Enciclopédia Negra

aquarela watercolour on cotton paper  

Domingos Sodré was born in the West African kingdom of Onim, modern-day Lagos, Nigeria. Together with his parents, he was sold at a very young age to a buyer in Bahia.

watercolour on cotton paper  

José Martins, Mateus Pereira Machado, Luiz Pereira Almeida and João da Silva were free and freed men persecuted due to religious intolerance. They lived in a gold mining region in Jacobina, in hinterland Bahia.

  watercolour on cotton paper  

watercolour on cotton paper  

acrylic and spray paint on canvas  

Justina Maria was an African woman enslaved to Father João Carlos Monteiro, a speaker of great fame in the Imperial Chapel, councilor, deputy of his city and main figure of the clergy in Campos de Goytacazes.

Liberata, an enslaved woman, struggled to obtain freedom for her and her children, as well as to escape her master’s sexual harassment. 

Inácio Monte, 2020 

acrylic on canvas  

The African Inácio Monte was baptized in 1742 after disembarking in Rio de Janeiro and became an important leader of the Black colonial fraternities. 

A Look at the Life of Father Joaquim de Souza Ribeiro, 2020

acrylic on canvas  

Probably the son of a black or mixed-race woman, Joaquim de Souza Ribeiro received an ecclesiastical education in Brazil and also earned a law degree from the University of Coimbra, Portugal, in 1788. In the early 1790s, he was appointed Vicar General in Maranhão.

Chico Rei, 2020

oil and gold foil on canvas  

A member of the Kingdom of Congo’s royal family, the African Francisco was enslaved and shipped with his wives and children to Brazil. He ended up in Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, in the first half of the eighteenth century.

Rosa Fronteiras, 2020 

acrylic on cardboard  

Rosa crossed the borders towards her freedom with her sons Eugênio, Francisco, Flaubio and Domingos and “one still suckling in the breast.” 

Dona Afra (Afra Joaquina Vieira Muniz), 2020

crylic on canvas  

Afra Joaquina was an African woman married to her former master, the freedman Sabino Francisco Muniz, also of African origin, who paid for his wife’s freedom at the same time in which he became the owner of other enslaved people.

When the Secret Is Revealed, The Mistery Is Not Guarded (Francisca Luiz), 2020

digital photograph, digital print on semi-pearl paper  

acrylic and gouache on paper  

Esperança Garcia was one of the first enslaved women to claim her rights in a court of law. She may have helped to draft the oldest document allegedly written by an enslaved woman, expressing wants, desires and expectations.

In 1855, Juliana bought her manumission for one conto de réis, the currency of the time. Some of her children had been born before and baptized as enslaved, while others would be born already free. 

acrylic and gouache on paper  

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