1642 to 1807 · Diasporaspan
Recife opened Brazil's own slave trade and paid in tobacco rolls
›Read the full entryClose
Recife, the chief port of Pernambuco in the Brazilian northeast, was the first place in Brazil to run slaving voyages of its own. During the Dutch occupation of the region from 1630 to 1654 it served as a base for their operations, and after they were driven out the traffic carried on under Portuguese and Brazilian ownership. West Central Africa supplied Pernambuco steadily for the whole life of the trade. When Recife merchants wanted captives from West Africa instead, they paid in a currency of their own making: rolls of tobacco grown locally and cured with molasses, a product African buyers wanted and European traders could not match. The vessels were owned, financed and outfitted in Brazil. That detail carries weight, because it makes the traffic between Pernambuco and Africa a direct exchange between two coasts of the South Atlantic, with no European port in the middle taking a commission or issuing instructions.
A code like HT-WIB-000044 is a bates number. It marks one page of our stamped scan of the book, so the same page can be found again by anyone working from the same copy. Open one to see every entry drawn from that page.