Descriptive Table of Contents: |
I. Introduction. Historical background to the texts. Textual theory of corpus of Afro-Brazilian slave and ex-slave texts. • Problematics: conditions and discourse; writing and orality, literacy and slavery; modes and agencies (writings, interviews, dictations, scholarly treatise, depositions, testimony, autobiography, narrative, poetry, prose, journalism, and other genres) II. Final Voices • Mariano Pereira dos Santos, a 1982 interview with the 122 year old ex-slave, his accounts of rural slave and emancipated life in Paraná. • Maria "Chatinha" Benedita da Rocha, a 1981 interview with an Afro-indigenous ex-slave--her accounts of urban slave and emancipated life in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. • Maria Francisca, a 1983 interview with a 106 year old ex-slave, Rio Claro. Dialectics of memory and forgetting. • Feliciano Joaquim, a 90-year old ex-slave gives a 1945 depoimento to Artur Ramos in Rio de Janeiro. III. An Extraordinary Heresy. Sex, slavery and the Church. Corporal transformation and the Ideology of Soulful Liberation and Justice. • "Santa" Rosa Egipcíaca (1718-1765), an African Saint. An ex-venereal-slave turns Baroque Mysticism against slavery and the Inquisition. IV. Slave victims of the Holy Inquisition. Trial testimonies of slaves accused of crimes against the Church and nature. • Various defendants and witnesses testimony before the Holy officers and Inquisitors in Brazil and Portugal. V. Slave Texts of Revolt and Resistance. Writing and Transcripting the Collective Struggle for Freedom and Justice. • Gregório Luis, rebel leader and author of an extraordinary peace treaty of self-liberated slaves suing for peace with their former owner, Ilhéus, Bahia, 1789. • Marcelino, Diogo Rebelo, and other slave rebels, trial testimony of literate and illiterate slaves of their massive, highly organized conspiracy at armed revolt and self-liberation, Campinas, São Paulo, 1832. • Trial testimony of participants, conspirators and bystanders in the Malê slave and freedmen revolt in Bahia, 1835, and the 'mystery' of the Arabic writings. • Manoel Congo, and women and men slave rebels of the 1838 quilombo revolt, Pati de Alferes, Rio de Janeiro, trial testimonies. • Cosme Bento das Chagas, ex-slave leader of the "Balaiada" revolt in Maranhão, 1838-1841, pronouncements and trial testimony. • The Queimado insurrectionists, 1849, Espirito Santo, reports of leaders Chico Prego, Elisário, João, and others. • Other revolts and movements (Palmares, Inconfidência mineira, Praieira, Balaiada, Cabanagem, Quebra-Quilo, Curunkango, various quilombolas, riots and crimes). VI. The Individual Slave and Ex-slave in the Struggle for Freedom and Justice. Petitions and Testimonies. • António Fernandes. A slave's letters of petition to the king of Portugal pleading for justice in his wrongful imprisonment and torture in Bahia of the 1720's. • Esperança Garcia, "Eu Sou huma escrava/I am a slave..." A 1770 letter of petition for protection against a cruel master, his brutality of her children and separation of her family. Her appeal on the basis of Catholic principles. • Joanna Baptista, a desperate cafuza mother contracts her own enslavement to provide for her children, Pará, 1789. • Gertrudes Maria de Conceição. An emancipada/freedwoman's letter protesting her illegal reenslavement, 1835. • John Eden. "Statement to British offials aboard 'Her Majesty's ship Crescent' in Rio de Janeiro," in 1843 concerning his illegal enslavement in Brazil and England. • Antônio Cabinda and Maria Mina. Testimony of comrades who conspire to escape to a quilombo/fugitive community, 1848. • Augustino. His statement made before the Select Committee on the Extinction of the Slave Trade, House of Lords, London, 1849. • José Porcinco Martins. Testimony of a Brazo-Uruguayan ex-slave reenslaved in frontier southern Brazil, 1871. • João. A slave petitions for protection from his ex-master for stealing his manumission money and illegally reselling him, 1876. • A slave woman assassin confesses to murdering her master, 1887. VII. Wills and Testaments. Rare autobiographical moments at critical moments of life. Libertos, ex-slaves bare their souls upon writing or dictating their final wills and testaments. • 1751 Final will and testament of Paullo de Almeida. A will in which the ex-slave disposes of several slaves acquired during freedom. • 1787 Final Will and Testament of Catherina Fernandes, a wealthy ex-slave of Goiás. VIII. A singular Brazilian slave autobiography. The only known Brazilian 'slave narrative.' (The first Portuguese translation of substantial portions available in appendix) • Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua's accounts of his capture and enslavement in Africa, the middle crossing, his ordeals and masters in Brazil, his liberation by abolitionists in New York, his education in Haiti by North American Baptists, his autobiographical narration in Detroit, and his ministry in Canada. IX. Slave and Ex-Slave Brazilian Literati. Historical background to Brazilian literary figures born to slaves, such as João de Cruz e Sousa and Domingos Caldas Barbosa. • Luis Gama (1830-1882). Illegally enslaved by his father, separated from his famous revolutionary mother, educated while a slave in São Paulo, earned his own manumission, armed liberator of hundreds of slaves, insubordinate soldier, great orator, lawyer for slaves' rights, major early abolitionist figure, republican, journalist, chronicler and poet. Here the first extensive English translations of his poetry, chronicles, and journalism. • Inácio da Catingueira. Famous troubadour poet slave of the Brazilian northeast sertão/backlands, heydays 1860-1880's. First English translations of his poems. X. Echoes (cultural expressions, crafts and arts). Journalistic, witness and scholarly reports of individual, collective, and anonymous slave voices: popular sayings, verses, slogans, paintings, plastic arts and crafts, etc. • Popular and national cultures. The linguistic heritage of slavery. Language. Religion. Arts. XI. Conclusions. The value of slave texts to Brazil and the World today. XII. Appendices. Facsimiles and reproductions of original texts and supporting documents. First Portuguese translation of Baquaqua's autobiography. XIII. Bibliographies of primary and secondary sources. XIV. Index (name and subject; cross referential). Millions of Voices, a Few Precious Pages. First Collection of Brazilian Slave Texts www.uni.edu/slavetextsofamericas All material on these pages copyright ©Robert Krueger unless otherwise noted. |