Between Slavery and Freedom in Late Nineteenth-Century Brazil: A View from the Northeastern Backlands of Ceará, 1865-1884

November 16, 2016; CAS 124 from 1-2 pm

Drawing on re-enslavement and freedom suits, this talk explores the limits of freedom for women of African descent who lived in the Brazilian Northeastern province of Ceará during the last decades of slavery. It analyzes the local and regional conditions under which these women and their children experienced the precariousness of freedom and the strategies that they used to attempt to regain their freedom after they had become illegally enslaved or re-enslaved.

Martha S. Santos is a specialist in Brazilian and Latin American history. She is author of Cleansing Honor with Blood: Masculinity, Violence, and Power in the Backlands of Northeast Brazil, 1845-1889  (Stanford University Press, 2012) and is currently working on a book project entitled “Engendering Slavery: Mothering Slaves, Labor, and Reproduction in Nineteenth-Century Brazil, 1813-1884.” Her research has been funded by the University of Akron, the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.