Maricá. Slave Families. Cronies. Baptismal font manumissions

This research aims to analyze the family and crony relationships established by slaves from Maricá, Rio de Janeiro, with other captives, with free and freedmen/freed, during the 19th century. It examines baptismal font manumissions, through the study of records of baptisms of children of slave mothers, baptized in the parish church of Nossa Senhora do Amparo, in the local chapels and oratories, in the period between 1835-1872. It is interesting to highlight that the captives, although they were the most “fragile” part of the dispute in dealing with their masters, that they acted and that there was the possibility of moving within certain spaces, opened through their actions and strategies of the slave families, from alliances formed with compadres and godparents and other sociability. For the study I will use sources relating to the captives themselves, especially parish baptism records. And I will employ two approaches: the “nominative connection of sources”, already consolidated by Demographic History, associated with Social History in its micro-history aspect.