'Now it's ours' Descendants of slaves lay claim to former plantation HQ in Brazil

Two hundred years ago, the São José do Pinheiro coffee plantation farm was one of the most opulent estates in Brazil.

- Tiago Rogero

Even for the country that received the highest number of kidnapped Africans during the transatlantic slave trade, the property, 75 miles away from Rio de Janeiro, was one of a kind.

About 500 people - an unusually big workforce even by Brazilian standards - were enslaved by one of Brazil's richest men, José de Souza Breves, who owned eight other estates in the region.

Pinheiro was his headquarters, and it stood out for its lavishness, with a 20-room palace filled with artworks and a 48-bed hospital for the enslaved workers to prevent productivity problems due to sickness or injuries.

Now, Pinheiral, a town of 24,000 people named after the farm, occupies the area where it once stood. Remnants of the palace have become a public space named the Park of the Ruins and what was the headquarters of a slaveholding empire has been claimed by descendants of those who were once forced to work there.

"We fought hard to reclaim a land that once belonged to a slaver, but now it's ours," said Cíntia Helena da Silva, 34, whose ancestors were enslaved at Pinheiro. Da Silva's family is part of the Jongo de Pinheiral group, which, through an agreement with the town hall, took control of the space in 2016. The group recently secured funding from the Brazilian government to transform the Park of the Ruins into a museum and school of jongo, an Afro-Brazilian tradition that mixes music, dance, spirituality and storytelling.