• 1 Thanks are due to Catarina Leal for the production of Figure 1 and to Ana Naomi de Sousa for the ca (...)
• 2 RAU, Virgínia, Estudos sobre a história do sal português, Lisboa, Editorial Presença, 1984.

1The Sado River runs north from the mountains of the Alentejo to Alcácer do Sal and Setúbal, where it flows to the Atlantic Ocean, passing through several villages. The Tagus is a larger river, the longest in the Iberian Peninsula. It emerges in Spain and empties into the Atlantic near Lisbon, north of the Sado. Both develop large floodplains and estuaries, on the margins of which various towns developed during the Modern period. Little is known about the beginning of rice cultivation on the margins of the Sado and Tagus and the agroecological, technological and landscape changes that it entailed. Salt economy received more attention, but its labour and ecological aspects were less developed2. In particular, the history of the salt-fresh water frontier in those rivers, namely the conversion of marshes into rice or salt paddies or the ways of producing rice has not yet been uncovered. Moreover, the role played by enslaved Black people brought from West Africa – where these transformations and products were common - is yet to be unpacked.

• 3 SILVA, Manuel Vianna e, Elementos para a história do arroz em Portugal, Coimbra, Grémio Lavoura Bei (...)
• 4 CUSTÓDIO, Jorge, «A Fábrica de descasque de arroz da Casa Cadaval. Património Industrial de Muge», (...)

2Most historiography accepts the idea that rice was absent from Early Modern Portuguese agriculture. According to these views, rice would have been introduced to the Iberian Peninsula during the Arab period (8th-12th centuries) and rice crops were present during the reign of King Dinis (1279-1325). In the first half of the 16th century there were some limited developments on the Tagus, followed by a gap of about 200 years until rice crops timidly reappeared in the second half of the 1700s. Finally, rice cultivation took off from the mid-19th century, fostered by the first Portuguese agrarian capitalists in the context of liberal reforms3. However, this chronology has been challenged. Jorge Custódio refers to the existence of a tradition of cultivating arroz da terra (land rice) in the 15th and 16th centuries, as well as persistent rice-based dietary habits in the following centuries that suggest local farming practices4.

• 5 SAUNDERS, Alastair Corston de Custance M., A social history of black slaves and freedmen in Portuga (...)
• 6 Ibidem, pp. 47-61; TINHORÃO, José Ramos, Os Negros em Portugal: Uma Presença Silenciosa, Lisboa, Ca (...)

3From the late 15th to mid-16th centuries, enslaved people are known to have participated in salt extraction in the Sado estuary, near Setúbal, where they were sent by their farm masters during the summer5. The presence of enslaved Africans in Lisbon and Setúbal, as well as in the nearby agricultural fields and estuarine activities of the Tagus and the Sado, is well documented6. It is therefore relevant to ask: what was the contribution of these people to the production of rice on the Sado and the Tagus between the 15th and 18th centuries? Our working hypothesis is that the unknown history of rice in these coastal landscapes is connected to the understudied history of enslaved Black people in Portugal.

• 7 CARNEY, Judith, Black rice: the African origins of rice cultivation in the Americas, Harvard Univer (...)
• 8 Ibidem, p. 81. On Carney’s method see HAWTHORNE, Walter, «From “Black Rice” to “Brown”: Rethinking (...)
• 9 CARNEY, Judith, Black rice, cit., p. 29.
• 10 Ibidem, p. 149.

4Similar questions have been raised with regard to other regions of the Atlantic rim, on the American side, in what became known as the «black rice» thesis. Judith Carney departed from the pioneering work by historians Peter Wood and Daniel Littlefield and presented a comprehensive history of technology transfer from the rice-growing societies of Upper Guinea coast to South Carolina, in modern USA. At the core of her argument is the early shift to a rice tidal system based on the knowledge (and seeds of African rice, Oryza glaberrima) brought by enslaved Africans from the regions where these systems were long established7. Given the scarcity of documentary sources on the role of the enslaved farmers, who left no known written records, she adopted a «geographical perspective»8 that establishes parallels between both sides of the Atlantic in terms of production systems, wetland adaptation, farming tools, rice processing and cooking, and language. In addition, she argued, by the end of the 18th century, «prejudiced European perceptions of African people and their skills»9 placed them «in the background of rice history»10.

• 11 CARNEY, Judith, «‘With grains in her hair’: rice in colonial Brazil», in Slavery & Abolition, 25, 1 (...)
• 12 HAWTHORNE, Walter, From Africa to Brazil, cit., pp. 137-172.
• 13 Ibidem, pp. 140-144.

5Later, Carney would also extend her argument to Brazil11, which was partially contested by Walter Hawthorne’s work on the development of rice plantations in the Portuguese captaincies of Maranhão and Pará12. In the dispute over the role attributed by Carney to Asian and African rice species, Hawthorne added various wild rice species of South America gathered by native people13.

