The paper investigates the Valongo Wharf, in Rio de Janeiro as a “ruin of modernity”. The work’s objective is to uncover meanings for the legal history of slavery in Brazil as understood from the port’s scale. In this sense, it considers what is today the Wharf ́s archaeological site and its evolution in time and space as a key to activating memory about the long-term structure that was slavery and how this relates to legal history.
