Chica da Silva: A Brazilian Slave of the Eighteenth Century

"Usually when we think about slavery, we think about plantation areas, where the majority of the enslaved people were. This book, however, is about a mining region, in the southeast of present-day Brazil, where there were gold and diamond mines. This was a very important region in Brazil during the mining boom of the 18th century. It’s the moment when the Portuguese started colonizing Brazil more broadly, because of the discovery of gold. Women who were born in Africa and their enslaved descendants were very important in this areas and although they were not miners, they performed work in the domestic environment and also sold food and provided resources to the cities. This story matters because it shows how enslaved women in these regions had social mobility through various means. They were sometimes able to buy their own freedom. In other cases, they were freed by their owners. In the case of Chica da Silva, she was purchased by a man who became her lover and, just after he bought her, he freed her. Men would buy women to benefit from their sexual services, and enslaved women were sexually exploited. But in this particular case, he freed her after purchasing her and Chica da Silva became his common-law wife. They were not legally married, but they had children who inherited property and were educated, and Chica da Silva herself became a slave owner. That is something that would happen in Brazilian urban areas, that women who were formerly enslaved, once they were emancipated, to survive in this society that was heavily based on slavery, they would become slave owners themselves. So Chica da Silva became a wealthy and powerful woman during this period, and she also became a mythical figure in Brazil. There has been one motion picture and one soap opera based on her life. There are songs and carnival parades based on her life. She became a mythical figure, but she existed, and her story is interesting because it shows that enslaved women could have social mobility by having sexual relations with their owners. Enslaved women could use it to their advantage, though most enslaved women were sexually exploited and violated by their owners. Chica da Silva had access to this mobility, probably in a situation where true ties of affection with her common-law husband existed. It’s an interesting case. Of course in the Caribbean or in Brazil there were cases like hers in which women were able to get social mobility. The problem is that once her case becomes part of the popular culture, the idea becomes widespread that slave owners were having sexual relations with enslaved women and that there was no violence associated with that. But even if you have exceptions, like the case of Chica da Silva, most of the time that was not the case. She was an exception because there was no need for this slaveowner to free her. In my own book, I show cases in which slaveowners refuse to free enslaved women, even when they had the money to pay for their freedom. But in this case he gives Chica da Silva her manumission for free. She didn’t have to purchase her own freedom: he gave it to her. And this was rare because of the connection that he had with her. When he bought her, he probably already had the intention to have her as his ‘common law wife’, even if they were never married—because this was a man of Portuguese origin, and she was a black woman. I wrote it first because it’s intended as a book to reach general readers. The books that I am talking about here are all academic books that are focused on very specific topics. My book is a panoramic view of slavery in the Americas that is accessible to a person who has never read about slavery in Brazil or in the Americas in general. They are able to read my book and understand what they are reading. They can also go to the notes and the bibliography to get more information about the topic in several languages. So this was one aim, to make the story accessible. It also is a book that covers the continent, and not only one particular country or one particular region. All the books that offer panoramic views—by Robin Blackburn, David Brion Davis—barely touch Brazil. They mention Brazil, but these authors do not focus on it or read and examine primary sources and secondary literature in Portuguese. I wanted to write a book that would do justice to the importance of Brazil in this story, as well as the important role of Africa from the beginning to the end of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery. Also, I wanted to write a book that would give a place to enslaved women. Many of the books that cover the history of enslaved women are segregated—they only cover the history of enslaved women, whereas the history of enslaved women is usually absent from the general narratives. I wanted a general narrative that would include enslaved women as well. The general ratio for enslaved Africans being brought to the Americas—and in Brazil as well—was two men for every woman. This was for several reasons. Men were being sent to work, especially in the sugar plantations. The death rate in these plantations was very high and the Portuguese would replace those who died. It was the same in the Caribbean: those who died would be replaced with new Africans. The ratio of men to women also has to do with the African markets, where there were more men available to be sold to the market in the Americas. Women tended to be sold internally to the Muslim slave trade and were also kept locally to perform agricultural activities. But despite being fewer in number, women had important roles in slave societies. Especially in urban areas, they were very visible and very present, and had important economic roles as domestic servants, street vendors, nannies, etc. Also, even if there were lower imports of enslaved women from Africa, it’s by enslaved women giving birth that new enslaved people emerged. In the United States, the legal status of a slave came through the mother. If the father was enslaved, but the mother was free, then the child was free, but the children of women who were enslaved would be enslaved. So women were crucial to keeping the slave system running."