This is a picture taken of a Bahia woman, in the year 1896. Slaves were vital to Brazil’s economy at the beginning of the nineteenth century. During the nineteenth century, Brazil used slaves for gold and diamond mining, as well as for the emerging coffee economy around the area of São Paulo(Dawson,78). Due to pressure from Britain onto Portugal, to stop the slave trade around the 1830s, the gradual end to the slave trade started(Dawson,81). During the nineteenth century, Brazil imported 1.3 million slaves it also experienced many slave rebellions, especially in the year 1835, In Bahia, one of Brazil’s poorest regions(Dawson,81-82). Brazil’s government, unlike many of the surrounding governments, loosened colonial-era restrictions on slaves that limited free people of color, due to the increasing Afro-Brazilian population(Dawson,79). During this time, in Bahia, upwards mobility was occurring within free people of color, they had worked in agriculture, owned land, and controversially, even owned slaves(Dawson,84). It is noted that specifically in Bahia, Afro-Brazilians owned both sugar plantations and slaves in significant numbers(Dawson,84).
In this picture, the picture’s only description is that it is a woman from Bahia. From her appearance, she seems to have formal traditional clothing. From understanding how slavery evolved in Brazil, I believe this woman could have possibly moved away from Bahia, or even have acquired certain rights. In Brazil, former slaves were treated differently depending on where they lived. “In São Paulo, slaves tended to move away from their former masters. The libertos (former slaves) in this part of Brazil often demanded respect, an end to corporal punishment, appreciation for their family units, and wages that planters would not offer(Dawson,79).” Another interpretation of this picture could be that this woman was still in Bahia and in service of her former owner. “In Bahia, by the late nineteenth century one of Brazil’s poorest regions, former slaves often remained tied to their former owners, working on their estates as agricultural laborers, only migrating away from estates that suffered economic catastrophes in the aftermath of emancipation(Dawson,86).” Whether this woman moved away from Bahia or not, she was pictured and it is now a photograph that is documented in history. The topic of citizenship with this woman comes into question as well, due to Brazil’s complicated history with slavery. Brazil was a racially mixed society during the time, though Brazilians of color didn’t have full access to civil rights. “Moreover, because people of African ancestry could hope to move up the social hierarchy by acquiring wealth, prestige, and power, after 1889 a confrontational struggle for civil rights gave way to more individualized strategies of advancement. If you followed the rules of the system, you might get ahead. If you protested, you were certain to be left behind(Dawson,87).” This woman pictured above has many possibilities of what her history could have been. Whether she was a free slave, or fighting for freedom. Nonetheless, Brazil’s history of slavery can be discussed in detail by looking at this one photo of the woman from Bahia.
“Bahia Woman.” Bahia Woman | Tulane University Digital Library, digitallibrary.tulane.edu/islandora/object/tulane:10732.