Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to discuss the presence of Africans from Gold Coast and the introduction of techniques of mining in the eighteenth-century Brazil. It will be considered the slave trade between Brazil and Gold Coast and the cultural exchange of African knowledge in both sides of the Atlantic world.

Paper long abstract:

African labor was critical in the development of the Atlantic World. Whether in villages, cities plantations or mining regions, enslaved Africans played an essential role in the economy of Portuguese America. With the discovery of gold mining in the late seventeenth century, the need for African work labor became more and more increasing. Brazilian miners demanded West Africans - introduced via the transatlantic slave trade by Bahian traders - who were supposed to be skilled workers for mines. In 1728, Luiz Vahia Monteiro, Governor of Rio de Janeiro, wrote: "the Black Minas have more reputation for that work [mining], for the miners say they are stronger and vigorous, but I believe they obtained such reputation because they are known as sorcerers […] and they are the only who discover gold".

Nonetheless, the connections between Brazilian slave traders and Gold Coast merchants have not been studied in depth. The proposal of this paper is to discuss the presence of Africans from Gold Coast and the introduction of techniques of mining in the eighteenth-century Brazil. It will be considered the slave trade between Brazil and Gold Coast and the cultural exchange in both sides of the Atlantic world. In doing so, this paper intends to contribute with the debate on the importance of the African background in the Americas, as described by the "Black Rice" thesis, supported by Judith Carney, Walter Hawthorne and Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, and questioned by David Eltis, David Richardson and Philip Morgan.