From fidalgo to agudá: The saga of the family de Medeiros from Benim

Abstract

The text deals with the social identity of the descendants from the Brazilian slave dealers established at the Occidental Africa Cost and the Africans slaved in Brazil that had returned to Africa, known in Benin, Togo and Nigeria as the agudás or the “Brazilians” . The trajectory of De Medeiros family, founded in the middle of the XIX century by Francisco José de Medeiros, son of the Portuguese governor from Madeira Island, is taken as an exemplary case study.