A native of Bahia, Fabio Silva Magalhaes - also known as Fabio Cascadura - is a Brazilian-Canadian PhD candidate in History at York University (2022–2027). His current research examines a case involving the capture of American schooners for irregular participation in the slave trade by the U.S.S. Ganges during the Quasi-War between the United States and France (1798–1801). The Ganges Affair represents the earliest known documented case of so-called “Liberated Africans.”
Fabio previously earned his Master’s degree at York University, where he completed a biographical study of the slave trader and Luso-Brazilian military officer Caetano Maurício Machado (c. 1750–1807), focusing on his commercial activities in the Bight of Benin (Costa da Mina). His research interests lie in the economic and military history of the transatlantic slave trade, with additional engagement in the fields of anthropology and ethnology.
He is a Slavery North Graduate Fellow (University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Fall 2025) and has contributed to several Digital Humanities projects, including the Harriet Tubman Virtual Museum, Freedom Narratives, Slavery and Resistance in the News, York Masters and Servants, and Equiano’s World.
In addition to his academic work, Fabio has an extensive musical background as a composer, singer, instrumentalist, and music producer. He has led the band Cascadura for over uninterrupted 20 years. The band eventually reunites in Brazil.
Keywords: Africans, Sierra Leone, Freetown, transatlantic slave trade, slavery, Atlantic Abolitionism, U.S. Navy, Quasi War, Yoruba, Ouidah, Bahia, Brazil