Esperança Garcia (born c. 1751) was an enslaved Black woman in Brazil who is considered to be the first female lawyer in Brazil.
On 6 September 1770, she sent a petition to free herself from slavery to the then-president of the province of São José do Piauí,
Captaincy of Maranhão
A captaincy ( es, capitanía , pt, capitania , hr, kapetanija) is a historical administrative division of the former Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires. It was instituted as a method of organization, directly associated with the home-rule a ...
(now the current day state of
Piauí
Piaui (, ) is one of the states of Brazil, located in the country's Northeast Region. The state has 1.6% of the Brazilian population and produces 0.7% of the Brazilian GDP.
Piaui has the shortest coastline of any coastal Brazilian state at 66&n ...
), Gonçalo Pereira Botelho de Castro. In the petition, she denounced the abuse and maltreatment of her and her son by the overseer of Fazenda Algodões.
Biography
Garcia was born on a plantation called Fazenda Algodões, owned by the
Jesuits
The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
in what is now the town of
Nazaré do Piauí. At the age of 9, with the order made by the
Marquis de Pombal
A marquess (; french: marquis ), es, marqués, pt, marquês. is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman wi ...
,
[ she was forcibly taken as a slave to the house of captain Antônio Vieira de Couto. On 6 September 1770, she penned a letter to the president of the province of São José do Piauí, Gonçalo Pereira Botelho de Castro, denouncing the abuse she had suffered and petitioning to free herself from slavery. She had asked, among other things, to return to Fazenda Algodões to have her daughter baptized there.][
The petition she wrote to the governor is considered the first letter written by a woman in the modern-day state of Piauí, which came to be a precursor to advocacy work in the state.][ Her letter is also considered an important work to the origins of Afro-Brazilian women's literature. In the state of Piauí, the day she sent the letter, 6 September, is commemorated as Black Consciousness Day in the state.
She fled a little after the petition was sent, reappearing in a list of forcibly enslaved people at Fazenda Algodões. The list, dated 1778, showed that she married Ignácio, who was of Angolan origin, and had 7 children.
]
Legacy
A biography about her was written by author Jarid Arraes
el-Djerid, also al-Jarīd, ( ar, الجريد; Derja: ''Jerīd''; ) or more precisely the South Western Tunisia Region is a semi-desert natural region comprising three southern Tunisian Governorates, Gafsa, Kebili and Tozeur with adjacent parts o ...
as part of her 2015 cordel collection and book ''Heroínas Negras Brasileiras em 15 cordéis''.
In 2017, the Zumbi dos Palmares Memorial, a space dedicated to Black culture in the state capital of Teresina, was renovated and renamed the Esperança Garcia Memorial.
In 2019, she was inducted into the Book of Steel at the Pantheon of the Fatherland, which commemorates and honors national heroes. The legislation to do so was put forth by federal deputy Margarete Coelho of Piauí.
In 2019 as well, the Estação Primeira de Mangueira
Grêmio Recreativo Escola de Samba Estação Primeira de Mangueira, or simply Mangueira, is a samba school in Rio de Janeiro (city), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The school was founded on April 28, 1928, by , Cartola, , among others.
It is located at t ...
samba school in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
made an homage to Garcia's memory in their 2019 song "História pra Ninar Gente Grande". She was honored again by the samba school in 2023.
References
External links
Facsimile of Esperança Garcia's letter
"Quando a escrava Esperança Garcia escreveu uma carta""A coragem da escrava Esperança Garcia"Coletivo Cultural Esperança GarciaEsperança Garcia: the first female lawyer in Brazil
{{DEFAULTSORT:Garcia, Esperanca
1750s births
Year of death missing
People from Piauí
Afro-Brazilian women
Brazilian lawyers
Brazilian rebel slaves
18th-century slaves
18th-century Brazilian women