From Labor to Laboratory: Africans, smallpox vaccination, and the glass industry in Colonial Brazil

Notice of the Glassware Currently Produced at the First and Royal Factory of Bahia - 1813

In 1808, Francisco Ignacio Sequeira Nobre — a merchant, slave owner, and the founder of the first Glass Factory in Brazil — traveled to England with the aim of boosting trade in Salvador, Bahia, and acquiring the necessary knowledge to establish a glass factory. As a result of this trip, Francisco Nobre sent machines and raw materials from England and Portugal to Brazil, countries that already had experience in glass production (Godfrey, 1975). He created the position of “assistant officers” in which his enslaved workers were “employed in the various sectors of the establishment, where all types of glass and colors were manufactured”.[1]

Three years later, the newspaper Idade D’ouro do Brazil published the “Notice of the Glassware Currently Produced at the First and Royal Factory of Bahia”, listing more than 40 types of products. The factory produced a wide range of items, from decorative objects to medical utensils, such as medicine bottles and cupping glasses. Glass was an essential material used for a variety of purposes, including in the construction and decoration of houses and churches, as well as for cups, pipes, jugs, lamps, and even “boarding flasks” — an object used to “set fire to ships, which the Spaniards frequently employed and for which they placed several orders.”[2]

The factory played a crucial role not only in the production of bottles for storing remedies and other healthcare supplies, but also in introducing certain medical innovations, such as a “glass pump” used to treat breast obstructions in women who had suffered a miscarriage. The device was applied to the patient's swollen breasts and allowed for the gentle extraction of milk, aiding in her recovery.[3]

The glass factory also held a strategic position in the production of materials used for the storage and transportation of the smallpox vaccine, which was sent to various parts of the world, including African territories. The goal was to immunize enslaved individuals while still in Africa, in order to prevent the spread of smallpox during the Atlantic crossing and upon disembarkation at Brazilian ports. It is important to highlight that the production of these new technologies at the glass factory was carried out predominantly by African labor. This episode illustrates how the slave system not only exploited African labor but also incorporated and appropriated their technical and scientific knowledge.

According to the Slave Voyages database, in the early years of the nineteenth century, Brazil was consolidating itself as the main destination for enslaved African labor. During the same period, there was an intensification of diseases and epidemics, especially smallpox, considered “one of the most contagious and deadly of all diseases” (Crosby, 1986:199). In this context, the smallpox vaccine became a strategic tool for both the sanitary control of populations and the preservation of economic interests tied to slavery, being employed as an attempt to reduce the high mortality rates during the Atlantic crossing and after disembarkation.

Although the materials needed for glass production were initially imported from Portugal and England, over time “the enslaved workers themselves” discovered local raw materials, “combining compositions” and taking into account factors such as the climate at the time of preparation, eventually establishing a “potassium laboratory.”[4], demonstrating the capacity for adaptation and innovation in glass production and the agency of Africans in this process.

According to Rafael Bluteau's eighteenth-century dictionary, the word “laboratory” is defined as a “house of furnaces and equipment for chemical work.”[5]. In this sense, we can understand that the labor of the enslaved was not limited to mechanical and strenuous work but also encompassed intellectual and technological labor.

During the research for my doctoral thesis, I found an unpublished document: a list with the names, nations, and ages of 22 Africans classified as “freed slaves” who worked at the first glass factory in Brazil. Nine of them were married and had children. Africans from the Geges, Minas, Auçás, Angolas, and Cabindas groups worked together at the Glass Factory and in the preparation and operation of a “potassium laboratory” an essential material for glass production. The document was prepared by Francisco Nobre with the goal of requesting the return of these workers to the factory, as in 1822 they had been recruited by the former general Labatut — an emblematic figure in the struggles for Bahian independence — to join the Battalion of Freedmen, formed in the context of the Bahian war of independence.[6]

List of Freed Slaves Belonging to the Glass Factory - 1822

The first issue of the Idade d'ouro no Brazil magazine already highlighted the good functioning of the new glass factory, built in the neighborhood called Calçada in Salvador. The newspaper reported that “in that vicinity, most of the difficult materials for the construction of the furnaces and the simple substances that make up the glass were found.”[7] highlighting the local availability of resources for glass production.

The factory remained in the Calçada neighborhood for approximately five years but had to be moved to a new location. The chosen destination was the Bonfim port, “due to the first location becoming epidemic, and the farmers and boatmen therefore refusing to unload the firewood at that coast.”[8]

In the early nineteenth century, smallpox epidemics were recurring and affected society as a whole, severely impacting Indigenous people and enslaved Africans, who lived in more vulnerable conditions and represented the majority of the population at the time. Francisco Nobre stood out as an important promoter and financier of vaccination, motivated also by economic interests. He profited in two ways: by preserving the lives of the enslaved individuals he vaccinated — considered part of his assets — and by the production, at his factory, of the materials used for the storage and transportation of the vaccine.

