"Estivemos aqui" - uma reportagem sobre a escravidão de negros no vale do Ceará-Mirim no século XIX

Abstract

In view of the growing discussions about racism in our society and the emergence of struggle movements such as "Black Lives Matter", this end-of-course work aimed to produce a report on aspects of the history of slavery of Africans and their descendants in the valley of Ceará-Mirim, a municipality in Rio Grande do Norte, during the peak of sugarcane production between the 18th and 19th centuries. Through a bibliographical research where information about the slavery period in the municipality was gathered, it was possible to identify that for decades the place had as its main economic activity the exploitation of sugarcane monoculture, a period in which around 3 thousand men and women were enslaved, most of them coming from Angola, and that even with the massive exploitation of this labor force in the past, the city currently does little to rescue this part of its history. The report interviewed professors and local historians who have dedicated part of their lives in researches that make the historical rescue of the slavery process in the sugar cane mills of the city. Also used as research sources were the book "Oiteiro - Memórias de uma sinhá-moça", written by Maria Magdalena Antunes Pereira, and the legends passed on from generation to generation in the town.