Tracing Lives Across the Atlantic - The Remarkable Career of the Bez Deshayes Couple, Merchant-Booksellers, and Slave Traders Between Angola and Brazil (1830-1853)

On December 11, 1847, French Consul De Goussencourt in Pernambuco reported a slave ship, the "União," arriving from Benguela with 356 "black slaves" allegedly owned by Napoleão Gabriel Bez, a Frenchman living in Pernambuco. While Bez appeared to be a bookseller, he had secretly engaged in the abhorrent slave trade for years. This unveils a clandestine slave trading network in the 19th-century Atlantic World.

Napoléon Gabriel Bez, born in Embrun in 1811, came to Brazil in the 1830s with his French wife, Marie Deshayes. They established the Bez Deshayes & Cie bookstore in Recife, initially focused on cultural exchange through books but later expanding into the illegal slave trade. Their operations spanned Angola, Cape Verde, and northeastern Brazil in the 1840s and 1850s, exposing intricate networks transporting African captives to South America during the abolition era.

This research employs microhistory, social history, and Atlantic history methodologies to study individuals involved in the Brazilian slave trade. It also pioneers the analysis of women's roles in the transatlantic slave trade, highlighting key figures like Maria de Jesus in Loanda's port and Marie Deshayes involved in the internal slave trade from Recife to Rio de Janeiro.

Through microhistory, global history, and connected history, this project enhances our understanding of the transatlantic slave trade. It delves into individual cases, revealing critical nuances within the global narrative. Global and connected historical perspectives provide a framework for comprehending complex interactions among transatlantic societies and their actors.

This research illuminates the dark world of clandestine slave trading, emphasizing the intricate dynamics of the trade, cultural exchange, and the often-neglected roles of women in this somber chapter of history.