The Boundaries of Freedom: Slavery, Abolition, and the Making of Modern Brazil Edited by Brodwyn Fischer and Keila Grinberg

Abstract

With an introduction and a collection of fifteen chapters, Fischer and Grinberg have provided one of the most insightful and wide-ranging analyses of slavery, abolition, and its legacies in Brazil published to date. The editors’ introduction highlights three individuals who re-surface throughout the volume. Son of a wealthy landowner in the province (now state) of Pernambuco, Joaquim Nabuco (1813–1878) founded the Brazilian Anti-Slavery Society in September 1880. That Society and Nabuco’s book Abolitionism (1883) helped to foment a movement that brought Brazilian slavery to an end in 1888. Nabuco denounced slavery’s impact on all sectors of Brazilian society, highlighting how it corrupted the rule of law and harmed economic development.From the same state of Pernambuco, Gilberto Freyre (1900–1987) became one of Brazil’s most famous intellectuals of the twentieth century. Freyre’s depiction of beneficent slave owners and “racial democracy” in post-emancipation Brazil have been thoroughly debunked. Nevertheless, his descriptions of patriarchalism, family structure, sexuality, and race mixture remain hugely relevant.The third intellectual is Abdias do Nascimento (1914–2011), an African Brazilian from São Paulo. As activist, journalist, playwright, and professor, Nascimento relentlessly affirmed the contributions of Africans and their descendants to Brazilian society. By emphasizing Black resistance to enslavement and detailing the pervasive racism directed toward Blackness since the founding of the nation, Nascimento fueled controversial debates. Many of his initiatives became government policy, such as the revision of educational curricula to include diverse histories and affirmative action in employment. Nabuco’s critiques of institutions and economics, Freyre’s expansive social histories, and Nascimento’s studies of culture inspired research that is readily witnessed in The Boundaries of Freedom. Extended stays and experiences outside Brazil influenced all three of these men; several of the chapters address the theme of transnationalism.In a section entitled “On the Ethic of Silence,” Hebe Mattos comments on the book’s interdisciplinarity: “The theoretical references for this work [the collection of chapters] from E. P. Thompson’s cultural Marxism to the micro-historical methodologies of Fredrik Barth, emphasize the relational and political meanings of collective identity formation, as well as the relationship between normative structures and social agency” (317). Tying macro-histories (such as paternalism, plantation economies, class relations, and expanding capitalism) with micro-histories (such as slave flight, court appeals, day-by-day violence, labor conditions, and residential patterns), contributors shed light on silent histories and “precarious freedoms” during and after slavery. Quantitative methods provide evidence of the transport of enslaved children to the province of Pernambuco. Local legislation banned the purchase of goods produced by slaves and prevented access to taverns. “Subterranean structures” ensured the marginalization of female slaves and free Black women after emancipation. Free Black intellectuals, such as Teodoro Sampaio and André Rebouças, employed personal and professional skills to negotiate their way in hostile environments. Complex themes related to social agency and Black resistance emerge through contributors’ meticulous readings of original written documents and newspapers, as well as a close viewing of posters, paintings, and photographs located in archives large and small inside and outside Brazil.In a chapter describing relations between Brazil and Uruguay, Grinberg shows how tensions mounted pursuant to Uruguay’s emancipation decree of 1842. Slaves who crossed the border into Uruguay gained their freedom; they could not be re-enslaved if they returned to Brazil because of an 1831 Brazilian law that banned the importation of slaves to Brazil. Planters in the southernmost province of Rio Grande do Sul condemned their own government for failing to prevent slave flight and protect their property (ownership of slaves). Instead of following traditional approaches to the study of diplomacy, Grinberg points to the need to “forge a social history of international relations” (131). Such a plea, alongside the path-breaking insights shared in this volume, could not be more relevant.