‘She Refused to Be Left Behind’: The Sinews of Modern Day Trafficking in the Late Illegal US-Brazil Slave Trade, ca. 1860s–1880s

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores how the illegal slave trade between the United States and Brazil evolved in the 1860s–1880s into novel forms of captive mobility that closely resemble modern day human trafficking. It does so by examining the experiences of two Black families who were trafficked by an American ‘Confederado’ colonist. Through a close reading of a diverse array of sources, including government records, newspaper correspondence, passenger lists, and rich oral histories, it pushes back against the enslaver narrative in which these families are portrayed as willing travel companions. Instead, it narrates a counter-history that exposes how their enslaver used subterfuge, diversion and coercion to traffic them in plain sight and retain their enslaved labour against the tide of emancipation.