ABSTRACT
As a consequence of the discovery of gold, during the 18th century, hundreds of Portuguese and blacks settled down in Mato Grosso. On the other side of the Paraguay river, in the province of Chiquitos, these changes were reflected in a continuous but stealthy fugitive’s migration. A large number of blacks ‒ slaves, freedmen and free, African and creoles, miners, renegade soldiers ‒, but also Portuguese and white criollos, found in those neighbouring territories a way out of varied circumstances. Spanish late-colonial information is analysed in order to describe illegal migration. Since great number of registered cases correspond to runaway slaves, this paper focuses on the study of the slave fugitives and offers a complementary study about slavery in Mato Grosso, which is a prolific research topic specially concerning the quilombos and the interethnic relations with indigenous peoples, but less dedicated to the migration slaves’ strategy to reach freedom.
Keywords:
migration; blacks; slaves; Mato Grosso; fugitives