The Manumission of Slaves in Colonial Brazil: Bahia, 1684-1745

Abstract

T HE HISTORY AND NATURE of the slave regimes of the New World have been examined and hotly debated in national, regional, and comparative perspectives.1 Much of the controversy has centered on the of slaves in the various slave regimes and under a variety of economic conditions. This debate was greatly clarified and advanced by Eugene Genovese in his article, The Treatment of Slaves in Different Countries, in which he distinguished between three basic meanings of treatment.2 Genovese recognized that the term treatment has been used at different times to describe 1) the day-to-day physical conditions of the slave; 2) the existential conditions of life, the opportunities for familial, social, and religious expression; and 3) access to freedom and citizenship. While these aspects may be interrelated there is no necessary connection between the first and third. Whereas a great deal of argument rages over the comparative history of the first two of these categories, over the third there seems to be general agreement. Both those who see striking differences between Latin American and North American slavery and those who find disheartening similarity concur that access to freedom was easier in Latin America, and that the liberation of slaves was a widely practiced phenomena.3 Once this has been said, however,