Registros de batismo, o complexo pecuária-charqueada e o tráfico de africanos para o Sul do Brasil, 1780-1850

Abstract

This study analyzes the trafficking of enslaved Africans to Rio Grande do Sul between 1780 and 1850. In addition to a dialogue with academic research that dealt with the same theme, I explore the baptismal records of the chapels of the two regions that formed the cattle-herding complex, whose production was ingrained to broader mercantile circuits. Thus, the article proposes to investigate how many African slaves were taken to the baptismal fonts, seeking to answer: are baptisms useful to the study of this process? To this end, we verify the percentage of Africans (compared to those born in Brazil) baptized, their sex, which macro-regions of the African continent they came from, as well as which nations appear more often. Overall, more than 14 thousand baptismal records were collected. It is possible to state that the percentage of baptized Creoles was much higher than that of Africans, even in localities where the number of Africans, according to demographic censuses, was higher. Similarly, among the Africans there was a predominance of men, and of people from Central African nations (Congo, Benguela, Cabinda, etc.), although the percentage of slaves from Mina (or Nagôs) is not negligible, especially from the mid-1830s on. Finally, in the absence of more appropriate data, the article confirms that baptisms are valuable sources for the study of the transatlantic slave trade.

Keywords: Slavery; slave trade; baptism records.