Donas, Free Black Women, and Enslaved Females in Nineteenth Century Luanda

Authors

  • Vanessa dos Santos Oliveira Universidade de Toronto

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15448/1980-864X.2018.3.29583

Keywords:

Luanda, slavery, donas, free black women.

Abstract

Luanda, the capital of the Portuguese colony of Angola, had a female majority in mid-nineteenth century. The female population was composed of donas, free black women, and captives who occupied different spaces in the colonial society. The daughters of the Luso-African elite were since their childhood identified as donas, reflecting their socio-economic status. These women accumulated captives, land, and luxury goods through inheritances and participation in the local and long-distance trade as merchants and brokers. Free black women sought opportunities in retail trade as quitandeiras and offering manual services to the inhabitants of the city. Female captives, in turn, entered the small trade of the streets and markets and performed domestic tasks in the residences of foreigners and Luso-Africans. This study draws on slave registers, baptism and burial records, and deeds of sale and purchase to explore experiences of donas, free black women, and female captives in nineteenth century Luanda. In a Luso-African and slave society, elements such as Portuguese descent, the ownership of goods, and affiliation to the Portuguese culture conferred prestige upon certain individuals determining the trajectories of free and enslaved women.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

ALEXANDRE, Valentim; DIAS, Jill (Eds.). O Império Africano (1825-1890). Lisboa: Estampa, 1998.

BERGER, Iris. African Women’s History: Themes and Perspectives. Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Baltimore, v. 4, n. 1, p. 1-11, 2003.

CALDEIRA, Carlos José. Apontamentos d’uma viagem de Lisbon à China e da China a Lisbon. Lisbon: Typograhia de Castro & Irmão, 1853. 2 v.

CANDIDO, Mariana P. Strategies for Social Mobility: Liaisons between Foreign Men and Slave Women in Benguela, c. 1770-1850. In: CAMPBELL, Gwynand; ELBOURNE, Elizabeth (Org.). Sex, Power and Slavery: The Dynamics of Carnal Relations under Enslavement. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2014. p. 272-288.

______. Os agentes não europeus na comunidade mercantil de Benguela, c. 1760-1820. Saeculum, João Pessoa, v. 29, p. 97-124, 2013a.

______. An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and its Hinterland. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013b.

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511997594

______. Aguida Gonçalves da Silva, une dona à Benguela à lafindu XVIIIe siécle. Brésil(s). Sciences humaines et sociales, Paris, v. 1, p. 33-54, 2012a.

______. Concubinage and Slavery in Benguela, ca. 1750-1850. In: HUNT, Nadine and OJO, Olatunji (Org.). Slavery and Africa and the Caribbean: A History of Enslavement and Identity since the 18th Century. London/New York: I.B. Tauris, 2012b. p. 66-84.

______. Trans-Atlantic Links: The Benguela-Bahian Connections, 1700-1850. In: ARAUJO, Ana Lúcia (Org.). Paths of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Interactions, Identities, andImages. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2011. p. 239-272.

______. Merchants and the Business of the Slave Trade in Benguela, c. 1750-1850. African Economic History, Madison, v. 35, p. 1-30, 2008.

CARDOSO, Carlos Alberto Lopes. Ana Joaquina dos Santos Silva, industrial angolana da segunda metade do século XIX. Boletim Cultural da Câmara Municipal de Luanda, Luanda, v. 32, p. 5-14, 1972.

______. Estudo Genealógico da Família Matozo de Andrade e Câmara. Ocidente, Lisboa, v. 403, p. 311-322, 1971.

CORREA, Elias Alexandre da Silva. História de Angola. Lisbon: Editorial Ática, 1937. 2 v.

CUNHA, Anabela. Degredo para Angola na Segunda Metade do Século XIX. 2004. Dissertação (Mestrado em História) – Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, 2004.

CURTO, José C. The Donas of Benguela, 1797: A Preliminary Analysisof a Colonial Female Elite. In: BERGAMO, Edvaldo, PANTOJA, Selma; SILVA, Ana Claudia (Org.). Angola e as Angolanas: Memória, Sociedade e Cultura. São Paulo: Intermeios, 2016. p. 99-120.