• 14 The American Historical Review : The Question of “Black Rice”, 115, 1/2010, pp. 123-171.
• 15 ELTIS, David, MORGAN, Philip, RICHARDSON, David, «Agency and diaspora in Atlantic history: reassess (...)
• 16 HALL, Gwendolyn Midlo, «Africa and Africans in the African diaspora: the uses of relational databas (...)
• 17 HAWTHORNE, Walter, «From “Black Rice” to “Brown”», cit., pp. 151-163.
• 18 Ibidem, p. 156.
• 19 GINZBURG, Carlo, História nocturna: uma decifração do Sabat, Lisboa, Relógio D’Água, 1995, pp. 9-37 (...)
• 20 Ibidem, pp. 21, 28.
• 21 Ibidem, pp. 21, 24.

6A strong debate ensued focused on the work of Carney that took the history of rice into a rich discussion about historical evidence and methodology14. The main criticism comes from three co-authors, who concluded that «slaves arrived in the Americas with certain skills, [...] some of them contributed ideas about rice cultivation», but «planters held the reins of power, had access to capital, experimented keenly, and in essence called the shots»15. The ideological bias of these authors was noted by Midlo Hall16 and Hawthorne17, who considered the criticisms of Carney's research, said to be based on weak evidence, to be paradoxical. Hawthorne asks whether the trio’s archival evidence is «more accurate than the evidence that Carney derives from a “geographical perspective”»18. The incompatibilities between documentary research and synchronic analysis were long ago rejected by Carlo Ginzburg19. In the face of poorly documented subjects, and «for those who did not want to resign themselves to writing for the umpteenth time the history of the winner», non-documentary sources are useful «probes» to reach strata otherwise inaccessible20. Moreover, the «gaps» that open up in the documentation, and the rare cases in which a dialogical character appears should double the attention21.

• 22 FIELDS-BLACK, Edda, Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora, Bloomington, (...)
• 23 FIELDS-BLACK, Edda, Deep Roots, cit., pp. 68-75, 137-160; ID., «Untangling», cit., pp. 1-21.
• 24 LINARES, Olga, «Shell middens of lower Casamance and problems of Diola protohistory», in West Afric (...)
• 25 CARNEY, Judith, Black rice, cit., pp. 175-176.
• 26 HAWTHORNE, Walter, From Africa to Brazil, cit., pp. 137-172; CARNEY, Judith, Black rice, cit.

7In fact, the paucity of documentary sources on rice cultivation in the trans-Atlantic world has led several researchers to call upon distinctive sources and strategies in impressive interdisciplinary approaches: comparative historical linguistics22, botanical and biological studies23, agricultural archaeology and archaeobotany24, toponymy25, rice cooking practices and other cultural legacies26.

• 27 BRAY, Francesca, COCLANIS, Peter, FIELDS-BLACK, Edda, SCHÄFER, Dagmar (eds.), Rice: Global Networks (...)

8These American rice histories are directly linked to Portugal. Our preliminary research suggests an Atlantic square of rice, with transits (of people, seeds and knowledge) between four vertices: West Africa, Brazil, South Carolina and Portugal. However, it is also necessary to consider, especially when it comes to studying the Portuguese floodplains and estuaries, the Mediterranean tradition of rice and the routes to the Indian Ocean. In fact, it has recently been proposed that the study of Atlantic and Indian oceans rice histories should be integrated27.

• 28 SHARMA, Shatanjiw Das, Rice: Origin, Antiquity and History, New York, CRC Press, 2010, pp. 1-17; HU (...)
• 29 WANG, Muhua et al., «The genome sequence of African rice (Oryza glaberrima) and evidence for indepe (...)
• 30 HAWTHORNE, Walter, From Africa to Brazil, cit., p. 141; GODINHO, Vitorino Magalhães, op. cit., pp. (...)
• 31 CAI, Xingxing et al., «The puzzle of Italian rice origin and evolution: determining genetic diverge (...)
• 32 FARIA, Manuel Severim de, Notícias de Portugal, Discurso I, Lisboa, Off. Antonio Isidoro da Fonseca (...)
• 33 CUSTÓDIO, Jorge, op. cit., p. 176.
• 34 LINARES, Olga, «African rice (Oryza glaberrima): history and future potential», in PNAS, 99, 25, 20 (...)
• 35 BRAY, Francesca, Introduction: Global Networks and New Histories of Rice, in BRAY, Francesca, COCLA (...)

9There are only two species of domesticated rice in the world within 23 recognized species of the genus Oryza, spread over several continents. O. sativa was firstly domesticated in Southeast Asia or China, and it is the origin of current commercial varieties28. It was estimated that O. glaberrima was domesticated in West Africa 3000 years ago, in the Niger valley floodplains29. In 1500, Portuguese traders knew both types of rice through trade with Arabs, Black Africans, Italians and Spaniards, as well as with the Indian Ocean peoples30. There is an ancient rice tradition in Europe linked to remote Asian origins (the «Italian» and «Venetian» rices31, those cultivated in southern Spain32, the Portuguese «land rice»33), and new seaborne connections from the 15th century on with West Africa and then with Southeast Asia and East Africa. Most likely O. sativa was introduced onto the Upper Guinea coast by the Portuguese as early as the 16th century34. Rice became a global food staple during the 1500s, even if traded in lower quantities compared to the American rice plantation economy emerging in the 18th century35. The historical puzzle is not simple.

