Rosa Egipcíaca

In 1733 she was sold to Dona Ana Garcês de Morais who owned a mining camp at Inficionado in the Minas Gerais region.

[2] In 1748, after release from prison, she took the name Rosa Maria Egipcíaca da Vera Cruz, in honour of Saint Mary of Egypt.

[1] After this Lopes purchased her and they fled to Rio de Janeiro, where Franciscan clergy believed her visions and encouraged her to follow a Christian path.

[1][2] Brother Agostinho de São José became her particular advisor, and Egipcíaca was known by the Franciscan community as the "Flower of Rio" and had a reputation for being able to endure greater lengths of fasting, self-flagellation and wearing a cilice than many of them.

[12] In the book Egipcíaca detailed her visions, describing how she fed the infant Christ at her breast and how he combed her hair in return, that she and Jesus had swapped hearts and that she had died and been revived, among others.

[14] Criola, a black feminist organisation based in Rio de Janeiro, cites Egipcíaca's life as an important inspiration for their activities.

[6] Mott was able to trace Egipcíaca's history by using the detailed records of the Inquisition, as well as using the surviving pages of her book, and letters in the Torre de Tombo archive.

[7][15] According to Mott, Egipcíaca lived the life of both a sinner and a saint, and this can be seen as a challenge to the "fixed categories the Catholic church created for women".

[16] Matthias Röhrig Assunção discussed how significant it is that an enslaved African woman could become "an object of popular Catholic devotion" in Brazil.

[3] Co-authors Monica Díaz and Rocío Quispe-Agnoli said that the pages from Egipcíaca's book and her letters "exist as some of the few remnants of African women's voices in colonial Latin American archives".