Crossing the Atlantic: the construction of Mina identity among freed and slave women involved in small scale commerce in Vila Rica, from 1753 to 1797

Author(s)

Maykon Rodrigues dos Santos

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
• Defense date: 2011-08-26

Examining board members

Robert Wayne Andrew Slenes; Sidney Chalhoub; Maria de Mello e Souza

• Advisor: Robert Wayne Andrew Slenes

Abstract

In this paper, it was studied the slave and freed women from the ethnic group Mina which took part in the small scale commerce in Vila Rica between the years 1753-1797. It is emphasized how the knowledge learned back in Africa, participation in small scale commerce, was used by those women to build such identity related to the past and around their common origin, as well as being part of strategies for social mobility that involved the purchase of freedom of slaves, insertion into brotherhoods and heritage accumulation. This process was consolidated in the formation of an ethnic group: Mina. Thus, records of sale license from Vila Rica were studied aiming at proving the high participation of freed and slave women in the activity. Then, that source was compared to testaments in order to identify our object, women of the ethnic group Mina, and the social and economic universe of the ethnic group was deciphered from Mina black traders (AU)