Os primeiros anos de Francisco Félix de Souza na Costa dos Escravos

Abstract

About Francisco Félix de Souza's life before his moving to Whydah we know almost nothing. We know that he was a mestizo born in Salvador, Bahia, and that the he had had a good schooling, but we ignore why, how and when the went to Africa. He was already living in the Slave Coast at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, first in Whydah and, then, in Badagry, trying to follow the example of some ex-slaves returned from Brazil and of the Dutchman Hertogh, who succeed in becoming influential dignitaries in the African societies which adopted them. From Badagry he returned to Whydah, where he took the responsibility for the factory or fort of São João Batista de Ajudá, almost abandoned by the Portuguese Government . As a self-appointed head of the Fort , he transformed it, together with the factory he had in Anecho, into a great center for the exportation of slaves.