Dona Aurelia Correia (d. circa 1875), also known as Mae Aurelia, Mame Correia Aurelia and Madame Oralia, was a Euro-African '' nhara'' slave trader.Philip J. Havik,
Silences and Soundbites: The Gendered Dynamics of Trade and Brokerage in the ...
' She was a dominant key figure in the business life of

Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau ( ; pt, Guiné-Bissau; ff, italic=no, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫 𞤄𞤭𞤧𞤢𞥄𞤱𞤮, Gine-Bisaawo, script=Adlm; Mandinka: ''Gine-Bisawo''), officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau ( pt, República da Guiné-Bissau, links=no ) ...

during the first half of the 19th-century. She is regarded as the most famous of the nhara-community of the region, was regarded as an important member of the community by the Portuguese and described as a powerful businesswoman in oral African tradition. She was the fosterchild and possibly maternal niece of Julia da Silva Cardoso, and the

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...

wife of the businessman Caetano José Nozolini (1800-1850), Portuguese governor of

Cape Verde , national_anthem = () , official_languages = Portuguese , national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole , capital = Praia , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , demonym ...

. She was the co-manager of the mutli business company ''Nozolini Jr. & Co.''. She was initially a slave trader, and gradually shifted to growing peanuts with slave labour when the West African slave trade started to shrink in the 1830s. She exported peanuts to France via Gorée, introduced peanut cultivation in many parts of Guinea and became the likely biggest peanut-planter in Guinea. Her use of slave labour did cause conflicts between her and the British

West Africa Squadron The West Africa Squadron, also known as the Preventative Squadron, was a squadron of the British Royal Navy whose goal was to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa. Formed in 1808 after the British Parliame ...

, who raded her plantations on Bolama in 1839, and Freetown, who drove her off Bolama in 1860; in the 1850s, she owned a third of all slaves in Guinea. She also acted as a diplomat and mediator between the Portuguese and the indigenous population, as well as between the Portuguese and the British, and as such played an important political role in the region.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Correia, Aurelia 19th-century births 19th-century deaths 19th-century businesswomen 19th-century African businesspeople African slave traders Plantation owners 19th-century women landowners Women slave owners