Esperança Garcia: memórias e monumentalização na contemporaneidade (2017-2024)

Abstract

This article aims to analyze monuments and other traces of memory related to Esperança Garcia, an enslaved black woman who is recognized by the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) as the first female lawyer in Piauí (and later in Brazil). The temporal framework revolves around the contemporary period, seeking to analyze the tributes made between the years 2017 and 2024. The recognition was due to the letter she wrote denouncing the abuses suffered on the Algodões farm, written on September 6, 1770 and identified by historian Luiz Mott (2010). Esperança lived in a constant search for her freedom and that of her children and workmates, a fact that was the basis, a posteriori, for the creation, between the years 2017 and 2024, of a series of initiatives and monuments that celebrate her resistance and memory. In this sense, I will address throughout the sections how this monumentalization corroborates a type of memory in which Esperança Garcia is a symbol of the struggle for emancipation from slavery in Piauí in the colonial context. The article addresses the historical context of Portuguese America, in general, and the captaincy of Piauí, in particular, focusing on the role of Esperança Garcia in that colonial context; and as a woman-memory, remembered and incorporated into contemporary society through monumentalization practices. This research aimed to analyze the historical context in which Esperança Garcia lived, as well as to investigate the patrimonialized memories about Esperança Garcia; considering their meanings and the value of these places of memory for Piauí and Brazilian society.