Wandering Brazil XII: Valongo Wharf

Welcome back to my Brazilian travel journal! After a bumpy overnight bus ride from São Sebastião, we found ourselves in Rio de Janeiro hours before our check-in time, with nowhere to go. One shouldn’t really expect a restful night aboard Brazilian interstate buses (see the ultimate guide to getting around if interested). So, it was brunch and then… roaming the most suitable place for weary travelers from a different continent, aware of the rumored dangers lurking in every nook and shadow: the Valongo Wharf. A former dock that once received hundreds of thousands of souls to the continent.

Valongo Wharf Memorial

Except they didn’t really want to be there. Valongo Wharf used to be the largest slave market of its time, where around one million Africans were involuntarily landed between 1811 and 1850—only to be scrutinized, sorted, price-tagged, and sold. These were the luckier ones. Many didn’t survive the voyage, suffering from malnutrition and appalling conditions aboard overcrowded slave ships—the journey itself took over a month.

The slaves were not in a condition to be sold immediately, so slavers ran “Casas de Engorda” (Fattening Houses) to quickly treat anything that might catch the buyer’s eye and lower the price. “Fattened” slaves were then brought back to the wharf to have their teeth and limbs checked, made to display their physical fitness by jumping or running, and then auctioned. Those who were sold were branded and taken to inland cocoa or coffee plantations. The others had to undergo the same process again, sometimes multiple times, until they eventually found a new owner, often sold as part of a bundle at a discounted price.

The original Valongo Wharf was reconstructed after slavery was abolished. It was later covered with concrete, from which modern buildings arose, and the current coastline lies some 400 meters to the north/northeast. The remnants were excavated in 2011 and officially designated a World Heritage Site in 2017.

The excavated structures

The surrounding area continued to be inhabited by people of African descent even after Brazil abolished slavery in 1888 (as the last country in South America to do so). Today, the neighborhood still hosts the largest Afro-Samba gathering in Rio every week. That is quite something, considering Rio’s world-renowned party culture is not exaggerated. For context: Samba refers to any party with (live) music, not necessarily samba music.

If you find the colonial-style buildings somewhat neglected, they are not in much worse shape than those in other similar districts of Rio. Of course, there are modern skyscrapers, hotel complexes, and premium apartment buildings with concierge service and private security, but that’s a much more common sight elsewhere.

And since street art and murals are a huge thing in Brazil, the streets here reflect the history of Valongo Wharf in an artisty manner.

Mercedes Baptista, the first Black woman to join Brazil’s most prestigious ballet company and a proponent of Afro‑Brazilian culture, has a statue near the wharf. Locals often arrange to meet by her statue before heading to the weekly Samba I mentioned. Not the smartest move, the plaza gets crowded in no time, and you struggle to find your mates anyway.

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