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Nishida explains that though African-born people found themselves at the bottom of the social ladder, they somehow were never entirely excluded from society or even from power at a certain level.
List of contents
Preliminary Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
Tables, Map, and Figures
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. A "Capital of Africa" in Brazil
Part I: To Be African-Born and Enslaved, circa 1808-1831
2. The Creation of New Identity, 1808-1831
3. The Representation of Identity, 1808-1831
Part II: To Be African-Born and Freed, circa 1808-1880
4. The Recreation of Identity, 1808-1831
5. The Convergence of Identity, 1831-1880
Part III: To Be Brazilian-Born, circa 1808-1888
6. The Creation of Disparate Identity, 1808-1851
7. The Labyrinth of Identity, 1851-1888
Conclusion
About the author
Mieko Nishida is Assistant Professor of History at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York. She held a Predoctoral Research Fellowship at the Carter G. Woodson Institute of the University of Virginia and a Rockefeller Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Institute of Latin American Studies of the University of Texas at Austin.
Summary
Presenting a complex slave society in 19th-century Brazil, this book looks at urban slavery in an Atlantic port city from the vantage point of enslaved Africans and their descendants, examining their self-perceptions and self-identities in a variety of situations. It illustrates the difficulty of generalizing about New World slave societies.
