Manumission Papers, Bahia, 1831-1840

This dataset documents the manumissions of 5,133 enslaved African and Brazilian-born persons that were recorded in Livros de Notas (LNs) written in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, between 1831 and 1840; additional decades are forthcoming. The volumes are deposited in the public archives of the state of Bahia (Arquivo Púbico do Estado da Bahia, or APEB) in Salvador. The Livros de Notas were created by officials called tabeliães (notaries) who copied legal documents of different kinds into large bound volumes they maintained for the preservation and safe keeping of important records. When completed, our dataset of manumissions will be one of the largest and most comprehensive of any for Brazil, containing information about many thousands of men, women, and children freed in the province of Bahia between 1801 and 1850. Although the dataset was not conceived for the purpose, even the subset published here shows that it will be a rich source of aggregated as well as micro-historical data about manumission. The variables in the dataset permit analysis of the roles of gender; origin, nação, and color; and, to a lesser extent, age and occupation in manumission.