06-12-2022

O Brasil Holandês 1624-1654 - A presença de escravizados marroquinos no Brasil holandês.

Denominados como turcos na documentação oficial, o grupo de marroquinos escravizados durante o Brasil holandês apresentam uma trajetória peculiar dentro do mundo do trabalho forçado no atlântico do século XVII. Após serem aprisionados por uma nau neerlandesa, os marroquinos seguiram para a capitania de Pernambuco, então sob domínio neerlandês. Prontamente estes foram engajados como trabalhadores escravos, tendo servido na cidade Mauricia, mais especificamente nos jardins do palácio Friburgo. Segundo Monteiro:

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"Nor did Johan Maurits’s involvement with slavery end there. His own court in Mauritsstad was the single largest destination for company-owned slaves in Brazil in 1642. In that year, thirty-five men, seven women and eight children whom the company claimed as being its possession worked at the court of Johan Maurits. Besides these ‘company slaves,’ Johan Maurits personally must have owned at least thirty more enslaved Africans, as the previously mentioned list of 1643 of the people fed at the court mentions eighty enslaved Africans at the count’s court. Besides these, there were at that time also ten ‘Turks’ (Turcken) mentioned, probably enslaved as well. The backstory of this group is rather interesting as it shows the different ways in which individuals could end up in enslavement in Brazil. The notarial archives of Rotterdam provide a clue as to how these ‘Turks,’ in reality Moroccans, ended up in Brazil. In a declaration of March 22, 1638, Jacob Janzs van der Beets and Harman Matthijsz., respectively first mate and trumpet player attested on behalf of the owners of the ship ‘t Vliegend Hardt that the flute Swarten Raven van Hoorn on its way from Norway via Hoorn to Brazil had been captured in full sea in December 1637 by a ‘Turckish Polacker’, likely a pirate or privateer operating out of Morocco. The captured ship was manned by a prize crew of twelve ‘Turks’ and two slaves but was captured in turn by the ‘t Vliegend Hardt under command of captain Jan Jacob van der Beets. The prize returned to Rotterdam, but the prize-crew was taken in captivity to Brazil, where they would eventually end up at the court of Johan Maurits." (p. 15-16)

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MONTEIRO, Carolina. "Slavery at the Court of the 'Humanist Prince' Reexamining Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen and his Role in Slavery, Slave Trade and Slave-smuggling in Dutch Brazil." Leiden: Journal of Early American History, 2020, pp. 3-32.

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Obras: “O sultão do Marrocos com sua guarda negra”- Eugène Delacroix (1862)

“Mauricio de Nassau” -Willem Jacobsz (1637)