Baroque Ethos on both side of the South Atlantic

Abstract

In the South Atlantic, north-eastern Brazil and southern Benin played an important role in the movements and transactions of the slave trade; the aim here is to put to the test the concept of baroque ethos developed by Bolívar Echeverría to characterise Latin America, heir to colonisation, the Counter-Reformation and the slave trade on the African coast. An analysis of rituals on either side of the South Atlantic, in Benin and Bahia, highlights the use value versus the exchange value in the history of the Atlantic slave trade.