This book is the story of two women linked by time and participation, albeit in dramatically different ways, to the system of slavery in Brazil’s coffee zone. Sandra Lauderdale Graham uses these two stories to paint a picture of life in the Paraíba Valley during the middle of the nineteenth century. This short work evidences the author’s deep knowledge of the coffee zone and the Brazilian slave system. In fact, a part of the joy of this book is the author’s willingness to expose the process of research and analysis. Graham describes this process as “something closer to archaeology than full-blown biography” (p. xxii). What emerges is an excellent example of social history—one that uses the specific as a vehicle to illuminate the general. The book’s two sections are constructed around the experiences of Caetana, a slave woman fighting to escape an unwanted marriage to another slave, and Inácia Delfina...
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