Furtado - Chica Da Silva : A Brazilian Slave of the Eighteenth Century

Before starting this book I had always believed that research work was, first and foremost, an essentially solitary undertaking that locked the researcher away in archives, libraries, or in an office in front of a computer screen. In reality, researching the life of Chica da Silva was a task shared with friends, historians, colleagues, students, family, staff, and many others who helped me reassemble the intricate web that was the life of this eighteenth-century woman. Thanking them all is a little like retracing the steps of the research that lies hidden behind this work.

First of all, I extend my gratitude to Virgnia dos Santos Mendes, whose friendship and academic companionship unwittingly set me on the course of this research. It was through her efforts to construct the Centro de Memria Cultural do Vale do Jequitinhonha (Jequitinhonha Valley Cultural Memory Center), and those of our colleagues and friends at the History Department of the Faculty of Philosophy of Diamantina (Fafidia)/Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), that this project began to take shape. It is to Virgnia, Neusa Fernandes, Mariuth Santos, Kiko (Paulo Francisco Flecha Alkimin), James William Goodwin Jr., Toninho (Antnio Carlos Fernandes), Marcos Lobato, and Dayse Lcide Silva, companions on those lawless Diamantinian Mondays, that I dedicate this book. Our efforts to make the center a reality, a forum, and an instrument for historical research in the region would not have been possible without the support of the UFMG rector, Professor Alusio Pimenta, and of the pro-rector of extended studies, Professor Eduardo Andrade Santa Ceclia.

The establishment of the UFMG Extended Studies Center in the Jequitinhonha Valley, of which this project also came to be a part, furnished the interinstitutional partnerships, resources, and infra-structure that were indispensable in conducting this research. I would like to give special thanks to the research pro-rector, Professor Paulo Beiro, and the pro-rector for extended studies, Professor Evandro Jos Lemos da Cunha. To the tireless Marizinha Nogueira, without whom the center would be mere abstraction, I extend my special thanks, as well as to all of the colleagues who partake of this privileged space of academic integration at the UFMG.

At certain moments and stages I was able to draw upon financial assistance from research support agencies, which helped fund the hiring of scholarship students, the research trips, the purchase of material, and the reproduction of documents. I would like to thank Fapemig Fundao de Amparo Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (Research Support Foundation of Minas Gerais) for being the first institution to concede funding through its support for the Jequitinhonha Valley Cultural Memory Center; the Ford Foundation/Carlos Chagas Foundation for selecting the project as one of the prize winners at the VIII Concurso de Dotaes para a Pesquisa sobre Mulheres (VIII Prize Competition for the Funding of Research on Women) in 1999; Finep Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (Financer of Studies and Projects) another institution whose funding came through the UFMG Jequitinhonha Valley Cultural Memory Center; and the Fundep Fundao de Desenvolvimento da Pesquisa (Research Development Foundation) Fund for Research and Integrated Projects for the support channeled to the project A riqueza e a pobreza do vale do Jequitinhonha (Wealth and poverty in the Jequitinhonha Valley) on its behalf by the UFMG Pro-Rectory for Post-Graduation. Coordinated by Professor Ralfo Matos, the research on Chica da Silva and the freedwomen of Tejuco came under this umbrella project as a subproject.

With the financial support of these institutions it was possible to recruit various scholarship holders to help me sift through records. I would especially like to thank Lgia Ftima de Carvalho, Maria Anglica Alves Pereira, Renato de Carvalho Ribeiro, Maria Jos Ferro de Sousa, and Maria Eugnia Ribeiro Pinto.

The search for documents that could in some way reconstruct the life of Chica da Silva took me on a tireless tour of archives and libraries both in Brazil and abroad, institutions in which I always found helpful and attentive staff who made the distances, costs, and difficulties of the enormous task I had set myself that much smaller. In Diamantina, I thank Til Pestana, director of the regions Iphan Instituto de Patrimnio Histrico e Artstico Nacional (Institute of National Historical and Artistic Heritage) who gave me and my interns free run of the Antnio Torres Library and opened up the documentation on the House of the Ottoni at a time when it was undergoing restoration. I am also grateful to staff member Denise Alves Ferreira for all the attention she dispensed.

An important portion of this research was done at the Ecclesiastical Archive of the Archdiocese of Diamantina; I extend my sincerest thanks to the Bishops Geraldo Magela Reis and Paulo Lopes de Faria, who franchised my access to the archive, where, contrary to the rules of the house, I was providentially forgotten until late at night. I also thank staff member Dbora Maria Braga Reis, who spared no effort to make the work of transcribing the documentation that much easier.

In Portugal, I would like to thank my good friend Tiago Pinto dos Reis Miranda, who volunteered to set up a visit to the former house of the contractor Joo Fernandes de Oliveira, and to the Fundao Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento (Luso-American Development Foundation), the current proprietor of the building, for granting access to the house and permission to photograph its interior. With Tiago I passed unforgettable afternoons wandering through the streets of Lisbon on veritable immersions in the history of this marvelous city. At the Arquivo Histrico Ultramarino (Overseas Historical Archive), Dr. Jos Sintra Martinheira made the institutions cartography of Diamantina and Tejuco promptly and swiftly available.