This lecture examines a rare bilingual Portuguese–African vocabulary preserved in the case file of the Santa Jago, a Brazilian slave ship seized by the British Navy in 1829 and tried at the Court of Mixed Commission in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Marcos Leitão de Almeida argues that the “African language” recorded in this manuscript is Mpongwe, spoken on the Gabonese coast, an identification that complicates prevailing assumptions about the linguistic geography of the Bahia–West Africa slave trade.

The presence of Mpongwe on a Bahia-centered slaving route raises fundamental questions about the circulation of African knowledge in the Atlantic world. Was Mpongwe spoken by captives, sailors, or interpreters on board, or does the vocabulary reflect earlier voyages along the Gabonese coast? While definitive answers remain elusive, the document opens a window onto African intellectual history under conditions of extreme inequality.

About the speaker

Marcos Leitão de Almeida is a Professor of African History at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. He is a historian of Africa specializing in the long history of slavery in Central Africa, with a focus on the Lower Congo. His research examines how Bantu-speaking societies constructed and transformed practices of slavery over three millennia, using interdisciplinary methods that combine historical linguistics, archaeology, and documentary analysis to trace key social and political categories in Central Africa.He has held postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard University, the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and UNICAMP. He earned his PhD at Northwestern University in 2020, where his dissertation received the Harold Perkin Prize, with funding from institutions including the SSRC, ACLS, and the Society of Presidential Fellows. He has published in leading journals such as the Journal of African History, Oxford Encyclopedias, and Azania, and currently serves as a consulting editor for the Journal of African History.

Practical Information

4 March 2026 - 5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

UAntwerp City Campus - R Building, Room R.004, Rodestraat 14, 2000 Antwerp

Participation is free of charge. You can register using the button below.

Language: English

In collaboration with PoHis and CUH and with the support of: Global Minds Fund