By Emily Prescott • February 19, 2026 • Share
The dawn of March 1852 fell heavy over the Santa Eulália Farm in the Paraíba Valley. The air smelled of ripe coffee and wet earth, but inside the “Casa Grande” (the Big House), the smell was of blood, sweat, and fear. Lady Amélia Cavalcante screamed in the master bedroom, the burgundy velvet curtains trembling with every contraction.
Three tallow candles illuminated the pale face of the midwife, Dona Sebastiana, as she pulled the first child. Then, the second. And when the third came into the world, silence cut through the night like a razor. The baby was visibly darker than his siblings.
Amélia, with her black hair matted against her sweaty forehead, widened her green eyes and hissed through her teeth: “Take that thing out of here right now.”
Benedita was in the kitchen when she heard the urgent call. She was a woman of 40 years, her dark skin marked by whip scars, her hands calloused from washing clothes in the river, and eyes that had already seen too much. She climbed the creaking stairs of the Big House with her heart racing. When she entered the room, Dona Sebastiana handed her a bundle of stained white cloths. “Take him far away and never return with him,” ordered the Mistress, her voice trembling but firm.
Benedita looked at the tiny, sleeping face of the baby, so small, so innocent, and felt tears burn. She knew what it meant. The boy had brownish skin, different from his fair-skinned brothers. Master Tertuliano Cavalcante could not suspect a thing.
The farm slept under the silvery moonlight as Benedita crossed the coffee yard with the baby wrapped in her arms. Her bare feet sank into the red earth, and the cold autumn wind cut through her torn calico dress. She looked back at the Big House illuminated by lanterns and then at the silent slave quarters, where her own 6-year-old daughter slept on a straw mat. “Forgive me, my God,” she whispered, pressing the baby against her chest.
The child’s soft whimpering echoed in the darkness, mixing with the distant song of crickets and the barking of guard dogs. Benedita knew that if she returned with that child, she would be whipped to death; but if she obeyed, she would carry that weight on her soul forever.
She walked for hours until she reached the boundary of the farm, where the dense forest began. There, in a hidden clearing, stood the abandoned shack of a former overseer who had died of yellow fever. The wattle-and-daub walls were covered in moss. The thatch roof had holes through which the moon peeked, and the packed earth floor was damp.
Benedita knelt there, placed the baby on an old blanket she was carrying, and looked at that calm face, the pink lips, the tiny closed fingers. He slept deeply, oblivious to his cruel fate. “You deserved more, my son,” she wept, using that word that would never be true, but deep in her chest, something broke.
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