The king, the judge, and the enslaved woman: multiple meanings of the migration process of Mazaganistas, 1769-1778

les multiples significations du processus migratoire des mazaganistes, 1769-1778

Abstract

The Mazagão fortress, of Portuguese origin and located in Morocco, was built in 1514 and evacuated in 1769 under the orders of the Portuguese king D. José I. It had a population of more than 2,000 people who were forced to abandon their homes and cross the Atlantic Ocean to Grão-Pará, in the Amazon. Our research advances the reflection on multiple meanings attributed to this immigration process that involved different historical subjects, different social markers and different environmental realities (desert and forest). We dedicate ourselves to analyzing the perspectives on this displacement from the perspective of the Portuguese Crown established in Lisbon, of a Mazagão elite whose families had been established for more than a generation in Mazagão and of a black, enslaved woman who was forced to leave Morocco and set off for an unknown land where she developed strategies to change her social position. The article advances the reflection on how a single immigration process hides varied political, economic and social interests; and that the social markers of difference must also be understood as part of the baggage of those who immigrate.