Witnesses to Freedom: Paula's Enslavement, Her Family's Freedom Suit, and the Making of a Counterarchive in the South Atlantic World

Abstract In 1753, a pregnant woman named Paula was kidnapped in Angola, enslaved, and taken to Brazil. Four decades later, in 1794, Paula's children and grandchildren, 15 in total, filed a lawsuit for their family's freedom in Rio de Janeiro claiming that Paula was a free woman in Angola before her enslavement. This article reconstructs Paula and her descendants' multigenerational legal battle and reveals that their struggle for freedom was, in large part, a struggle against archives. I examine a unique aspect of the freedom suit: witness testimony from Paula's former kin and community in Angola, collected across the Atlantic Ocean four decades after Paula's enslavement. I argue that the memory and testimony of Paula's kin and community in Angola formed a powerful counterarchive that not only narrated her freedom in Angola but also challenged the Brazilian colonial archive's reliance on paper evidence of freedom.

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An account of some operations executed at Cape Frio, by the officers and crew of His Majesty's ship algerine, for the purpose of raising a part of the stores, &c. lost in His Majesty's ship thetis

Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London ◽

10.1098/rspl.1830.0146 ◽

1837 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

pp. 266-267

Keyword(s):

Atlantic Ocean ◽

Rio De Janeiro ◽

South Atlantic ◽

The South ◽

South Eastern ◽

South West

The author, who had the command of His Majesty’s ship Algerine, was instructed to take charge of the enterprise commenced by the officers and crew of His Majesty’s ship Lightning, having for its object the recovery of the treasure and stores from the wreck of the Thetis, which, in the month of December 1830, had sunk in a cove to the south-east of Cape Frio. He reached this spot on the 6th of March, 1832, having with him eleven officers and eighty-five men. A certain number of men were appointed to remain on board the ship, which was moored in a harbour two miles off a party of artificers and others were employed at the huts which they inhabited near the Cape; and the rest, nearly thirty-five in number, were stationed at the wreck. The author gives a description of Cape Frio, and of the island of which it forms the south-eastern extremity, and which is an immense promontory of insulated granite jutting into the Atlantic Ocean, sixty miles east of Rio de Janeiro. The cove, in the middle of which the wreck of the Thetis lay, is a square indenture in the cliffs, six hundred feet deep by as many wide. It is surrounded by nearly perpendicular masses of granite, from one hundred to two hundred feet high, and is exposed to the whole swell of the South Atlantic, which sets in with remarkable force in that direction. The weather is singularly variable; and transitions frequently take place in the course of few hours, from perfect stillness to the most tremendous swell. The author states that he has witnessed few scenes in nature more sublime than that presented by the Thetis Cove during a gale of wind from the south-west.

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Toxigenicity and biogeography of the diatom Pseudo-nitzschia across distinct environmental regimes in the South Atlantic Ocean

Marine Ecology Progress Series ◽

10.3354/meps11027 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 526 ◽

pp. 67-87 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

ML Guannel ◽

D Haring ◽

MJ Twiner ◽

Z Wang ◽

AE Noble ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Atlantic Ocean ◽

South Atlantic ◽

South Atlantic Ocean ◽

The South ◽

Environmental Regimes

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MODELING THE SOUTH ATLANTIC OCEAN FROM MEDIUM TO HIGH RESOLUTION

Brazilian Journal of Geophysics ◽

10.22564/rbgf.v31i2.27 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 31 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Mariela Gabioux ◽

Vladimir Santos da Costa ◽

Joao Marcos Azevedo Correia de Souza ◽

Bruna Faria de Oliveira ◽

Afonso De Moraes Paiva

Keyword(s):

High Resolution ◽

Atlantic Ocean ◽

Large Scale ◽

South Atlantic ◽

Surface Relaxation ◽

The South ◽

Small Surface ◽

Basic Model ◽

Basic Set ◽

Set Up

Results of the basic model configuration of the REMO project, a Brazilian approach towards operational oceanography, are discussed. This configuration consists basically of a high-resolution eddy-resolving, 1/12 degree model for the Metarea V, nested in a medium-resolution eddy-permitting, 1/4 degree model of the Atlantic Ocean. These simulations performed with HYCOM model, aim for: a) creating a basic set-up for implementation of assimilation techniques leading to ocean prediction; b) the development of hydrodynamics bases for environmental studies; c) providing boundary conditions for regional domains with increased resolution. The 1/4 degree simulation was able to simulate realistic equatorial and south Atlantic large scale circulation, both the wind-driven and the thermohaline components. The high resolution simulation was able to generate mesoscale and represent well the variability pattern within the Metarea V domain. The BC mean transport values were well represented in the southwestern region (between Vitória-Trinidade sea mount and 29S), in contrast to higher latitudes (higher than 30S) where it was slightly underestimated. Important issues for the simulation of the South Atlantic with high resolution are discussed, like the ideal place for boundaries, improvements in the bathymetric representation and the control of bias SST, by the introducing of a small surface relaxation. In order to make a preliminary assessment of the model behavior when submitted to data assimilation, the Cooper & Haines (1996) method was used to extrapolate SSH anomalies fields to deeper layers every 7 days, with encouraging results.

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