Humans in Shackles gathers more than twenty years of research and reflection—and it shows. Araujo’s engagement with the history of slavery is broad, focusing on the brutal institution itself, its historiography, its representations, and its remembrance in public spaces. These themes are woven throughout the book, addressed at times directly and at others with subtlety. The result is a rich history of slavery that accounts for all players but rightly centers the experiences of Africans and their enslaved descendants in the Americas. Unlike previous histories of slavery, Araujo’s book pays more attention to the cultural and centers Brazil, the nation to import the largest number of kidnapped Africans—4.8 million—and the last American nation to abolish slavery, in 1888. It may thus be considered negligent that most English-language general histories of slavery have paid little attention to Brazil.
Although the book is not formally divided into parts—likely due to its trade format—it is organized thematically. Chapters 1 through 3, for example, explore the African side of the trade; chapters 4 through 6 examine the trade itself, including the crossing of the Middle Passage, the death toll, and the markets; chapters 7 through 10 focus on slave labor and its horrors, such as sexual violence; chapters 11 through 15 address modes of resistance; and chapters 16 and 17 consider freedom. (Other thematic groupings are also possible, as we will see below.) As I have suggested, what distinguishes Humans in Shackles from other histories of slavery is its cultural focus, as well as its attention to the African culture, women, Brazil, and urban slavery.
Whereas the book looks at the plantation, it also focuses on urban slavery—a product of its focus on Brazil, for while in the North urban slavery is not much discussed, urban slavery was a significant part of the slave experience in Brazil. By focusing on urban slavery, Araujo is able to center her book on enslaved women. In fact, chapters 9 through 12 are dedicated to the experiences of enslaved women, such as women’s labor (especially in the kitchen), sexual violence, motherhood, and family life. Araujo explores the diverse strategies enslaved women developed to survive, care for their children, and pursue freedom. She also recounts the stories of women like Maria (from Araujo’s home state of Rio Grande do Sul), who took—or attempted to take—their own lives and those of their children to spare them the horrors of slavery. Maria’s unsuccessful suicide attempt underscores the profound despair these women faced; few stories convey the horror of slavery more powerfully.
Araujo’s approach to armed resistance is also nuanced, comparing rebellions across geographies, such as Tacky’s Revolt (1760–61) in Jamaica and the Malê Revolt (1835) in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. This comparative, hemispheric approach produces a history of slavery that is richer and more nuanced than previous general histories of slavery. Araujo also highlights the ways enslaved people survived by building Black communities and creating safety nets in the face of systemic violence. A strong example of this were lay Catholic societies, known as irmandades in Brazil, which surpassed 265 by the nineteenth century. These institutions functioned as a form of death insurance, providing for proper burial and mutual aid in times of need, including loans to purchase one’s freedom. They also functioned as social spaces where Afro-Brazilians developed cultural practices and articulated political belonging. They were so important in Brazil that it is the only place where they have survived, despite their prominence throughout Latin America during the colonial period.
Although Brazil was the last American nation to abolish slavery—or probably because of it—there was a strong abolition movement in the country. Both white and Black players, like senator Joaquim Nabuco and the self-emancipated and self-educated Black lawyer Luiz Gama, helped hundreds of Afro-Brazilians secure their freedom. In line with the growing scholarship, Araujo shows that in Brazil, particularly after independence in 1822, many enslaved men and women found ways to procure their freedom, especially through manumission and litigation.
Another important aspect Araujo discusses is the return of emancipated Africans to Africa. As Araujo notes, this began in the eighteenth century, and reflects an enduring longing for the homeland among the enslaved. Brazil also played an important role in this phenomenon, a foreshadowing of Pan-Africanism, which was only a moment in the long history of this desire to return. The community of Afro-Brazilians who returned to Lagos, Nigeria, is well known in the African nation and Brazil, and is finally garnering some attention outside these two nations.
Araujo’s book represents a fundamental shift in the historiography of slavery, moving from the North Atlantic focus that has dominated the field to a new emphasis on the South Atlantic, while addressing the imbalance created by the former. This shift has been brought about by the publication of English translations of mostly Brazilian historians of slavery, such João José Reis, Felipe de Alencastro, and Júnia Furtado, as well as by Herbert S. Klein’s collaborative publications. While these books have been available in the Anglophone North, most scholars writing about slavery in English, as Araujo rightly remarks, are unfamiliar with the Brazilian archive. Araujo knows this archive well and has crafted a history of slavery that centers the experiences of the enslaved in the largest slave society of the modern era. She also urges scholars and readers alike to shift their focus to slavery beyond the Protestant sphere.
As the new scholarship on slavery, especially in Latin America, shows, it is from these kinds of comparative approaches that we will gain a fuller understanding of the history of slavery. My only criticism of the book would be that it does not pay enough attention to slavery in the Spanish American colonies, for which there is now a good deal of scholarship. But this may be due to the fact that there is more literature on slavery in Spanish America available for English-speaking readers. Accessibly written and judiciously partitioned into short chapters with shorter sections, Humans in Shackles should be required reading for everyone.
