The Story of Rufino
Slavery, Freedom, and Islam in the Black Atlantic
João José Reis, Flávio dos Santos Gomes, and Marcus J. M. de Carvalho
Translated by Sabrina Gledhill
Reviews and Awards
"The narrative demonstrates how enslaved Africans did not simply acquiesce to slavery; rather, they challenged the tyrannical systems exploiting them, and the book is replete with glimpses of this revolutionary zeal. Additionally, the work challenges lazy categorisations that seek to present a binary relationship between Islam and Blackness, highlighting how Black African communities sought to preserve their religious tradition, even through the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade." -- Haroon Bashir, Muslim World Book Review
"Three of the finest Brazilian historians of slavery of their generation...bring to us an innovative and imaginative biography of a transatlantic enslaved sojourner whose life and travels reveal the complexities of the slave system in the South Atlantic....Fluidly translated, rarely does a book so impressive in its research and conceptualization convey its message in so accessible a narrative that it can be used to great advantage by both graduate and undergraduate students. This is one of the finest books to date on slavery and its complexities in the nineteenth-century South Atlantic." -- Stuart B. Schwartz, Hispanic American Historical Review
"This microhistory of the Atlantic world puts into stark relief Brazil's manifold and complex connections with Africa. By brilliantly reconstructing the life of a single individual, the authors provide a multilayered and broad canvas of the South Atlantic during the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. This is social history at its best." -- Roquinaldo Ferreira, University of Pennsylvania
"A brilliant study, The Story of Rufino explores the blurred lines between slavery and freedom for black men in the nineteenth-century Atlantic World and the pervasive role of the transatlantic slave trade in the Brazilian economy. It also stresses the role of violence and fear in terrorizing black people. Rufino had a life replete of adventures and misadventures in a turbulent Atlantic. Thanks to the research of Reis, Gomes, and Carvalho, readers can follow the paths of an exceptional Muslim man, whose life was not so different from other enslaved Africans." -- Mariana P. Candido, Mariana P. Candido, author of An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and Its Hinterland
"This tour de force biography of an African-born enslaved man who purchased his freedom and became involved in the slave trade complicates our understanding of the Atlantic slavery. Rufino's exceptional and cosmopolitan trajectory, in a world where slavery was pervasive, is a lesson of cultural resistance and resilience." -- Ana Lucia Araujo, Howard University
"Three of the leading historians of slavery and the African diaspora in the South Atlantic have teamed up to bring us the remarkable story of Rufino José Maria, also known as Abuncare. Through painstaking research in a vast range of sources, the authors enable us to follow Rufino's travels across the Atlantic and back, through slavery and a degree of freedom, as both a victim and a participant in the transatlantic trade. Rufino's story is, in many respects, an exceptional one, but his struggles, compromises, and accomplishments as an African and a Muslim vividly illuminate the many worlds he inhabited during the waning decades of a trade whose tragic imprint is still visible on both sides of the Atlantic." -- Barbara Weinstein, New York University
