arrecadação de Inventário de Helena, Africana 05/2119/2587/04 – 1866 Arrecadação de Inventário de Joana, Africana 5/2119/13– 1863 Laurinda e Raimundo, Africanos 05/2006/2477/09 – 1832
Inventários (processos de testamentos): Adriano José Viana e Mariana Maria do Sacramento Viana 02/886/1355/01 – 1893 Afonso José Joaquim Machado e Cláudio Machado e Honória Machado 01/102/152/16 – 1899 Agostinho Afonso de Carvalho e Maria Lucinda da Conceição 05/2186/2655/22 – 1874 Ana Luiza de Bittencourt e Antônio de Oliveira Alves 03/1218/1687/7 – 1857 Ana Maria de Bitencourt e Tito Jorge de Araújo 09/1807/2281/06 – 1896 Antônio da Silveira e Manoel Joaquim de Moura 04/1354/1823/69 – 1859 Antônio de Almeida e Luzia de Almeida 07/2948/12 – 1867 Antônio Nunes Figueira e Querino de Bittencourt 04/1938/2410/08 – 1889
479 Benedito José Cardoso e Francisco de Aguiar 06/2586/3086/28 – 1892 Benvinda Olympia Xavier de Barros e Maria da Conceição 02/886/1355/03 – 1893 Cândida do Nascimento Paim e José da Cruz 05/1938/2410/15 – 1889 Cassimiro Lisboa e José Lopes Guimarães 03/1218/1687/21 – 1857 César Vitorino Botelho e Marcelina Maria da Silva 05/1938/2410/19 – 1889 Cesário Domingos de Faria e Esperança Maria da Vitória 01/265/504/03 – 1895 Ciro Francisco de Almeida e Higino Pinto da Fonseca 05/2180/2649/62 – 1883 Cornélio Pedroso e Júlia Maria do Espírito Santo 03/1276/1775/30 – 1885 David Eustáquio e Vitória Pedroso 05/1938/2410/18 – 1889 Delfina Maria da Conceição e Manoel Franklin de Oliveira 05/2180/2649/53 – 1876 Elena Machado e Lina Maria de Jesus 03/1343/1812/08 – 1855 Esperança Maria dos Santos e Salustiano dos Santos Gomes 04/1354/1823/73 – 1858 Faustino de Barros e Glicéria Valle 03/1276/1745/29 – 1885 Felicidade Maria da Conceição e Leopolda Maria da Conceição 05/2185/2654/25 – 1883 Felipe Gomes e Maria da Paz da Soledade 07/3256/02 – 1887 Felipe Gomes e Camila Francisca Gomes 05/1938/2410/11 Felisberta Adriana e Marcolino José Dias 07/3256/18 – 1877 a 1887 Felisberto Alcamim e Desidério da Paixão 07/3256/28 – 1876 Felisberto Alcamim e Desidério da Paixão II 05/2180/2649/56 Felisberto Joaquim da Mota e Artur Machado 05/2185/2654/24 – 1883 Felix José dos Reis e Romana de Santa Isabel
480 03/1209/1678/21 Florentina Maria da Conceição e Cipriano Mendes da Cruz 05/1890/2631/16 – 1867 Florentina Maria da Conceição e Cipriano Mendes da Cruz II 05/2186/2655/50 – 1867 Francisco Guilherme Biber e Luiz Francisco Guilherme 03/1276/1745/26 – 1885 Francisco Lopes Moutinho e Antônio Xavier de Jesus 07/2964/05 – 1860 Frederico Marinho de Araújo e Júlia Ranulfa da Silva 8/3281/2-1917 Frutuoso Vieira de Macedo e Maria do Nascimento 05/2180/17 – 1873 Gil Antônio de Almeida e Vicente Ribeiro 05/2184/2653/08 – 1868 Inácio de Cerqueira e Arcanjo de Serqueira 05/2171/2640/08 – 1880 Inocência de Santana e Bento Moreira 5/1354/1823/19 - 1855 Inocêncio José da Costa e Cristina Maria da Costa Abreu 03/1218/1687/35 – 1857 Jacinta do Amor Divino e Manoel Rodrigues Magalhães 05/1938/2410/32 – 1889 Joana Barbosa da Silva e Manoel de Macedo 03/1343/1812/06 – 1855 Joana Joaquina Manoela da Cunha e Joaquim Pinto da Fonseca 05/1938/2410/31 João José de Moura e Maria da Paixão 04/1465/1934/58 – 1865 Joaquim de Almeida e Manoel Joaquim de Almeida 03/1228/1697/13 – 1857 Joaquim Pereira Carvalho e Ciriaco Baiana 04/1465/1934/31 – 1866 José da Conceição Soares Pinto e Manoel Francisco Pereira 04/1465/1935/24 – 1866 José da Costa de Oliveira e Benina Coelho de Oliveira e Francisco das Chagas Gentil 05/2194/2663/02 – 1875 José Rodrigues de Menezes e Manoel de Macedo 05/2186/2655/45 – 1867 José Travessa e José Cruz 03/1276/1745/40 – 1885
481 Justina Maria da Conceição e Firmo Jacob Francisco Reges 05/2180/2649/41 – 1876 Justiniano Maineto e Vitorino José Pereira Junior 05/1942/2414/21 – 1889 Lampião da Silva Couto e Francisca Maria de Santana 07/2948/27 – 1865 Lázaro Calmon e Elvira Maria Rosa 02/874/1343/02 – 1863 a 1871 Lucas Ramos e Estanislau João da Cruz 05/2186/2655/44 – 1867 Luiz Mendes e José Joaquim de Santa Teresa 05/2186/2665/41 – 1867 Luiza Francisca Gonçalves e Manoel Joaquim Braga 07/3257/41 – 1868 Manoel Camilo da Costa e Maria da Conceição 03/1209/1678/07 – 1872 Manoel José Parra e Luiz José Firmino de Araújo 05/1938/2410/03 – 1889 Marcelino Antônio Pedroso e Roberto da Trindade de Jesus 03/1276/1745/19 – 1885 Maria da Conceição e Francisco José Coelho Bogarim 05/2194/2663/17 – 1873 Maria dos Prazeres e Tomás de Souza 04/1354/1823/77 – 1857 Maria Florinda Rigaud e Maria Pulcheria da Conceição 07/3264/27 – 1906 Maria Francisca e Bento Guilherme 04/1465/1934/50 – 1865 Maria Joaquina Vitória da Conceição e Victor Teixeira Barbosa de Nazaré 05/2185/2654/08 – 1875 Maria Rita Vaz de Carvalho e Bento da Costa 04/1465/1934/08 – 1866 Maria Teresa de Jesus e Martiniano da Cruz Cypreste 03/1343/1812/11 – 1855 Miguel Antônio Araújo e Ignácio Soares de Sá 05/2185/2654/07 – 1870 Militão Muniz e Maria Florinda da Conceição 05/2185/2654/26 – 1866 Paulo Coelho e Felisberto da Mata 03/1228/1697/23 – 1857 Pedro Brites e Antônio Joaquim Alves Pinheiro
482 05/2185/2654/32 – 1886 Primo Mendes dos Santos e Zeferina Rosa Gomes de Almeida 03/1343/1812/70 – 1861 Prudência Maria de Jesus e João Alves de Melo 07/3257/04 – 1887 Rita Inácia e Gonçalo Cassimiro Souza 05/1926/2398/07 – 1873 Rosa do Ó Freire e Higino Pinto da Fonseca 04/1756/2226/07 – 1869 Tibério Lisboa de Pinho e Maria do Nascimento 05/2185/2654/44 – 1876 Tibério Manoel José Magalhães e Luiz José de Magalhães 03/1276/1745/13 – 1885 Tomás Samuel Marbach e Francisco Figueiredo Nunes 03/1276/1745/12 – 1885
Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia – Seção Judiciária – Registros de Testamentos.
