The investigation was conducted with support from the Pulitzer Center
Former presidents of Brazil, senators of the Republic, and governors of Brazilian states. All these important positions have something in common: they have been and are held by people who descend from men and women who allegedly had connections to enslaved individuals in the country.
This is the main conclusion of the “Projeto Escravizadores” (Enslavers Project), an unprecedented investigation by Agência Pública that mapped the ancestors of over one hundred Brazilian authorities from the Executive and Legislative branches to determine whether there were cases of the use of enslaved labor. The project was funded by the Pulitzer Center.
The mapping revealed that, out of 116 individuals investigated, at least 33 had ancestors who were involved with enslaved people. Many of these politicians are either unaware of their ancestors or have little connection to their lineage.
See below who these people and their family members are by clicking on the images.
Among the eight presidents of the Republic since the end of the 1964 dictatorship, half are on this list: José Sarney, Fernando Collor, Itamar Franco, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
Out of 81 senators, 16, or one-fifth, also fall into this category. They are: Augusta Brito (PT-CE), Carlos Portinho (PL-RJ), Carlos Viana (Podemos-MG), Cid Ferreira Gomes (PSB-CE), Ciro Nogueira (PP-PI), Efraim Filho (União-PB), Fernando Dueire (MDB-PE), Jader Barbalho (MDB-PA), Jayme Campos (União-MT), Luis Carlos Heinze (PP-RS), Marcos do Val (Podemos-ES), Marcos Pontes (PL-SP), Rogério Marinho (PL-RN), Soraya Thronicke (Podemos-MS), Tereza Cristina (PP-MS), and Veneziano Vital do Rêgo (MDB-PP).
Among the 27 governors, nearly half, 13, were included in the investigation: Carlos Brandão Júnior (PSB-MA), Cláudio Castro (PL-RJ), Eduardo Riedel (PSDB-MS), Fátima Bezerra (PT-RN), Gladson Camelli (PP-AC), Helder Barbalho (MDB-PA), João Azevêdo (PSB-PB), Jorginho Mello (PL-SC), Rafael Fonteles (PT-PI), Raquel Lyra (PSDB-PE), Romeu Zema (Novo-MG), Ronaldo Caiado (União-GO), and Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicanos-SP).
Enslaved individuals in plantations, homes, and commerce
The ancestors of Brazilian authorities had various connections to slavery. For example, the great-great-grandfather of former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Colonel José Manoel da Silva e Oliveira, was born around 1771 in Minas Gerais. The military officer played a significant role in overseeing gold exploration in the former captaincies of Minas and Goiás. According to historical records, during one of his ventures to locate new mining sites, he reportedly used enslaved individuals who tragically died along the way due to disease.
The investigation uncovered numerous cases of ancestors of current politicians who reportedly used enslaved people on farms, in sugarcane planting and harvesting, cotton production, and tobacco plantations in the Recôncavo Baiano region.
There are also records of enslaved individuals living in the homes of their owners, caring for the elderly, as mentioned in wills, as well as those who traveled with their enslavers. Records of the purchase, sale, and even rental of enslaved individuals were also found.
“It wasn’t just large landowners who had enslaved people, but also merchants and people with small properties. Often, these properties were only for personal consumption or, at most, local sale – not necessarily for export. These individuals would have one or two enslaved people working there,” explains historian and social educator Joana Rezende.
“Many people owned enslaved individuals whom they, for instance, rented out to others or to other properties. There were various ways of, let’s say, utilizing enslaved people – not just in plantations, not just in farming,” she adds.
How the Investigation Was Conducted
To reach these conclusions, Agência Pública developed an investigative methodology in collaboration with genealogy researchers from the Núcleo de Estudos Paranaenses at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), coordinated by sociologist and professor Ricardo Oliveira. According to Oliveira, these power and kinship structures are a genealogical phenomenon, as “inheritances, income, wealth, and education are passed down, and these factors are crucial for understanding the status quo.”
He points out that wealthy families in the 21st century largely stem from the same affluent family groups of the 20th century – a structure that originated through marriages and alliances during the imperial and colonial periods. “This results in a core continuity of the dominant social class,” he concludes.
