Brazil’s hidden slavery past uncovered at Valongo WharfPosted in Articles, Brazil, Caribbean/Latin America, History, Media Archive, Slavery on 2014-12-27 00:41Z by Steven |
Brazil’s hidden slavery past uncovered at Valongo Wharf
BBC News
2014-12-24
Julia Carneiro
BBC Brasil, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro is a city looking to the future. Major development work is underway in the city’s historic port area as it prepares to host the Olympics in 2016.
But the construction effort to make all that happen has unexpectedly shone a light on a dark side of Rio: its past as the largest entry point for African slaves in the Americas.
In 2011, excavation work uncovered the site of Valongo Wharf, where almost a million African slaves disembarked before the slave trade was declared illegal in Brazil in 1831.
The wharf and the complex surrounding it were constructed in 1779 as part of an effort to move what was regarded as an unsightly trade to an area far from the city centre…
…Anthropologist Milton Guran, who co-ordinates the bid to have Valongo recognised as a Unesco World Heritage site, thinks preservation is especially important because “we had successive attempts to erase this history”.
“Slavery finally started being perceived as something heinous and the Empire sought to obliterate that mark,” he says…
…The impact of slavery on Brazilian society can be seen to this day. Over half of Brazil’s population is black or mixed race, but its elite remains largely white…
Read the entire article here.