Feb. 5, 2026

Xica Manicongo

Xica Manicongo

Xica Manicongo was one of the first to be targeted by the Brazilian inquisition and a trans woman. At least, today she is seen as a trans woman. She’s also known as Franscisco or Fransisca . She was kidnaped from Congo in the 16th century and trafficked to Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.

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Sources for this episode: 

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/slavery-brazil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism_in_Brazil#Abolitionist_campaignhttps://library.brown.edu/create/fivecenturiesofchange/chapters/chapter-2/african-slavery/
https://www.casaum.org/quem-foi-xica-manicongo-considerada-primeira-travesti-brasileira/
https://biblioteca.fflch.usp.br/xicamanicongohttps://35.bienal.org.br/en/participante/xica-manicongo/
https://capiremov.org/en/experience/xica-manicongo-transness-takes-the-floor/
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorie


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WEBVTT

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Hello everyone. This is Carmen and Christina and this is

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Etoria's Unknown, a podcaster. We talk about Latin American history.

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Sometimes it's horrible and deals with heavy topics like racism, corruption,

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and genocide, but more than that, it's talks about resistance,

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power and community. Also, before we get started, just quick apologies.

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I am extra listy today because I switched in busineline

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aligners and I don't know, I just feel I just

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feel like I'mina and you sound like it's being in English. Yeah.

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Actually my mouth sounds very dry too. I took my

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ADHD meds and so I apologize for sounding like, you know,

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those nasty mouth sounds. Okay. Anyway, Happy Black History Month.

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On this month we try and find black Latino history.

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Sometimes it kind of like gets past the time, you know,

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and we miss it, but we try, we try, and

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we're going to try and continue this this month. But

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finding black Latin history to highlight that's what we're doing today.

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Oh right, I am telling you about Chica many Congo.

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Oh have you ever heard of this person? No? Okay, Well,

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before we talk about Chica many Congo, we had to

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talk about the slave trade in Brazil because I feel

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like us and maybe a lot of our listeners too

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might be more familiar with the slave trade in the US,

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yeah than anywhere else, especially like Brazil. I feel like

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that's like the Latin American country that I know the

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least about. Oh yeah, definitely one of them, one of them. Yeah.

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And so years before the North American slave trade began,

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the Portuguese for trafficking Africans in great numbers to Brazil.

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Slavery was the backbone of the Brazilian economy for three

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hundred and fifty years. Historian Emilia Vioti da Costa has

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stayed that forty percent of the ten million enslaved Africans

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brought to the New World ended up in Brazil. Forty

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percent of the ten million. Wow, a huge number. I knew,

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it was huge, Yeah, And some of this sounds familiar

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to me. So I don't know, but okay, I think,

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you know, I remember when we did an episode on

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one of the revolts of enslaved people in Cuba, and

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I think in that episode, because Cuba it was like

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the Spaniard like slave trade, and I think it was

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tied with like Portugal, yes, And I think that's why

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some of that sounds familiar to me. Brazil ran on

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the free labor of the enslaves. And just to illustrate this,

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here's a quote from German educator named the Ina Aina,

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She's German, you know, one being said Aina von Binzer,

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who lived in Brazil in the late eighteen hundreds. Quote.

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In this country, the blacks occupy the main role. They

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are responsible for all the labor and produce all the

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wealth in this land. The white Brazilian just doesn't work

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end quote. Oh my god, that sounds so familiar from

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when we did the Border Patrol series about how the

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Texan ranchers talked about the Mexicans like, oh, we don't

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work around here. The Mexican's still our jobs, I mean

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ah yeah. Yeah. And Brazil abolished slavery on May third,

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eighteen eighty eight, and before that there had been steps

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to abolish it, like things would just happen like in

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the one. Yeah, It's like was a gradual thing. Yes.

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In eighteen seventy one, the Brazilian parliament passed the Free

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Womb Law, which stated all children born to enslaved women

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would be free. Okay, I feel like they could have

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maybe found another name for that. Yeah, though, whatever, but

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children still had to work for their parents and slavers

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until they were adults to compensate the owners. Yeah, it's like, like,

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what was the point of this law? Yeah, this lam

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means nothing basically. H In eighteen eighty four, there was

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another law that stated any enslaved person over sixty would

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be freed. And again, it sounds good on paper, but

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in reality, that's allowed enslavers to abandon the person they

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had enslaved once they were less productive. I can see them. Yeah,

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it sounds like it would be a good thing, but

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it's like, no, this just means they get to not

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be responsible for this person, absolve themselves, who now has

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to fend for themselves in their elder age and they

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probably don't have the same ability to work, yes, exactly.

