Assessing his contributions, the historian E. Bradford Burns says, "Querino was the first black to write Brazilian history, a task to which he brought a much-needed perspective.

Left an orphan at the age of four, he was sent to Salvador to be raised by a guardian, Manuel Correia Garcia, a journalist and professor at the Normal School, who would later found the Instituto Histórico da Bahia in 1856.

Instead of being sent to the front, when it was discovered that he could read and write and had excellent handwriting, Querino served as a clerk at his battalion's Rio de Janeiro headquarters during the Paraguayan War.

The famous Bahian writer Jorge Amado drew on his story as an inspiration for creating his character Pedro Archanjo, the central figure of his 1969 novel Tenda dos Milagres (Tent of Miracles).

"Bahia reaches superiority, excellence, and primacy in the culinary art of the country as the African element, with its exquisite seasoning of exotic fertilizers, altered profoundly the Portuguese delicacies, which resulted in a completely national product, tasty, pleasant to the palate yet demanding, which surpases the righteous fame of Bahian cuisine."