______. Resistência à Escravidão na África: O Caso dos Escravos Fugitivos Recapturados em Angola, 1846-1876. Afro-Ásia, Salvador, v. 33, p. 67-86, 2005.

______. Enslaving Spirits: The Portuguese-Brazilian Alcohol Trade at Luanda and Its Hinterland, c.1550-1830. Leiden: Brill, 2004.

______. ‘As If From A Free Womb’: Baptismal Manumissions in the Conceição Parish, Luanda, 1778-1807. Portuguese Studies Review, Peterborough, v. 10, n. 1, p. 26-57, 2002.

______. The Anatomy of a Demographic Explosion: Luanda, 1844-1850. International Journal of African Historical Studies, Boston, v. 32, p. 381-405, 1999.

https://doi.org/10.2307/220347

CURTO, José C.; GERVAIS, Raymond R. The Population History of Luanda during the late Atlantic Slave Trade, 1781-1844. African Economic History, Madison, v. 29, p. 1-59, 2001.

ELBL, Ivana. Men Without Wives: Sexual Arrangements in the Early Portuguese Expansion in West Africa. In: MURRAY, Jacquelline; EISENBICHLER, Konrad (Org.). Desire and Discipline: Sex and Sexuality in the Premodern West. University of Toronto Press, 1996. p. 61-86.

ELTIS, David; RICHARDSON, David. Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.

Eltis , David et al. “Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database,” Online Database, 2008.

www.slavevoyages.org/

FERREIRA, Roquinaldo A. Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World: Angola and Brazil during the Era of the Slave Trade. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139025096

______. Slaving and Resistance to Slaving in West Central Africa. In: ELTIS, David; ENGERMAN, Stanley (Org.). The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. v. 3. p. 111-131.

______. The Suppression of the Slave Trade and Slave Departures from Angola, 1830s-1860s. In: ELTIS, David; RICHARDSON, David (Org.). Extending the Frontiers: Essay on the New Transatlantic Slave Trade Database. New Haven: Yare University Press, 2008. p. 313-334.

______. Brasil e Angola no tráfico ilegal de escravos. In: PANTOJA, Selma (Org.). Brasil e Angola nas Rotas do Atlântico Sul. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand, 1999. p. 143-194.

GREAT BRITAIN. Parliament. House of Commons. Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons. v. 47, p. I. (1852-53). Cambridge: Harvard College Library, 1880.

HAY, Margaret J. Queens, Prostitutes and Peasants Historical Perspectives on African Women, 1971-1986. Canadian Journal of African History, London, v. 24, p. 431-447, 1983.

HEYWOOD, Linda M. Portuguese into African: The Eighteenth-Century Central African Background to Atlantic Creole Cultures. In: HEYWOOD, Linda M.; THORNTON, John K. Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora. London: Cambridge University Press, 2002. p. 91-114.

KARASCH, Mary C. The Brazilian Slavers and the Illegal Slave Trade, 1836-1851. Dissertação (Mestrado em História) – University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1967.

LIMA, José J. Lopes de. Ensaios sobre a Statistica das Possessões Portuguezas. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 1846. v. 1-3.

LIVINGSTONE, David. Family Letters, 1841-1850. London: Chatto & Windus, 1859. v. I.

MARQUES, João Pedro. Arsénio Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo: um percurso negreiro no século XIX. Análise Social, Lisboa, v. 36, n. 160, p. 609-638, 2001.

MILLER, Joseph C. Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730-1830. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988.

OLIVEIRA, Luiz da Silva Pereira. Privilégios da Nobreza e Fidalguia de Portugal. Lisboa: João Rodrigues Neves, 1806.

OLIVEIRA,Vanessa S. Mulher e comércio: A participação feminina nas redes comerciais em Luanda (século XIX). In: BERGAMANO, Edvaldo; PANTOJA, Selma; SILVA, Ana Claudia (Org.). Angola e as Angolanas: Memória, Sociedade e Cultura. São Paulo: Intermeios, 2016. p. 133-152.

______. The Gendered Dimension of Trade: Female Traders in Nineteenth Century Luanda. Portuguese Studies Review, Peterborough, v. 23, n. 2, p. 93-121, 2015a.

