Valongo Wharf

Frederico Aversa Masson
Oct 31, 2024
6 min read

Updated: Nov 4, 2024

The Valongo Wharf (Cais do Valongo in Portuguese) is an archaeological site located in the Port Region of Rio de Janeiro. Rediscovered in 2011 during the construction of the Porto Maravilha (a revitalizaton project for the Port Region), it served as the entry point to Brazil and the Americas for around one million enslaved Africans in the 18th and 19th centuries. Since July 9, 2017, it has been an UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognized as the last physical remnant of a point of arrival for slaves in the Americas.

Until the 1770s — before the Valongo Wharf was established — enslaved Africans arrived at the Praça do Peixe (now Praça XV) and the Rua Direita (now Rua Primeiro de Março) in Downtown served as an auction site. The fact that the auctions took place in plain sight engendered discomfort. By a decree from the viceroy of Brazil, Dom Luís de Almeida, in 1774, the auction site was transferred to the then-isolated Valongo area in the Port Region. Dom Luís was particulary bothered by the way auctions were conducted then, describing them as "the terrible habit of Blacks arriving in the city, through public roads, naked and carrying diseases."

The Valongo Wharf was established in the Valongo area along the shores of the Saúde neighborhood and was designed to accomodate the small boats that brought the slaves from the customhouse (located near Rua Direita). After months of crossing the Atlantic in degrading conditions — where many fell severely sick or died and had their bodies thrown into the ocean — the enslaved Africans arrived first in Rio's customhouse and then underwent a period of quarantine on the Enxada and Bom Jesus islands in the Guanabara Bay. That was until 1811; due to the unceasing increase in the slave trade, the traders argued that quarantining enslaved people on islands was unpractical and costy, leading to the construction of the Gamboa lazaretto in the Saúde neighborhood (in the surroundings of Valongo). Thus, from 1811 onward, slaves arrived at the customhouse and were immediately taken to Valongo, where they would undergo a period of quarantine before being sold at the auction site.

With the arrival of the Royal Family of Portugal in 1808 and the transfer of the capital of the Portuguese Empire from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro following the Napoleonic Wars, Rio de Janeiro's population increased exponentially, from 15,000 to 30,000 people — and so did the slave trade. It is estimated that, from 1811 to 1831, one million enslaved Africans passed through the Valongo Wharf. The wharf was not only an entry point to Rio de Janeiro but also to all Brazil, as many enslaved people purchased there were sent to São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and other interior regions. Moreover, it served as a port of call to many slave ships travelling to other parts of South America, making it the most fundamental place for the slave trade in the Americas and holding a poignant role in this tragic part of the continent's history.

Behind these staggering numbers lies an even more shocking aspect of the Valongo Wharf: much more than an auction site, it was a vast and complex slavery hub. As the epicenter of slave trade in the Americas, the Valongo region housed slave shops (where enslaved Africans were displayed to potential buyers), the Cemitério dos Pretos Novos (a cemetery for enslaved people who died during the transatlantic travel or shortly after arriving in Rio), a lazaretto (the Gamboa lazaretto), and the Saúde Church (where newly arrived slaves were converted to Catholicism).

Following British pressure, the transatlantic slave trade was banned in 1831, and the Valongo Wharf was closed. However, the ban was not effective, and hundreds of thousands of enslaved people were still trafficked ilegally into Brazil — even without Valongo, as they entered through illegal wharves. The prohibition was only effectively enforced in 1850 with the Eusébio de Queirós Law, leading to a drastic reduction in the international slave trade in Brazil — but not to slavery as a whole, which would only be definitively abolished in 1888, with the Golden Law. Twelve years after its closure, in 1843, the Valongo Wharf was landfilled by order of Emperor D. Pedro II, and a new wharf was built to welcome his proxy wife, Empress Teresa Cristina (who was coming from Naples to marry him in an arranged marriage), named Empress' Wharf (Cais da Imperatriz in Portuguese).

After the wharf's closure in 1831, many freed and escaped slaves (who formed the Pedra do Sal and Santo Cristos quilombos — communities of escaped slaves) settled in the Valongo region, which became known as Little Africa due to its strong Afro-Brazilian presence. It became a place of resistence, where African cultures, religions, and traditions were preserved and passed down to younger generations amidst the oppression faced by the Black population in Brazil during and after slavery. Alongside religious and cultural activities, commerce and entertainment thrived in the community, which is regarded as the birthplace of African religious worship in Rio and of samba.

During the Reforma Pereira Passos (an urban renewal project conducted by Mayor Pereira Passos in the 1900s), the Empress' Wharf was landfilled in 1904 — completely disappearing — and the Valongo region was renovated, losing its physical connection to the Guanabara Bay. Among the revitalization works undertaken by the Municipality, the most notable were the Comércio Square (Praça do Comércio in Portuguese, named after the Jornal do Commercio newspaper) and the Hanging Garden of Valongo (Jardim Suspenso do Valongo in Portuguese), a French-inspired garden project for late afternoon walks of Rio's high society, designed by landscaper Luís Rey, featuring statues of the Greek gods Minerva, Demeter, Ares, and Hermes. With the revitalization project, the region was gentrified, and by 1920, Little Africa was dismantled.

Due to excavations during the Porto Maravilha project, the Valongo Wharf was rediscovered in 2011. Preservation, restoration, and archeological and historical research efforts began quickly thereafter, as many amulets and religious objects from Congo, Angola, and Mozambique were unearthed alongiside the remains of the wharf. The Valongo Wharf began to be protected by the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (IPHAN) in 2012 and became a Rio de Janeiro's Historic Site in 2013, achieving UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 2017.

Nowadays, the Valongo Wharf is part of Rio de Janeiro's Historical and Archaelogical Circuit of Celebration of African Heritage, which extends through the Little Africa area. This circuit includes the Hanging Garden of Valongo, Pedra do Sal (once a quilombo, it is widely known for its samba circles, preserving the memory and cultural significance of the music), Largo do Depósito (a square with warehouses owned by slave traders that functioned as slave shops), the José Bonifácio Cultural Center (a mansion inaugurated in 1877 by Emperor D. Pedro II and named after the Patriarch of Independence, José Bonfiácio, where the first Brazilian public school operated until 1966 and, since 1986, has served as a cultural center for Afro-Brazilian culture and memory, having been renovated and reinaugurated in 2013 under Mayor Eduardo Paes), and Cemitério dos Pretos Novos. Together, these sites commemorate and celebrate significant landmarks of the resistance, culture, and heritage of Afro-Brazilian communities in Rio de Janeiro's Port Region.