Cover not available
Part of
A Comparative Literary History of Modern Slavery: The Atlantic world and beyond
Edited by Karen-Margrethe Simonsen, Madeleine Dobie and Mads Anders Baggesgaard
[Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages XXXVII] 2025
► pp. 394–410

Chapter 22
A people made of mud

An archaeological tale of enslavement at beef jerky plantations, Southern Brazil

Enslavement memories provide a fruitful field for transcending disciplinary boundaries. In Brazil, colonial structures still permeate racial relationships; therefore, representations of the past can influence the present. We incorporate an artistic/academic approach in order to both rethink enslavement experiences and explore non-linear ways to narrate African diaspora history. This chapter is a literary tale created from our reading of archaeological, historical, and ethnographic sources. The story presents a non-fiction scenario based on a beef jerky plantation in Pelotas city, with imaginary elements portraying objects and people encounters. As footnotes, we add comments on the evidence supporting some of the scenes. Through these writing possibilities (creative narrative and scholarly text), we want to reflect on a past-present entanglement and on the role of imagination in understanding fragmental realities.
Keywords: narrative, enslavement, Brazil, archaeology, imagination
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • A people made of mud
  • Author queries
  • Notes
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
References (50)
References
Agostini, Camila. 2013. “À sombra da clandestinidade: práticas religiosas e encontro cultural no tempo do tráfico ilegal de escravos.” Vestígios 7 (1): 75–105. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Al-Alam, Caiuá. 2007. “A negra forca da Princesa: policía, pena de morte e correção em Pelotas (1830–1857).”. MA diss., UNISINOS.Google Scholar
Al-Alam, Caiuá, Natália Pinto, and Paulo Moreira. 2014. “Duzentos mil reis pela cabeça do chefe preto Padeiro e cem mil réis pelas dos demais malfeitores: notas de pesquisa sobre o Quilombo do Padeiro (Pelotas, 1835).” Cadernos do LEEPARQ 11 (22): 461–471.Google Scholar
Alberti, Benjamin and Yvonne Marshall. 2009. “Animating Archaeology: Local Theories and Conceptually Open-Ended Methodologies.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19 (3): 344–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Arquivo Público do Estado de Rio Grande no Sul. (APERS). 2010. Documentos da Escravidão no Rio Grande do Sul. Processos-crime. Porto Alegre.Google Scholar
Bailey, Doug, and Melanie Simpkin. 2015. “Eleven minutes and forty seconds on the Neolithic: underneath archaeological time.” In Subjects and Narratives in Archaeology, edited by Ruth Van dyke and Reinhard Bernbeck, 189–216. Boulder: University of Colorado Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Balanzátegui, Daniela. 2007. Archaeology of Afro-Ecuadorians in La Concepción, Ancestral Territory of the Chota-Mira Valley, Carchi, Ecuador. Ph.D. diss., Simon Fraser University.Google Scholar
Bastide, Roger. 1985. “O problema da memória coletiva.” In As Religiões Africanas no Brasil: Contribuição para uma Sociologia das Interpenetrações de Civilizações, 333–358, São Paulo: Livraria Pioneira Editora.Google Scholar
Brodber, Erna. 1983. “Oral Sources and the Creation of a Social History of the Caribbean.” Jamaica Journal 16 (4): 2–11.Google Scholar
Carpentier, Alejo. 1967. El reino de este mundo. Santiago de Chile: Universitária.Google Scholar
Carvalho, Patrícia. 2012. A travessia atlântica de árvores sagradas: estudos de paisagem e arqueologia em área de remanescente de quilombo em Vila Vela, MT. M.A. diss., Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia da Universidade de São Paulo.Google Scholar
Clifford, James, and George Marcus. 1986. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Correa, Norton. 1992. O Batuque do Rio Grande do Sul: antropologia de uma religião afro-riograndense. Porto Alegre: EDUFRGS.Google Scholar
Dalla Vecchia, Agostino. 1994. Os filhos da escravidão. Pelotas: Editora da UFPEL.Google Scholar
Da Rosa, Estefania. 2012. Paisagens negras: arqueologia da escravidão nas Charqueadas de Pelotas (RS, Brasil). MA diss., Universidade Federal de Pelotas.Google Scholar
Eltis, David, and David Richardson (eds). 2008. Extending the Frontiers. Essays on the New Transatlantic Slave Trade Database, New Haven: Yale University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gilead, Isaac. 2015. “Limits of archaeological emplotments from the perspective of excavating Nazi extermination centers.” In Subjects and Narratives in Archaeology, edited by Ruth Van Dyke and Reinhardt Bernbeck, 235–256. Boulder: University of Colorado Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gilroy, Paul. 2001. O Atlântico negro: Modernidade e Dupla Consciência. São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro: Editora 34, UCM-Centro de Estudos Afro-Asiáticos.Google Scholar
Goldman, Marcio. 2005. “Formas do Saber e Modos do Ser. Observações Sobre Multiplicidade e Ontologia no Candomblé.” Religião e Sociedade, 25 (2): 102–120.Google Scholar