10This article offers a preliminary formulation of the history of rice under slavery in the Sado and Tagus basins, and sets a framework for future research. Our work was based on bibliographic review and preliminary archive research, focusing on the interplays between agroecological change, co-production of knowledge, and slavery.

• 36 FERNANDES, Isabel Maria, «Alimentos e alimentação no Portugal Quinhentista», in Revista de Guimarãe (...)
• 37 Ibidem, p. 136.
• 38 RODRIGUES, Ana Maria (ed.), Os negros em Portugal: séculos XV a XIX, Lisboa, Comissão Nacional para (...)
• 39 Alvará of 7 January 1697, consulted at legislacaoregia.parlamento.pt. Measure units: LOPES, Luís Se (...)
• 40 FERNANDES, Isabel Maria, op. cit., pp. 137-138 (paleographic studies suggest that the Cookbook of I (...)
• 41 HAWTHORNE, Walter, From Africa to Brazil, cit., p. 149.
• 42 In 1655, Severim de Faria mentions investments that improved the economies of European countries, s (...)

11Rice was a common food in Lisbon between the 16th and 18th centuries. In 1551, one observer described cooked rice being sold on the streets of the city. He counted 27 women cooking rice on the street, among vendors of fried fish, couscous, plums and sweets36. One year later, another observer, João Brandão, described «fifty women, among them white and black, freed and captive women» selling rice37. In 1706, «black women selling corn, rice and fish on the stairs of the Rossio hospital» in Lisbon presented a petition to the king, claiming for their customary right («enjoyed by us and our ancestors since the world was the world») and complaining about the «violent» persecutions they suffered at the hands of the corregidores38. In 1697, the exemption from customs fees for the purchase of rice by the Hospital de Todos os Santos in Lisbon was expanded from 14 to 20 quintais each year (the quintal weighs about 58 kilos)39. The cookbooks of noble houses confirm the spread of rice in Portuguese cuisine in the 16th and 17th centuries. Rice appears in various recipes, such as the white manjares (delicacies) made with milk or served with lamb, chicken and fish40. In the 18th century, an observer said that rice «is present in all meals»41. Yet, eating rice is not the same as growing rice. Indeed, one mid-17th century chronicler does not seem to be aware of rice cultivation, or did not consider it worth mentioning42.

• 43 ANTT, ref. PT/TT/GAV/15/2/16; GODINHO, Vitorino Magalhães, op. cit., p. 392.
• 44 d’AZEVEDO, Pedro A., Sebastião de Macedo, o Moço, in FREIRE, Anselmo Braamcamp, PESSANHA, José da S (...)
• 45 BEIRANTE, Maria Rocha, Santarém Quinhentista, Lisboa, Livraria Portugal, 1981, p. 112.
• 46 FERNANDES, Isabel Maria, op. cit., p. 137.

12In the mid-16th century, upstream on the Tagus, rice was grown in the marshlands (or paul, plural pauis) of Asseca, Muge and Ota near Santarém. One percent of their annual harvest was delivered by the tenants to the hospital of Castanheira, as established by royal decree in 1546, which suggests significant production43. In 1562, another royal estate neighbouring the Muge marsh was rented for 30 years to plant rice and other cereals44. Moreover, a place within the aforementioned marsh of Asseca was registered as the Paul do Arroz (Rice Marsh) in 1509, which prompts Maria Beirante to suggest that rice had been grown there since at least the end of the 15th century45. The cultivation of rice in these wetlands of the Tagus, less than 80 km from Lisbon, indicates the existence of a production zone to feed the capital (see Figure 1). Brandão states in 1552 that significant quantities of rice enter the city each year, «by sea and overland»46.

• 47 BEIRANTE, Maria Rocha, op. cit., p. 112. As early as 1965, the possibility of O. glaberrima being p (...)
• 48 HAWTHORNE, Walter, From Africa to Brazil, cit., p. 141; GODINHO, Vitorino Magalhães, op. cit., pp. (...)
• 49 GODINHO, Vitorino Magalhães, op. cit., pp. 395; HAWTHORNE, Walter, From Africa to Brazil, cit., p. (...)
• 50 CARNEY, Judith, Out of Africa: Colonial rice history in the Black Atlantic, in HARDING, Sandra (ed. (...)

13Long before «Black rice» was a well-known thesis, Beirante showed that Santarém, on the Tagus margins, had close links to maritime expansion during the 15th and 16th centuries, and in particular with the Gulf of Guinea, and admits that although rice of Levantine origin has been known of for a long time, it was only «the variety coming from Guinea»47 that became widespread. In fact, much of the rice arriving in Portugal from the late 15th century to the early 16th century was O. glaberrima, which was purchased on the West African coast by Portuguese settlers in Cape Verde who regularly sent it to Lisbon48. Rice shipments from Cape Verde to Brazil during the 16th and 17th centuries are also well documented49, as well as from the coast of Guinea to South Carolina in the late 17th century in Portuguese slave ships50.

