The Coleção de Livros do Banguê (') is an 11-volume set of records of the burial expenses of

enslaved people Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

Bahia Bahia () is one of the 26 Federative units of Brazil, states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo (state), São Paulo, Mina ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

, from the 17th to 19th centuries by the

Santa Casa da Misericórdia Santa Casa da Misericórdia is a charitable institution whose mission is to treat and support the sick, the disabled, and orphans. Founded in Lisbon in 1498 by Queen Leonor of Portugal, the institution grew into a network of charitable organizat ...

. Funerals for nearly all social classes in Bahia could only be carried out by the Santa Casa, and the institution maintained detailed records of its expenses. The ''Banguê'' collection is recognized as a milestone in the identification of enslaved people, containing data such as name and ethnicity, arrival in Salvador, the owner of the enslaved person, and burial costs. There are also margin notes of marks on the deceased person's body. The collection is in the archives of the Centro de Memória Jorge Calmon of the Santa Casa da Misericordia in Bahia, and received the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

Memory of the World Programme UNESCO's Memory of the World (MoW) Programme is an international initiative to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, decay over time and climatic conditions, as well as deliberate destruction. It ca ...

certificate in 2009. The collection "contain traces of identification of these people violently subjected to slavery and generally relegated to invisibility."

History

The Brotherhood of Misericórdia was responsible for burials of citizens of all social classes in Salvador during the Portuguese colonial period in Brazil. The brotherhood transported the bodies of enslaved people in simple coffins called ''banguê'', a practice of the Santa Casa from 1693. They were then interred in the Campo da Pólvora Cemetery, which was owned by the Santa Casa and reserved for enslaved people of African descent, the excommunicated, criminals, and the poor. The cemetery was small, measuring only approximately ; its exact location has been lost. The Santa Casa of Bahia itself was a large slave-holding institution: enslaved people carried out both the construction, cleaning and maintenance of its building, as well as working as gravediggers, caring for tombs, and carrying

bier A bier is a stand on which a corpse, coffin, or casket containing a corpse is placed to lie in state or to be carried to its final disposition.''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' (American Heritage Publishing Co., In ...

s to masses and cemeteries. It is estimated that between 1742 and 1856 there were approximately 80,000 enslaved people buried by the Santa Casa. The ''Coleção de Livros do Banguê'' record that between the years 1741-1800, 49.4% of the buried enslaved people came from ports in

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

, 36.3% from the Mina Coast (roughly the

Gulf of Guinea The Gulf of Guinea (French language, French: ''Golfe de Guinée''; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Golfo de Guinea''; Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''Golfo da Guiné'') is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean from Cape Lopez i ...

), and only 3.4% were born in Brazil. Numerous funerals were for "recently disembarked Africans"; those who were not baptized by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

were listed without a name.

Footnote

:A.The ''banguê'' was a small-scale

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...

plantation in northeast Brazil; they were replaced by ''usinas'', or large-scale plantations in the later colonial period.

References

{{Reflist, 2, refs= {{cite web , url=http://www.bvconsueloponde.ba.gov.br/modules/conteudo/conteudo.php?conteudo=296 , title=Arquivos da Bahia, Memória do Mundo , language=pt , publisher=Governo do Estado da Bahia, Biblioteca Virtual Consuelo Pondé , date=2021 , accessdate=2021-11-24 , archive-date=2021-11-23 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211123190218/http://www.bvconsueloponde.ba.gov.br/modules/conteudo/conteudo.php?conteudo=296 , url-status=dead {{Cite Q, Q109698075 {{Cite Q, Q109694569, pages=23-24 {{Cite Q, Q109697927 {{Cite Q, Q109696430, pages=231-232 History of Salvador, Bahia Slavery in Brazil 17th-century manuscripts 18th-century manuscripts 19th-century manuscripts