Luis and Antonio Xavier de Jesus : African paths between Bahia and the Gulf of Benin in the nineteenth century

Abstract

This article has the aim to discuss some aspects of the life trajectory of the Africans Luís and Antônio Xavier de Jesus. After years living in Bahia as a slave, and after he conquered his freedom, Luís Xavier became a rich and prosperous freedman. In 1835, Luís was one accused of participation in the Malê uprising, happened in January of that year. He went to the jail, and finally expelled from Brazil in November of that year. After going to Africa, Luís Xavier petitioned several times for his return to Bahia, aiming at selling off his property, which he had left in under supervision by his African ex-slave by the name of Antônio Xavier de Jesus, but he could never return to Brazil. Antônio was Luís’ universal heir and he was one of the slaves’ receivers that Luís sent illegally from the African Coast, after 1835. Antônio received some of his ex-lord properties, got involved in conflicts and Judicial demands along his life, which will also be one analysis’ object of this article.