CGMS April 2012 Forum: Slaves on the Move: African Biographies in Nineteenth-Century Brazil
Dr. Reis discusses the life of Manuel Joaquim Ricardo, a slave, slave trader, slaveowner, who died a rich freedman in Bahia in 1865.
Forum Information
April 12, 2012
2:00pm
Mary Mount Hall, Maryland Room
About the Forum
Co-sponored by the Latin American Studies Center, this forum was moderated by Daryle Williams. João José Reis presented his paper, titled "Social Mobility among Africans in Nineteenth-Century Brazil: The Case of Manoel Ricardo" while Keila Grinberg presented her paper titled "Re-enslavement among Africans in Brazil's Nineteenth-Century Southern Frontier: The Case of Rufina." Click on the image below for a PDF describing these papers in more detail.
Speakers
João José Reis
Dr. Reis will discuss the life of Manuel Joaquim Ricardo, a slave, slave trader, slaveowner, who died a rich freedman in Bahia in 1865. His trajectory in life illuminates controversial aspects of Brazilian slave society, such as the opportunities and obstacles to upward social mobility of African-born individuals.
João José Reisis professor of History at the Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil and the author of Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The 1835 Muslim Uprising in Bahia and Death is a Festival: Funeral Rites and Popular Rebellion in Nineteenth-Century Brazil.
Keila Grinberg
Dr. Grinberg will analyze the relationship between slavery, the process of state building and international relations in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. She concludes that in South America the action of slaves and the diplomatic tensions it created led to a wide definition of the concept of “free soil,” attached to notions of territory and nationhood.
Keila Grinberg is a Visiting Scholar at the University of Michigan and an Associate Professor at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Grinberg is the author of several books and articles, among them Slavery, Freedom and the Law in the Atlantic World