Agostinho Afonso de Carvalho Livro: 49 – Páginas: 56 a 58v Agostinho Pedro Falcão Livro: 39 – Páginas: 8 a 9 Agostinho de Souza Maciel Livro: 4 – Páginas: 171v a 175v Alexandre Falcão Livro: 47 – Páginas: 128v a 131 Alexandre José Vieira Livro: 33 – Páginas: 77 a 79 Ana Francisca da Conceição Livro: 4 – Páginas: 158v a 163 Ana Joaquina Livro: 57 – Páginas: 18 a 20v Ana Joaquina de Souza Livro: 34 – Páginas: 43v a 46v Ana Josefa do Rego Livro: 23 – Páginas: 7v a 10v e 20v a 30
483 Ana Ludovina de Oliveira Livro: 15 – Páginas: 115v a 120v Ana Maria da Cunha Livro: 37 – Páginas: 179 a 181v Ana Maria dos Prazeres Livro: 13 – Páginas: 18 a 25 Ana Rita Livro: 37 – Páginas: 61 a 63 Ana Rita Gonçalves Livro: 10 – Páginas: 208 a 211v Ana Rita Luciana de Freitas Livro: 35 – Páginas: 122 a 124 André Pereira dos Santos Livro: 49 – Páginas: 45 a 48 Angélica da Costa Livro: 11 – Páginas: 237 a 24 Antônia de Araujo Livro: 10 – Páginas: 91 a 96v Antônia Felix de Santana Livro: 32 – Páginas: 172 a 174v Antônia Josefa da Conceição Livro: 2 – Páginas: 20 a 22 Antônia Maria do Espírito Santo Livro: 40 – Páginas: 98v a 100 Antônia Maria da Silva Livro: 14 – Páginas: 207 a 210 Antônia Trigueira Livro: 35 – Páginas: 141v a 143 Antônio José da Silveira Livro: 11 – Páginas: 32v a 35v Antônio Manoel da Costa Livro: 50 – Páginas: 163v a 166 Antônio de Matos Guimarães Livro: 40 – Páginas: 76 a 78 Antônio Mendes da Silva Livro: 39 – Páginas: 77 a 79v Antônio Mendes dos Santos Livro: 30 – Páginas: 32v a 36v Antônio Nunes Figueira Livro: 63 – Páginas: 31 a 33 Antônio de Santa Isabel
484 Livro: 42 – Páginas: 182v a 185 Antônio Serafim dos Anjos Livro: 35 – Páginas: 177 a 179 Antônio da Silveira Livro: 11 – Páginas: 32v a 33v Antônio Xavier de Jesus Livro: 38 – Páginas: 21 a 24 Archanja Maria de São Miguel Livro: 42 – Páginas: 42v a 45 Augusto da Silva Couto Livro: 42 – Páginas: 83 a 85v Barnabé Etre Livro: 48 – Páginas: 116 a 118v Bemvindo da Fonseca Galvão Livro: 52 Páginas: 146 a 149v Benedito Bahia Livro: 57 – Páginas: 15v a 18 Bento Dias Coelho Livro: 8 – Páginas: 231 a 235 Bento Guilherme Maia Livro: 55 – Páginas: 140v a 143v Bernardina de Andrade Livro 51 – Páginas: 64v a 67v Bernardina Joaquina das Neves Livro: 35 – Páginas: 132 a 134v Bernardina Maria de Jesus Livro: 7 – Páginas: 166 a 169 Bernardina Maria de Santana Livro: 35 – Páginas: 119v a 122 Bernardina Tavares Livro: 29 – Páginas: 103 a 107 Bernardino de Sena Livro: 28 – Páginas: 98v a 101v Bernardo Joaquim de Souza Livro: 56 – Páginas: 54v a 57 Bernardo José Livro: 33 – Páginas: 101v a 104 Caetana Maria do Nascimento Livro: 11 – Páginas: 72v a 76 Caetano Carlos Teixeira Livro: 23 – Páginas: 118v a 122v
485 Caetano Vieira de Lemos Livro: 52 – Páginas: 186 a 187v Cândida do Nascimento Paim Livro: 63 – Páginas: 58v a 61 César Vitorino Botelho Livro: 63 – Páginas: 91 a 94 Ciro Francisco de Almeida Livro: 60 – Páginas: 21 a 24 Clara Maria da Conceição Livro: 2 – Páginas: 76v a 80v Claudina Gomes de Abreo Livro: 47 – Páginas: 123 a 126 Claudina Maria de Sena Livro: 32 – Páginas: 185 a 188 Constança Francisca Bahia Livro: 35 – Páginas: 179 a 181v Constança Teixeira Livro: 51 – Páginas: 128v a 131 Cornelio Pedroso Livro: 60 – Páginas: 165v a 159 Damiana Vieira Livro: 2 – Páginas: 154v a 157 Delfina Maria da Conceição Livro: 55 – Páginas: 181v a 183v Delfina Rosa de Vasconcelos Livro: 25 – Páginas: 170 a 173 Delfina de Souza Teles Livro: 55 – Páginas: 181v a 183v Domingas Maria da Conceição Teixeira Livro: 48 – Páginas: 141v a 144 Domingas de Sales Livro: 29 – Páginas: 82v a 85v Domingos Lopes Pereira Livro: 52 – Páginas: 131v a 133 Elena Machado Livro: 38 – Páginas: 135v a 138v Elesbão Antônio do Outeiro Livro: 3 – Páginas: 2 a 4 Elizeo de Faria Livro: 39 – Páginas: 18v a 19v Emilia Venceslau Miguel de Almeida
486 Livro: 51 – Páginas: 182v a 185v Emiliano Grave Livro: 36 – Páginas: 170 a 173 Ernesto Meireles Livro: 52 – Páginas: 25 a 27v Eugênia Maria do Sacramento Livro: 13 – Páginas: 61v a 68 Faustina Lisboa Livro: 52 – Páginas: 89v a 91v Faustina da Silva Livro: 42 – Páginas: 80 a 83 Faustino de Barros Livro: 60 – Páginas: 53 a 55 Feliciana Maria de Araújo Livro: 16 – Páginas: 68 a 75v Feliciana Maria de Faria Livro: 23 – Páginas: 175v a 178 Feliciana Maria da Piedade Livro: 40 – Páginas: 136v a 139 Felicidade Maria da Conceição Livro: 59 – Páginas: 51v a 54 Felicidade Maria Germana da Conceição Livro: 52 – Páginas: 71 a 73v Felicidade Maria de São José Livro: 35 – Páginas: 161v a 164v Felipe Gomes Livro: 62 – Páginas: 159v a 162 Felisberta Adriana Livro: 52 – Páginas: 81 a 83 Felisberto Alcamim Livro: 51 – Páginas: 73 a 75 Felisberto Joaquim da Mota Livro: 59 – Páginas: 154 a 156v Felix José dos Reis Livro: 47 – Páginas: 98 a 100v Felizarda Eugênia Livro: 11 – Páginas: 18 a 22 Floreana Antônia Ribeiro Livro: 32 – Páginas: 120 a 123 Florência Dias de Moura Livro: 26 – Páginas: 33 a 36v
