Santas e dóceis ou insubmissas e desgraçadas?: Uma análise de trajetórias de mulheres resgatadas da escravidão na África central no contexto colonial (1870-1945)

Abstract

The present paper analyses the life-trajectories of young females redeemed from slavery by Central Africa catholic missions, between 1870 and 1945, period of the British colonial approximation and conquest. Among these redeemed young ladies, Josephina Bakhita was a remarkable figure. Her life-trajectory includes a period as a slave-woman in Sudan and as a freedwoman in Italy. As a consequence she had been canonized in 2000 with the designation of "giant Universal Sister" - who knew how to be obedient to her superiors both as slave and freed. This fact shows how the analysis of her and of the other redeemed women life-trajectories is of fundamental importance for the comprehension of the development of colonial and pos colonial mechanisms of political and religious practices of feminine subalternity.