Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T18:25:49.775Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Engendering West Central African History: The Role of Urban Women in Benguela in the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2015

Mariana P. Candido
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study stresses the role of common women in the history of Benguela in the nineteenth century. I emphasize the importance of parish records to unveil sectors of the society that tend to be invisible in the history of Angola, such as farmers, poor women who acted as vendors in the urban centers, and particularly, enslaved women. While some attention has been paid to merchant women, the so-called donas, and on political leaders, particularly Queen Nzinga, the same cannot be said about the poor and the enslaved women. Parish records allow us to access bits of information on the lives of women who did not leave written records and did not gain attention from the Portuguese authorities.

Résumé

Cet article souligne le rôle joué par les femmes du peuple dans l’histoire de Benguela au XIXème siècle. Ce papier met en valeur l’importance des registres paroissiaux pour révéler des secteurs de la société qui ont tendance à rester invisibles dans l’histoire de l’Angola, comme les agriculteurs, les femmes pauvres qui travaillaient comme vendeuses dans les centres urbains et, en particulier, les femmes esclaves. Alors que les femmes participant au commerce, appelées donas, et les dirigeants politiques comme particulièrement la reine Nzinga ont fait l’objet d’études, les pauvres et les femmes esclaves n’ont pas bénéficié du même traitement. Les registres paroissiaux nous permettent d’avoir accès à des miettes d’information sur la vie des femmes qui n’ont pas laissé de trace écrite et qui n’ont pas attiré l’attention des autorités portugaises.

Type
Critical Source Analysis
Information
History in Africa , Volume 42 , June 2015 , pp. 7 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barickman, Bert J., “Reading the 1835 Parish Censuses from Bahia: Citizenship, Kinship, Slavery, and Household in Early Nineteenth-Century Brazil,” The Americas 59–3 (2003), 287–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bay, Edna G., Wives of the Leopard: Gender, Politics, and Culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1998).Google Scholar
Brooks, George E., “A Nhara of Guine-Bissau Region: Mãe Aurélia Correia,” in: Robertson, Claire C. and Klein, Martin A (eds.), Women and Slavery in Africa (Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), 295–317.Google Scholar
Campbell, Gwyn, Miers, Suzanne and Miller, Joseph C. (eds.), Women and Slavery: Africa, the Indian Ocean World, and the Medieval North Atlantic (Athens OH: Ohio University Press, 2007).Google Scholar
Candido, Mariana P., “Slave Trade and New Identities in Benguela, 1700–1860,” Portuguese Studies Review 19–1/2 (2011), 59–75.Google Scholar
Candido, Mariana P., “African Freedom Suits and Portuguese Vassal Status: Legal Mechanisms for Fighting Enslavement in Benguela, Angola, 1800–1830,” Slavery & Abolition 32–3 (2011), 447–459.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Candido, Mariana P., “Concubinage and Slavery in Benguela, c. 1750–1850,” in: Ojo, Olatunji and Hunt, Nadine (eds.), Slavery in Africa and the Caribbean: A History of Enslavement and Identity Since the 18th Century (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 65–84.Google Scholar
Candido, Mariana P., An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and Its Hinterland (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Capela, José, Donas, Senhores e Escravos (Porto: Afrontamento, 1995).Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, Nupur, Katz, Sherry J. and Perry, Mary Elizabeth, Contesting Archives: Finding Women in the Sources (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2010).Google Scholar
Clarence-Smith, William G., Slaves, Peasants, and Capitalists in Southern Angola, 1840–1926 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).Google Scholar
Comaroff, Jean, and Comaroff, John L., Of Revelation and Revolution, Volume 1: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costa, Iraci del Nero da, “Registros Paroquiais: Notas Sobre os Assentos de Batismo, Casamentos e Óbitos,” Laboratório de Pesquisa Histórica – Revista de História 1–1 (1990), 46–54.Google Scholar
