The wharf was completely covered again in 1911 as part of the urban renovation championed by the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Francisco Pereira Passos, in his attempt to modernize the city as the capital of the young federal republic.Ī century later, the Cais do Valongo was unearthed during the excavation phase of another urban renewal campaign that was part of an ambitious plan to renovate the historic port area of the city in anticipation of the 2016 Olympic Games.Įnjoy stories about art, and news about Getty exhibitions and events, with our free e-newsletter The Cais do Valongo was renamed the Cais da Imperatriz (Empress Wharf) to conceal its past as a site of misery and mistreatment. The pé de moleque was covered in granite blocks in 1843 for the arrival of Empress Teresa Cristina, from Sicily, who was betrothed to the Emperor of Brazil Dom Pedro II. The Cais do Valongo was initially paved using a technique common in colonial towns: pé de moleque, which literally translates to “boy’s foot.” Stones of irregular shape and size were arranged in a layer of sand that street children flattened by tramping on them. Beginning in 1811, the year of its construction, and through the next two decades of its operation, approximately a million Africans walked on the Cais do Valongo’s paved floors before being subjugated to the gruesome process of having their bodies exchanged for money. In recognition of its recent World Heritage Site designation, it is fitting to contribute to the construction of the Cais do Valongo as a memory space by telling that story here.Įven after gaining independence from Portugal in 1822, Brazil continued the practice of slavery and was the last country in the Americas to abolish it-in 1888, a year before becoming a republic. While the story of the Cais do Valongo-from its use in the slave trade to its multiple renovations and relevance in the present day-is not told directly in The Metropolis in Latin America: 1830–1930, it is an essential part of Rio de Janeiro’s history. By highlighting important sociopolitical events-including a redevelopment campaign that erased the Cais do Valongo from public view-that shaped the urban plans of these cities, it tells the history of how memory spaces have been both hidden and revealed by cycles of construction and demolition. Such is the case for The Metropolis in Latin America: 1830–1930, on view at the Getty Research Institute until January 7, 2018, which looks at the transformation of six capitals in Latin America, including Rio de Janeiro, from colonial cities to modern metropolises. On the contrary, a collective effort is required to create these spaces, invest them with symbolic meanings, and keep the memories they hold alive.Īrchives and museums can be part of that effort, as they reveal forgotten histories through their collections and exhibitions. ![]() According to Schwarcz, memory spaces are far from being natural, stable entities. ![]() (2) Coined by French philosopher Pierre Nora, “memory space” refers to material sites and objects, as well as immaterial vestiges, that have a symbolic meaning for collective memory. ![]() (1) The anthropologist and historian Lilia Schwarcz suggested a similar idea when she stressed the importance of the Cais do Valongo as a “memory space” for contemporary Brazil, a country whose social dynamics and racial inequalities are profoundly marked by its violent colonial past. The archeologist Tania Andrade Lima, who worked on the Cais do Valongo excavation, once remarked that historical archeology is an antidote to social amnesia. Six years after the excavation, in July 2017, UNESCO recognized the Cais do Valongo as a World Heritage Site, acknowledging its importance as a physical trace of a horrendous human history that should never be forgotten or repeated. In addition to layers of cobblestoned floor dating back two centuries, archeologists uncovered thousands of objects that belonged to the African slaves, such as amulets, rings, ceramics, smoking pipes, horns and shells, and copper coins. ![]() Over the course of more than three centuries, the Portuguese colony of Brazil bought and exploited the largest number of African slaves in the Americas, with some estimates reaching over four million.
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