• 51 FREIRE, Anselmo Braamcamp, PESSANHA, José da Silva (eds.), Archivo Historico Portuguez, cit., vol. (...)
• 52 FREIRE, Anselmo Braamcamp, PESSANHA, José da Silva (eds.), Archivo Historico Portuguez, cit., vol. (...)

14These data point to O. glaberrima being sent and possibly cultivated in Portugal. The treasury accounts from the reign of Manuel I (1495-1521) show that both African and Asian rice were likely arriving at Portugal’s ports. Cape Verde’s accounts for 1491-1493 show that the treasury received a quarter of all «caravels that the inhabitants of the said island set up for Guinea», including predominantly enslaved people, gold and ivory, but also 142 alqueires of rice and corn (the alqueire is about 13-14 liters)51. The Fortress of Santiago in the city of Quiloa (in the southeastern coast of present-day Tanzania) declared 390 alqueires of rice in 1505-0652.

• 53 RIBEIRO, Orlando, Portugal, o Mediterrâneo e o Atlântico, Coimbra, Coimbra Editora, 1945, p. 117.
• 54 CORVO, João de Andrade, op. cit., pp. 354, 369-407. This 550-page report was urged by a government (...)
• 55 Ibidem, p. 257.
• 56 Ibidem, p. 136.
• 57 Ibidem, pp. 256-257.

15Regarding cultivation on the margins of the Sado, the archives are silent until 1700. According to the authors from the 19th and 20th centuries, rice was a recent arrival in the region. Orlando Ribeiro says in 1945 that rice is «of very recent use, having become available only a century ago»53. Andrade Corvo, in 1860, argues that in most places rice cultivation is less than 30 years old and in some places was introduced in the second half of the 18th century54. However, Corvo’s report ends up revealing rice’s long history on the Sado. One cited physician from Alcácer do Sal declares that rice cultivation dates back to one hundred years ago, «or even before, to be more precise»55. In two nearby riverside rural parishes, Vale do Guizo and Palma, the beginning of the culture was dated back to 1700 and 1720, respectively, according to the information of the local priests56. According to the aforementioned physician, there was an initial period when rice cultivation was reduced to small plots «grown by the inhabitants», and a second period from the 1830s where «a thousand men from outside were employed every year», reaching three thousand at the time of his writing. In the first period and «still by the second» the method of collecting rice was «imperfect» and «the milled processes quite ignored, so that [the rice] was very dirty and very broken, an inferior product which for a long time did not encourage the capitalists to employ in this industry the very large capital which is necessary for the good cultivation of rice and to relieve the rice fields of the invasion of the tides»57.

• 58 SAUNDERS, Alastair Corston de Custance M., op. cit., pp. 35, 167.
• 59 LAHON, Didier, «Eles vão, eles vêm. Escravos e libertos negros entre Lisboa e o Grão-Pará e Maranhã (...)
• 60 SAUNDERS, Alastair Corston de Custance M., op. cit., pp. 27, 62.
• 61 Ibidem, pp. 65-66.
• 62 Ibidem, p. 62.

17In 1444, a group of 235 people were abducted from the African coast and brought to Europe, arriving in Lagos, southern Portugal. This is considered a historical benchmark that marked a transition in the history of slavery: the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade58. The forced shipping of Black Africans to Portugal continued throughout the following centuries until the late 1700s. Didier Lahon estimates that more than 400,000 enslaved people entered Portugal59. Portugal was so immersed in the trade that «slaves [...] were employed in almost every sector of the economy»60. In the 16th century Évora, the majority of enslaved people were owned by the nobility, aristocracy, government and religious elites but also by professionals (lawyers, physicians), tradesmen (goldsmiths and shoemakers, among others) and farmers (land owners, cattle herders)61. As early as 1512, the crown made Lisbon the only authorised harbour for the importing of enslaved people, with exceptions made for Setubal, at the mouth of the Sado, and other harbours in Algarve62.

• 63 The work of SAUNDERS, Alastair Corston de Custance M., op. cit., and of TINHORÃO, José Ramos, op. c (...)
• 64 SAUNDERS, Alastair Corston de Custance M., op. cit., p. 51; TINHORÃO, José Ramos, op. cit., p. 458.
• 65 LAHON, Didier, «O escravo africano na vida económica», cit., pp. 73-80.
• 66 STELLA, Alessandro, Ser esclavo y negro en Andalucía Occidental (siglos XVII y XVIII). Documentos d (...)

18The presence of enslaved Black people is relatively easy to trace from the mid-15th century onwards, which makes the scant attention paid to it by Portugal's historiography even more problematic63. The first references to Black people in Lisbon appear in 1444, in Évora in 1466, in Almada in 1468, in Setúbal in 1475, in Vale de Zebro in 1489, in Santarém in 1461, and in Muge in 152864. In 1550, approximately 10% of Lisbon’s population was Black, which in the 17th and 18th centuries may have reached 15%65. In 1535, one foreign observer visiting Évora stated that «in all places one could find black people»66.

• 67 SAUNDERS, Alastair Corston de Custance M., op. cit., pp. 50-61.