Craavens, Mary Caroline, “Manumission and the Life Cycle of a Contained Population: The VOC Lodge Slaves at the Cape of Good Hope, 1680–1730,” in: Brana-Shute, Rosemary and Sparks, Randy J. (eds.), Paths to Freedom: Manumission in the Atlantic World (Columbia SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2009), 99–119.Google Scholar
Crais, Clifton, and Scully, Pamela, Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010).Google Scholar
Curto, José, “‘As If from a Free Womb:’ Baptismal Manumissions in the Conceição Parish, Luanda, 1778–1807,” Portuguese Studies Review 10–1 (2002), 26–57.Google Scholar
Curto, José, “The Story of Nbena, 1817–1820: Unlawful Enslavement and the Concept of ‘Original Freedom’ in Angola,” in: Lovejoy, Paul E. and Trotman, David V. (eds.), Trans-Atlantic Dimensions of Ethnicity in the African Diaspora (London: Continuum, 2003), 44–64.Google Scholar
Curto, José, “Struggling Against Enslavement: The Case of José Manuel in Benguela, 1816–20,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 39–1 (2005), 96–122.Google Scholar
Dantas, Mariana, Black Townsmen: Urban Slavery and Freedom in the Atlantic World (New York: Palgrave, 2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
da Silva Corrêa, Elias A., História de Angola (Lisbon: Ática, 1937).Google Scholar
Davis, Natalie Z., “‘Women’s History’ in Transition: The European Case,” Feminist Studies 3–3/4 (1976), 83–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Natalie Z., Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Natalie Z., “Decentering History: Local Stories and Cultural Crossings in a Global World,” History & Theory 50–2 ( 2011), 188–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dias, Jill R., “Novas Identidades Africanas em Angola no Contexto do comércio Atlântico,” in: Bastos, Cristina, Vale de Almeida, Miguel and Feldman-Bianco, Bela (eds.), Trânsitos Coloniais: Diálogos Críticos Luso-Brasileiros, (Lisbon: Imprensa da Ciências Sociais, 2002), 293–320.Google Scholar
Faria, Sheila de Castro, A colônia em movimento: fortuna e família no cotidiano colonial (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Fronteira, 1998).Google Scholar
Ferreira, Roquinaldo, “A supressão do tráfico de escravos em Angola (ca. 1830–ca. 1860),” História Unisinos 15–1 (2011), 3–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferreira, Roquinaldo, Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World: Angola and Brazil during the Era of the Slave Trade (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferreira, Roquinaldo, “Abolicionismo versus Colonialismo: Rupturas e Continuidades em Angola (século XIX),” in: Guedes, Roberto (ed.), África. Brasileiros e Portugueses, Séculos XVI–XIX (Rio de Janeiro: Mauad, 2013), 95–112.Google Scholar
Ferreira, Roquinaldo, “Biografia como história social: o clã Ferreira Gomes e os mundos da escravização no Atlântico Sul,” Varia Historia 29–51 (2013), 679–719.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Florentino, Manolo (ed.), Tráfico, Cativeiro e Liberdade: Rio de Janeiro, Séculos XVII-XIX (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2005).Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel, The Archaeology of Knowledge (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972).Google Scholar
Freudenthal, Aida, Arimos e fazendas: a transição agrária em Angola, 1850–1880 (Luanda: Chá de Caxinde, 2005).Google Scholar
Graubart, Karen, With Our Labor and Sweat: Indigenous Women and the Formation of Colonial Society in Peru, 1550–1700 (Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greene, Sandra E., Gender, Ethnicity, and Social Change on the Upper Slave Coast: A History of the Anlo-Ewe (Portsmouth NH: Heinemann, 1996).Google Scholar
Guedes, Roberto, Egressos do cativeiro: trabalho, família, aliança e mobilidade social (Porto Feliz, São Paulo, c.1798–c.1850) (FAPERJ: Mauad X, 2008).Google Scholar
Hall, Gwendolyn M., Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992).Google Scholar
Havik, Philip J., “Comerciantes e Concubinas: Sócios estratégicos no Comércio Atlântico na Costa da Guiné,” in: I Reunião Internacional de História da África (São Paulo: CEA-USP/SDG-Marinha/CAPES, 1996), 161–179.Google Scholar