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And to add to that, it was super rare for

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an enslaved person to even make it to their sixtieth birthday.

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The Catholic Church stopped supporting slavery in eighteen eighty seven,

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and the following year, Imperial Law hundred and fifty three

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abolished slavery and seven hundred thousand enslaved people were freed.

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It's also important to note that the elite didn't just

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hand over this freedom of course. Of course, this is

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a movement centuries and the making, dating back to the

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sixteen hundreds with abolitionists demanding the freedom of enslaved indigenous

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There were mass escapes, revolts, uprisings, and protests over the years.

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Women also played a huge role in the movement, especially

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the Avliver Society. You know, I learned about them from

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this book I was reading. Really what book was a

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book called? It was about lace makers who and it

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had like two timelines back in the day, like eighteen hundreds,

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like maybe it might have been soon I remember, and

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how they basically escaped like their oppression as women because

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they were lace makers and able to support themselves. And

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they talked about fascinating the society Ave Liberta society who

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helped them escape basically oh wow, yeah. Anyway, it was

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a group founded in Pernambuco and led by women. In

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their first year they achieved the al furia of two

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hundred enslaved people. That's like what freedom? Yeah, that translates

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to manumission in English, which means the formal act of

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freeing and enslaved person. Okay, And of course, as we

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have noticed tends to happen, there's still work to be done.

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People don't suddenly get freed and then everything's okay. After abolition,

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there was there were no peas in place to ease

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integration or to assist the former enslaved to become full citizens,

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no plans for access to education for them, no access

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to land or to employment. Instead, the opposite was done,

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and the government installed the policy of brancamiento whiting. This

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was the state sponsored policy to improve the bloodline through immigration.

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And what does it sound like? It sounds like the

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United States. I was gonna say Mexico and mexicake, but yeah,

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oh yeah it does. Yeah, it's more like it. It's

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the same thing just over there. It was called camiento.

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But yeah they did it here too, when they said

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they only wanted Northern Europeans to emm crate here. Oh true, true,

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My bad MESSI sache was the force like reading to

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whiten the indigenous, not immigration. So you know, it wasn't

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the same thing as bringing only one in Northern European immigrants,

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and it was it was different. Yeah, I see what

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you're saying. Yeah, yeah, it's like a deliberate white ning

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of getting rid of a people through introducing I guess

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European white immigrants. Yes, yeah, Brazil only accepted white European

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or Asian immigrants. At the same time, the now free

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to formerly enslaved population had no opportunity for new jobs

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or education, and so many ended up in some sort

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of slavery. Still, they ended up working for their former

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enslavers in exchange for food and shelter, not for pay.

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And this sounds like the South here in the States too. Yeah,

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so on paper things were different, but in reality the

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status quo remained. And like we said in other episodes

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like our Coca Cola one and maybe the Coffee one,

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but this can still be seen today in Brazil. Fifty

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three percent of the population in Brazil identifies as Afro Brazilian,

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and yet they make up two thirds of the imprisoned population,

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as they make up seventy eight percent of the lowest

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income class in the country. Okay, and so yeah, now

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that we have that very brief information on slavery in Brazil,

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let's talk about Chica Manicongo. She was one of the

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first to be targeted by the Brazilian inquisition and a

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trans woman. Some even say the first trans woman, the

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first black trans woman to be known in history in Brazil.

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Oh wow, around one was this, Well, if you'll find out, okay,

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fifteen hundred, oh wow, I don't know when she was

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trafficked from Congo to Brazil. Won't you look at that?

