A Slave, A Person, Not Forgotten.

It can be quite distressing to come across for the first time with the word "slave" in a parish record. In a day and age, where the concept of slavery can feel, by the distance of time, so remote as to be more of a story than reality, actually seeing that handwritten word on the page of an old record book is so disturbing that it jars you into the true and abominable reality that here is a record of a person who was thought as nothing but property, most likely to be used and abused.

And so, in Portugal, there are countless of such records in parish books, recording births, marriage and deaths of such individuals, and always the word "slave" attached as identifier. These are quite frequent in most of the numerous parishes in Lisbon, as the capital and where all the sea trade flowed in.

However, when researching genealogy in the more remote parts of the country, one can almost forget that there was slavery in Portugal. But then, you come across such a record. The few sentences of information it contains, one or two words gives you a true glimpse of the person and the life they led. Here is one such record:

On 9 of July of 1798, died Theotónio, slave of Captain Luis Rodrigues de Figueiredo, of Quintans, and didn't receive the holy sacraments, due to being found suddenly dead of violent and cruel manner; and was buried inside the church of this parish; of which I made this record, on the same day, month and year "ut supra" (above).

The words "violent and cruel manner" do infer a particular gruesome death for this person, especially considering that at the times of the event violence and treatment of slaves was commonplace enough, that it probably wouldn't call for this type of description. The fact that the priest recorded the event this way says a lot about the state that this poor man was found in. Interestingly, a couple of tidbits of information in this record, point to his "owner" honouring his death, such as Mass being said for his soul (which usually involved a payment to the priest), and the body being buried inside the church instead in the grounds cemetery.

Who was the killer? What prompted such an heinous crime? Was he the more noticeable for the remote village he was brought to? These will be mysteries no one will be able to ever solve. But, here is a glimpse of Theotonio's life and awful death, and in a way, a survival of sorts. A record that he existed, that he was a person, and ensuring he is not forgotten, at least not by me.