This work aims to review the role that has been attributed to the clothing in quotidian of the slaves of Rio de Janeiro in the nineteenth century, introducing new elements to broaden the understanding of how the slaves practiced dressing on the experience of captivity, in view of two clothing functions: visual change of the body and means of interpersonal communication. This research is developed through a critical examination of textual and image sources. Representations built on the appearance of slaves seen through the eyes of the other in which clothing is a significant factor in characterizing the black and the slave population. In the description of clothing, manners of dress, coupled with social distinctions and cultures of origin, generalize and stereotype the visibility of black men and women, with the creation of types of limited scope, inconsistent with the social, cultural and economic context of Rio de Janeiro in the nineteenth century. The thesis goes through texts and images and narrative reports of travelers, photos and advertisements of runaway slaves, of which elements can be extracted for a simultaneous dual purpose: to see the slave as object and as subject. Two possibilities of research pointing two different approaches, the first relates to the representations that show how the authors observed, assimilate and interpret the existence and the second related to captive possibilities used by slaves seeking their own identity by creating practices in the act of dressing up.