Teresa Benguela and Felipa Crioula were pregnant: motherhood and slavery in Rio de Janeiro (19th century)

This dissertation investigates African and creole women\'s life experiences and trajectories regarding pregnancy, labour and breastfeeding of their own children, as well as of those of their masters in the city of Rio de Janeiro between years 1830 and 1888. Over these decades, Brazilian slavery society went through major changes in close connection with the apex of the arrival of African enslaved people and the dissemination of slave-ownership in the city until 1850, when Atlantic trade was effectively terminated. As of then and until the publication of the Free Womb Law, in 1871, the reproduction of slavery depended on the existence of creole sons and daughters of enslaved women. Preserving the rule of masters over these women, as well as over their offspring\'s workforce, the law, however, eliminated the partus sequitur ventrem principle, which guaranteed the continuity of slave-ownership within the Empire. By integrating enslaved women into the complex scenario of urban slavery and the overarching context of transformations in slavery as a whole, this dissertation investigates experiences of sexual autonomy, pregnancy, labour, breastfeeding, and care of slave and freed babies and children born of free wombs. Such dimensions of enslaved women\'s lives are intertwined with their engagement in urban services especially wet nursing as well as with masters\' limited, yet persistent interest in their children. This dissertation aims to grasp enslaved women\'s worldviews and sociability, as well as their daily life strategies to cope with obstacles to pregnancy, labour and childcare created by intensive work routines and close coexistence with their masters. It unravels the importance of kinship and friendship bonds with African or African descent enslaved, freed and free people, with whom enslaved women shared mothering and childcare responsibilities. These social and emotional support networks were vital in their daily struggles with slave-owners and their conflicting interests regarding their bodies and their children. (AU)