Paper short abstract:

The occupations of those (black, mulatto, or white; enslaved, freed or free) who lived in Benguela during 1798-1820 are investigated to better understand the structure of this major slaving town.

Paper long abstract:

From a relatively unknown port town in central Angola, Benguela is now recognized by scholars as a one of the major slaving ports along the western coast of Africa. Recent work by Curto, Candido and Ferreira is beginning to reconstruct an increasingly more complete and complex history of this central Angolan coastal town during the era of the Atlantic slave trade than was the case when this past was accessed exclusively through the older studies by Ralph Delgado. The reconstruction, however, is far from complete. Indeed, one of the many questions that remain to be tackled concerns the work performed by the people (whether black, mulatto, or white; enslaved, freed or free) who lived in this particular slaving port. The question can not only throw some light on the daily lives of Benguela's residents, irrespective of colour or legal status, but also enlighten us further as to the very structure of this major slaving port. This contribution seeks to do precisely that by drawing upon the Occupações dos Habitantes da Capitania de Benguella, an unusual set of documents produced between 1798 and 1820 by the town's colonial administration with quantitative information on the occupations of its residents. Although occupations in Benguela were not unlike those of other coastal towns, they were also singular in the sense that this urban landscape also happened to be a major slaving port supplying, year in and year out, African servile labourers by the thousands to markets like Rio de Janeiro.