This essay is a contribution to the debate about the individual trajectories and collective identities of Africans in diaspora using the biographical method. Using testaments attached to death entries, it is possible to elaborate a part of the trajectory of Gracia Maria da Conceição Magalhães, for example, who initially was known only as Gracia Guiné, an enslaved African in Rio de Janeiro. Through labour, ingeniousness and effort, she managed to obtain her manumission, marry a man of mixed African and European background, become a member of a religious confraternity, and own slaves and a manioc flour mill. Her trajectory is a demonstration of the social re-elaborations of Africans, especially women, in diaspora. They were responsible for the changes that occurred in their lives over time, by building relationships that enabled social mobility or perpetuated the stagnancy in which they lived. Furthermore, this essay sheds light on the importance of the biographical method in providing a perspective on diaspora, revealing particular areas of interest within Brazilian historiography that are distinct from those produced by anglophone historians.