Famílias negras e lutas pela liberdade no sertão da Bahia (1871-1890)

Abstract

This research reconstitutes the path of men and women, enslaved and emancipated, and their experiences of fighting for survival and freedom in the baiano backlands, on the localities of Purificação dos Campos (Irará), Pedrão e Coração de Maria, in the end of the slavery in Brazil and the final years of the post abolishment (1871-1890). Through documents such as inventories, paroquial registrations of baptism, marriages and death certificates, we wish, by a quantitative and qualitative analysis, to investigate, beyond their locations economic and social characteristics, their racialized relationships in the ongoing slavery and its influence to the area dynamics. With the intertwining of the sources and the use of the “nominative connection” method, we managed to map out the trajectory of some families involving enslaved and emancipated people, their collective and individual struggles, both for the maintenance of their friendship and solidarity bonds and for freedom, either through the acquisition of their letter of manumission or through the escape to neighboring locations. Therefore, trajectories of such as Emília, Domingas, Delmina, Romualdo and Manoel, for example, point that different strategies and ways of negotiation were used in those localities of the Bahia backlands and likely reflected the uneasiness of the local elites about the demise of the slavery system and their thoughts about their future.