Gender, Slavery, and Freedom: Perspectives from Brazilian Historiography in Slavery and Abolition: special issue of Slavery & Abolition

 

Greetings Paulo Roberto Almeida, A new Announcement has been posted in H-LatAm. TOC: Special Issue Publication -- Gender, Slavery, and Freedom: Perspectives from Brazilian Historiography in Slavery and Abolition Submitted by Cassia Roth on 09/11/2026 - 4:16am Announcement Type Event Date September 10, 2026 Location CA  United States We are pleased to announce the publication of the following special issue. Marília B.A. Ariza, Maria Helena P.T. Machado, and Cassia Roth, eds., "Gender, Slavery, and Freedom: Perspectives from Brazilian Historiography," in Slavery & Abolition (2026). https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/fsla20/47/3  This special issue brings Brazil squarely into the centre of the recent trend on gender, slavery, and capitalism in the global history of slavery. The articles here  – from scholars working in American, Brazilian, and European universities at all career stages – are specifically dedicated to the study of Brazilian slavery and gender. The articles emphasize different aspects of enslaved women’s lives in Brazil during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Topics range from pregnancy, breastfeeding, child rearing, and other reproductive experiences to varied labour regimes including both field and domestic labour, to enslaved people’s use of the judicial system and their fights for freedom. The articles also bring the topic of indigenous slavery in its varied forms in frontier areas during the colonial and imperial periods into dialogue with histories of African slavery. Together, they demonstrate how Brazilian historiography is evolving in its consideration of the importance of gender in defining slavery and illuminating the history of the most persistent and varied system of slavery in the Americas. Table of Contents Part I: Enslaved Reproduction in Legislation, Custom, and Practice Cassia Roth, Rethinking Borders and Birth: Free Womb and Free Soil in Portugal and Brazil Daniele Weigert, Between Civilization and Slavery: Dispossession and Racial Mixing in Brazilian Nation Formation Maria Helena P. T. Machado & Antonio Alexandre Isidio Cardoso, A Freedwoman and Her Enslaved Children: Terror, Motherhood, and Death in Northern Brazil amid Slavery’s Decline Part II: Health, Body and Gender in Slavery Tânia Salgado Pimenta & Flavio dos Santos Gomes, Diseases, African Women and Atlantic Demography in Rio de Janeiro, c. 1830–1855 Lorena Telles, Childbirth in the Slave Quarters: Midwives, Doctors and Afro-Descendant Culture in Nineteenth-Century Southeastern Brazil Caroline Passarini Sousa, Slavery and Reproduction: Enslaved Women in Medical and Plantation Manuals in Brazil and Cuba Part III: Motherhood and Slavery: From Frontiers to Plantations Izabel Barros, Beyond the Ledger: The Story of Enslaved Women on a Swiss-Owned Plantation in Nineteenth-Century Ilhéus Mariana Muaze, The Private Sphere of Domination: Gender Relations, Domestic Slavery, and Violence in Paraíba Valley during the Nineteenth Century Part IV: Gendering Freedom Karoline Carula, The Maternal Experiences of Enslaved and Freed Women in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1880-c.1888 Luciana da Cruz Crito, Sabina da Cruz: Fabulations About the Life of the Woman Who Denounced the Malê Uprising Marília B.A. Ariza, On Being a Freedwoman: Gender Relations, Gendered Violence and a Woman’s Perspective in Southeastern Brazil During the 1880s Contact Information Cassia Roth Contact Email cassia.roth@ucr.edu Message from a proud sponsor of H-Net: