Slavery. SAM

 A

Good question. Here’s a TL;DR of Ana Lúcia Araújo’s essay “The deepest South: Slavery in Latin America … Why don’t we know this history?” (from Aeon) + some key take-aways, and reasons she gives for why Latin American slavery is under-recognised. 

TL;DR / Summary

• Slavery in Latin America (especially Brazil) was massive — Brazil imported ~4.8 million enslaved Africans, far more than the U.S.  
• Unlike in the U.S., where the enslaved population grew through natural reproduction, in Latin America the death rates were very high, and many enslaved people died young.  
• There was a strong gender imbalance: more men than women were trafficked, which limited population growth.  
• Because of these factors, Latin American slave societies depended heavily on continued importation of enslaved people to maintain labour forces.  
• The narrative and memory of Latin American slavery have been overshadowed, especially in global history and public consciousness, by the U.S. slavery narrative. Araújo argues that this is partly due to how history has been taught and remembered.

Why This History Is Not Well Known (According to Araújo)

1. U.S.-Centric View of Slavery
   
• Much of Western public history and education about slavery focuses on the “American South” (USA), so Latin America’s slave past gets marginalized.
2. 
   
3. High Mortality, Low Reproduction
   
• Because Latin American slave systems did not typically rely on enslaved populations reproducing, there was less of a “living legacy” in the same way as in the U.S., making the memory of slavery more fragmented.
4. 
   
5. Public Memory and Heritage Politics
   
• Different societies have competing memories of slavery. In Latin America, the heritage of slavery has often been silenced or minimized in public memorials, national narratives, and museums.  
• Political and social elites have sometimes resisted acknowledging slavery’s legacy because of national identity concerns or moral complicity.
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7. Powerful Myths
   
• In Brazil, for example, there was a myth of racial democracy (i.e., that Brazil was relatively free of racial divisions), which helped suppress critical public discussion of slavery’s horrors.  
• The institutional memory of slavery in Latin America hasn’t been as strongly woven into global discussions of race, colonialism, and reparations.
8. 
   
9. Lack of Memorialization
   
• There are fewer well-known slave heritage sites in Latin America, or they are less emphasized internationally. Araújo’s work shows how monuments, museums, and memorials in Latin America are part of a struggle to make the history visible.  
• Over time, physical traces of slavery (e.g., in cities) have often been erased or neglected.  
10. 
    

Why It Matters

• Understanding the scale and brutality of Latin American slavery changes how we see the Atlantic slave trade overall.
• It helps correct a skewed global narrative that often centers U.S. slavery as the story of slavery in the Americas.
• It has implications for reparations, memory politics, and racial justice in Latin America, not just the U.S.

If you like, I can send a full summary of the essay (with key arguments and examples), or I can recommend further reading by Ana Lúcia Araújo. Do you want me to do that?