Slavery and Illicit Trade in the South Border of Brazil: The Case of Rio Grande do Sul’s Jerked Beef Manufacturers, Uruguayan Salting Plant Owners and Their Trading Networks (c. 1830-1850)

• Autor(a) principal: Vargas, Jonas Moreira
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Esboços (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/esbocos/article/view/93024
• topic: Illicit Slave Trade; Slavery; Rio da Prata; Jerked Beef; Tráfico ilegal; Escravidão; Rio da Prata; Charque

The article analyzes the presence of slavery in jerk beef / dried meat factories in Southern Brazil and in Uruguay, highlighting the cities of Pelotas and Montevideo, and the connection of their owners and trade networks of slaved Africans. Although the bordering region with the Río de la Prata is far from the main slaving ports of the Empire, the research seeks to contribute with an analysis of how these regional elites acted in illicit trade networks, elaborating strategies on how to continue with the illicit trade and the exploitation of the slaved workforce in their lands. The scenario of the 1830s and 1840s was marked by both a strong British pressure against the trade as well as by legislative measures in order to prohibit it, demanding alternatives from jerk beef manufacturers, salting plant owners and slaveholders traders from the border. Thus, as the illicit trade for the region left few documents, the article aims at tracing such businesses through the correspondence exchanged between traders, jerked beef manufacturers and salting plant owners, memorandum of association, population maps, post-mortem inventories and parish records of baptism, contributing with both a regional and transnational perspective on the theme.