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While Indigenous people provided a steady stream of slave labor to early colonists, most notably in the Jesuit aldeias, by the mid-sixteenth century the Portuguese were importing enslaved Africans in substantial numbers to work in new, permanent sugar colonies. Years before the North American slave trade got under way, more enslaved people had been brought to Brazil than would ever reach British North America. The Brazilian slave trade would continue for another nearly two hundred years.

The following firsthand accounts of slave life give a fuller picture of the experience of enslaved people, their position in society, and their interactions with “white” masters and freemen. It is important to note that “white” was a fluid and unclearly defined characteristic, reflecting not only European origin and Christianity but also freedom and property ownership.

A Freed Slave Speaks

The story of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua, a former slave taken from the Niger Delta in Africa, sold into slavery in Brazil, and ultimately freed with the help of American abolitionists in New York City, is one of very few accounts of slave life from the perspective of a slave. Baquaqua arrived in Pernambuco in the 1840s. In this excerpt, after having recounted the story of his capture, he talks about life aboard a slave ship.

Its horrors, ah! who can describe. None can so truly depict its horrors as the poor unfortunate, miserable wretch that has been confined within its portals! … We were thrust into the hold of the vessel in a state of nudity, the males being crammed on one side, and the females on the other; the hold was so low that we could not stand up, but were obliged to crouch upon the floor or sit down; day and night were the same to us, sleep being denied us from the confined position of our bodies, and we became desperate through suffering and fatigue.

Oh! the loathsomeness and filth of that horrible place will never be effaced from my memory; nay, as long as memory holds her seat in this distracted brain, will I remember that. My heart even at this day, sickens at the thought of it ?

The only food we had during the voyage was corn soaked and boiled. I cannot tell how long we were thus confined, but it seemed a very long while. We suffered very much for want of water, but was denied all we needed. A pint a day was all that was allowed, and no more; and a great many slaves died upon the passage. There was one poor fellow so very desperate for want of water, that he attempted to snatch a knife from the white man who brought in the water, when he was taken up on deck and I never knew what became of him. I supposed he was thrown overboard.

? When I reached the shore, I felt thankful to Providence that I was once more permitted to breathe pure air, the thought of which almost absorbed every other. I cared but little then that I was a slave, having escaped the ship was all I thought about. Some of the slaves on board could talk Portuguese. They had been living on the coast with Portuguese families, and they used to interpret to us. They were not placed in the hold with the rest of us, but come down occasionally to tell us something or other.

These slaves never knew they were to be sent away, until they were placed on board the ship. I remained in this slave market but a day or two, before I was again sold to a slave dealer in the city, who again sold me to a man in the country, who was a baker, and resided not a great distance from Pernambuco.

When a slaver comes in, the news spreads like wild-fire, and down come all those that are interested in the arrival of the vessel with its cargo of living merchandise, who select from the stock those most suited to their different purposes, and purchase the slaves precisely in the same way that oxen or horses would be purchased in a market; but if there are not the kinds of slaves in the one cargo, suited to the wants and wishes of the slave buyers, an order is given to the Captain for the particular sorts required, which are furnished to order the next time the ship comes into port. Great numbers make quite a business of this, and do nothing else for a living, depending entirely upon this kind of traffic (Biography of Mahommah G. Baquaqua, in Conrad 27-28).

Enslaved People as Merchandise

The following advertisements were selected from a much greater collection, all of which appeared in a single issue of O Diario do Rio de Janeiro, the leading newspaper of the city, in December, 1821.

For Sale:

“For sale a creole slave, a skillful shoemaker, with a very good figure, about twenty years of age, with no vices or bad habits. His final price is 300$000 reis. Anyone interested in him should go to Travessa do Paço No. 11, upstairs, where he will find someone to speak to about the matter.”

“Whoever would like to buy three native slave women from Angola, who have come recently from that place, one who irons and does laundry, another a baker and laundress, and the third also a laundress, all with very good figures and the ability to do every kind of work in the house, should contact Manoel do Nascimento da Mata, Rua Direita No. 54, first floor ?”

“For sale, a black man of the Angola nation, about 20 to 25 years of age, a very good maker of combs, both tortoise shell and animal horn ?”

Wanted:

“Whoever has a creole girl, well made, from six to eight years of age, and wishes to sell her, should contact Manoel do Nascimento da Mata, Rua Direita No. 54, first floor. He wishes to buy her to take out of the country ?”

For Rent:

“Whoever is interested in renting slaves well trained in the baker’s trade, who could even do every type of work in a house, should go to Rua dos Latoeiros, house No. 14, or to the textile shop on the Rua do Cano ?” (Conrad 111-12)

The newspaper contained advertisements for enslaved people found by bush captains (men who went out into the back country to search for runaways), for runaways, and for wet nurses. Also included in the advertising section were training opportunities for enslaved people and notices concerning robberies. It was common in the 19^th century for wealthy women to have slave women as wet nurses, and newspapers at the time were full of advertisements:

“For rent, a wet nurse with very good milk, from her first pregnancy, gave birth six days ago, in the Rua dos Pescadores, No. 64. Be it advised that she does not have a child” (Jornal do Comercio, Rio de Janeiro, December 1827).

