As dimensões da liberdade: os escravos Lucia e Miguel contra as amarras da escravidão na povoação de São João do Rio do Peixe-PB, 1870-1888.

Abstract

This study aims to understand how the slaves of the Ribeira de São Paulo João do Rio do Peixe, located in the province of Paraíba do Norte, resisted the mistreatment of lords, in the late nineteenth century, more specifically in the years 1870-1888 (period watershed in the history of slavery in Brazil). We sought to find out some strategies used by these captives for achievement, even if often tangential, of your freedom. Based on the criminal prosecution of Slave Miguel's death and mistreatment inflicted on Slave Lucia, having as defendants members of a prominent family of the river, we were able understand the multiple meanings of freedom exercised by slaves and how justice acted around these practices at the end of Imperial Brazil. In this work, we support each other subsidies of the social history of slavery and the research method explored is the evidence. O This study is based on a single information-rich document located in the of the João Bernardo de Albuquerque Forum, in the district of São João do Rio do Peixe (PB). Through this criminal process the voices of the forgotten come to life for the historian, and made it possible to weave a new patchwork for the history of slavery in Paraiba.