Valongo Wharf
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How it came to be
Valongo Wharf lies in the old port district of central Rio de Janeiro. Until the mid-1770s enslaved Africans were landed on a beach in the city centre and sold on its main street. In 1774 the viceroy, the Marquis of Lavradio, moved the slave market out to Valongo, and in 1811 a stone wharf was built there for landing captives.
After the Portuguese court moved to Rio in 1808, the city grew and the trade surged. UNESCO estimates that some 900,000 Africans reached South America through Valongo. When the Atlantic slave trade to Brazil was banned in 1831 the wharf was closed, though smuggling continued elsewhere. In 1843 it was filled over to build a landing for Princess Teresa Cristina, bride of Emperor Pedro II, renamed the Empress Wharf, and in 1911 it was buried in an urban reform.
In 2011, digs ahead of the 2016 Olympics uncovered the two wharves one above the other, along with many amulets and ritual objects from Congo, Angola and Mozambique. The lowest layer keeps paving in the pé de moleque style. The site was inscribed as a World Heritage site in July 2017.
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