Reconstructs the everyday lives of Mina slaves transported in the eighteenth century to Rio de Janeiro from the African West Coast, in particular from modern-day Benin

In People of Faith, Mariza de Carvalho Soares reconstructs the everyday lives of Mina slaves transported in the eighteenth century to Rio de Janeiro from the western coast of Africa, particularly from modern-day Benin. She describes a Catholic lay brotherhood formed by the enslaved Mina congregants of a Rio church, and she situates the brotherhood in a panoramic setting encompassing the historical development of the Atlantic slave trade in West Africa and the ethnic composition of Mina slaves in eighteenth-century Rio. Although Africans from the Mina Coast constituted no more than ten percent of the slave population of Rio, they were a strong presence in urban life at the time. Soares analyzes the role that Catholicism, and particularly lay brotherhoods, played in Africans’ construction of identities under slavery in colonial Brazil. As in the rest of the Portuguese empire, black lay brotherhoods in Rio engaged in expressions of imperial pomp through elaborate festivals, processions, and funerals; the election of kings and queens; and the organization of royal courts. Drawing mainly on ecclesiastical documents, Soares reveals the value of church records for historical research.

"The recent publication of People of Faith gives English readers a chance to explore Soares’s impressive scholarship by way of a generally well-translated version with the added bonus of a characteristically thought-provoking postscript.... English readers now have the chance to delve into some of the very best that Brazilian historiography has to offer." - Ethnohistory

"“The Portuguese version, entitled Devotos da Cor, was a popular success in Brazil and the English edition merits a prominent place in both the literature of Afro-Latin American religious history and the ongoing study of the subtle and changeable meanings of ethnicity in Africa and the Americas.”" - Hispanic American Historical Review

"“[T]his work will certainly serve as a new foundational text…. In addition, the analysis of identity and the terminology used to describe it will be of interest to scholars of subaltern groups both within and outside the field of African diaspora studies. Although the analysis is complex, the translation is excellent, serving to make the text accessible to scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates.”" - The Americas

"“This book... provides considerable insight into the social organization and customs of slaves in the colonial city.”" - Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"“People of Faith tells a complex story of the ways in which African peoples in the diaspora developed social bonds and organized collective associations that cultivated and promoted a common cultural and social identity… [I]t offers a useful new framework through which students and scholars in the field of African diaspora can understand cultural development and identity formation.”" - American Historical Review