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Vanishing Indians: The Social Construction of Race in Colonial São Paulo*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
Much has been written about race and race stereotyping in Brazil in relation to African-Brazilians and their mixed African-European descendants. The situation of Indians and their mixed-blood descendants has been studied much less. In fact, the word mestizo as it is used in Spanish America does not translate well into Portuguese, for in Portuguese a mestiço can be any mixture. In the case of Brazil, it can mean either a descendant of Indian-European parents or of African-European parents.
This paper studies racial classifications in seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth-century São Paulo. São Paulo was a unique region in colonial Brazil and, because of its unique history, these findings cannot be automatically extrapolated to all other parts of Brazil. São Paul was very poor, especially if compared to the northeast, and later to Minas Gerais, the center of the gold and diamond mining region. Though the town was founded in 1554, it lacked exportable natural resources until the late eighteenth century, so that the economy was partly based on the raising of a few cattle and crops for subsistence or for sale locally or to other regions of Brazil. The labor needs of Paulistas (inhabitants of São Paulo) were met through exploratory and slaving expeditions called bandeiras that replenished their Indian labor force or else provided captives to be sold to other parts of Brazil. Though there were a few African slaves in São Paulo in the seventeenth century, the settlers could not afford them in substantial numbers until the second half of the eighteenth century.
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2001
Footnotes
I would like to thank Bert Barickman, Peter Guardino, Hendrik Kray, Elizabeth Kuznesof, Linda Lewin, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on previous versions of this paper. The opinions expressed here are my own. Funding for the research was provided by a Fulbright Area Research Grant, a fellowship from the Social Science Research Council and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
References
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36 Alzira Lobo de, A. Campos studies the Paulista bastardos in “A configuração dos agregados como grupo social: marginalidade e peneiramento (o exemplo da cidade de São Paulo no séc. XVIII),” in Revista de Hisória (Nova Série) 117 (Julho-Dezembro, 1984).Google Scholar Historians who have subsequently mentioned the racial use of “bastardo”: De Mello e Souza, Laura, Desclassiftcados do ouro: A pobreza mineira no século XVIII 3rd ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Graal, 1990), p. 75 Google Scholar; Monteiro, , Negros da Terra, p. 167 Google Scholar; Dean, Warren, With Broadax and Firebrand: The Destruction of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), p. 70.Google Scholar
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38 Kruper, , “The Theory of the Plural Society,” p. 255.Google Scholar The eighteenth-century Scottish Historian, Robert Southey, found that in Pernambuco mamelucos were also viewed as better than mulattoes: “…they are finer in person than the Mulattoes, and of a more independent character; for though the Negro despises the Indian, the Mulatto looks toward his White relations with a sense of inferiority, as if the brand of bondage were upon his skin, but the Mamaluco has no such feeling.” Southey, Robert, History of Brazil (New York: Burt Franklin, 1970) Vol. 3, p. 787.Google Scholar
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44 Paper presented at the meetings of the Brazilian Studies Association in Cambridge, England, September 11, 1996.
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46 ACMSP, Casamentos, Santo Amaro, Livro # 04–01–38, fol. 52v, and 56v; also Livro #04–02–41, fol. 9.
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55 Relação que da o Diretor Ignacio Correa de Morais dos índios da aldeia dos Pinheiros do número, idades, e estados deles em 6 de agosto de 1783, AESP, Maços de População, No. de Ordem 31, c. 31.
56 DI, vol. 92, p. 110.
57 Ibid., p. 213.
58 For instance, a letter from the Morgado de Matheus in October, 1773 (DI Vol. 64, p. 156) and another from the new captain-general in April, 1777, talking about the lack of Indians in aldeias (DI Vol 78, p. 68).
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60 DI, Vol. 78, pp. 63, 69, 75, 92. Also see Vol. 78, pp. 19 and 123–4, and Vol. 64, pp. 61–2, for later references to Indian porters from the aldeias.
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62 “Orçamento dos Rendimentos Annuais desta Monarquia, feito em Janeiro de 1776,” Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Conselho de Guerra, Secretaria de Estado da Guerra, Freguesias de Portugal, Livro No. de ordem 279.