19There is much evidence of a strong presence of enslaved and freed Black people on the Sado and the Tagus from the 15th century. In the 16th century, the proportion of baptisms of enslaved people in the regions that encompass the basins of the lower Sado and Tagus ranged from 5.8% to 7.8%. In 1570, the vicar of Santa Maria do Castelo in Alcácer do Sal, Sado, was called upon several times to marry «slaves» and «freedmen»67.

• 68 NETO, Maria Cristina, «A escravatura em S. Romão do Sado», in Memórias do Instituto de Malariologia (...)
• 69 NETO, Maria Cristina, Escravos em São Romão do Sado após a lei abolicionista de Pombal, in Congress (...)

20Between 1665 and 1761, 46 boys and 60 girls were baptised whilst slaves in São Romão. Around the same period, there are references to 12 slave owners (owning 23 slaves) in this village on the Sado floodplains. Two of them were farmers (lavradores) and one was a priest. By the first half of the 18th century, there were 48 slave owners (seven women among them) including nine farmers, one foreman (feitor), two captains and two priests. The total number of enslaved people was 117: 49 children, 52 women and 16 men68. Finally, two slave owners were reported in Casa Branca and Porto Rei (São Romão) in 1801-1804, several decades after the first abolition laws in Portugal (1761 and 1773)69.

• 70 It is not easy to know the number of free Black people, since the estimates are based mainly on rec (...)
• 71 FONSECA, Jorge, Religião e liberdade, cit., pp. 7-132.
• 72 Santa Maria do Castelo (Alcácer, with brotherhood), Vale de Guizo (brotherhood), Montevil, Palma (b (...)
• 73 FONSECA, Jorge, Religião e liberdade, cit., pp. 23-63.
• 74 Ibidem, pp. 38-59; REGINALDO, Lucilene, op. cit., pp. 289-319.
• 75 FONSECA, Jorge, Religião e liberdade, cit., p. 39.

21As early as the late 15th century, Black Catholic brotherhoods were being formed in Portugal, playing an important role in protecting and purchasing the freedom of their enslaved brothers, occasionally against the will of the owners70. Most of these brotherhoods worshiped Nossa Senhora do Rosário, or Our Lady of the Rosary71. The Memórias Paroquiais (parish surveys conducted across the country) of 1758 show that all of the parishes of Alcácer do Sal, in addition to all the parishes along the river Sado and its tributaries between Alcácer and the village of Alvalade, 80 km upstream, worshiped Our Lady of the Rosary at a shrine in the parish church. Six of these ten parishes also had a brotherhood dedicated to that sect72. We cannot assert that all the brothers of the Rosary were Black or pardo (in reference to mixed black/white ancestry), but the coincidence was high in the southern country73. Indeed, there are a remarkable number of references to brotherhoods of Black Men (Homens Pretos) in the Sado region between the 16th and 18th centuries. There were at least three in the city of Setúbal and four in Alcácer do Sal (in the town and in parishes of Palma, Santa Susana, and S. Martinho), though nowhere else in the rest of the country, apart from Lisbon and Porto. In 1552, the brotherhood of Alcácer had 827 confreres. Four more appeared in the area of Sado: Marateca (1661), Torrão (1594-1604), Messejana (1652-1722-1747), and Garvão (1766), the last two in the Upper Sado74. In Santa Susana, the brotherhood was created at a later date, in 1796. With regard to the Tagus villages, three brotherhoods were identified in Samora Correia, Benavente and Muge75.

• 76 SAUNDERS, Alastair Corston de Custance M., op. cit., p. 7.
• 77 Ibidem, pp. 21-25, 33.
• 78 LAHON, Didier, «O escravo africano», cit., p. 77. The archives of the Casa da Índia, where the ensl (...)
• 79 DAVIDSON, Joanna, Sacred Rice: An Ethnography of Identity, Environment, and Development in Rural We (...)
• 80 LAHON, Didier, «O escravo africano», cit., pp. 74-77.
• 81 SWEET, James H., op. cit., pp. 89-91.
• 82 NETO, Maria Cristina, «A escravatura em S. Romão», cit., p. 67.

22To uncover the role of these displaced populations in the development of swamp rice cultivation, the connections between their origins, destinations and labour must be attended. Many enslaved people arriving in Portugal were from Upper Guinea coastal areas, where mangrove rice farming had already been developed. During the 15th-16th centuries, slavers preferred people from the Senegambia, a region encompassing modern Senegal, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau76. In the first half of the 16th century, around 2,000 enslaved people arrived in Lisbon from this region yearly, although many were subsequently transported out of the country again77. In the last years of the slave trade to Portugal from 1756-1763, records by the Casa da Índia in Lisbon indicate that 267 slaves (27% of the total) were brought from Cacheu78, a port in modern Guinea-Bissau, which is historically connected to both mangrove rice farming79 and the slave trade80. In addition, three unsuccessful boat escapes from Setúbal and Lisbon resulted in the incrimination of five Wolof slaves from Senegambia in the 1554-1565 period81. In São Romão in Sado, the baptism books from 1665 to 1761 list the origins of only three women, all mothers: Lisbon, Wolof and Angola82.

