Slavery in Brazil

Abstract

Slavery in Brazil is a comprehensive and useful survey of this most influential of American institutions in one of the countries of the Americas where its demographic and social impact was greatest. Masterful in its scope, appealing in its style, and timely in its appearance, this book should prove both a crucial addition to undergraduate reading lists and a very useful guide for scholars and researchers working in the field.The book’s first part examines the development of slavery chronologically, from its early use in the Portuguese trading empire to its adaptation in colonial Brazil, and the sugar, mining, and coffee cycles from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. A final chapter in this section then assesses broader themes in the economic history of Brazilian slavery. While the narrative is, appropriately, driven by the export cycles, considerable space is also devoted to the role of slavery throughout the internal economy. This helps emphasize the sheer diversity of tasks for which slaves were used, from whaling to mule trains to escravos ao ganho (slaves who worked on their own account and paid a day wage to masters). Extensive cross-regional coverage is also provided, with the main story flowing, as we might expect, from northeast to southeast, but with “peripheral” economic areas such as the South, which also depended heavily on slave labor, given plenty of space. The authors certainly more than fulfill their promise to bring us an overview of the many regional and thematic “schools” in slavery studies (demographic history in Minas, social history in Rio, economic history in São Paulo) that have developed across this country of continental proportions.The second part provides a detailed overview of some of the main themes that have exercised Brazilian scholars of slavery over the last couple of decades: population studies, resistance and rebellion, and slave family and culture. A chapter on the free people of color gives this group, which was crucial for defining the particular characteristics of Brazilian slave society, the attention it deserves and does not always receive from slavery scholars. A final chapter discusses slavery’s ending and also briefly moves beyond 1888, sketching post-emancipation labor, migration, and ongoing racism into the twentieth century.The book’s greatest strength is that it eminently fulfills its purpose of bringing the wealth of slavery scholarship coming out of Brazil every year to the attention and use of an international readership. This provides an immense service to the scholarly community both within and outside Brazil, forging further ties between Brazilian-based and international scholars, helping scholars of slavery who are not based in Brazil to keep abreast of new developments, and giving new researchers entering the field an excellent starting point in coming up to speed with recent Brazilian literature. The extensive references and bibliography include numerous recent Brazilian master’s theses and PhD dissertations, usually available online, as well as papers presented at recent Brazilian conferences on slavery and population studies.Another great strength of the book is in providing a unique and thoroughgoing survey text for undergraduate use. For broad courses on slavery and emancipation in the Americas or Atlantic World, the book makes the important argument that, since most other American territories based their own slave systems to some degree on those developed early on by the Portuguese, the study of Brazilian slavery is crucial to understanding the operation of slavery elsewhere in the Americas. Thus the authors place Brazilian slavery squarely at the heart of American and Atlantic slavery and emancipation studies.The most effective use of the book in seminars and lectures, however, will require additional context on the seminal political developments in Brazilian history that were linked to the economic, demographic, and social trends that are the book’s focus. The chapter on the nineteenth century, for example, does not discuss the advent of Brazilian independence and thus does not address the growing Brazilian literature on issues of race, slavery, and citizenship in the 1824 constitution, for example. The chapter does not mention the downfall of the monarchy and institution of the republic in 1889, or consider the 1850 abolition of the trade and the 1871 “Free Womb” law as the key watershed moments in (inter)national politics that they were. Students, then, will need to be directed to other readings to remind them of the important links between slavery’s economic and social impact in Brazil and the political life and broader development of the nation. Leaving this comment aside, this original volume is an impressive and very welcome addition to the fields of Brazilian and Atlantic slavery and emancipation.