63 da Cunha, Carneiro, “Política indigenista,” p. 147.Google Scholar
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65 For instance, a letter from the crown to Colonel José Arouche de Toledo, dated Aug. 20, 1798, asking him to investigate the deplorable state of aldeias (DI Vol. 87, p. 100).
66 Leandro Coitinho do Amarai, ACMSP Livro de Casamento de Santo Amaro, fol. 181.
67 AESP, Maços de população, Capital, Bairro de Santana, for the years of 1765, 1778, 1779, 1780, 1783, 1787, 1795, 1796, 1798, 1802, 1807, 1816, 1825.
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70 This attitude was similar to the Brazilian state two hundred years later: the 1970 Brazilian national census collected no data regarding race. See Skidmore, Thomas, “Racial ideas and Social Policy in Brazil, 1870–1940,” in Graham, Richard, ed. The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870–1940 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), p. 27.Google Scholar The revolutionary government of Cuba has also had an explicit policy to not classify people by race in censuses or other official documents.
71 Antonio Manoel de Mello Castro e Mendonça to Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho, S. Paulo, Aprii 19, 1798, in DI Voi 29, p. 60. He stated that he was sending the results “divided into three more classes than had previously been practiced,” that is, the three new race groups required. The preceding letter sending census results to the Secretary of State, dated August 17 of 1797, stated that they were divided into the “ten classes established until then,” that is, ten age groups. DI, Vol 29, pp. 4–5.
72 Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho to Bernardo Jozé de Lorena, Lisbon, September 14, 1796. DI, Vol. 46, p. 487.
73 The directives were written September 14, only one week after his nomination as “Ministro e Secretano da Repartiçào da Marinha e do Ultramar” by the prince regent. (The text of his nomination is found in Arquivo Nacional da Tone do Tombo in Lisbon, Ministério do Reino, Registro de oficíos do Conselho Ultramarino, Div. 4, classe 2, no. 2, livro 179, fol. 31.) By the last third of the eighteenth century, most of the power in relation to the colonies was no longer in the hands of the Conselho Ultramarino but in those of the Secretary of State.
74 Comment in the entry for Rodrigo Domingos de Souza Coutinho Teixeira de Andrade Barbosa found in the Grande enciclopédia portuguesa e brasileira (Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro: Editorial Enciclopédia Limitada, 1945).
75 “Discurso sobre a verdadeira Influencia das Minas dos Metaes preciozos na Industria das Nações que as possuem, e especialmente da Portugueza,” in Memorias Economicas da Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa para o adiantamento da agricultura, das artes e da industria em Portugal e suas conquistas (Lisboa: Officina da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1789) Vol. 1.
76 For instance, Martinho de Mello e Castro, Portuguese Secretary of State, to Martim Lopes Lobo de Saldanha, captain general of São Paulo, Lisbon, May 21, 1776, DI, Vol. 43, pp. 65–8.
77 Most of the correspondence of this governor was related to his intense recruiting efforts for the regular army. When he spoke about recruiting among all races, he sometimes did not mention bastardos at all, just spoke of “brancos, mulatos e negros forros.” (See DI, Vol. 78, 1777, pp. 11, 14, 15.) Other times he called them “administrados.” (See DI, Vol. 74, correspondence of 1775, pp. 81–2; Vol. 78, 1777, p. 13, and Vol. 81, 1781, pp. 80, 130.) In other instances he used the term bastardo. (See DI, Vol. 74, 1775, p. 67; Vol. 78, 1777, pp. 21, 25, 39, 45.)
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80 In an article dealing with the results of a 1987 IBGE survey, “pardo” is defined as “categoria em que estão incluídos os mestiços, cafusos, índios e todas as nuances de cor que existem entre o tipo europeu e o tipo africano.” See “As cores do Brasil,” Veja (May 30, 1990), p. 40.1 thank Bert Barickman for this reference.
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82 For examples of such processes, see Seed, “The Social.”
83 This is an exception to Bob McCaa’s conclusion that most racial drifting in marriage happens downward. “Calidad, Clase, and Marriage in Colonial Mexico: The Case of Parral, 1788–1790,” Hispanic American Historical Review 64:3 (1984), pp. 477–501.
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