Afflicted Slaves, Faithful Vassals: Sevícias, Manumission, and Enslaved Petitioners in Eighteenth-Century Brazil

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines petitions from enslaved people in Brazil to Portuguese monarchs during the eighteenth century, bookended by the end of the Palmares quilombo (fugitive slave community) and the Haitian Revolution. The royal petitioning system provided subjects of Portugal’s empire the avenue to appeal for private justice, commonly referred to as grace. In addition to their activity in civil courts, enslaved people appropriated this appeals system to press monarchs to affirm their limited rights to manumission. This article offers a genealogy of these petitions, concluding that enslaved petitioners in Brazil transformed appeals for private justice into a broader customary right to self-purchase. Portuguese monarchs and judges recognized, if only tacitly, that enslaved people could pursue the recourse of changing slave owners if they were subjected to sevícias (cruelty and excessive punishment). Under this practice, slave owners found to practice sevícias were reimbursed for their ‘loss’ if their slave was sold against their will. Enslaved people expanded this practice by offering their own funds for freedom to reimburse their master, thereby escaping enslavement and avoiding sale to a new owner.