Slavery and the Demographic and Economic History of Minas Gerais, Brazil, 1720–1888

Abstract

The gold mining of Minas Gerais has increasingly drawn the attention of historians. This study by Laird W. Bergad is an important contribution to that evolving body of literature and will be an indispensable tool to scholars. This work is a tour de force in terms of its handling of data. Central to this study is the use of inventories from the three mining districts, Diamantina, Mariana/Vila Rica, and São João del Rei/São José del Rei. Close to 10,000 inventories were used to produce a database of almost 112,000 slaves extending over the period from 1713 to 1888. Three research teams were used, but any researcher who has used inventories knows how difficult an undertaking this must have been. From these inventories the author constructed a very substantial slave price series database. Bergad also used the Minas Gerais censuses for 1831, 1833, 1855, and 1872 which have been compiled by a team from the Federal University of Minas Gerais. These two data sets comprise the heart of the primary material used by the author.In the preface, the author acknowledges the major problem with the emphasis on these sources. By focusing on demographic and economic history, political or social history is largely excluded. This is a work that stays true to its objectives but doing so will probably limit its readership. It is not a casual read and the absence of people, free or slave, as other than numbers will seem distancing to many readers. But the criticism is not entirely fair. The author has provided a work that will reward the reader. It can be read without reference to the masses of tables and charts, which will be useful primarily to the specialist. And the author tells a powerful story.It is a story completely and compellingly built around two central themes. The first is the region’s transition from export monoculture to a diversified economy focused to a large extent on domestic markets within the context of an expanding slave labor force. The second is the contention that Minas Gerais was unique in Latin America in the ability of the slave force to reproduce itself rather that relying on the slave trade, African or domestic, to augment its numbers. A key part of that process was the Brazilianization of the slave force by the 1790s.To arrive at these findings the author constructs a complex matrix of critical variables: time, place (moving from the macro to the regional and often to the local to show differences and similarities) and gender. Bergad is able to stay on topic while manipulating the presentation of the data in what, at times, resembles a three-dimensional chess game. The reader is not left with a sense of a mechanical approach but rather of an examination of all sides of complex issues.Not infrequently, as with slave price trends, this information is put into comparative terms with other slaveholding systems such as Cuba or the United States to push the conclusions further. The striking comparisons with the United States and Caribbean slaveholding societies are very important contributions in their own right.Quantitative work of this type is built on careful attention to many details. The specialist will find this work very rewarding. Bergad’s tracing of the administrative boundaries of the captaincy/province over a long period of time, for example, is very important. By the same token, his publication of the slave price series will prove useful to scholars of slavery in the Americas. Quantitative research also forces the author to reveal the assumptions used in organizing the data and arriving at conclusions. Bergad is careful to lay out these assumptions. While often providing a path for critics, this technique allows the reader to better understand the processes involved.As with any work, there are caveats. To this reviewer, the most important is the very limited availability of comparable data for the coffee region of Minas Gerais. Also, despite Bergad’s compelling demonstration of the centrality of natural reproduction in fueling the expanding slave population, he feels compelled to fall back on some of the historiography he has disproved in a discussion of the miners who allegedly worked their slaves for short term advantage.But the caveats pale beside the value of this work. Laird Bergad has produced an invaluable and essential foundation for work on the history of slavery in the Americas and in Minas Gerais. To focus on what it is not is to miss what it is—the first work of its kind looking at the economic and demographic history of one of the most important parts of Brazil. By doing this, Bergad has provided us with a fuller and more grounded interpretation than any previously available.