The study of material African culture by Luís Cláudio Pereira Symanski and Flávio dos Santos Gomes is rooted in the historiography debate in Brazil, the United States of America and the Caribbean. Using research on the production of ceramics in African and Afrodescendent communities, the authors examine African heritage in the Americas. For Symanski and Gomes, material culture is associated with motivations, contexts and identities in the slave quarters that were inside or close to the enslavers' residences. Material-culture analysis reveals a long process of redefining an African orientation. The questions surrounding the production and redefinition of material culture, construction technologies, and the intangible dimension of the quilombos and mocambos are also addressed.  
In the chapter he has contributed, Jaime Rodrigues explores the experience of Africans as merchants and mariners and their contribution to modern maritime culture. By means of various documents (travelogues, trade records, correspondence and so on) and systematic debate with the historiography, the author presents the profiles of sailors, including their legal status (free, enslaved or freed), their origins, their occupations on board and the reasons behind their decision (when not enslaved) to engage in sea activities. Names of individuals who worked on both the African coast and transatlantic voyages emerge. The author says that involvement in maritime labour offered good opportunities for the exercise of autonomy or freedom in the case of both free and enslaved Africans.