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Trans people have always existed. That's right, that's right, at

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least today, if she's viewed as a transwoman. Looking back

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into history and what Chica Manicongo was like. She's also

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known as Francisco or Francisca. She was kidnapped from Congo

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and traffic to Salvador, which today is a municipality in

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the Brazilian state of Baia as well as the capital

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city of Baia. It's in the northeast region of Brazil

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and is known today as the center of Afro Brazilian culture,

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the Hub if you will. Back then, it was the

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first capital of Brazil, which was a colony of Portugal,

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and Chica was trafficked into Baiya in the sixteenth century

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and renamed Francisca. Her real name has been lost to

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history and many Gongo comes from Onene Gongo, which translates

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to lord of Congo, and this was a title used

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for like the royalty of the Kingdom of Congo, but

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it's not known if she was like of royalty herself,

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because of Portuguese used this as a last name for

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all the enslaved that they stole from Congo. Of course

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they did, yeah, because they don't care. They did this everywhere. Yeah,

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like rename indigenous people rename. So yeah, like all the

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names we have today for indigenous tribes in the United States,

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it's not their actual like exactly. And the same applies

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to Mexico, where now people are like using the real terms,

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but the Spanish renamed all of them. And so this

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is the same thing where now there are everyone's money.

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Congo' are the same everywhere, right right. And she was

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enslaved by a shoemaker named Antonio Perees, and she ran

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his errands. She also did shoemaking herself, and so she

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walked around the city running his errands, wearing a long

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fabric tide with a front knot, so like a dress.

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She lived her life as a woman, dressing in what

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would have been traditional women's wear back in Congo. It's

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also important to note that gender norms were not as

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strict at that time in Congo, and so she was

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living the way she had always lived, and she of

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course should have had the right to do this, to

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be her true self right. And despite her enslavement, Chika

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found joy where she could, as throughout history people always have,

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and so she found joy in her clothes. She found

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joy in her romantic life. She was known to have

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many lovers. I love that for her. And she was

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just living her life and bothered an old white Christian

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man named Matthias Moreta Matthias, mind your business. Yeah, but

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whenever he saw her walking about, he would go up

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to her and tell her to start wearing men's clothes,

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and Chikai refused. She kept on doing her doing her thing,

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and Matthias was so bothered he reported her to the church,

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and so the inquisition came. They took her. They accused

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her of sodomy, a crime that applied to not only

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the gays the queer back then, but also to hetero couples.

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You can't go done. You can do this. Let people

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sodomize if they want to sodomize. I'm sorry, what is

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it to you? No, exactly what is there a sodomization

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have to do with you? Yeah, but no, and this

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was a crime against the crown and the punishment was

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to be burned alive. I'm sorry, I mean, I know

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we're talking about the inquisition, but this is like beyond

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the level. First of all, she didn't have been a

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crime at all, but then for the punishment to be

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born alive. Yeah, and then on top of that, perpetrators

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of this and we're using that word like very loosely

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because this isn't not a real crime, right anyway, perpetrators

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of this crime what have their belonging confiscated by the church,

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and infamy would fall upon their descendants from up to

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three generations. That was part of the punishment, which I

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don't know how you do that, but that's part of it. Yeah, okay.

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Chica was also accused of being a member of a

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gang of Sodomite sorcerers. Even back then they were making

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up conspiracies which hunts and gangs of Yeah, this is outrageous.

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I can't believe that people haven't grown out of that

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conspiratorial mentality of I don't know, like associating queer people

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with yeah, Satanism, which I think I said already, and

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then this sodomization always gets tied to pedophilia when reality,

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the most pedophilic people are straight men. Yeah, and so yeah,

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being accused of being a member of a gang of

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satome sorcerers is the worst than just like a regular autonomy.

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And before continuing with this, let me just say there's

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another source I read that stated that the punishment for

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this it was not being burned alive, but being exiled

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for three years for men and two years for women,

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plus a fine that was to be paid to whoever

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reported them. And so in this case it would have

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been Matthias Morreda. She would have had to pay a

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fine that's ridiculous. Obviously not as bad as being ProLife,

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but it's still ridiculous. Yes, and so Chica was saved

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from whatever punishment she would have faced because she stopped

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dressing like a woman. She stopped living her life as

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a woman, and she began to wear traditional men's clothing.

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And so she wasn't killed by an inquisition, but she

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couldn't be herself anymore. And this is where her life

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fades into history. I don't know what became of her,

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but like hopefully she lived a full life, even though

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it wasn't like a true content one because she couldn't

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be herself. How long did think position lasts? Like, did

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you think she lived in or no? No? Right, hundreds

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of years so long? Yeah, yeah, that sucks because then

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that means you probably never got to be herself again, right,

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And that's horrible, sad. Yeah, And even in death, she

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was referred to as Francis Scho her Christian name for decades.

