Social Mobility among Africans in Nineteenth-Century Brazil: The Case of Manoel RicardoJoão José ReisDr. Reis will discuss the life of Manuel Joaquim Ricardo, a slave, slave trader, slaveowner, who died a rich freedman in Bahia in 1865. His trajectory in life illuminates controversial aspects of Brazilian slave society, such as the opportunities and obstacles to upward social mobility of African-born individuals.João José Reis is professor of History at the Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil and the author of Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The 1835 Muslim Uprising in Bahia and Death is a Festival: Funeral Rites and Popular Rebellion in Nineteenth-Century Brazil.

Re-enslavement among Africans in Brazil’s Nineteenth-Century Southern Frontier: The Case of RufinaKeila GrinbergDr. Grinberg will analyze the relationship between slavery, the process of state building and international relations in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. She concludes that in South America the action of slaves and the diplomatic tensions it created led to a wide definition of the concept of “free soil,” attached to notions of territory and nationhood.Keila Grinberg is a Visiting Scholar at the University of Michigan and an Associate Professor at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Grinberg is the author of several books and articles, among them Slavery, Freedom and the Law in the Atlantic World

2:00 PM - 5:00 PMImage: Debret, Jean-Baptiste, artist. “Drawing for an illustration in J.-B. DEBRET, Voyage pittoresque et historique au Br’ esil : Marriage of two blacks (Brazil).” 1826. Rio de Janeiro., Museus Raymundo Ottoni de Castro Maya. Museu Chácara do Céu. MEA 216.