During slavery in the Americas, whether plantation, mining or urban, captives, Creoles, freedpersons and Africans invented various forms of socialization, in part through family arrangements. The slave family is one of the most prominent themes in recent studies of Brazilian slavery. Until the 1970s, several authors claimed that such families did not exist; however, contemporary studies have revised many of the arguments about slaves' experiences and daily lives. Based on statistical sources (post-mortem inventories, lists of names, population censuses, and parish records) historians have demonstrated that, despite their living conditions, workdays, specific demographics, illness, mortality, etc., a considerable part of die slave population was able to establish families and compadrio relations by employing various strategies.