Discover · Memory · Benin-Brazil
The story of the Galera Aleluia, a slave ship that sailed from Pernambuco to Ajudá, and of what the Portuguese archives say about the bond between Recife and Benin.
63,580
captives from the Costa da Mina landed at Pernambuco, 1696-1760
1752
documented voyage of the Galera Aleluia to Ajudá
131
captives bought at Ajudá in 60 days
The context
In the 1720s, the Kingdom of Dahomey conquered Allada and then Ouidah, becoming the dominant power on what the Portuguese called the Costa da Mina, today's Bight of Benin. The port of Pernambuco, whose trading hub was Recife, received a substantial share of that traffic: 63,580 captives were landed there from the Costa da Mina between 1696 and 1760, according to customs registers combed through by historians.
This is not a literary estimate: it is customs duties collected ship by ship, held at the Overseas Historical Archive in Lisbon.
September 3 — November 2, 1752
The Galera Aleluia, commanded by José de Freitas Sacoto, left Pernambuco for the Costa da Mina. After a first stop along the coast, the ship anchored at Ajudá, the Portuguese name for Ouidah in colonial-era records, from September 3 to November 2, 1752. Over two months, the crew bought 131 captives there: 49 men, 5 women, 10 young men, 15 boys, 31 young women, 21 girls.
The full voyage brought 307 captives back to Pernambuco. This level of detail, rare for the period, comes from a single document: the ship's report held under the reference AHU-São Tomé, Cx. 8, Doc. 100, dated January 24, 1752.
The religious imprint
On arrival, captives from the Costa da Mina were classified under the generic label "Mina," itself split into two main branches: the mina-jeje, from Dahomey, and the mina-nagô, of Yoruba tradition. Xangô do Recife, the Afro-Brazilian cult of Pernambuco, claims founders from both lineages: Nagôs from Oyó, Ketu and Egba, but also Jeje, notably Mahi and Dahomean.
To be precise: Xangô do Recife is not a direct survival of Vodun, unlike the Casa das Minas in São Luís. It is a Nagô-dominant tradition, in which the Jeje component from Dahomey is documented, but a minority strand.
A point of caution
The Xambá terreiro in Olinda, today the most visible Afro-Pernambuco cult, has no tie to Benin, despite the similarity in name. The Xambá people come from the Adamawa highlands, between present-day Nigeria and Cameroon, thousands of kilometers from Dahomey. Its presence in Recife only dates from the 1920s, brought by a migrant from the state of Alagoas. A real and dignified history, but a distinct one from Ouidah's.
Sources
Suely Cordeiro de Almeida, "Rotas Atlânticas: o comércio de escravos entre Pernambuco e a Costa da Mina (c.1724-c.1752)," História (São Paulo), vol. 37, 2018.
Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, AHU-São Tomé, Cx. 8, Doc. 100, January 24, 1752.
"Costa da Mina," Wikipedia, accessed September 12, 2026.
We promise no DNA test, no genealogical proof. We open a door: to Ouidah, and to the tradition-keepers who still carry this memory.