Gaspar, Dona Florinda Josefa

Dona Florinda Josefa Gaspar (c. 1791–1862) was a prosperous trader born in Benguela, Angola in the late eighteenth century. The daughter of a local ruler, a soba, she married a Brazilian-born exile. As commercial partners they engaged in long-distance trade connecting different markets, selling cattle, salt, and enslaved people. Like other merchant women along the Atlantic coast, Dona Florinda Josefa Gaspar relied on her family connections to guarantee business benefits. This increased her visibility in historical documents. The couple controlled many dependents and land plots in Benguela. When her husband relocated to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in the 1830s, Dona Gaspar joined him. In Rio de Janeiro, they settled in the Valongo neighborhood, a prime location for the arrival and sale of enslaved Africans. Dona Gaspar traveled back and forth between Rio de Janeiro and Benguela in the following years, probably for business and to maintain contact with her sons, who remained in Benguela to represent the interests of the family. She died in Rio de Janeiro in 1862, a prosperous immigrant who owned real estate, enslaved people, and luxury goods. Her life is an example of the presence of free African women who crossed the Atlantic World during the height of the transatlantic slave trade.