487 Florentina Maria da Conceição Livro: 44 – Páginas: 32 a 24 Florinda Ana da Soledade Livro: 39 – Páginas: 27 a 28 Floripe José Etta Livro: 52 – Páginas: 111v a 114 Francisca Antônia da Silva Livro: 27 – Páginas: 78v a 80v Francisca Maria da Soledade Livro: 30 – Páginas: 106v a 108v Francisca Rosa Livro: 16 – Páginas: 18v a 23 Francisca Sale Livro: 57 – Páginas: 43 a 45v Francisco Bastos Livro: 57 – Páginas: 87 a 90 Francisco Carneiro de Campos Livro: 11 – Páginas: 69 a 72v Francisco Dias do Nascimento Livro: 46 – Páginas: 119 a 122 Francisco da Encarnação Livro: 17 – Páginas: 51v a 56 Francisco Guilherme Biber Livro: 60 – Páginas: 127 a 129 Francisco Lopes Moutinho Livro: 40 – Páginas: 186 a 187v Francisco Pires Livro: 26 – Páginas: 48 a 51 Francisco da Rocha Livro: 19 – Páginas: 276v a 280v Francisco Rodrigues Gameiro Livro: 25 – Páginas: 210 a 212v Francisco da Silva Cunha Livro: 13 – Páginas: 54 a 57 Frutuoso Vieira de Macedo Livro: 50 – Páginas: 57 a 59 Gaspar de Cerqueira Lima Livro: 47 – Páginas: 180 a 182 Gertrudes Maria do Espírito Santo Livro: 13 – Páginas: 9v a 15 Gertudes Vaz de Souza
488 Livro: 41 – Páginas: 42 a 44 Gil Antônio de Almeida Livro: 49 – Páginas: 165v a 168 Gonçalo Fernandes de Souza Livro: 48 – Páginas: 160 a 163 Guilherme Requião da Silva Livro: 57 – Páginas: 61v a 64 Henriquieta Antônia Teixeira do Sacramento Livro: 52 – Páginas: 44v a 49 Ignácia Fernandes dos Santos Livro: 15 – Páginas: 49v a 57v Inácio de Cerqueira Livro: 57 – Páginas: 122 a 124 Ignácio de Sampaio Livro: 11 – Páginas: 199v a 206v Ignácio Soares de Sá Livro: 55 – Páginas: 38v a 42 Inocêncio José da Costa Livro: 2 – Páginas: 2 a 3v Jacinta do Amor Divino Livro: 62 – Páginas: 155 a 157 Jacinta Maria de Brito Livro: 2 – Páginas: 79v a 82 Januário Francisco Grave Livro: 48 – Páginas: 6 a 8 Joana Barbosa da Silva Livro: 38 – Páginas: 71v a 73v Joana Friandes Livro: 42 – Páginas: 34 a 36 Joana Joaquina Manoela da Cunha Livro: 62 – Páginas: 173 a 175 Joana Maria Ferreira Livro: 25 – Páginas: 51 a 53v Joana Maria da Guia Livro: 35 – Páginas: 16 a 18v Joana Nunes Livro: 30 – Páginas: 36v a 39v João Francisco da Costa Livro: 40 – Páginas: 188v a 189v João Gomes Foguinho Livro: 4 – Páginas: 181v a 184
489 João José da Costa Livro: 43 – Páginas: 71v a 73 João José Lino da Silva Livro: 42 – Páginas: 62 a 64 João da Mata Livro: 55 – Páginas: 80v a 83v João Marques Livro: 35 – Páginas: 77 a 80 João da Silva Livro: 54 – Páginas: 91 a 93 Joaquim de Almeida Livro: 37 – Páginas: 184 a 187 Joaquim Antônio Mendes Livro: 46 – Páginas: 104v a 106v Joaquim Batista Livro: 11 – Páginas: 195v a 199 Joaquim Cardoso da Costa Livro: 13 – Páginas: 108v a 112v Joaquim Carneiro de Campos Livro: 23 – Páginas: 268 a 270v Joaquim Gomes de Souza Livro: 46 – Páginas: 91 a 93 Joaquim Pires Fernandes da Conceição Livro: 3 – Páginas: 52 a 52v Joaquim de São José Livro: 40 – Páginas: 29v a 32 Joaquim Vieira Livro: 16 – Páginas: 39v a 42 Joaquina Brites Livro: 62 – Páginas: 139 a 141 Joaquina Francisca de Campos Livro: 9 – Páginas: 101 a 104v Joaquina Maria da Encarnação Livro: 16 – Páginas: 156 a 160v Joaquina Maria de Menezes Livro: 11 – Páginas: 181 a 185 Joaquina Rosa do Sacramento Livro: 50 – Páginas: 16v a 20 José Alves Matheus Livro: 46 – Páginas: 43 a 45v José da Costa de Oliveira
490 Livro: 50 – Páginas: 183v a 185v José Alves da Silva Livro: 36 – Páginas: 159 a 161v José Antônio de Etra Livro: 16 – Páginas: 100 a 104 José Barbosa Livro: 32 – Páginas: 73v a 77 José de Carvalho Bastos Livro: 42 – Páginas: 160v a 163 José da Costa Ferreira Livro: 19 – Páginas: 78 a 81 José Domingues dos Santos Livro: 40 – Páginas: 19 a 21 José Gonçalves Braga Livro: 7 – Páginas: 142 a 146 José Ignácio Joaquim Livro: 23 – Páginas: 186 a 189 José Nunes de Moraes Livro: 14 – Páginas: 166v a 171 José Paraíso Livro: 42 – Páginas: 91 a 93 José Pereira de Souza Livro: 23 – Páginas: 88v a 90v José Rodrigues de Menezes Livro: 44 – Páginas: 14 a 16 José de Souza Neto Livro: 47 – Páginas: 31v a 34 José Tavares Livro: 31 – Páginas: 87 a 89v Josefa da Silva Livro: 49 – Páginas: 192 a 194v Júlio Barata Livro: 37 – Páginas: 181v a 184 Justina Maria da Conceição Livro: 51 – Páginas: 101 a 104 Justiniano Maineto Livro: 62 – Páginas: 152 a 155 Leonor Francisca da Rocha Livro: 12 – Páginas: 161v a 168 Leopoldina de Moura Livro: 26 – Páginas: 273v a 276
