Everyone laughed when a farmer paid only seven cents for a woman nearly two meters tall, considered useless by the other buyers. It was said that no job suited her, that her strength was misused, and that she would only cause losses.
But Joaquim Lacerda didn't see it like the others. Where the buyers saw a problem, he seemed to see something different: a brute force, still aimless, but capable of becoming a weapon.
This woman's name was Benedita. And this sale, which was destined to be yet another humiliation, would change her fate.
Slave market in Vassouras, 1857.
The scene takes place in February 1857, in the central square of Vassouras, in the interior of Rio de Janeiro. The Paraíba Valley then lived to the rhythm of coffee, dust, heat, and the violence of a system based on slavery.
That morning, men, women, and children were displayed on a wooden platform, treated like cattle under the gaze of the buyers. The auctioneer, a burly man with a curly mustache and a high-pitched voice, announced each lot with the energy of a merchant confident in his merchandise.
When it was Benedita's turn, there was silence. Not out of admiration, but out of unease.
He was about 1.95 meters tall, maybe taller. He had broad shoulders, enormous hands, and his bare feet left deep imprints on the wooden platform. His tattered garment of raw cotton barely covered his angular body, marked by hunger, forced labor, and scars.
His black hair was shaved completely bald. His dark eyes didn't rest on anyone. They seemed to stare fixedly at an invisible horizon, as if he were already somewhere else.