Hawthorne, Walter, From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600–1830 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heintze, Beatrix, “Written Sources and African History: A Plea for the Primary Source. The Angola Manuscript Collection of Fernão de Sousa,” History in Africa 9 (1982), 77–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heintze, Beatrix, “A Lusofonia no Interior da África Central na era pré-colonial. Um Contributo para a sua História e Compreensão na Actualidade,” Cadernos de Estudos Africanos 6/7 (2005), 179–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heywood, Linda M., “Portuguese into African: The Eighteenth Century Central African Background to Atlantic Creole Culture,” in: Heywood, Linda M. (ed.), Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 91–114.Google Scholar
Heywood, Linda M and Thornton, John K., Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Making of the Foundation of the Americas, 1585–1660 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).Google Scholar
Hodgson, Dorothy L., and McCurdy, Sheryl, “Wicked” Women and the Reconfiguration of Gender in Africa (Portsmouth NH: Heinemann, 2001).Google Scholar
Hodgson, Dorothy Louise, and McCurdy, Sheryl, “Introduction,” in: Hodgson, Dorothy L. and McCurdy, Sheryl (eds.), “Wicked” Women and the Reconfiguration of Gender in Africa (Portsmouth NH: Heinemann, 2001), 1–24.Google Scholar
Hunt, Nancy R., “Placing African Women’s History and Locating Gender,” Social History 14–3 (1989), 359–379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Hilary, The Métis of Senegal: Urban Life and Politics in French West Africa (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 2013).Google Scholar
Kananoja, Kalle, “Healers, Idolaters, and Good Christians: A Case Study of Creolization and Popular Religion in Mid-Eighteenth Century Angola,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 43–3 (2010), 443–465.Google Scholar
Kiddy, Elizabeth W., Blacks of the Rosary: Memory and History in Minas Gerais, Brazil (University Park PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007).Google Scholar
Klein, Martin A., “Studying the History of Those Who Would Rather Forget: Oral History and the Experience of Slavery,” History in Africa 16 (1989), 209–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuznesof, Elizabeth, Household Economy and Urban Development: São Paulo, 1765 to 1836 (Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1986).Google Scholar
Kuznesof, Elizabeth, “Ethnic and Gender Influences on ‘Spanish’ Creole Society in Colonial Spanish America,” Colonial Latin American Review 4–1 (1995), 153–176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Libby, Douglas C., “Notarized and Baptismal Manumissions in the Parish of São José do Rio das Mortes, Minas Gerais (c. 1750–1850),” The Americas 66–2 (2009), 211–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Libby, Douglas C., and Paiva, Clotilde A., “Manumission Practices in a Late Eighteenth-Century Brazilian Slave Parish: São José d’El Rey in 1795,” Slavery and Abolition 21–1 (2000), 96–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lopes, Eliane C., O Revelar do Pecado. Os filhos ilegítimos na São Paulo do século XVIII (São Paulo: Annablume, 1998).Google Scholar
Malherbe, Vertrees C., “In Onegt Verwekt: Law, Custom and Illegitimacy in Cape Town, 1800–1840,” Journal of Southern African Studies 31–1 (2005), 163–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mann, Kristin, Marrying Well: Marriage, Status, and Social Change Among the Educated Elite in Colonial Lagos (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).Google Scholar
Mann, Kristin, “Women, Landed Property, and the Accumulation of Wealth in Early Colonial Lagos,” Signs 16–4 (1991), 682–706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Phyllis, Catholic Women of Congo-Brazzaville: Mothers and Sisters in Troubled Times (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 2009).Google Scholar
Mattos, Hebe, Das Cores do Silêncio: Os significados da liberdade no sudeste escravista: Brasil século XIX (Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo Nacional, 1995).Google Scholar
