When it comes to the history of Brazil, many people may think of football, samba or the Amazon rainforest, but in fact, in the 19th century, Brazil also had a particularly dark history: slavery. At that time, Brazil was one of the centers of the global slave trade, and 5.5 million Africans were trafficked here to do the hardest and most tiring work to support the coffee and sugar industries. In 1850, Brazil enacted the Slave Import Prohibition Act, which prevented the import of slaves from Africa, but the plantation owners did not want to give up, and they turned around and began to use the slaves they had at hand to reproduce offspring and continue to extract labor.
Pata Seca's buddy, probably born around 1828, is a bit controversial, some say it is Sorocaba from Brazil, others think he may have been trafficked from Angola. In any case, he grew up on a plantation as a child, and since he was a child, he did manual labor, cutting sugar cane and growing coffee, and those days were miserable. He was very tall, 2.18 meters tall when he reached adulthood, and he was also strong, which was a rarity at the time. The plantation owners saw that this guy was in such good physical condition, so he didn't have to use it in vain.
In 1850, when he was 22 years old, he was bought by a plantation owner named Francisco da Cunha Bueno. This guy didn't buy him to farm him, but because he liked his height and physical strength, and wanted to use him as a "stallion". At that time, slavery in Brazil was already in its late stages, and new slaves could not enter, so the plantation owners thought that the existing slaves would have more children, and the children would be able to continue to work when they grew up, which was equivalent to picking up labor for nothing. Pata Seka was chosen and began his breeding mission for more than 20 years.
He was confined to a simple wooden hut made of rough logs, with a hay-covered roof, a hardboard bed and a jug, surrounded by a high fence to prevent him from escaping. Every night, he is forced to mate with different slave girls, and his life is completely inhuman. His parents may have been descendants of African slaves, but there is no record of who they were, since the status of a slave at that time was a string of numbers, not even a name. He didn't have much education since he was a child, the only thing he knew was to work, and in life he was humiliated except for hard work.
By the 1850s, when he was bought, his life changed completely. The plantation owner used him as a tool and arranged for him to have contact with the slave girl every day, and the children born directly belonged to the plantation owner. He was physically strong and tall, but it became a nightmare for him. In those years, he had almost no freedom of his own, and was deprived of even the most basic dignity. In order to give him more children, the plantation owner even gave him medicine to force him to maintain "efficiency". In this way, he was squeezed dry step by step, and became one of the cruelest victims of slavery.
Pata Seka's breeding mission is arguably the most inhuman aspect of slavery. He was locked up in that shabby hut, and every night a different slave girl was sent in, and the task was to mate and have children. The environment of the wooden house is very poor, it is hot to death in the summer, and it is cold in the winter, and there is nothing in it, not even a decent mattress. The fence was so tightly fenced that he couldn't run at all, so he could only stay honest.
In order to let him have more children, the plantation owner also gave him some messy medicines, some of which were bitter liquids, and some of which were extracts from animals, and injected him directly. I don't know what these things are, anyway, they are just to let his body hold on, work as much as possible, and have more children. At that time, the slave girls were no better, they were forced to mate with Pata Seka, and within a few days of giving birth, they had to continue working in the fields, and there was no time to rest. As soon as the children were born, they became slaves, either sent to work in the fields or sold somewhere else, with no family at all.
It is said that Pata Sekka had almost 250 children, a number that makes the scalp tingle. Most of the 250 children he had never even met because they were taken away as soon as they were born. He didn't have much choice of his own, he was forced to do it every day, and he was tortured physically and mentally. Plantation owners don't care about this, they only have money in their eyes, and for the sake of economic interests, they use all kinds of indiscriminate means. The situation of those slave girls was not much better, and they had to continue working not long after giving birth, and many of them collapsed, and some did not even live for a few years.
This breeding mission lasted for 21 years, from 1850 to 1871, a full 21 years. In 1871, Brazil issued the "Free Womb Law", which stipulated that the children of slaves were born free, and the plantation owners saw that this method was no longer working, so they released him from the wooden house. At that time, he was in his 40s, and although his body was still strong, he had long been mentally tossed to the point that he could not look good. In the past 20 years, he has been completely used as a machine, and he has not even had any human rights.
After the Free Womb Act of 1871, Pata Seka's breeding mission was finally over, but he was still a slave and not free. It wasn't until 1888, when Brazil enacted the Gold Law, which completely abolished slavery, that he truly became a free man. He was 60 years old that year, and after decades of hard life, he was finally able to catch his breath.
After he was freed, he had no savings or skills, after all, he was locked in a plantation for the rest of his life. He married a woman named Palmyra, and the two lived together and had nine children. These 9 children are what he can really raise by himself, which is completely different from the previous 250. He made a living by planting some cassava and making some tin cups and other handicrafts, and although his life was hard, he finally had a bit of a human taste. He lived with Palmyra in a small village near Santa Eudocia, and slowly lived an ordinary life.
Pata Sekka lived a very long life, until 1958, when he was almost 130 years old. That age was a miracle at the time, especially considering what life he had had before. Although he was poor in his later years, he at least had a family and some dignity. In those years, he watched Brazil transform from a slave society into a modern state, which can be regarded as a witness to history.
His descendants are now scattered throughout Santa Eudosiah, and 30% of the local population is said to be related to him. His granddaughter later planned to donate the family's memories to the museum, hoping that more people would know about this history. In order to commemorate him, the locals also named a street after him, which can be regarded as a recognition of his suffering life. His story lives down not only as a family legacy, but also as a microcosm of the history of slavery in Brazil.
The story of Pata Seka is truly a tragedy of slavery in Brazil. He was more than two meters tall and could have been a great man, but he was used as a breeding tool and lived most of his life without freedom. His experience is poignant, and it also makes people feel the tenacity of human nature. It is remarkable that he lived to be 130 years old and witness the end of slavery. His descendants continue his bloodline today, and it is a reminder of that dark history. Although slavery is gone, the scars of that time are still there, and we have to remember these things and pursue a more equal world.