This dissertation focuses on the uneven battle between slave traders and bondspeople in the Brazilian internal slave trade of the second half of the nineteenth century. It analyzes the commercial, financial and logistic strategies of merchants who, in breaking the family and social ties previously formed by bondspeople, attempted to shackle them even more firmly in enslavement. In turn, however, the men and women traded contested their commodification and created new alliances and solidarity networks sometimes capable of smashing the merchants’ plans. To follow this antagonistic struggle, the study examines a variety of sources, including trade disputes, purchase and sale documents, manumission proceedings, a trial record, police reports, passport applications for travelling within the country and other materials that reveal the actions of the contending subjects. These sources allow us to follow the path taken by thousands of enslaved migrants in the provinces of Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo, from 1850 to the abolition of slavery in 1888.