This paper seeks to bring to light the life of Joaquina, a woman who was a slave in the Amazon region during the 19th century, and through this lens to give a broad overview of an intricate web of social, economic and cultural power in which slaves were bound. Slaves were the least privileged class social of social actors and flight from captivity was one of the options they could resort to in attempting to transform their situations. The paper also reflects on the role of women enslaved in urban environments and their strategies for obtaining letters of manumission, as well as the meanings of freedom and its importance in the disintegration of slavery as a social institution.
slavery; runaway slaves; Amazon; slavery resistance