From Africa to Fluminense Coast: labor and sociability in the trajectories of Africans in Vila de Itaguahy (1850-1870)
Africans; labor; slave trade; bonds of sociability; Vila de Itaguahy
The present research aims to investigate the trajectories of Africans in the village of Itaguahy, found in local records from the 1850s and 1870s, highlighting their professions and the formation of their bonds of sociability. Through onomastic investigations, we seek to reconstruct the daily life of such historical actors with the intention of understanding how their different legal categories and, therefore, their different work experiences - enslaved, free and compulsory - impacted their formation of family ties and compadrio within the limits of that region. Taking a look also at the possible demands for African labor during the period of illegal trafficking in souls, the following analysis not only investigates the African daily life in Itaguahy, but also the insertion of such individuals in international trafficking routes that flowed into the coast of the South Fluminense.