491 Lino Ribeiro Sanches e Luiza de Queirós Livro: 43 – Páginas: 112v a 114 Lourenço Antunes Guimarães Livro: 46 – Páginas: 172v a 175 Lourenço Domingos dos Santos Livro: 35 – Páginas: 116 a 119v Lourenço de Oliveira Livro: 32 – Páginas: 32 a 34v Lucas Ramos Livro: 45 – Páginas: 179 a 181 Lucrecia de Amorim Livro: 33 – Páginas: 114 a 116v Luduvilla Rebelo Livro: 38 – Páginas: 177 a 179 Luiz de França da Conceição Livro: 12 – Páginas: 227v a 231v Luiz Francisco Martins Guimarães Livro: 38 – Páginas: 94v a 98v Luis Mendes Livro: 44 – Páginas: 66 a 67 Luiz da Rocha Livro: 4 – Páginas: 222 a 224v Luiza Cardosa Maria de Jesus Livro: 19 – Páginas: 81v a 86 Luiza Francisca Gonçalves Livro: 46 – Páginas: 188 a 191v Luiza de França Livro: 31 – Páginas: 5 a 8 Lusia José Pires Livro: 35 – Páginas: 164v a 167v Manoel Camilo da Costa Livro: 47 – Páginas: 113v a 114v Manoel José de Carvalho Livro: 47 – Páginas: 107 a 109 Manoel José Parra Livro: 63 – Páginas: 1 a 2v Manoel Pereira Lopes Livro: 26 – Páginas: 108 a 111 Manoel da Silva Livro: 10 – Páginas: 39 a 42 Manoel dos Santos
492 Livro: 2 – Páginas: 87 a 89 Manoel Vieira Livro: 17 – Páginas: 21 a 25 Marcolino Antônio Pedroso Livro: 60 – Páginas: 71 a 74 Margarida de Araújo Gois Livro: 24 – Páginas: 81 a 84 Maria Antônia Livro: 23 – Páginas: 146v a 149 Maria Antônia da Conceição Livro: 12 – Páginas: 211 a 215v Maria da Assunção Livro: 37 – Páginas: 89v a 92 Maria Basilia de Leite Livro: 45 – Páginas: 169v a 172 Maria do Bonfim Livro: 38 – Páginas: 57v a 59v Maria do Bonfim da Silva de Santana Livro: 38 – Páginas: 57v a 59v Maria da Conceição Livro: 56 – Páginas: 67 a 69 Maria da Conceição Livro: 58 – Páginas: 81 a 84 Maria da Conceição da Cruz Livro: 2 – Páginas: 70 a 73 Maria Correia Vidal Livro: 6 – Páginas: 26 a 28v Maria Francisca da Conceição Livro: 25 – Páginas: 182v a 185v Maria Gonçalves Polieiro Livro: 48 – Páginas: 69 a 71v Maria Joaquina Victória da Conceição Livro: 50 – Páginas: 43 a 45 Maria Luiza da Costa Livro: 45 – Páginas: 184 a 187 Maria Sabina Gil Livro: 46 – Páginas: 54v a 57 Maria Simplícia dos Anjos Livro: 47 – Páginas: 13 a 14v Mariana dos Anjos Menezes Livro: 33 – Páginas: 116v a 119
493 Mariana da Conceição Lima Livro: 31 – Páginas: 102v a 105 Maria da Encarnação Milles Livro: 40 – Páginas: 142v a 145v Maria do Espirito Santo Livro: 32 – Páginas: 123 a 126 Maria Francisca Teles de Menezes Livro: 29 – Páginas: 127v a 129 Maria de Freitas Guimarães Livro: 19 – Páginas: 267 a 273 Maria Gertrudes de Santana Livro: 17 – Páginas: 56 a 61v Maria Joaquina de Santana Livro: 4 – Páginas: 177v a 180v Maria Luiza Livro: 45 – Páginas: 199v a 200v Maria dos Prazeres Livro: 39 – Páginas: 3 a 4 Maria Prudência de Almeida Livro: 40 – Páginas: 66v a 69 Maria do Rosário dos Santos Livro: 34 – Páginas: 195v a 198 Maria do Sacramento Rocha Livro: 47 – Páginas: 186v a 189 Maria de Santana Livro: 39 – Páginas: 28 a 29v Maria Teresa de Jesus Livro: 10 – Páginas: 264 a 267v Mariana Joaquina da Silva Pereira Livro: 3 – Páginas: 23 a 33v Marcos de Moura e Maria Josefa de Queirós Livro: 62 – Páginas: 81 a 83v Matheus de Pontes Livro: 42 – Páginas: 155 a 156v Matheus da Silva Guimarães Livro: 23 – Páginas: 270v a 274 Mathias Pires de Carvalho Livro: 3 – Páginas: 23 a 25 Maurício de Oliveira Livro: 40 – Páginas: 17v a 19 Maximiano de Freitas Henriques
494 Livro: 31 – Páginas: 154 a 157v Miguel Antônio Araújo Livro: 50 – Páginas: 116v a 119 Miguel Neves Livro: 3 Páginas: 97v a 99v Militão Muniz Livro: 61 – Páginas: 71v a 75v Noberta Pinto da Silveira Livro: 42 – Páginas: 149v a 152 Paulo Coelho Livro: 39 – Páginas: 41 a 42 Paulo José da Fonseca Livro: 28 – Páginas: 157 a 159v Pedro Brites Livro: 61 – Páginas: 55v a 58 Pedro Domingues dos Santos Livro: 15 – Páginas: 66v a 73 Pedro João da França Livro: 40 – Páginas: 169v a 171v Pedro Salgueiro Livro: 48 – Páginas: 155v a 157 Primo Mendes dos Santos Livro: 41 – Páginas: 38 a 39 Prudência Maria de Jesus Livro: 61 – Páginas: 168v a 170 Quitéria de Assunção Livro: 2 – Páginas: 29v a 32v Quitéria Maria de Jesus Livro: 16 – Páginas: 1v a 5v Quitéria Nunes de Jesus Livro: 29 – Páginas: 143 a 146v Rafael Cordeiro Livro: 23 – Páginas: 20v a 30 Ricardo Gomes Livro: 12 – Páginas: 34 a 38v Rita Ignácia Livro: 41 – Páginas: 148 a 149 Rita Inácia Livro: 41 – Páginas: 148 a 149 Rita Joana Maria de Jesus Livro: 17 – Páginas: 145v a 150v
495 Rita de Lima Livro: 35 – Páginas: 130 a 132 Rita Maria da Conceição Livro: 28 – Páginas: 122v a 125 Rita Pereira do Nascimento Campos Livro: 17 – Páginas: 16v a 21 Rita Rosa de São José Livro: 19 – Páginas: 244v a 250 Rofina Rosa Friandes Livro: 43 – Páginas: 16 a 18 Romana Maria da Conceição Livro: 33 – Páginas: 45v a 48 Romualdo de Cerqueira Livro: 51 – Páginas: 141v a 144v Rosa Maria Nunes Pereira Livro: 2 – Páginas: 122 a 124v Roque Gouveia Livro: 11 – Páginas: 80 a 85 Rosa Maria da Boa Morte Livro: 38 – Páginas: 18v a 21 Rosa Maria da Conceição Livro: 27 – Páginas: 148v a 151v Rosa Maria de Paiva e Aleluia Livro: 30 – Páginas: 16v a 19 Rosa do O Freire Livro: 43 – Páginas: 50 a 52 Rosa Paiva Livro: 13 – Páginas: 173 a 177v Rosa da Silva Livro: 9 – Páginas: 77v a 80v Sabina da Cruz Livro: 47 – Páginas: 28 a 30v Sebastião Alves da Rocha Livro: 30 – Páginas: 142v a 145v Terúbio Gaspar Ferreira de Matos Livro: 43 – Páginas: 119 a 121 Thereza Benedita de Jesus Livro: 32 – Páginas: 10v a 13v Tereza Maria de Jesus Livro: 10 – Páginas: 263v a 267v Theodora Alonção
