African mothers in the city of Bahia, 1734–99

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the demographic patterns of the African mothers who baptized children in the parish of Sé in the city of Salvador da Bahia, the former capital of Portuguese America in the eighteenth century. Using this research and the bibliography on slave family and women, we advance some hypotheses that may explain the social locus of African mothers and their Creole children. The first evidence is that these children would enjoy greater prestige than their mothers, which is reflected by the social quality of the godparents of these children compared with the godfathers and godmothers of their African mothers. Finally, we interpret the political and cultural meanings of the data.