This article examines the construction, in 1851, of the first Public Market in the city of Desterro (now Florianópolis), an important center for the commercialization of goods and the circulation of people. The social dynamics of this market are used here in contextualizing the expectations of freedom by African men and women and their descendants, as well as their degree of autonomy and their possibilities and limits in achieving it. During the first half of the 19th century, African women played a prominent role as street vendors and in the market place itself, but this configuration changed over the second half of the century, when the presence of African men and women decreased, as did that of their descendants, in the Public Market as well as in the rest of the city as street vendors.
Desterro; Public Market; expectation of freedom women; Africans; street vendors