Space invaders? slavery, gender, and the remapping of Eighteenth-Century Portuguese imperial geographies

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the site of the Rossio square in Lisbon as a contested urban space between the dispossessed and the Portuguese imperial authorities over the eighteenth century. Focusing on the aftermath of the Lisbon earthquake, it examines how enslaved and freed women of African and Afro-Brazilian heritage from the Portuguese colonies used and reconfigured the Rossio through their direct confrontations with the imperial authorities. Reading against the grain of traditional manuscript sources, this article demonstrates how contestations of the Rossio not only illuminated and underscored the dependence of the metropolis on the labour of Afro-diasporic enslaved and freed women, but also enabled these women to create alternate geographies of empire and power that pushed back against imperial spatial constructions.