ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the coexistence of indigenous, African, and mixed-race slavery in the Portuguese Amazon during the 18th century. The author demonstrates the agency of enslaved individuals by analyzing their access to colonial justice to plead their freedoms. Although there was a social and legal distinction between African and indigenous enslaved people, on several occasions, their experiences were connected whether in the dynamics of the worlds of labor or in the constitution of mixed-race families resulting in the formation of new social identities. The author shows that indigenous, Africans, and mixed race, although subjected to a logic that aimed to exploit them, were also perceptive agents, knowing how to take advantage of both the ambiguities and the specificities of certain clauses within the complex legislation of the colonizers for claiming your freedom.
