Francisca da Silva, better remembered by her ritual title, Iyá Nassô, is one of the most celebrated nineteenth-century figures of the Afro-Brazilian religion known as candomblé. ${ }^{2}$ A priestess of the Yoruba orisha (deity) Shango, she was born in Yorubaland, probably around 1770. It is not clear when she arrived in Bahia as a slave, but it was probably sometime before 1810. The title she used, Iyá Nassô, suggests that, while still in Africa, she supervised the religious activities related to Shango worship in the palace of the alafin (king) of Oyo. At this point, Oyo had been a major regional military and economic power for well over a century. From the late 1780s, however, Oyo was rocked by a series of internal power struggles, including armed uprisings. It is likely that Iyá Nassô's enslavement occurred during one of these conflicts. She seems to have arrived in Bahia with a son and to have left at least one other child, a boy, behind in Africa. In Salvador, the capital of the province, she was baptized as Francisca while her son received the name Domingos. After obtaining their freedom, both used the surname da Silva, probably their owner's last name.  
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[^0]:    1 Pierre Verger paved the way in his book Os libertos: Sete caminhos na liberdade de escravos da Babia no século XIX (1992).
2 For a fuller discussion of Francisca da Silva's life, see Castillo and Parés, 2010.