its items and her lands were to be donated to a freed African named João Gomes da Conceição who lived in the city of Rio de Janeiro. ${ }^{3}$  
There is much to be learned about the trajectory of the freed African named Gracia Maria da Conceição Magalhães. She came from Guinea, arrived in Rio de Janeiro as a slave, then was liberated, became a member of the Our Lady of the Rosary confraternity, was devoted to Our Lady of the Conception, owned a manioc house and some slaves, and had influence over many people who, from the point of view of the legality of slavery, were not under her power. However, this trajectory is only a small demonstration of the importance of biography as a method that yields the possibility of 'listening' to the voices of Africans in diaspora. In this case, the testament is particularly rich since Gracia Maria da Conceição Magalhães was the one who revealed all the information about her life. With similar data, it is possible to examine people and institutions mentioned by her and amplify the information concerning her own context, her community and the social interactions she had built, from the time she was a slave until the moment of her death, as a freed African with property, as reported in her testament.