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That's you know what. Sorry, It's like on top of

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you have your obviously your own life in Congo, and

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then you're taken, trafficked into enslavement, and then you can't

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keep your original name, like that's your name, your identity,

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and then they gave you a Christian name of a

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man when that's not who you are. And it's like

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how many times your life and your identity, you know,

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trampled over and taken I can't. Yeah, And for centuries

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even she was referred to as a man under that

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name Francisco. And it wasn't until the early two thousands

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when black transactivists Marjorie Marchi gave her the name Chica

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Mani Congo. Marjorie was the president and founder of the

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Rio de Canado Travestize and Trans People's Association also called

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Astra Rio, and this renaming was like a reclaiming of

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Chica Mani Congo and to be embraced by her people.

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And about the renaming and all that, Marjorie Marchi, who

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passed away in twenty sixteen, said, quote, to be aware

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of who we are, we need memory, We need knowledge

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about our history and where we came from, about what

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our people have struggled with and died first, so that

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we could have the bare minimum rights we enjoyed today.

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End quote. Oh my god, Marjorie was so on point

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about this. Yes. Yes. She also created the Chica Mani

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Congo Award, which aimed to recognize initiatives related to human

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rights and the promotion of citizenship for transvestites and transgender people.

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And these are their words, this is how they identify.

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I'm not just like calling people transvestites. I just want

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to make it clear. Last year, the Samba School Paraiso

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the Tuiti honored her during their Rio de Hanado carnival performance.

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Thirty black trans women from low income backgrounds participated, and

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they did this dance in front of like this insane

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audience because like thousands and maybe one thousands. Yeah, I

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gathered for this and they had the trans flag up there.

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It was it was beautiful. And in this performance they

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also honored Eloina dos Lopardos, who became the first trans

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woman to lead a samba school percussion in nineteen seventy six. Wow.

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And also in twenty twenty one, a kilombo was named

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after Chika Manicongo and for those who during. A kilombo

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is a community or settlement established in the sixteenth century

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by enslaved Africans and their descendants as resistance to the

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slave system. So they escaped, they created a community, and

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others were able to escape and join this community. And

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they're still around, and one of them was renamed after

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many Gongo. That's amazing, Yes, and that's it. That's come

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many Gongo for you. Wow. I mean sharp, but sweet.

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I really enjoyed learning about Chica. Obviously sad story as

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many of our stories are, but still important. And I

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thought that quote from Marjorie was just one point for

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where we're always Yeah, and this brings us to the

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end of the episode. I think, all right, well, I

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guess if anyone's interested, I guess, let me promote ourselves

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for a second. Here we have an episode where we

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yap about the horse that are happening in our world.

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Sometimes we have fun and talk about in a drama

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cultural topics, I guess, But most of the time it's

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about the horse and we cry, we scream. Yeah, So

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I don't know, yap alongside with us if there's anything

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you want to yap about, let us know, well, yep

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about it. Yes, and that's a patron Yes, And part

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of those proceeds from Patreon do go to different immigrant

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rights organizations lately we've been doing. It's in the show notes.

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I just don't remember the name. Yes there. It's like

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an organization that helps car washers in LA who have

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been targeted heavily by all these ice raids. They are

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not leaving their homes in fear of deportation because like

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the majority of deportations in the LA area have come

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from these car washers, and so they get groceries delivered

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to them. It's in the show notes. But that's what

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we've been doing. And you know, even if we get

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twenty dollars a month, ten of that is going to

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go to this organization. And we've done other ones as well.

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So one more thing before we go. We're also on

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subsack now also under just estadia as unknown, and it's

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the same information. I'm ctruggling to know how often to

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post over there. So, oh, what do people do on

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subsac I don't know, and that's that I like follow

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some different subsacks. Yeah, so anyway, we're on there if

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you want another way to connec with us, and yeah,

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other than that, we hope that this was one less

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Historia Unknown for you. Bye bye. Estoria's Unknown is produced

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by Carmen and Christina, researched by Carmen and Christina, edited

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by Christina. You can find sources for every episode at

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Estoriasunknown dot com and in our show notes. Creating the

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podcast has a lot of work, so if you want

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to help us out financially, you can do so by

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supporting us on Patreon at Patreon dot com. Slash studio

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as an own podcast