In examining the period of slavery and the traditional ruling class, Oliveira notes that the presence of people with enslaving ancestors in positions of power is linked to an agrarian structure. This structure was built around large landowners who emerged from the distribution of the first sesmarias (land grants). To investigate these connections, genealogy relies on documents from the republican period (civil, marriage, birth, and death records) and, before that, on 19th-century church records, such as baptism and marriage registries.
From this foundation, the investigation analyzed approximately 500 documents, including parish and notary records, old newspapers from archives and libraries, public records, and academic studies from various Brazilian universities. In total, over 200 familial relationships were documented.
All 33 politicians whose ancestors were found to have connections to slavery were contacted by Agência Pública. They were given the opportunity to review the genealogical research and documents presented and respond to the report.
The complete methodology can be read here.
It is important to highlight that other politicians who were not part of the group of 33 may also have had family members connected to slavery. The lack of documents and difficulties in accessing historical records make it impossible to accurately trace all slaveholding relationships in the genealogies of these authorities.
The investigation is inspired by similar initiatives conducted in the United States by Reuters, which revealed that over 110 members of the American political elite are descendants of enslavers, and in the United Kingdom by The Guardian, whose board funded research into the connections between the newspaper’s founder, its financiers, and the transatlantic slave trade.
The “Projeto Escravizadores” aims to continue exploring these connections. Our goal is to further investigate the judiciary and other authorities in the executive and legislative branches, such as deputies.
The Brazilian State’s Debt for Slavery
Slavery was integral to the colonization of Brazil from the very beginning of its economic activities, generating wealth first for the Portuguese and later for Brazilian-born enslavers. As Danilo Marques, a historian with a doctorate and professor at the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL), points out, there are records of enslaved people being trafficked during the first century of Brazil’s colonization, as well as stories of their resistance.
“We have records of the first slave ships dating back to the 1550s, coinciding with the establishment of sugar mills in the Northeast, which became the final destination for these enslaved Africans. Therefore, we also see the first accounts of quilombos [communities of escaped slaves] around 1570 in Bahia and a slave revolt in Porto Calvo [Alagoas] around 1590, which likely marked the beginning of the Palmares quilombo,” he explains.
Alain El Youssef, a historian and professor at the University of São Paulo (USP), emphasizes that slavery was not a practice invented during the imperialism of the Americas. However, it was here that it took on the characteristics of a commercial activity that not only drove the colonial economy but also became a source of profit for those who trafficked enslaved individuals.
“For example, there was slavery in Africa, just as there was slavery on many other continents and in many other societies. The difference is that this slavery was not commercial, as we commonly associate with the colonization of Brazil and later the 19th century, when Brazil was already an independent nation. In African societies, people were not enslaved for the purpose of selling them. What existed was slavery as a remnant or outcome of conflicts between two or more communities,” he explains.
For Valéria Gomes Costa, a historian and professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), slavery—and the way it was abolished without reparations or rights for the enslaved—has left a lasting debt to the descendants of those who were deprived of freedom. “The republican state has an immense and unpayable debt to the Black population. It made promises it never fulfilled: citizenship, decent housing, education, and healthcare,” she concludes.
Reparative Initiatives Begin to Take Shape in Brazil
Reparative initiatives holding the Brazilian state and government-linked institutions accountable are becoming a reality in Brazil. A recent example involves Banco do Brasil, whose financing connections to the trafficking of enslaved individuals were exposed last year by a group of researchers. This investigation has already led to the opening of a civil inquiry against the institution.
Historian Joana Rezende argues that reparations should include the preservation, research, and dissemination of records documenting slavery in Brazil. These efforts, she emphasizes, must be accompanied by critical reflections on how enslaved people were depicted.
“Most of the documents we have from this period are institutional – records from notaries, legal and legislative proceedings, and even newspapers. We’re talking about a time when enslaved people rarely had access to creating these documents or being represented as active subjects. Often, our understanding of the lives and experiences of enslaved people is mediated by a scribe, a politician, or another representative who did not necessarily recognize them as individuals – because they were not viewed that way,” she explains.
Rezende advocates that this effort to recover and critically reflect on the history of slavery should become a public policy of the Brazilian state. “It is the government’s responsibility – not only through the national archives, the preservation of records, and policies for recovering documentation – but also through promoting research with specific programs aimed at reclaiming this memory,” she asserts.
