Janelas abertas, portas fechadas

Very little is known about how the spatial relationships between masters and slaves unfolded in domestic units located in the Southern region of Minas Gerais. In this article, I focus my interest on the possible visual and spatial technologies supported by the doors and windows of an urban townhouse built in Campanha (Minas Gerais), in the first half of the 19th century, since 1996 in ruins. With the application of traditional methodologies of the Space Syntax Theory and a new proposal for the reading of visual spatialities and the surveillance points, I’m interested in the strategic manorial censorship of the circulation of enslaved people, which could in parallel favor the remodeling of some aspects of their lives as well as acts of resistance guided by hidden movements in some of the spaces, like the yard and the slave quarters.