496 Livro: 19 – Páginas: 176v a 185 Thomé da França Livro: 51 – Páginas: 185v a 189v Tibério Lisboa de Pinho Livro: 51 – Páginas: 97 a 99v Tibério Manoel José de Magalhães Livro: 60 – Páginas: 181v a 185 Ursula das Virgens Saraiva Livro: 38 – Páginas: 170 a 173v Venância Constança Livro: 48 – Páginas: 37 a 39v Vital Pereira da Silva Livro: 39 – Páginas: 86 a 87
Processos cíveis:
Thomé Pinto de Almeida Castro 28/977/7 – 1895.
Databases
Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 2009. http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/index.faces (accessed 17 Apr. 2015)
Published Primary Sources
Abé-Lallemant, Robert. Viagem Pelo Norte do Brasil no anno de 1859. Trans. Eduardo de Lima Castro. 2 vols. Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, 1961.
Debret, Jean-Baptiste. Viagem pitoresca e histórica ao Brasil. Belo Horizonte: Itatiaia, 1989 (1834).
Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001 (1789).
497 Graham, Maria. Diário de uma Viagem ao Brasil. São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1956.
Habsburg, Maximilien von. Reise Skinnen. Esboço de viagem. Bahia, 1860. Trans. Antonieta da Silva Carvalho. Vienna: Tipografia Nacional, 1861.
Kidder, Daniel P. Sketches of Residence and Travels in Brazil Embracing Historical and Geographical Notices of the Empire and Its Several Provinces. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Sorin and Ball, 1845.
Kindersley, Mrs. Letters from the East Indies. London: J. Nourse, 1777.
Koster, Henry. Travels in Brazil. 2 vols. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1816.
Legislação da Província da Bahia sobre o negro: 1835 a 1888. Salvador: FUNCEP/DIBIP, 1996.
Masson, Camillo de Lellis. Almanak Administrativo Mercantil, E Industrial Da Bahia, Para O Anno De 1855. Bahia: Typ. De Camillo de Lellis Masson & C., 1854.
Orbigny, Alcide d’. “Viagem Pitoresca Através do Brasil.” Reconquista do Brasil 29. Belo Horizonte and São Paulo: Itatiaia and EDUSP, 1976.
Pereira, Nuno Marques. Compêndio narrativo do peregrino da América. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1979.
Prior, James. Voyage Along the Eastern Coast of Africa to Mosambique, Johanna, and Quiloa; to St. Helena; to Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, and Pernambuco in Brazil, in the Nisus Frigate. London: Richard Phillips, 1819.
Recenseamento Geral do Império de 1872. Vol 3. Bahia. Rio de Janeiro: Typ. De G. Leuzinger e Filhos, 1872.
Spix, Johan B. and Karl von Martius. Viagem pelo Brasil. 3 vols. São Paulo: Melhoramentos/IHGB/Ministério de Educação e Cultura, 1976.
Tollenare, L.F. Notas Dominicais tomadas durante uma residência em Portugal e no Brasil nos anos de 1816, 1817 e 1818. Recife: Secretario de Educação e Cultura, Coleção Pernambucana, v. XVI, 1978.
498 Viana, Padre A. da Rocha. Compilação em índice alfabético de todas as leis provinciais da Bahia, regulamentos e atos do governo para execução das mesmas. Bahia: Typ. e livraria de E. Pedrosa, 1858.
Secondary Sources
Albuquerque, Wlamyra R. de. O jogo da dissimulação: abolição e cidadania negra no Brasil. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2009.
Andrade, Maria José da Silva. A mão de obra escrava em Salvador de 1811 a 1860. São Paulo: Corrupio, 1988.
Barickman, B.J. A Bahian Counterpoint: Sugar, Tobacco, Cassava, and Slavery in the Recôncavo, 1780-1860. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Bastide, Roger. Estudos Afro-Brasileiros. São Paulo: Editora Perspectiva, 1973.
Berlin, Ira. “From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African- American Society in Mainland North America.” William and Mary Quarterly 53. 2 (1996): 251-89.
Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in America. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000
Bethell, Leslie. The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade: Britain, Brazil and the Slave Trade Question, 1807-1869. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UP, 1970.
Brown, Vincent. The Reaper’s Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008.
Brito, Luciana da Cruz. “Sob o rigor da lei: africanos e africanas na legislação baiana (1830-1841).” MA thesis. Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 2009.
Campos, João da Silva. Procissões tradicionais da Bahia. Salvador: Publicações do Museu da Bahia/Secretaria da Educação e Saúde, 1941.
-----. “Ligeiras notas sobre a vida íntima, costumes e religião dos africanos na Bahia.” Anais do Arquivo do Estado da Bahia 29 (1943): 289-309.
Carneiro, Edison. Candomblés da Bahia. Rio da Janeiro, Edições de Ouro, without date.
499
Carrington, Selwyn H. H. The Sugar Industry and the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 1775- 1810. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2002.
