Cunha’s book on Brazilian former slaves who returned to Africa is an important contribution to the historiography of Afro-Brazil and Africa. Freed blacks or people of color did not necessarily subscribe to antislavery sentiments in Brazil. Manumission was an essentially individual matter. Blackness and slave status were presumed to go together, unless the contrary was demonstrated. Freed Africans were neither entitled to civic rights nor enjoyed the protection of “home” governments. By 1831, Brazilian legislation proscribed the entry of freed Africans into Brazil because they were considered “troublemakers” and “subversives.” After the Malê rebellion of 1835, it was increasingly difficult for Africans to feel comfortable. Of the 216 pages in the book, 100 are devoted to life before Nigeria. Finally in Nigeria, a new mix of groups included returning Afro-Brazilians, Afro-Cubans, and Sierra Leonians in the 1830s. Lagos was perceived as a secure place for freed slaves, as well as providing an opportunity for some former Afro-Brazilians to become prosperous slave traders (p. 109).
Cunha’s discussion of the “reinvention” of Braziliana in midnineteenth-century Lagos is excellent. The taste for Brazilian products and the perception of “Brazilians” as trendsetters in lifestyles had a counterpart on the other side of the Atlantic where there was a demand for African products such as cola nuts, palm oil and cloth. These “Brazilians” were seen as "aggressive go-getters” and worthy of being courted by British colonial officials, at least temporarily. But increasing Euro-racism in church and public service dashed their earlier hopes of serving as trailblazers of British colonialism (à la Dahomey). After initial euphoric reactions to “discovering” a ready-made group of Catholic faithful (after 1862), missionaries quickly came to despair about “keeping the faith” alive among them (p. 172). There was no guarantee that these Brazilians were interested in serving as models of Catholic lifestyles.
The end of the book is rather surprising, even disappointing. Perhaps in an effort to reinsert her theme into a theoretical mold, the author left out Lagos altogether creating the impression that the concluding chapter is separate and perhaps detachable from the rest of this good study. She thus misses the opportunity of closing on a challenging note consistent with her careful research. Her book, nonetheless, is an important reminder of the twists and turns which have characterized Afro-Brazilian culture at home and abroad, a fact often lost in the mistiness of “racial democracy” but worth reemphasizing in this centennial year of abolition.