• 83 SAUNDERS, Alastair Corston de Custance M., op. cit., p. 62.
• 84 FONSECA, Jorge, Escravos no Sul de Portugal, cit., pp. 37, 77-81; CALDEIRA, Arlindo Manuel, Escravo (...)
• 85 TINHORÃO, José Ramos, op. cit., p. 96.
• 86 SAUNDERS, Alastair Corston de Custance M., op. cit., p. 28.

23Furthermore, enslaved people from these regions were considered important for extending the workforce in the fields and on the waterways83. Having arrived in Portugal, they were driven, among other tasks, into farming and husbandry in rural areas, particularly after 147084. According to José Tinhorão85, enslaved labour was established in rural areas from the mid-15th until the late-17th centuries, and declined during the 18th century. For the particular context of coastal and riverine agricultural work, people coming from the Guinea Coast were regarded as important to «clear land and drain marshes» by the Courts of 1472-73, which petitioned for an export ban on enslaved people arriving from this region. The king refused, but ordered that all enslaved people from Guinea would come to Portugal before being shipped abroad again86.

• 87 NETO, Maria Cristina, «A escravatura em S. Romão», cit., p. 65.

24Finally, toponymy is another resource that highlights the continuity of Black people’s presence, particularly in areas located by the marshes. On the northern banks of the Sado estuary, not far from Setúbal, Vila do Negro (Black Man’s Village) is marked on an agricultural map from the late 19th century (Figure 2). The village is surrounded by salt pans and juxtaposed rice fields that extend up the Marateca stream. Less than two kilometers away is Quinta da Gâmbia (Gambia Farm), also on the estuary margins, which retains this toponymy nowadays. Elsewhere in lower Sado, we found places called Mulatos, Sesmaria dos Pretos (Black People’s Sesmarias), and Fonte dos Negros87 (Black People’s Fountain). By the Tagus estuary, in Santa Iria de Azoia, close to the riverside, there is the Neighbourhood of the Captive (Bairro do Cativo).

• 88 RICHARDS, Paul, Culture and community in the selection and maintenance of African rice, in BRUSH, S (...)
• 89 ZURARA, Gomes Eanes, Chronica do descobrimento e conquista de Guiné, Paris, Off. Typographica de Fa (...)
• 90 LUZ, Ana Luísa, DABO, Ansomane, SOUSA, Joana, DABO, Sene, ZAUAD, Zaino, Maboan: Notas sobre a const (...)

26The existence of these technologies was well documented in relation to West African estuaries and coastal rivers88, where mangrove rice cultivation was mentioned in the first European descriptions of the region89. Rice cultivation in these environments is distinct from that adopted in upland and freshwater farming. Therefore, a set of techniques specific to the brackish waters of the marshlands would have either been imported or newly developed in Portugal. Nowadays, in Guinea-Bissau, the conversion of mangroves into rice fields usually demands the construction of a main dam and several drainage canals to the estuary that allow the selective blocking of seawater, the drainage of freshwater and the initial desalination processes. Inner ditches and dams are relevant to adjust the distribution of water and ensure an effective drainage of water excess. Still, particular features of coastal and riverine landscapes demand for site-specific technological arrangements for adjusting the water level, ensuring soil fertility, and weed management, among other measures. This implies that local expert farmers are consulted in different villages to find the most adequate techniques that are able to respond to different coastal features, challenging weather conditions and stronger tides90.

• 91 CABRAL, Estevão, Memoria sobre os damnos causados pelo Téjo nas suas ribanceiras and Sobre o Paul d (...)
• 92 d’AZEVEDO, Pedro A., op. cit., pp. 371-380.
• 93 CABRAL, Estevão, Memoria sobre os damnos causados pelo Téjo nas suas ribanceiras and Sobre o Paul d (...)

28The documentation suggests a first period of cultivation in freshwater marshes (the pauis) close to the Tagus, which were drained with ditches for the cultivation of cereals, including rice. At some point, the lower lands of these marshes, regularly flooded by the Tagus tides, were also cultivated after the construction of dikes and floodgates, which allowed freshwater to drain while blocking the rise of the salty river. The Ota, Asseca and Muge marshes seem to have been subject to several investment and innovation cycles interspersed by abandonment91. In 1562, a wetland in the marsh of Muge was rented after being abandoned for about 20 years. The drainage system was ruined, and the land served as a refuge for wild boar and deer that were damaging the neighbouring floodplain crops92. An 18th century engineer (in 1790), reports the degradation of the hydraulic infrastructure of Ota and Asseca, convincingly underlining its age. He describes that «Ota was closed with a cataracta, or sluice [...] acting against the flux of the tides. This sluice, called an Adufa, still exists, is 19 palms wide, and of a moderate thickness». The sluice underwent numerous transformations until the 1790 version, in which the work of servants is unnecessary, as it offers drainage to the interior water and would close on its own at the first effects of the high tides, in a way that «the ditches do not receive any other water except that coming from above»93.

• 94 CORVO, João de Andrade, op. cit., p. 136.
• 95 COUTINHO, Maria Teresa, Comunidade fitoplanctônica do estuário do Sado. Estrutura, dinâmica e aspec (...)
• 96 CORVO, João de Andrade, op. cit., p. 136.
• 97 Ibidem, p. 255.
• 98 Ibidem, p. 260.