Carvalho, Marcus J. M., Flávio dos Santos Gomes, and João José Reis. O alufá Rufino: tráfico, escravidão e liberdade no Atlântico negro (c.1822-c.1853). São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2010.
Castillo, Lisa Earl and Luis Nicolau Parés. “Marcelina da Silva e seu mundo: novos dados para uma historiografia do candomblé ketu.” Afro-Ásia 36 (2007): 111-151.
Castillo, Lisa Earl. Entre a oralidade e a escrita: a etnografia nos candomblés da Bahia. Salvador: EDUFBA, 2008.
-----. “The exodus of 1835: Agudá Life Stories and Social Networks”. Pan-Africanism and the Integration of Continental Africa in Diaspora Africa. Vol. 2. Eds. Babawale, Tunde, Akin Alao and Tony Onwumah. Lagos: Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization, 2011: 27-51.
-----. “Entre memória, mito e história: viajantes transatlânticos da Casa Branca.” Escravidão e suas sombras. Eds. Reis, João José and Elciene Azevedo. Salvador: EDUFBA, 2012: 65-109.
Cohen, David W., and Jack P. Greene. Eds. Neither Slave nor Free: The Freedmen of African Descent in the Slave Societies of the New World. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1972.
Conrad, Robert Edgar. The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 1850-1888. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
-----. World of Sorrow: The African Slave Trade to Brazil. Baton Rouge: The LSU Press, 1986.
-----. Children of God’s Fire: A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994.
Chalboub, Sidney. A força da escravidão: ilegalidade e costume no Brasil oitocentista. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2012.
Cunha, Manuela Carneiro da. Negros estrangeiros. Os escravos libertos e sua volta à África. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1985.
500
Curtin, Philip D. The Atlantic Slave Trade. A Census. Wisconsin, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1972.
-----. Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex: Essays in Atlantic History. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Curto, José C., and Paul E. Lovejoy. Enslaving Connections: Changing Cultures of Africa and Brazil during the Era of Slavery. New York: Humanity Books, 2004.
Dauril, Alden. Ed. Colonial Roots of Modern Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.
Diouf, Sylviane A. Ed. Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press & James Currey, 2003.
Diouf, Sylviane A. “The Last Resort: Redeeming Family and Friends.” Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies. Ed. Diouf, Sylviane A. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press & James Currey, 2003: 81-100.
Dórea, Luiz Eduardo. Histórias de Salvador nos nomes das suas ruas. Salvador: EDUFBA, 2006.
Dubois, Laurent. A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804. Durham: The University of Carolina Press, 2004.
-----. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005.
Eltis, David. Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
-----. The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Eltis, David, and David Richardson. Eds. Extending the Frontiers: Essays on the New Transatlantic Slave Trade Database. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.
Fraga Filho, Walter. “Encruzilhadas da liberdade : historias e trajetorias de escravos libertos na Bahia, 1870-1910.” PhD Diss. Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 2004.
501
Faria, Sheila do Castro. “Cotidiano do Negro no Brasil Escravista.” Tres Grandes Cuestiones de la Historia de Iberoamérica. Ed. José Andrés-Gallego. Madrid: Fundación Mapfre Tavera - Fundación Ignacio Larremendi, 2005.
Farias, Sara Oliveira. “Irmãos de cor, de caridade e de crença: A Irmandade do Rosário do Pelourinho na Bahia do século XIX.” MA thesis. Universidade Federal Da Bahia, 1997.
Feirman, Steven. Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.
Ferreira, José Carlos. “As insurreições dos africanos na Bahia.” Revista do Instituto Geográfico e Histórico da Bahia 10.29 (1903): 103-19.
Freitas, Décio. Escravos e senhores-de-escravos. Porto Alegre: Universidade de Caxias do Sul, 1977.
Frey, Silvia R., and Betty Wood. Eds. From Slavery to Emancipation in the Atlantic World. London: Frank Cass, 1999.
Freyre, Gilberto. Casa Grande e Senzala: formação da família brasileira sob o regime da economia patriarcal. São Paulo: Global, 2006 (1933).
-----. The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization. New York: Alfred A. Knopf Incorporated, 1963.
F.W.O. Morton. “The Conservative Revolution of Independence.” PhD Diss. Oxford University, 1974
Geggus, David Patrick. Haitian Revolutionary Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.
Graham, Richard. Feeding the City: From Street Market to Liberal Reform in Salvador, Brazil, 1780-1860. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010.
Graham, Sandra Lauderdale. Caetana Says No: Women’s Stories from a Brazilian Slave Society. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Guran, Milton. Agudás: os “brasileiros” do Benim. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Frontera, 1999.
502 Haese, Mabel Macedo d ́. “Última vontade: Testamentos em São José dos Pinhais na segunda metade do século XIX.” Honors thesis. Universidade Federal do Paraná, 2006.
Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo. Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005.
Harms, Robert. The Diligent: A Voyage through the Worlds of the Slave Trade. New York: Basic Books, 2002.
Hawthorne, Walter. From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1830. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Heywood, Linda Marinda. Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Higgins, Kathleen J. “Licentious Liberty.” A Brazilian Gold-Mining Region: Slavery, Gender, and Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Sabará, Minas Gerais. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999.
Hill, Lawrence F. "The Abolition of the African Slave Trade to Brazil.” Hispanic American Historical Review XI (1931): 169-197.
Horne, Gerald. The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil and the African Slave Trade. New York: NYU Press, 2007.
Karasch, Mary C. A Vida dos escravos no Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1850. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2000.
Klein, Herbert S. and Francisco Vidal Luna. Slavery in Brazil. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Klein, Martin A. Ed. Breaking the Chains: Slavery, Bondage, and Emancipation in Modern Africa and Asia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993.
Klein, Martin A. Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
503 Law, Robin. Ed. From Slave Trade to “Legitimate” Commerce: The Commercial Transition in Nineteenth-Century West Africa. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Law, Robin, and Kristin Mann. “West Africa in the Atlantic Community: The Case of the Slave Coast.” The William and Mary Quarterly. Spec. issue on African and American Atlantic Worlds 56.2 (1999): 307-334.
Law, Robin. “A carreira de Francisco Félix de Souza na África occidental (1800-1849).” Revista Topoi (2001): 9-39.
-----. “The Evolution of the Brazilian Community in Ouidah.” Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of a Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil. Eds. Mann, Kristin, and Edna G. Bay. New York: Frank Cass, 2001: 22-42.
-----. “A Comunidade brasileira de Uidá e os últimos anos do tráfico atlântico de escravos, 1850-66.” Afro-Ásia 27 (2002): 41-77.
-----. Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving “Port,” 1727-1892. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press & James Currey, 2004.
-----. “Francisco Felix de Souza in West Africa, 1820-1849.” Enslaving Connections: Changing Cultures of Africa and Brazil during the Era of Slavery. Eds. Curto, José C., and Paul E. Lovejoy. Amherst, New York: Humanity Books, 2004: 187- 213.