Mattos, Hebe, “A Escravidão Moderna no quadro do Império Português: o Antigo Regime em Perspectiva Atlântica,” in: Ribe Fragoso, João Luís, Bicalho, Maria Fernanda and Gouvêa, Maria de Fátima (eds.), O Antigo Regime nos Trópicos: A dinâmica imperial portuguesa, séculos XVI–XVIII (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2001), 141–162.Google Scholar
Mattos, Hebe, Ao sul da história. Lavradores pobres na crise do trabalho escravo (Rio de Janeiro: FGV editora, 2009).Google Scholar
Miller, Joseph C., “Nzinga of Matamba in a New Perspective,” Journal of African History 16–2 (1975), 201–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Joseph C., and Thornton, John K., “A crônica como fonte, história e hagiografia: o catálogo dos governadores de Angola,” Revista Internacional de Estudos Africanos 12–13 (1990), 9–55.Google Scholar
Nishida, Mieko, “Manumission and Ethnicity in Urban Slavery: Salvador, Brazil, 1808–1888,” Hispanic American Historical Review 73–3 (1993), 361–391.Google Scholar
Pacheco, Carlos, José da Silva Ferreira: o homem e a sua época (Luanda: União dos escritores angolanos, 1990).Google Scholar
Pacheco, Carlos, “Leituras e Bibliotecas em Angola na primeira metade do século XIX,” Locus (Juiz de Fora) 6–2 (2000), 21–41.Google Scholar
Paiva, Eduardo França, Escravidão e Universo cultural na Colônia: Minas Gerais, 1716–1789 (Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 2001).Google Scholar
Pantoja, Selma, “Quitandas e Quitandeiras: História e Deslocamento na nova lógica do espaço em Luanda,” in: Madeira Santos, Maria Emília (ed.), África e a Instalação Do Sistema Colonial (c. 1885– c. 1935): Actas Da III Reunião Internacional de História de África (Lisbon: Centro de Estudos de História e Cartografia Antiga, 2000), 175–186.Google Scholar
Pantoja, Selma, “Inquisição, Degredo e mestiçagem em Angola no século XVII,” Revista Lusófona de Ciência das Religiões 3–5/6 (2004), 117–136.Google Scholar
Pantoja, Selma, “Gênero e Comércio: As Traficantes de Escravos na Região de Angola,” Travessias 4/5 (2004), 79–97.Google Scholar
Pantoja, Selma, “Women’s Work in the Fairs and Markets of Luanda,” in: Sarmento, Clara (ed.), Women in the Portuguese Colonial Empire: the Theater of Shadows (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), 81–93.Google Scholar
Reginaldo, Lucilene, Os Rosários dos Angolas: irmandades de africanos e crioulos na Bahia setecentista (São Paulo: Alameda, 2011).Google Scholar
Reis, João José, “Identidade e diversidades étnicas nas irmandades negras no tempo da escravidão,” Tempo 2–3 (1996), 7–33.Google Scholar
Reis, João José, Death is a Festival: Funeral Rites and Rebellion in Nineteenth-Century Brazil (Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003).Google Scholar
Rodrigues, Eugénia, “Chiponda, a Senhora que tudo pisa com os pés. Estratégias de poder das donas dos prazos do Zambeze no século XVIII,” Anais de História de Além-Mar 1 (2000), 101–132.Google Scholar
Rodrigues, Eugénia, “Colonial Society, Women and African Culture in Mozambique,” in: Sarmento, Clara (ed.), From Here to Diversity: Globalization and Intercultural Dialogues (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), 253–274.Google Scholar
Rodrigues, Eugénia, Portugueses e africanos nos Rios de Sena. Os prazos da coroa em Moçambique nos séculos XVII e XVIII (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional/Casa da Moeda, 2014).Google Scholar
Ross, Robert J., Status and Respectability in the Cape Colony, 1750–1870 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, Elizabeth, “Farmers, Hunters, and Gold-Washers: A Reevaluation of Women’s Roles in Precolonial and Colonial Zimbabwe,” African Economic History 17 (1988), 45–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, Elizabeth, Mobilizing the Masses: Gender, Ethnicity, and Class in the Nationalist Movement in Guinea, 1939–1958 (Portsmouth NH: Heinemann, 2005).Google Scholar
Schoenbrun, David L., “Gendered Histories between the Great Lakes: Varieties and Limits,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 29–3 (1997), 461–492.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, Stuart B., “The Manumission of Slaves in Colonial Brazil: Bahia, 1684–1745,” Hispanic American Historical Review 54–4 (1974), 603–635.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, Stuart B., Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550–1835 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).Google Scholar
