2 For a fuller discussion of Francisca da Silva's life, see Castillo and Parés, 2010.  
Francisca da Silva first emerges in written documentation in 1822, when she was already a freedwoman with slaves of her own. By 1824, she had formed a relationship with the freedman José Pedro Autran, whom she married according to Catholic rites in 1832. A native of Ilesha, José Pedro Autran had purchased his freedom in 1822. ${ }^{3}$ As a member of a prominent black Catholic brotherhood, he had connections to a number of affluent African freed people in Salvador. Like other Africans, especially men, he utilized the Catholic institution of godparenting to establish ties with newly arrived enslaved Africans, particularly those from his own ethnolinguistic group (de Queirós Mattoso, 1986, pp. 11416; de Oliveira, 1995-1996, pp. 184-87; Castillo, 2011). For example, in 1824 Autran became godfather to a captive baptized as Thomé, who was actually the son Iyá Nassô had left behind in Africa. A decade later, when Thomé's master died, his mother and her husband provided the funds to purchase his freedom.  
By this time, the family had attained a degree of economic prosperity and material comfort as owners of two parcels of property and around a dozen enslaved adults, mostly Yoruba-speaking women. Some, such as Marcelina Obatosi, baptized in 1824, were initiated into orisha worship and became active participants in the family's religious activities. These practices, like José Pedro's godparenting network, enabled the couple to reconstruct an Afrocentric web of social relations in Bahia. Most devotees of Iyá Nassô's shrines were probably enslaved or freed Yoruba speakers, but there is evidence that other Africans, particularly Gbe speakers and Nupe, also participated.