29In any case, between these innovations, which «defended» agricultural soils in freshwater retention basins from «enemy tides», and cultivation in the estuarine marshlands covered in mud and halophyte plants, there are considerable differences. In the second half of the 18th century, rice was already cultivated on the south bank of the Sado estuary: Casas Novas (1756), Montalvo (1786), and Torrinha (1788)94. And it is possible that rice cultivation in the early 1700s on the Palma and Vale de Guizo streams, both in areas still under the influence of saline tides95, represents early innovation96. However, little is known about how and when rice spread to the salt swamps. «Most of the lands that are today [1860] rice paddies were marshes of mixed salt- and freshwater from the river, or of freshwater from springs and rains only»97. In 1860, our physician from Alcácer explained that the estuary rice fields were «stolen from the tides» through an extensive network of earth dikes (marachões, muros, and cômoros) that intersect salt water. These lands were then levelled on a regular surface, and as they are below the level of the high tide, the soil needs to be permanently «sweetened» with freshwater to counteract the entry of salt98.

• 99 ANTT, ref. PT/TT/CSRN/C-A/3/241 (docs. 2-85).

30The description of the rice cultivation system in Comporta (1808-1812) sheds some light on how the cultivation of rice in drained pauis would have advanced into the sapal. It also shows a technological link between the Tagus and the Sado. In 1812 major works began at the paul of Comporta, which flows into the Sado estuary. The goal was to rehabilitate the system of ditches and floodgates and recover the «old» and profitable rice culture. The farm was neglected after 1808, the ditches were clogged, the floodgates damaged and the soil flooded all year with «rotten» water. Furthermore, the drainage system had not been well planned («it has an error») because the floodgates were «higher than the bottom of the ditches». Therefore, masonry pipes were to be placed three palms below each floodgate to ensure full soil drainage. As soon as the work was finished and the first rice income obtained, the plan was to proceed to the salt marsh that was attached to the paul, «putting freshwater in it» and thus obtaining another ¾ of a league of crops and pastures. José António, who led the works, was called due to his experience in Muge, where he managed the floodplains of the former foreman of Comporta, which seems to suggest that the circulation of knowledge about swamp rice plantations was not very common99.

• 100 CORVO, João de Andrade, op. cit., pp. 11-60, 136, 221-324. This report shows a gradual increase in (...)

32Between 1750 and 1850 there was a clear expansion of rice crops throughout the country, including in the regions north of the Tagus (e.g. the rivers Lis and Mondego, and the Aveiro estuary). In Alcácer do Sal, in addition to the five locations where rice appears in the 1700s, many others were reported in the first half of the 1800s: in the 1800s-1810s rice crops appeared in 18 places, in the 1820s in 1, in the 1830s in 4, in the 1840s in 25, and in the 1850s in 6100. In the mid-19th century, rice was cultivated all along the Sado.

• 101 CAPELA, José Viriato, MATOS, Henrique, CASTRO, Sandra (eds.), op. cit., p. 593.
• 102 QUINTELA, António Carvalho, MASCARENHAS, José Manuel, CARDOSO, João Luís, ÁLVARES, Maria Teresa, PI (...)
• 103 TELLES, Vicente Seabra Silva, Memoria sobre a cultura do arros em Portugal. Lisboa, Casa Litteraria (...)
• 104 Cited by SILVA, Manuel Vianna e, op. cit., p. 9.
• 105 CORVO, João de Andrade, op. cit., pp. 123, 128-131.

33In 1758 rice was grown in Palma, in a stream that flows into the estuary near Alcácer101. Next to Vale de Guizo, there is a mill built in around 1780, adapted to rice husking102. These locations seem to represent the two centers of rice's origins on the Sado. In 1800, rice cultivation was controversial enough to justify a scientific Memória (essay) about the relationship between rice paddies and malaria in Portugal103. Félix Brotero wrote in the Flora Lusitanica of 1804 that rice was grown near Montemor-o-Velho (lowlands of the Mondego River) and south of the Tagus in Sines, Grândola, Comporta, and other unidentified locations (et alibi)104. By Sines and Grândola, he probably refers to the coastal lagoons of Santo André and Melides (where in 1860 rice is said to have begun in 1810) or to the inner parishes of Grândola that border the river Sado (in 1850s all of the coastal or riverside parishes of Grândola grew rice)105.

• 106 Series of royal decrees and public notices: Decree of July 1, 1761, Alvará of October 8, 1766, Decr (...)
• 107 Notice of June 20, 1817, Decree of May 2, 1815, Notice of January 26, 1824.
• 108 HAWTHORNE, Walter, From Africa to Brazil, cit., p. 148.

34This development apparently took place as a side effect of the policies designed to foster Brazilian production, which lasted from 1756 to at least 1826. For about 70 years, rice from Brazil was exempt from customs duties, and a «prohibition» on «foreign rice» (mainly rice from South Carolina carried by English merchants) was added in 1781106. In 1816, the customs mechanism drafted from 1781 was enshrined in law: foreign rice (or carried by ships without the Portuguese flag) could not enter Portugal unless Brazilian rice (and therefore also the rice produced in Portugal) reached the price of 4,800 reais per quintal in Lisbon. When this value was reached, foreign rice could be landed, incurring the respective customs fees107. In 1772, Lisbon officials from the Company of Grão Pará and Maranhão said that the Portuguese consume more than 8,000 tons of rice each year108.

