Brazil Enslaved (some tough truth in this essay--slavery ended there in 1888)

[MADem]

http://www.npr.org/2015/09/12/439257489/brazil-enslaved?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=weekendedition&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150912



Slaves at a coffee yard in a farm. Vale do Paraiba, Sao Paulo, 1882.

Many of the pictures have been unknown outside the country. One institution, the Moreira Salles Institute, opened up its photo library to me, and I wanted to see what these images tell us about what women experienced under slavery in Brazil — and what that can tell us about some of the challenges in the country today.

Curator Sergio Burgi says most of the images "are almost staged photographs, all of [the subjects] are completely conscious of the photographer."

They show the three main spheres enslaved women occupied at the end of slavery in Brazil. The first group included those who worked in the fields. Burgi says one image shows an enslaved woman breastfeeding her child and surrounded by other field workers who are all barefoot, as it was not allowed for slaves to wear shoes in Brazil.

"You realize, because of the presence of the kids and women, how being a mother in that situation was completely stressful because you would carry to the field all the young kids and they would be there for the whole day," Burgi says.

[Number23]

1. Thanks, MAD. Brazil has such an interesting history and it is very much woven with ours

I don't know if you've seen some of Spazito's posts in the Black History thread pinned to the top of this forum but she has been brining a lovely international flavor to this forum as well.

Black history is world history.

[MADem]

2. Black history is world history. Absolutely.

There's much to learn.

[Tarheel_Dem]

3. It's the world's original sin, as pointed out by PBO in Charleston. People & institutions who built

their business & personal wealth on the backs of the enslaved, have much to do to even begin to rectify this atrocity.

[MADem]

4. If I could rec a post, I'd rec this one. It is exactly that. nt