“Will trade a good black boy {moleque} 15 to 16 years of age, accustomed to the country, a good cook, does all the work of the house, makes purchases, does washing; for a wet nurse who has good milk, who also knows how to take care of a house, and who is without vices ?” (Jornal do Comercio, December 1827).

“Whoever wants to buy a creole slave, still a young girl, with good milk and in great quantity, who gave birth twenty days ago, should go to Rua das Marrecas, facing toward the public plaza” (Diario do Rio de Janeiro, June 1821).

While privileged families often found it necessary or desirable to use enslaved women as wet nurses, they certainly had their trepidations, stemming both from the diseases that enslaved people contracted aboard the ships taking them to Brazil and from widespread conviction of enslaved Africans” physical inferiority. As one French doctor working in Brazil advised mothers selecting a wet nurse, the predominant view at the time was that

“? white wet nurses would be preferable in every respect, if in this climate they offered the same advantages as those of the African race. The latter, organically formed to live in hot regions, in which their health prospers more than it does in any other place, acquire in this climate an ability to suckle babies which the same climate generally denies to white women (135).”

A Mixed Society

For much of the 20^th century, Brazil was seen as a post-racial society, with the mixed-race mulato as the national ideal. This idea was advanced by Gilberto Freyre’s Casa Grande e Senzala [translated into English as Masters and Slaves], which represented master and slave living in a symbiotic relationship that, because of the intermingling of races, produced a stronger Brazil. This excerpt, from a book published in 1894 in the aftermath of abolition, shows a different view of contact between enslaved people and free men and women.

Once Indian slavery had been eliminated, the happy, carefree, and affectionate African, with the primitive morality of the savage, with the bitterness that belongs to those who are persecuted, intruded into the family, into society, into the home. He rocked the hammock of his mistress [sinhá], served as page to his young master [sinhô-moço], as attendant to his lord [sinhô]. As the nurse, the slave girl suckled every Brazilian generation; as the personal servant [mucama], she lulled them all to sleep; as a man, the slave toiled for every generation; as a woman, she surrendered herself to all of them.

There was not a household where there were not one or more young slave boys [moleques], one or more young servants [curumins], victims dedicated to the whims of the young master [nhônhô]. They were his horse, his whipping boy, his friends, companions, servants.

The girls, the young ladies, the mistresses of the house had their mucamas for the same purposes, usually creole girls or mulatas.

The depraved influence of this peculiar Brazilian type, the mulata, in the weakening of our character has never been sufficiently analyzed ? Popular Brazilian poetry demonstrates this to us with its constant passionate preoccupation with the full force of her attractions and influence. The amorous poet, with his lascivious style, never tires of celebrating her charms, which he dissects minutely with his avid and burning desires. He sings of her sensuousness, her magic, as he puts it, with his ridiculous, eager, and intemperate language, her lust, her sorcery, her coyness, her coquettishness, her enchantments. She emphatically torments his inspiration, and the poets, with Gregório de Matos in the forefront, make her the heroine of their verses, employing the utmost frankness and sensuality (223).

Resistance From Below

The actions of enslaved people themselves belie the notion of slavery as a benign institution. Enslaved people used diverse tactics to resist involuntary servitude. They attempted to seize power in armed uprisings, broke equipment to sabotage their masters’ industry, and fled to the backlands. Runaways formed communities called quilombos, which had varying degrees of self-governance and self-sufficiency. While the largest and most famous quilombo, Palmares, lasted 100 years, all others were broken up by invading Dutch or Portuguese forces within 25 years.

Mr. Vines, the British consul in Belém, reported on the existence of quilombos as far west as the Amazon Valley, where some enslaved people were able to achieve freedom in the jungles of Maranhão, Pará, and Amazonas.

January 28, 1854

There have been known to exist, for several years, settlements of runaway negroes; one at Santarém, about 1,300 miles from this port, where upwards of 1,000 fugitive slaves are located, amongst the mountains and swamps in the vicinity of the villages of Parinha and Monte Alegre, and near the town of Macapá, are encampments from whence fugitives easily escape to Cayenne. Within 60 miles of the city of Pará [Belem] a settlement has been formed on the river Mujú, from which a female slave was recovered  a few weeks ago; she had escaped during the insurrection of 1835, and reappeared with a large family; and within a circuit of 2 leagues of Pará are many fugitive slaves.

The sites of these encampments appear to be carefully chosen to guard against a surprise attack.

The fugitives are said to be industrious in the cultivation of rice, mandioca, and Indian corn, and in the manufacture of charcoal. They make canoes and barcoes, or small sailing vessels, which are used for the interior trade. They carry on a traffic with the inferior class of tradesmen in the neighboring towns, exchanging the produce of their labour for certain necessaries, such as gunpowder and shot, cloth and soap, &c. Some of them are frequently known to venture into the city of Pará at night, where they have occasionally been taken and claimed by their owners, who endeavor to sell them, but find generally much difficulty in doing so, the freedom of their wandering life unfitting them for slavery.

The situation of these encampments being naturally difficult of access, and the connivance afforded the fugitives by parties trading with them, have rendered the repeated attempts to capture them abortive (389-90).

Further Reading

• Robert Conrad’s Children of God’s Fire has many more firsthand accounts of slavery from observers of various nationalities and professions. He includes historical context and explanation of the writers’ argument and motivation.

Sources:

• Conrad, Robert. Children of God’s Fire. University Park, Pa.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1984.

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