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[^0]:    3 Livro de Assentos de Óbitos e Testamentos de Livres - Freguesia de Nossa Senhora da Piedade de Iguaçu, 1777-1798, Arquivo da Cúria Diocesana de Nova Iguaçu.  
be grounded in the following four parameters: first, a focus on the subject of the biography is crucial, seeking as much information about his or her physical characteristics, activities, occupations, beliefs and cultural perspectives. When it is impossible to find an autobiography where the person is described with some accuracy, self-descriptive information can be found in documents such as reports of escape, rental or purchase and sale advertisements, police records and testaments. Second, context can help when considering an individual trajectory. Even if it is not possible to fill in all the gaps, it is possible to place the subject in his or her context, searching out close relations, taking as examples other people who held similar social positions, and using baptisms, marriage and death registers in ecclesiastical books that can provide information. Third, establishing collective experiences is crucial as people generally live in a collective, and it is that social living that characterizes people. Hence, thinking about a person and his or her trajectory also involves considering at least some collective parameters of social relations, regardless of the condition of the individual in the social sphere. Many documents - commitments to brotherhoods, testaments of freedmen or letters of manumission - are available to conduct biographical research into the lives of Africans in diaspora. Finally, it is important not to expect definitive answers because the diversity of human experiences cannot be condensed into a few descriptive lines of a police record, a baptism entry or even an act of commitment to a brotherhood. People are generally involved in a multitude of contexts, which can be confusing if the researcher is not able to discern the African subject, independent of his or her social status.