In less than a year, Francisco had lost 375 Black individuals to smallpox.[9] This huge loss of enslaved individuals drove his active involvement in sending the vaccine to Angola, aiming to minimize the disease's impact on his business. Francisco Nobre and other traders joined forces and “offered to contribute what was necessary to send the vaccinal matter to the Kingdom of Angola at their own expense, in order to prevent the destruction of humanity and the ruin of trade, to avoid serious loss.”[10]

The use of glass containers to store the vaccine became a widely adopted practice in different parts of the world. James Currie (1756-1805), a British physician, conducted an experiment “which showed that dried smallpox matter in glass, when left at room temperature, remained viable for inoculation purposes for about seventeen months” (BENNET, 2020: 62 and 124). The first attempts involved storing the vaccine in bottles with corks, but the method of storing it between glass slides sealed with wax proved to be more efficient.

In 1802, the physician Jean de Carro wrote Observations et expériences sur la vaccination, a work in which he emphasized that glass was the best material for storing and transporting the vaccine. The method involved placing the material in glass containers, immediately sealing both ends with wax, with the important goal of preventing the entry of oxygen (De Carro, 1802: 90).

Glass production played a crucial role in the safe storage of the vaccine, ensuring its preservation and viability during transport and use. Glass allowed the vaccine to be distributed more effectively, contributing to the expansion of the immunization project. Abidemi Babalola highlights in his research that “glass represents one of the most sophisticated technologies invented” (Babalola, 2023: 289). In this sense, its use was fundamental to the dynamics of the vaccine's circulation.

The documentation on the Glass Factory is unprecedented in historiography, especially regarding vaccination and the participation of Africans. This study also offers an original methodological contribution by treating glass as a historical source, which allows for new interpretations of the material dimensions of medical practices in the colonial period. By recognizing the historical agency of Africans in the vaccination process, this research contributes to the expansion of Afro-Latin American studies, as well as to the fields of the history of slavery, medicine, and labor, highlighting the impact of slaveholding practices on the structure of health policies during the colonial period. The history of the Glass Factory helps us reconsider narratives about the origins of scientific innovations, shedding light on the often-overlooked contributions of marginalized subjects.

Gutiele Gonçalves dos Santos is a PhD candidate in the Graduate Program in the History of Science and Health at Fiocruz (Brazil), advised by Professor Tania Pimenta and co-advised by Professor Keila Grinberg. She was a visiting graduate student at the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh (October 2024 to March 2025). Gutiele holds a Bachelor's degree in History from the Federal University of Piauí, with a study period at the University of Coimbra, Portugal (2014–2019). She is also a member of the Research Group on Slavery, Race, and Health (CNPq) and the NERAS/Fiocruz – Núcleo de Estudos Escravidão, Raça e Saúde. Additionally, Gutiele participated in the Certificate in Afro-Latin American Studies program (2020–2021), organized by the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Harvard University and serves on the Editorial Board of the journal África e Africanidades.

REFERENCES

Babalola, A. B., & Rehren, T. (2023). Some thoughts on glass in African archaeology: An introduction. African Archaeological Review, 40(2), 289–294. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-023-09528-7

Bennett, M. (2020). War against smallpox: Edward Jenner and the global spread of vaccination. Cambridge University Press.

Crosby, A. (1986). Ecological imperialism: The biological expansion of Europe 900-1900. Cambridge University Press.

De Carro, J. (1802). Observations et expériences sur la vaccination. [s.n.]. https://archive.org/details/b30794912/mode/2up?view=theater

Godfrey, E. (1975). The development of English glassmaking 1560–1640. Clarendon Press.

[1] Notícia dos vidros que atualmente se fazem na primeira e real fábrica da Bahia. Idade D’Ouro do Brazil (BA), 1811-1823, Biblioteca Nacional, Hemeroteca. n. 71, 1813.

[2] Idade D'Ouro do Brazil (BA), 1811-1823, Biblioteca Nacional, Hemeroteca. n. 72, 1818.

[3] Idade D’ouro do Brazil - Bahia, 17 de janeiro de 1815 - Num 5 p. 4

[4] Idem

[5] BLUTEAU, Rafael. Dicionário Língua Portuguesa. Reformado e acrescentado por Antônio de Moraes Silva natural do Rio de Janeiro. Lisboa, na Oficina de Simão Thaddeo Ferreira. Ano M. DC C. LXXXIX

[6] Francisco Ignacio de Sequeira Nobre, Negociante. Requerimento a S.M.I. [Bahia]. (+ de 20 anexos) – Documentos biográficos. C-0031, 009 Biblioteca Nacional – Manuscritos, 1827.

[7]Idade d’Ouro no Brazil, nº 1, 1811. Hemeroteca Digital – Biblioteca Nacional.

[8] Silva, Maria Beatriz Nizza da. A primeira gazeta da Bahia: Idade d’Ouro do Brasil. 3 ed. Salvador: EDUFBA: 2011, p. 144.

[9] Idem

[10] Francisco Ignacio de Sequeira Nobre, Negociante. Requerimento a S.M.I. [Bahia]. (+ de 20 anexos) – Documentos biográficos. C-0031, 009 Biblioteca Nacional – Manuscritos, 1827.