Shared Atlantic legal culture: the case of a freedom suit in Benguela

Abstract

Through an examination of arguments used in an 1866 freedom suit initiated in Benguela, this article highlights the existence of a shared legal culture in the Lusophone Atlantic. Through in-depth analysis of this case, I show how common institutions of the ius commune acquired specific meanings in the pro-slavery jurisdictions of Benguela and Brazil. I specifically focus on how legal categories of property law shaped the judicial language of freedom in the Lusophone Atlantic. While drawing on other nineteenth-century freedom suits, legal doctrines, and secondary literature, this analysis of a Benguela suit sheds light upon the existence of a shared Atlantic legal culture and upon a re-signification of legal categories in colonial contexts.