On November 14, at 11:30 am, room 202 of CP3 or the Zoom meeting, will host the second open class on “Themes and problems in Social History”. This second session is dedicated to the theme of “African slavery in colonial Brazil” and will feature Cândido Domingues, professor of Brazilian History at the State University of Bahia.
The trade of enslaved Africans and the use of slave labour were foundational to Portuguese colonisation in America and, subsequently, to the Brazilian Empire. This makes slavery the longest-lasting institution in Brazilian history. For nearly 400 years, the wealth of empires and affluent families was predominantly generated through the slave labour of indigenous people and Africans. Thus, revisiting this theme has been commonplace in Brazilian historiography, with the aim of obtaining a deeper understanding of its complexity, the involved actors, and the various forms of labour (rural, exploitation of nature and urban) etc. Although there are some collections of orphanological inventories and ecclesiastical record books, one of the notable features of slavery studies in Brazil is the use of a variety of sources. Consequently, the goal is to reconstruct trajectories, examine the living conditions of slaves in cities and plantations, and analyse the social and economic relations of slaves and freedmen, among other topics related to the theme.