The Camellia of Benedicta/Ovídia (Benedicta)

It was not uncommon for enslaved women to escape and try to change their names to live a period in freedom, posing as freed or free women, or as enslaved by different owners. So it happened with Benedicta Maria Albina da Ilha, who walked around Rio de Janeiro and several coffee-producing areas in the Paraíba Valley, in the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Always presenting herself as a rented, enslaved or freed woman, she used to change her name. Sometimes she presented herself as Benedicta, a free woman, sometimes as Ovídia, an enslaved woman.