José Gonçalves da Silva: The trafficker of slaves and his dealings on the north coast of Rio de Janeiro Province after the law of 1850

Abstract

The article gives us the career of Jose Gonçalves da Silva, who experienced the confiscation of part of his property after the law of September 1850. Through microhistory, without neglecting the general outlines of the Atlantic slave trade and merchant capital, we hope to get a broader view of the illegal slave trade and its agents, a relatively unexplored subject in Brazilian historiography.