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Slavery and Brazilian Food

Historical period

⚠ THIS ROW IS NOT SOFTENED. Brazil received roughly 4.8 million enslaved Africans — close to half of all those carried across the Atlantic, and far more than any other country — over three and a half centuries, and abolished slavery on 13 May 1888, the last in the western hemisphere. The sugar engenhos of Pernambuco and Bahia, the gold of Minas Gerais and then the coffee of São Paulo and Rio were built on that labour. West and Central African agricultural knowledge, ingredients and technique — dendê palm oil, okra, black-eyed peas, malagueta, yam, the pounding and the frying — came with the people. ⚠ AFRICAN CULINARY CONTRIBUTION IS NOT REDUCIBLE TO SLAVERY, and slavery is not reducible to a culinary contribution.

Atlas — where and when

What is recorded

  • Brazil received approximately 4.8 million enslaved Africans, close to half of the transatlantic total and more than any other country, and abolished slavery on 13 May 1888, the last country in the western hemisphere to do so. African agricultural knowledge, ingredients and technique are foundational to Brazilian food and are not reducible to the fact of enslavement. documented
  • The Atlantic slave trade to Brazil, which received roughly 4.8 million enslaved Africans — close to half the transatlantic total. documented
  • Abolition of slavery in Brazil, the last country in the western hemisphere to do so. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

Recorded as relating to this foodway

  • related to Brazilian Coffee Foodways documented

    The coffee economy was built on enslaved labour and then on immigrant labour after 1888.

Recipes

No recipes are filed under this cuisine yet.