______. Gender, Foodstuff Production and Trade in Late-Eighteenth Century Luanda. African Economic History, Madison, v. 43, p. 57-81, 2015b.

______. Trabalho escravo e ocupações urbanas em Luanda na segunda metade do século XIX. In: PANTOJA, Selma; THOMPSON, Estevam C. (Org.). Em torno de Angola: narrativas, identidades e as conexões atlânticas. São Paulo: Intermeios, 2014. p. 249-275.

PACHECO, Carlos. Arsénio Pompílio Pompeu de Carpo. Uma vida de luta contra as prepotências do Poder Colonial em Angola. Revista Internacional de Estudos Africanos, Lisboa, v. 16/17, p. 49-102, 1992-1994.

PANTOJA, Selma. Women’s Work in the Fairs and Markets of Luanda. In: SARMENTO, Clara (Org.). Women in the Portuguese Colonial Empire: The Theatre of Shadows. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. p. 81-94.

______. Gênero e comércio: as traficantes de escravos na região de Angola. Travessias, Cascavel, v. 4/5, p. 79-97, 2004.

______. A dimensão atlântica das quitandeiras. In: FURTADO, Júnia Ferreira (Org.). Diálogos Oceânicos. Minas Gerais e as novas abordagens para uma história do Império Ultramarino Português. Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 2001a. p. 45-67.

PANTOJA, Selma. Donas de ‘Arimos’: um negócio feminino no abastecimento de gêneros alimentícios em Luanda (séculos XVIII e XIX). In: PANTOJA, Selma Pantoja; PAULA, Carlos Alberto Reis de (Org.). Entre Áfricas e Brasis. Brasília: Paralelo 15 Editores, 2001b. p. 35-49.

PIERONI, Geraldo. Os Excluídos do Reino. Brasília: Universidade de Brasília, 2000.

RAMOS, Donald. Marriage and the Family in Colonial Vila Rica. In: SILVA, Maria Beatriz Nizza da (Org.). Families in the Expansion of Europe, 1500-1800. Brookfield: Ashgate, 1998. p. 39-64.

REIS, João José. O cotidiano da morte no Brasil oitocentista. In: ALENCASTRO, Luiz Felipe de (Org.) História da Vida Privada no Brasil: Império. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1997.

SHELDON, Kathleen. Writing about Women: Approaches to a Gendered Perspective in African History. In: PHILIPS, John Edward (Org.). Writing African History. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2005. p. 465-489.

SILVA, Maria Beatriz Nizza da. Donas e plebeias na sociedade colonial. Lisboa: Estampa, 2002.

STROBEL, Margaret. African Women’s History. The History Teacher, Long Beach, v. 15, n. 4, p. 509-522, 1982.

https://doi.org/10.2307/493441

TAMS, Gustav. Visit to the Portuguese Possessions in South-Western Africa. London: T. C. Newby, 1845. 2 v.

THOMPSON, Estevam C. Negreiros nos mares do Sul: Famílias traficantes nas rotas entre Angola e Brasil em fins do século XVIII. 2006. Dissertação (Mestrado em História) – Universidade de Brasília, Brasília 2006.

VALDEZ, Francisco Travassos. Six Years of a Traveller’s Life in Western Africa. London: Hurstand Blackett, 1861. 2 v.

WHEELER, Douglas L. Angolan Woman of Means: D. Ana Joaquina dos Santos e Silva, Mid-Nineteenth Century Luso-African Merchant-Capitalist of Luanda. Santa Bárbara Portuguese Studies, v. 3, p. 284-297, 1996.

ZERO, Arethuza Helena. Escravidão e liberdade: as alforrias em Campinas no século XIX (1830-1888). 2009. Tese (Doutorado em Desenvolvimento Econômico) – Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas 2009.

Published

2018-12-21

How to Cite

Oliveira, V. dos S. (2018). Donas, Free Black Women, and Enslaved Females in Nineteenth Century Luanda. Estudos Ibero-Americanos, 44(3), 447–456. https://doi.org/10.15448/1980-864X.2018.3.29583

Issue

Section

Dossier: Colors, Classifications and Social Categories: Africans in the Iberian Empires, 16th to the 19th Centuries