-----. “Ethnicities of Enslaved Africans in the Diaspora: On the Meanings of “Mina” (Again).” History in Africa 32 (2005): 247-267.
Lovejoy, Paul E. Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Lovejoy, Paul E, and David V. Trotman. Eds. Trans-Atlantic Dimensions of Ethnicity in the African Diaspora. London and New York: Continuum, 2003.
Mann, Kristin. “Shifting Paradigms in the Study of the African Diaspora and of Atlantic History and Culture.” Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of a Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil. Eds. Mann, Kristin, and Edna G. Bay. New York: Frank Cass, 2001: 3-22.
504 Mann, Kristin, and Edna G. Bay. Eds. Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of the Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil. New York: Frank Cass, 2001.
Manning, Patrick. Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Matory, Lorand J. Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005.
Mattoso, Katia M. de Queirós. “O consulado francês na Bahia em 1824.”Anais do Arquivo do Estado da Bahia 39 (1970): 149-227.
-----. “Sociedade e conjuntura na Bahia nos anos de luta pela independência.” Universitas 15-16 (1973): 5-26.
-----. Família e sociedade na Bahia do século 19. Salvador: Corrupio, 1988.
-----. Ser escravo no Brasil. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1982.
-----. To Be a Slave in Brazil, 1550-1888. Trans. Arthur Goldhammer. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1986.
-----. “No Brasil escravista: relações sociais entre libertos e homens livres e entre libertos e escravos.” Da revolução dos alfaiates à riqueza dos baianos no século XIX: itinerário de uma historiadora. Eds. Soares, Arlette, and Rina Angulo. Salvador: Corrupio, 2004: 261-279.
-----. “Para uma historia social seriada da cidade do Salvador no século XIX: Os testamentos e inventários como fonte de estudo da estrutura social e de mentalidades.” Da revolução dos alfaiates à riqueza dos baianos no século XIX: itinerário de uma historiadora. Eds. Soares, Arlette, and Rina Angulo. Salvador: Corrupio, 2004: 161-176.
-----. “Testamentos de escravos libertos na Bahia no século XIX: uma fonte para o estudo de mentalidades.” Da revolução dos alfaiates à riqueza dos baianos no século XIX: itinerário de uma historiadora. Eds. Soares, Arlette, and Rina Angulo. Salvador: Corrupio, 2004: 225-260.
505 Martins, Roberto Borges. Minas e o tráfico de escravos no século XIX, outra vez. Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 1994.
McMahon, Elisabeth. Slavery and Emancipation in Islamic East Africa: From Honor to Respectability. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Miers, Suzanne, and Martin A. Klein. Eds. Slavery and Colonial Rule in Africa. New York: Frank Cass, 1998.
Miller, Joseph. Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730- 1830. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996.
-----. “Retention, Reinvention, and Remembering: Restoring Identities through Enslavement in Africa and under Slavery in Brazil.” Enslaving Connections: Changing Cultures of Africa and Brazil during the Era of Slavery. Eds. Curto, José C., and Paul E. Lovejoy. Amherst and New York: Humanity Books, 2004: 81-125.
Mintz, Sidney W., and Richard Price. The Birth of African-American Culture: An Anthropological Perspective. Boston: Beacon Press, 1976.
Mott, Luiz Roberto de Barros. “Revendo a história da escravidão no Brasil.” Mensário do Arquivo Nacional 127 (1980): 21-25.
-----. “A revolução dos negros do Haiti e o Brasil.” História: questões e debates 3.4 (1982): 55-63.
Nishida, Mieko. “As alforrias e o papel da etnia na escravidão urbana: Salvador, Brasil, 1808-1888.” Estudos Econômicos 23.2 (1993): 227-65.
-----. Slavery and Identity: Ethnicity, Gender, and Race in Salvador, Brazil, 1808-1888. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003.
Oliveira, Maria Inês Côrtes de. O liberto: seu mundo e os outros (Salvador 1790-1890). São Paulo: Corrupio, 1988.
-----. “Viver e morrer no meio dos seus. Nações e comunidades africanas na Bahia do século XIX”. Revista da USP. Spec. issue “Dossiê Povo Negro” 28 (1996): 174- 193.
506 Ortiz, Fernando. Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995 (1940).
Paiva, Eduardo França. Escravos e libertos nas Minas Gerais do século XVIII: Estratégias de resistência através dos testamentos. São Paulo: Anna Blume, 1995.
Parés, Luis Nicolau. A Formação do candomblé: história e ritual da nação jeje na Bahia. Campinas, SP: Editora da Unicamp, 2007.
-----. “Memórias da escravidão no ritual religioso: uma comparação entre o culto aos voduns no Benim e no candomblé baiano.” Escravidão e suas sombras. Eds. Reis, João José, and Elciene Azevedo. Salvador: EDUFBA, 2012: 111-141.
Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.
Pierson, Donald. Brancos e pretos na Bahia: estudo de contacto racial. São Paulo: Editora Nacional, 1971.
Pietschmann, Horst. Atlantic History: History of the Atlantic System, 1580-1830. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002.
Prado Junior, Caio. The Colonial Background of Modern Brazil. Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1967.
Quintão, Antônia Aparecida. Lá vem parente. As irmandades dos pretos e pardos no Rio de Janeiro e em Pernambuco (século XVIII). São Paulo: Anna Blume/Fapesp, 2002.
Reginaldo, Lucilene. “Os Rosários dos angolas: Irmandades negras, experiências escravas e identidades africanas na Bahia setecentista.” PhD. Diss. Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 2005.
Reis, Isabel Ferreira dos. Histórias de vida familiar e afetiva de escravos na Bahia do século XIX. Salvador: EDUFBA, 2001.
Reis, João José. A Morte é uma festa: ritos fúnebres e revolta popular no Brasil do século XIX. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1991.
507 -----. Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia. Trans. Arthur Brakel. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
-----. “O cotidiano da morte no Brasil oitocentista.” História da Vida Privada no Brasil. Império: a corte e a modernidade nacional. Eds. Novais, Fernando A., and Luiz Felipe de Alencastro. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1997.
-----. Ed. Escravidão e invenção da liberdade: estudos sobre o negro no Brasil. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1988.
-----. Rebelião escrava no Brasil: a história do levante dos Malês em 1835. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2003. -----. Death is a Festival: Funeral Rites and Rebellion in Nineteenth-Century Brazil. Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
-----. Domingos Sodré, um sacerdote africano: escravidão, liberdade e candomblé na Bahia do século XIX. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2008.
Rodrigues, Jaime. O infame comércio: propostas e experiências no final do tráfico de africanos para o Brasil 1800-1850. Campinas, SP: Unicamp/CECULT, 2000.
-----. De costa a costa: escravos, marinheiros e intermediários do tráfico negreiro de Angola para o Rio de Janeiro (1780-1860). São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2005.
