Slave, Free, and Freedwomen

Abstract

This essay, based on data from a broad, on-going research project, focuses on seven generations of the female members of a family initiated sometime in the 1740s in the town of São José do Rio das Mortes by a West African slave couple. The stability of the Moreira da Silva family contributed to its notable respectability within the community, not least thanks to the participation of its women in local affairs. Bearing in mind that common law property was the norm throughout the entire period studied, these women can be found actively managing assets, including chattel. As is so often the case in gender studies situated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the documentation yields little direct evidence as to female occupations although the indications are that the first three generations engaged in commercial activities. In the realm of social relations and local prestige/power as reflected in practices of godparenthood, the Moreira women far outstripped their menfolk, demonstrating that, notwithstanding overarching patriarchal tendencies, female contributions to family respectability may have been greater than those of males.