Schwartz, Stuart B., Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels: Reconsidering Brazilian Slavery (Urbana IL: University of Illinois Press, 1992).Google Scholar
Scott, Rebecca J., and Hébrard, Jean M., Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scully, Pamela, Liberating the Family?: Gender and British Slave Emancipation in the Rural Western Cape, South Africa, 1823–1853 (Portsmouth NH: Heinemann, 1997).Google Scholar
Scully, Pamela, and Crais, Clifton, “Race and Erasure: Sara Baartman and Hendrik Cesars in Cape Town and London,” Journal of British Studies 47–2 (2008), 301–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searing, James, West African Slavery and Atlantic Commerce: The Senegal River Valley, 1700–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Semley, Lorelle D., Mother Is Gold, Father Is Glass: Gender and Colonialism in a Yoruba Town (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 2011).Google Scholar
Sheldon, Kathleen E., Pounders of Grain: A History of Women, Work, and Politics in Mozambique (Portsmouth NH:Heinemann, 2002).Google Scholar
Shell, Robert C.-H., Children of Bondage: A Social History of the Slave Society at the Cape of Good Hope, 1652–1838 (Hanover NH: University Press of New England for Wesleyan University Press, 1994).Google Scholar
Slenes, Robert, Na Senzala uma flor: esperanças e recordações na formação da família escrava, Brasil sudentes, século XIX (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1999).Google Scholar
Soares, Mariza de Carvalho, Devotos da Cor: Identidade Étnica, religiosidade e escravidão no Rio de Janeiro, século XVIII (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2000).Google Scholar
Soares, Mariza de Carvalho, “A ‘nação’ que se tem e a ‘terra’ de onde se vem: categorias de inserção social de africanos no Império Português, século XVIII,” Estudos Afro-Asiáticos 26–2 (2004), 303–330.Google Scholar
Soares, Mariza de Carvalho, “A Biografia de Ignácio Monte, o Escravo Que Virou Rei,” in: Vainfas, Ronaldo (ed.), Retratos do Império. Trajetórias Individuais no Mundo Português nos séculos XVI a XIX (Niteroí: EDUFF, 2006), 47–68.Google Scholar
Soares, Mariza de Carvalho, “A conversão dos escravos africanos e a questão do gentilismo nas Constituições Primeiras da Bahia,” in: Feitler, Bruno and Souza, Evergton Sales (eds.), A Igreja no Brasil. Normas e práticas durante a vigência das Constituições Primeiras do Arcebispado da Bahia (São Paulo: Unifesp, 2011), 303–321.Google Scholar
Soares, Mariza de Carvalho, Landers, Jane, Lovejoy, Paul and McMichael, Andrew, “Slavery in Ecclesiastical Archives: Preserving the Records,” Hispanic American Historical Review 86–2 (2006), 337–346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Souza, Laura de Mello e, Desclassificados do Ouro: A Pobreza Mineira no Século XVIII (Rio de Janeiro: Graal, 1982).Google Scholar
Stoler, Ann L., “Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance,” Archival Science 2 (2002), 87–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sweet, James H., “Manumission in Rio de Janeiro, 1749–54: An African Perspective,” Slavery & Abolition 24–1 (2003), 54–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sweet, James H., “Mutual Misunderstandings: Gesture, Gender and Healing in the African Portuguese World,” Past & Present 203–4 (2009), 128–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sweet, James H., Domingos Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World (Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011).Google Scholar
Thornton, John, “Early Kongo-Portuguese Relations: A New Interpretation,” History in Africa 8 (1981), 183–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, John, The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684–1706 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Viana, Larissa, O idioma da mestiçagem: as irmandades de pardos na América portuguesa (Campinas SP [Brasil]: Editora Unicamp, 2007).Google Scholar
White, Luise, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Marcia, Strategies of Slaves & Women: Life-Stories from East/Central Africa (Islington: James Currey, 1993).Google Scholar