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Excavations in Rio’s port area exposed a stone structure linked to the disembarkation of enslaved Africans and changed the way the city began to see part of its own history, buried under streets, works, and successive layers of landfill.
During the Porto Maravilha works in 2011, the Valongo Wharf resurfaced in the port area of Rio de Janeiro, revealing one of the most significant archaeological vestiges of slavery in the Americas.
Built in 1811, the structure remained hidden for 168 years under layers of landfill and urban paving until it was identified in an area undergoing a broad reurbanization process.
In practice, an intervention aimed at modernizing the port region ended up exposing part of an old stone wharf, directly associated with the disembarkation of enslaved Africans in imperial Brazil.
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According to the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage, the construction was carried out by the General Police Intendancy of the Court of Rio de Janeiro, during a period of urban reorganization of the then capital.
The purpose was to move the disembarkation and trade of enslaved Africans from Rua Direita, now Rua Primeiro de Março, to the Valongo area, distancing this activity from more central areas of the city.
The discovery brought together two very different layers of Rio’s urban history, with modern works, streets, and circulation on the surface, while the underground held marks of a route linked to slavery violence.
Valongo Wharf reveals hidden layers of Rio’s history
In the former port region of the capital of Rio de Janeiro, the Valongo Wharf played a central role in the arrival of enslaved Africans to Brazil, during a period of intense movement linked to the transatlantic trade.
After disembarkation, these people were traded and sent to different regions, including areas of coffee, sugar, and other products production that supported part of the slave economy in the country.
The relevance of the archaeological site is not limited to the antiquity of the stones found, as the structure preserves a direct physical vestige of the transatlantic slave trade.
Even after successive urban transformations, the wharf remained buried in a city that grew, landfilled, and reorganized its territory over a memory that ceased to be visible in the everyday landscape.
On July 9, 2017, UNESCO inscribed the Valongo Wharf Archaeological Site on the World Heritage List, recognizing its universal value for the memory of slavery and the African diaspora.
The international recognition also highlighted the relationship of the space with the resistance of black populations and the permanence of cultural references linked to the historical formation of Brazil.
According to UNESCO, the period during which the wharf remained covered by earth helped preserve elements such as the old landing ramp, the drainage system, and the paving.
Another important point is that the remnants did not undergo reconstruction, which keeps the site as an archaeological fragment from the early 19th century, preserved amidst the contemporary city.
Why the discovery had international impact
The impact of the discovery is directly related to the historical dimension of Valongo, considered one of the main entry points for enslaved Africans on the American continent during the 19th century.
According to data from Iphan, Brazil received nearly four million enslaved people over more than three centuries, within a system that profoundly marked the social and economic formation of the country.
In official publications, the institute describes the wharf as an important material vestige of the disembarkation of about 1 million enslaved Africans in the Americas.
This number reinforces the historical weight of the location, especially because the structure remained preserved in an occupied urban area, transformed by landfills, public works, and new uses over time.
It also draws attention to the way the site reappeared, as the Cais do Valongo was not a monument kept in view, but a structure buried under the routine of a large city.
While pedestrians, vehicles, commerce, and urban interventions occupied the surface, a decisive part of Brazilian history remained under the ground of the port region, without visible presence in the daily life of the population.
This overlap changed the public perception of the area, which ceased to be seen only as a space for revitalization and began to be recognized also as a territory of memory and Afro-Brazilian cultural heritage.
By revealing the old wharf, the urban work expanded the debate on preservation, historical responsibility, and ways of interpreting material marks associated with slavery in the center of Rio de Janeiro.
Little Africa and memory of the African diaspora
Located in the region known as Little Africa, the Cais do Valongo is part of a territory associated with the presence, resistance, and cultural expressions of the black population in the center of Rio.
The area includes landmarks such as the Pedra do Sal, the Cemitério dos Pretos Novos, the Jardim Suspenso do Valongo, and other points linked to the memory of the African diaspora in Brazil.
In 2012, the Rio City Hall transformed the space into a preserved monument open to public visitation, according to information gathered by Iphan about the trajectory of the archaeological site.
Additionally, the quay became part of the Historical and Archaeological Circuit of the Celebration of African Heritage, created to recognize material and symbolic references of Afro-Brazilian culture in the port area.
The rediscovery, therefore, went beyond identifying a stone structure and restored visibility to an essential part of the urban, social, and cultural history of Rio de Janeiro.
In this context, Valongo came to represent a point of connection between the forced arrival of Africans, the formation of black communities, and the permanence of cultural practices associated with the diaspora.
The case also highlighted the importance of archaeological monitoring in works carried out in historical areas, especially in cities that have accumulated occupations, landfills, and successive transformations over the centuries.
Under streets and squares of large urban centers, structures, objects, and traces may remain capable of expanding public understanding of the occupation of a territory and its historical marks.
In Rio, the modernization of the port area began to coexist with the preservation of an archaeological site of global significance, linked to one of the deepest pages of Brazilian history.
The presence of the Valongo Wharf in the city center shows that requalified areas can also hold layers of memory, often invisible until an excavation reveals what was buried.
Under the everyday appearance of the modern city, the site preserves the material memory of a forced arrival route that marked the formation of Brazil and remains essential to understanding its history.
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