Atlantic silences: Subjects and seaside locations in the Illegal Traffic of Africans to the Southeast of Brazil (c.1830-c.1860)

Abstract

The illegal trade of Africans to Brazil imposed deep silences on their history. In the Southeast, the landings of Africans were supported by a tight structure. In the fringes of the Atlantic, large properties close to beaches were used to receive these Africans. Its owners, commanders and nobles, excitedby the dynamism of the coffee production, established an aristocracy anointed by illicitness. The slave farms and their masters reinstated the traffic under the cloak of illegality. Breaking this silence that was established as a State policy means identifying subjects and places, using evidence presented by a cartography of sources little explored by historiography.