Case file · Haunting
Gilberto Freyre's 'Ghosts of Old Recife'
In 1955 the sociologist Gilberto Freyre, author of 'The Masters and the Slaves', published 'Assombrações do Recife Velho', a collection of the ghost stories of old Recife: haunted townhouses, sugar mills and bridges, and ghosts tied to slavery and violence.
1955 CE · -8.06, -34.87 · status: legend
The account
Freyre treated the stories as social history, showing how fear of the dead mirrored the tensions of a slave society. The book is the classic source for Recife's ghost lore and is still the basis for the city's night ghost walks.