Rodrigues, José Honório. Brazil and Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965.
Rodrigues, Nina. O animismo fetichista do negro da Bahia. Rio de Janeiro, 1939.
Ross, David. “The career of Domingo Martinez in the Bight of Benin, 1832-1864.” The Journal of African History 6.1 (1965): 79-90.
Santos, Cleyton Rodrigues dos. “Da escravidão à imigração: A transição do trabalho escravo para o trabalho livre assalariado no Brasil.” Intertemas (2003). http://intertemas.unitoledo.br/revista/index.php/Juridica/article/viewFile/121/124 (Accessed 17 Apr. 2015)
Santos, Lucimar Felisberto dos. “Cor, identidade e mobilidade social: crioulos e africanos no Rio de Janeiro (1870-1888).” MA thesis. Universidade Federal Fluminense, 2006.
508
Santos, Maria Stella de Azevedo. “Reavaliação e atualidade dos cultos afro-brasileiros na Bahia.” Sincretismo Religioso: O Ritual Afro. Ed. Lima, Tânia. Recife: Massangana, 1996.
Schwartz, Stuart B. Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550-1835. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
-----. Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels: Reconsidering Brazilian Slavery. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1992.
-----. Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of the Atlantic World, 1450-1680. Chapel Hill: University of Carolina Press, 2004.
Scott, Rebecca J., and Jean M. Hébrard. Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012.
Smallwood, Stephanie E. Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.
Sena Junior, Carlos Zacarias F. de. “Entre a pobreza e a propriedade: o pequeno proprietário de escravos em Salvador, 1850-1888.” MA Thesis. Universidade Federal da Bahia, 1997.
Sensbach, Jon F. Rebecca’s Rival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World. Cambridge and New York: Harvard University Press, 2005.
Silva, Alberto da Costa e. A manilha e o libambo: a África e a escravidão, de 1500 a 1700. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 2002.
-----. Um Rio Chamado Atlântico: A África no Brasil e o Brasil na África. Rio de Janeiro: UFRJ, 2002.
-----. “Africa-Brazil-Africa during the Era of the Slave Trade.” Enslaving Connections: Changing Cultures of Africa and Brazil during the Era of Slavery. Eds. Curto, José C. and Paul E. Lovejoy. New York: Humanity Books, 2004: 21-29.
Silva, Carlos Jr. “Tráfico, escravidão e comércio em Salvador do século XVIII: a vida de Francisco Gonçalves Dantas (1699-1738).” Escravidão e suas sombras. Eds. Reis, João José, and Elciene Azevedo. Salvador: EDUFBA, 2012: 143-185.
509 Silveira, Renato da. O Candomblé da Barroquinha: Processo de constituição do primeiro terreiro baiano de keto. Salvador: Maianga, 2010.
-----. “Antecedentes europeus nas Irmandades do Rosário dos Pretos da Bahia colonial.” Escravidão e suas sombras. Eds. Reis, João José, and Elciene Azevedo. Salvador: EDUFBA, 2012: 15-63.
Soares, Arlette, and Rina Angulo. Eds. Da revoluçāo dos alfaiates à riqueza dos baianos no século XIX: itinerário de uma historiadora. Salvador: Corrupio, 2004.
Soares, Mariza de Carvalho. People of Faith: Slavery and African Catholics in Eighteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro. Trans. Jerry D. Metz. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011.
Soumonni, Elisée. “Some Reflections on the Brazilian Legacy in Dahomey.” Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of a Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil. Eds. Mann, Kristin, and Edna G. Bay. London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2001: 61-72.
Souza, Mônica Lima e. “Entre margens: o retorno à África de libertos no Brasil, 1830- 1870.” PhD Diss. Universidade Federal Fluminense, 2008.
Sweet, James H. Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship and Religion in the African- Portuguese World, 1441-1770. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
-----. Domingos Álvares: African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
Tavares, Aurea Conceição Pereira. “Vestígios materiais nos enterramentos na antiga Sé de Salvador: postura das instituições religiosas africanas frente à igreja católica em Salvador no período escravista.” MA thesis. Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, 2006.
Tavares, Luís H. Dias. Comércio proibido de escravos. São Paulo: Ática/CNPq, 1988.
Thornton, John K. Africa and Africans in the Formation of the Atlantic World, 1400- 1680. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992 (second expanded edition, 1998).
510 -----. Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500-1800. London: University College of London Press/Routledge, 1999.
-----. The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684-1706. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Thornton, John K., and Linda Heywood. Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles and the Making of the Anglo-Dutch Americas, 1580-1660. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Turner, J. Michael. “Escravos brasileiros no Daomé.” Afro-Ásia 10-11 (1970): 1-19.
Verger, Pierre. Flux et Reflux de la traite des nègres entre le Golfe du Bénin et Bahia de Todos os Santos du XVIIè. Au XIXè. siècles. Paris/La Haye: Mouton & Co., 1968.
-----. Fluxo e Refluxo do Tráfico de Escravos Entre o Golfo de Benin e a Bahia de Todos os Santos dos Séculos XVII ao XIX. 4th ed. rev. Salvador: Corrupio, 1987.
-----. Os Libertos: Sete caminhos na liberdade de escravos da Bahia no século XIX. Salvador: Corrupio, 1992.
-----. Orixás. Deuses na África e no Novo Mundo. São Paulo: Corrupio: 1981.
Yai, Olabiyi Babalola. “The Identity, Contributions, and Ideology of the Aguda (Afro- Brazilians) of the Gulf of Benin: A Reinterpretation.” Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of a Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil. Eds. Mann, Kristin, and Edna G. Bay. New York: Frank Cass, 2001: 72-83.
511
BIOGRAPHY
Asligul Berktay is originally from Istanbul, Turkey. She finished the French high school
Lycée Saint-Joseph d’Istanbul in 1999. She later studied at Mount Holyoke College, graduating in 2003 with a double major in Critical Social Thought and Spanish, along with a minor in African Studies. As an undergraduate, she studied abroad in both Spain and Senegal. She received an MA in History from Central European University in 2005, and her thesis was published in book form in 2009.
Asligul started the PhD program at the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at
Tulane University in 2005. Her research has focused on the Atlantic slave trade and comparative slavery in Brazil, the Caribbean, and West Africa. She has also worked and published articles on race and race relations, social change, youth movements, and agency through popular culture in the same regions. She has received research grants from the Stone Center and from the School of Liberal Arts at Tulane University, but also from the Portuguese government. At Tulane, she has taught classes in the Latin American
Studies, Spanish, History, and Communication departments, some of which she herself designed. Primarily a historian, Asligul is a firm believer in interdisciplinary studies, and has also worked in sociology, anthropology, literature, political and critical theory, music, and performance studies. Having lived in many different parts of Europe, Africa, and the
Americas, Asligul is also fluent in fourteen languages.
512