Gonzalez-Ruibal, Alfredo. 2006. “The Past is Tomorrow. Towards an Archaeology of the Vanishing Present.” Norwegian Archaeological Review 39 (2): 110–125. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gordenstein, Samuel Lira. 2016. “Planting Axé in the City: Urban Terreiros and the Growth of Candomblé in Late Nineteenth-Century Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.” Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage 5 (2): 71–101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gutierrez, Esther. 2001. Negros, Charqueadas e Olarias. Um estudo sobre o espaço pelotense. Ed. Universitária UFPeL.Google Scholar
Harrison-Buck, Eleanor, and Julia Hendon. 2018. Relational Identities and Other-than-human Agency in Archaeology. Louisville: University Press of Colorado. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harvey, Graham. 2006. Animism: Respecting the Living World. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Huberdt, Stefhan. 2011. “Manjar dos deuses: as oferendas nas religiões afro-brasileiras.” Primeiros Estudos (1): 81–104. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jones, Gayl. 1981. Song for Anninho. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
Joyce, Rosemary. 2002. The languages of archaeology. Oxford: M.A. Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kilomba, Grada. 2010. Plantation Memories: Episodes of Everyday Racism. 2. Edição, Münster: Unrast Verlag.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno. 1993. We have never been modern. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Maestri, Mario. 2014. “Pampa Negro — Agitações, Insubordinações e Conspirações Servis no Rio Grande do Sul, 1803–1850.” Sankofa. Revista de História da África e de Estudos da Diáspora Africana 7 (13): 50–72. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mcguire, Randall H. 2008. Archaeology as Political Action. Berkeley: University of California Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meza, Elis. 2018. O sagrado e a performance na Diáspora africana: Arqueologia Colaborativa na Charqueada São João, Pelotas (RS). Ph.D Qualifying Exam, Universidade Federal de Pelotas.Google Scholar
Morrison, Toni. 1987. Beloved. New York: Plume.Google Scholar
Nabuco, Joaquin. 1988. A escravidão [1884]. Recife: Editora Massangana. Fundação Joaquim Nabuco.Google Scholar
Novaes, Luciana. 2013. A morte visível e a vida invisível: um estudo sobre o assentamento de Exu e a paisagem sagrada enseada da Água de Meninos, Salvador (Bahia). M.A. diss., Universidade Federal de Sergipe.Google Scholar
Ogundiran, Akinwumi, and Paula Saunders (eds.). 2014. Materialities of Ritual in the Black Atlantic. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Ortiz, Carolina. 2009. Botellas de vidrio: Bases para un catálogo arqueológico de Colombia. Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes.Google Scholar
Rediker, Marcus. 2007. The Slave Ship: A Human History. New York: Viking Press.Google Scholar
Scott, David. 1991. “That event, this memory: notes on the anthropology of African diasporas in the new world.” Diaspora 1 (3): 261–284. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sharpe, Jenny. 2002. Ghosts of Slavery. A Literary Archaeology of Black Women’s Lives. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Silva, Leovegildo. 2001. “O cotidiano de escravos e livres pobres no espaço urbano da cidade de Pelotas no século XIX.” ÁGORA Revista Eletrônica 9 (17, Dec.): 11–24.Google Scholar
Singleton, Theresa. 2010. “Slavery, Liberation and Emancipation: Constructing a Postcolonial Archaeology of the African Diaspora.” In Handbook of Postcolonial Archaeology, edited by Jane Lydon and Uzma Rizvi, 185–198. Walnut Creek: Taylor and Francis Group. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2005. “Investigando la vida del esclavo en el cafetal del padre.” Boletin del Gabinete de arqueología 4 (4): 4–13.Google Scholar
Symanski, Luis and Sergio Osório. 1996. “Artefatos reciclados em sítios arqueológicos de Porto Alegre.” Revista de Arqueologia 9: 47–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Symanski, Luis. 2007. “O domínio da tática: práticas religiosas de origem africana nos Engenhos da Chapada dos Guimarães (MT).” Vestígios 1(2): 9–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Dyke, Ruth and Reinhard Bernbeck. 2015. Subjects and Narratives in Archaeology. Boulder: University of Colorado Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Pool, Christine, and Elizabeth Newsome. 2012. “The spirit in the material: a case study of animism in the American Southwest.” American Antiquity 77 (2): 243–262. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
White, Hayden. 1990. The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilkie, Laurie. 1997. “Secret and Sacred: Contextualizing the Artifacts of African-American Magic and Religion.” Historical Archaeology 31 (4): 81–106. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zabala, Lino and Lúcio Ferreira. 2017. “Criatividade e resistências cotidianas: os vidros reutilizados pelos escravos da Charqueada São João de Pelotas (RS).” Anais do XXVI Congresso de Iniciação Científica. Universidade Federal de Pelotas.Google Scholar