Escrava Anastacia

Escrava Anastacia 

Anastacia's birth is linked to the tale of Delminda. Some say Delminda was from the Bantu tribe (originating in about 2,000 B.C.E. in southern Nigeria and Cameroon), a daughter of the royal family of Galanga brought to Brazil in 1740 with a cargo of 112. Delminda was extremely pretty. She was sold in the harbour by Antonio Rodrigues Velho. She had been raped by a white man and was sold pregnant to Joaquina Pompeu.

Delminda gave birth that same year on the 5th March to the blue eyed Anastacia. She was the first black girl with blue eyes in Brazil. It is at this point the two stories seem to merge. Whether or not she was separated from her mother or remained with Delminda, all seem to agree on what comes next. As she grew up Anasatcia became the obsession of the owner's son, Joaquin Antonio.

Anastcia was extremely beautiful, It is said that all the white women around were jealous of her, so encouraged Joaquin to make her wear the slave mask. As a punishment for repeatedly refusing his advances, he raped her and condemned her to wear the iron mask for the rest of her life, only removing it once a day to eat. She lived for some years before the toxicity of the metal from the mask became poisonous.

Portuguese/Brazilian slave holders possessed this strange propensity to mask their enslaved population. One can just imagine the agony of wearing an iron bridle in the subtropic heat, day in and day out. The utter misery and torment of enslavement coupled with an unbearable torture devise like the "dirt eating mask" must have yielded untold suffering for those wearing these vile devices. Add on to that the burdensome iron slave collar with prongs for extra torture, along with enslavement in perpetuity and the hopeless tyranny of enslavement seems too extreme to wrap your mind around.

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