This article focuses on the vulnerability of free blacks in Benguela, in West Central Africa, during the first decades of the nineteenth century at the height of slave exports. After the British abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, slavers moved south of the Equator leading to the pressure for more captives and the expansion of violence around Benguela. Focusing on the case of a free black woman, Dona Leonor de Carvalho Fonseca, this study discusses how she was captured, enslaved, transported to the coast, and sold. However she did not remain in captivity for a long time, since she was able to claim the principle of 'original freedom.' A legal mechanism created by the vassalage treaty, the principal of original freedom differentiated the local population between vassals and non vassal, Christians and non-Christians. The case of Dona Leonor illustrates how a free black could be subject to arbitrary capture, but also could claim original freedom and hence be protected from enslavement. Like her, others were able to bring freedom cases to the attention of Portuguese authorities and dispute their enslavement. These cases allow us to explore how, where, and why people were captured. It also shows the importance of vassalage treaties in defining who could or not be enslaved. By the early nineteenth century, Portuguese legislation regulated legal and illegal enslavement opening the space for captives to challenge their status. The freedom suits stress the vulnerability of the population living around the Portuguese settlements, and show how the pressures of the international slave market spread instability, even among those who were supposed to be protected by colonial law.In 1811, a free mulatto woman could become merely another victim of the slave trade in West Central Africa. Dona Leonor de Carvalho Fonseca, the widow of an established

This book traces the history and development of the port of Benguela, the third largest port of slave embarkation on the coast of Africa, from the early seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Benguela, located on the central coast of present-day Angola, was founded by the Portuguese in the early seventeenth century. In discussing the impact of the transatlantic slave trade on African societies, Mariana P. Candido explores the formation of new elites, the collapse of old states and the emergence of new states. Placing Benguela in an Atlantic perspective, this study shows how events in the Caribbean and Brazil affected social and political changes on the African coast. This book emphasizes the importance of the South Atlantic as a space for the circulation of people, ideas and crops.

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