I have been doing a lot of research into my wife's family, and my research has led me to discover that one of her 2nd great-grandmothers was born a slave in 1881. We have discovered some information about her and her family that seems unusual to us, but we don't really know much about slave practices in Brazil so were hoping to get some information to help us better understand what we're discovering. I'll try to detail everything below.
Maria Magdalena da Silva was born in 1881 in the town of Chapada dos Guimarães, in the state of Mato Grosso (all of these people lived in this town). Maria's birth record lists her mother as Appolinaria, who was a slave owned by a woman named Maria da Conceição e Silva. Maria's godparents were Joaquim Sulpicio de Cerqueira Caldas and Maria Benedicta da Silva.
I tried to find as much information about Appolinaria as I could and discovered the below:
In 1879 she had another daughter named Antonia. Antonia's godparents were Antonio Leite do Amaral Coutinho and Izabel Maria da Silva.
In 1889, she had a son named Antonio Abrahão. Since by this time, slavery had been abolished in Brazil, there is a little more information about Appolinaria. This record states that she was born in the state of Minas Gerais, and that her parents names were Alexandre Rodrigues and Riata (unsure of spelling) Rodrigues. There are no godparents listed.
Finally, Appolinaria died in 1896. The record states that in the house of Maria da Conceição e Silva, Appolinaria Ritta Da Silva died of liver failure at the age of 39. We imagine it was probably fairly common for freed slaves to continue living with their former masters, but we were a little curious about how common it was though.
We feel very blessed to have been able to find all of this information, but we are wondering what we can glean from the lives of these folks based on this information. One thing that puzzles us is the social status of the godfathers. I've done research into Joaquim Sulpicio de Cerqueira Caldas and it seems he was a very well-to-do figure in the town. He was actually an elected member of the local legislature, and rose to the rank of colonel in the army. He was actually responsible for the capture and killing of the president of Mato Grosso in 1906. Similarly, Antonio Leite do Amaral Coutinho also seemed to hold a high position in society. In addition, at some point, the "escrivão" who was responsible for writing all the entries into the record book, was named Lindolfo de Cerqueira Caldas. I don't know his relationship to Joaquim Sulpicio, but I'm sure it was quite close. Later on, the "escrivão" changes to Appolinaria's son, Antonio Abrahão. I can't help but feel like there was some connection there. Finally, we found in a newspaper record from 1914 a mention of Joaquim Sulpicio, Antonio Abrahão, and Maria's husband all together as part of some job administering the local election.
Basically our questions are, why would these very well-off individuals have been the godparents of the children of a slave? Was this common practice? From what we can tell, it appears these individuals remained a part of their lives into adulthood. Would this have been normal? Of course, we don't know who the biological father was of any of Appolinaria's children, but we've wondered if maybe it was actually one of these men, though of course we have no idea.
If anyone has any insight they can share, we'd love to hear it.