• 109 VASCONCELOS, José Leite de, «Excursão archeologica a Alcacer-do-Sal», in O Archeologo Português, 1, (...)
• 110 ALMEIDA, Manuel Gaio, Mulatos no Concelho de Alcácer. Subsídios para a definição étnica das gentes (...)
• 111 MATOS, Maria Joaquina Caeiro, As décimas da Ribeira do Sado. Processo aculturativo de uma forma poé (...)
• 112 CALDAS, Eugénio Castro, op. cit., p. 238.

35At the end of the 19th century, a known ethnographer visits the Sado region and writes about the afro-descendants living there. According to him, «It seems that it was the Marquis of Pombal who tried to acclimatize this race in the malarial lands of Sado»109. This story of a second wave of African migrants to the Sado region, and their supposed greater resistance to malaria, has persisted ever since, and always without historical sources110. Perhaps the ethnographer was recording an older oral tradition that seems to linger in the region111. Historical fact or not (the Pombaline archives are silent about it), it is a powerful image (a 20th century agronomist details that Pombal promoted «an experimenting colonization, with Black people in Santa Margarida do Sado village»112) that seems to derive from concrete developments in the second half of the 18th century.

• 113 LAHON, Didier, «O escravo africano na vida económica», cit., pp. 73-100; LAHON, Didier, «Eles vão, (...)
• 114 LAHON, Didier, «O escravo africano na vida económica», cit., pp. 95-97.

36Firstly, labour shortage became a major concern after the first abolitionist laws were introduced (1761, 1773)113. According to Pina Manique, Secretary General of the Police, three thousand families arrived from the Azores islands from 1777 and were divided among the counties of the Alentejo. In 1797, Manique forbade the sale of enslaved people outside of Portugal, due to the «lack of manpower» in agriculture and in Lisbon. Only «Galicians» were employed, but were «in short supply and I do not know how to make up the workforce». In Sado, near Setúbal, a Black Catholic brotherhood sought to use the law of 1773 (in a court case dating 1777-1781) to free a dozen, third generation slaves, but the claim was rejected because «in the Alentejo, slaves [...] are necessary for the cultivation of land»114.

• 115 BARCELLOS, José de Sena, Subsídios para a História da Guiné e Cabo-Verde. Parte III, Lisboa, Academ (...)
• 116 CORVO, João de Andrade, op. cit., p. 257.
• 117 FONSECA, Jorge, Religião e liberdade, cit., p. 41.

37Meanwhile, the people of the wetlands were thought to have evolved to be better adapted to climates considered otherwise unhealthy. In 1778, the Overseas Council proposed that outlaws and couples «living idle» in the kingdom should be sent to Cape Verde to repopulate it, in return for land, seeds, and farming tools. These people, «should be from among the natives of Villa de Moura, Gollegã [in the Tagus], Ribeira do Sado, Comporta and other lands with a climate similar to that of these islands»115. The Alcácer physician (1860) seems to confirm this connection when voicing, in reference to the endemism of malaria, that «tradition has given this land the name the African Coast»116. Finally, in the 18th century, a brotherhood of Blacks in Setúbal venerated Saint Benedito of Palermo, whose image as a Black saint was highly revered by the women of Setúbal who brought him countless offers, trusting in his power against the evil fevers117.

• 118 CORVO, João de Andrade, op. cit., p. 491.
• 119 LAHON, Didier, «O escravo africano na vida económica», cit., p. 96; The Count of Óbidos reports to (...)
• 120 SAAVEDRA, Mónica, «Malária, mosquitos e ruralidade no Portugal do século XX», in Etnográfica. Revis (...)

38Across this network of events and popular beliefs, a medical, geographic, and economic discourse was developed about the greater resistance of Black people to malaria, which was well established by 1860: «the work on rice fields in America is carried out by the Black race, which, according to the numerous statistics of the auxiliary troops of the English army, is very little subject to malarial fevers»118. With the ban on the entry of new slaves into Portugal (1761) and the progressive reduction of this labour force (reinforced in 1773), the proletarianization of the free Black people through scientific racialization takes shape. According to Lahon, there was a significant entry of free Africans into Portugal in the first decades of the 19th century to fill the roles formerly undertaken by enslaved people119. The links between rice production, medical development, labour regimentation, and social division were well established by Mónica Saavedra from the late 19th century onward120, which seems to have a direct precedent in the late 18th century shortage of enslaved workers.

• 121 VICENTE, Isabel Cristina, CARVALHO, António Rafael, O Cancioneiro do Sado: Cantigas de raiz popular (...)

39The folksongs of Alcácer do Sal, transcribed at the onset of the 20th century, are implicit oral memories of the realities mentioned above. In the words of their contemporary editors, they «were sung by our grandparents in daily activities and during their work in the fields»121: