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Slave Control and Slave Resistance in Colonial Minas Gerais, 1700–1750

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Julio Pinto Vallejos
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Extract

In the early half of the eighteenth century, Minas Gerais became the main focus of colonial activity in Brazil. Gold and diamonds made this an immensely profitable colony at the very time when the sugar economy of the Northeast entered one of its most severe downturns. In response to this combination of circumstances, population and resources deserted the northeastern coastlands (and the Portuguese mainland as well) in favor of the rising Center–South. From that point on, this was to become the dominant area within Brazil – in a pattern unshaken either by independence or by the exhaustion of the gold deposits. The transfer of the viceregal capital from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro (1763) only gave official recognition to a process that demography, economy and society had already made quite unequivocal.

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Articles
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Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , May 1985 , pp. 1 - 34
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

1 Among the older histories of Minas Gerais, the standard works are Vasconcellos, Diogo de, História Antiga de Minas Geraes (Belo Horizonte, 1904),Google Scholar and História Média de Minas Geraes (Belo Horizonte, 1918);Google ScholarAffonso de Escragnolle, Taunay, História Geral das Bandeiras Paulistas, (10 vols, São Paulo, 1924–1929),Google Scholar and Relatos Sertanistas (São Paulo, 1953);Google ScholarAugusto de Lima, Junior, A Capilania das Minas Gerais (2nd ed., Rio de Janeiro, 1943),Google Scholar and Vila Rica do Ouro Preto (Belo Horizonte, 1957).Google Scholar For this paper, I have relied most heavily on Waldemar de Almeida, Barbosa, História de Minas (2 vols, Belo Horizonte, 1979),Google Scholar and the English-language survey by Charles R., Boxer, The Golden Age of Brazil: 1695–1750 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1962).Google Scholar

2 Carneiro, Edison, ‘O Negro em Minas Gerais’, in Universidade de Minas, Gerais, Segundo Semindrio de Estudos Mineiros (Belo Horizonte, 1956), p. 7.Google Scholar

3 The source for these figures is the Capitation Roll (Matrícula) begun in 1735 and discontinued in 1750. Biblioteca Municipal de São, Paulo, Codice Costa Matoso. This is a collection of manuscripts on the early history of Minas Gerais, assembled in 1749 by Caetano da Costa Matoso – a royal judge (Ouvidor Geral)Google Scholar based in Ouro Preto. The rolls are reproduced in Boxer, , The Golden Age of Brazil, appendix 4, pp. 341–6.Google Scholar

4 José João Teixeira, Coelho, Instrucção para o governo da Capitania de Minas Geraes (Porto, 1780),Google Scholar reproduced in RAPM no. 8 (1903), pp. 399–581. The undersupply of slaves is reproduced in pp. 500ff.Google Scholar

5 The census data were extracted from Guilherme, , Barão de, Eschwege, Pluto Brasiliensis (1822),Google Scholar trans. Rodoipho, Jacob in RAPM no. 2, fasc. 4; no. 3, pp. 43 3–63, 519–77;Google Scholar also, from the same author, Noilcias e Refiexões Estatísticas da Província de Minas Geraes, in RAPM no., pp. 737ff.Google Scholar See also Waldemar de Almeida, Barbosa,História de Minas, vol. 2, 335.Google Scholar

6 Carneiro, , ‘O Negro em Minas Gerais’, pp. 8–9. A royal instruction to the governor of Rio de Janeiro, Artur de Sá e Menezes, dated 17 March 1702, ordains the distribution of gold-bearing lands as follows: the first two allotments (datas) went to the discoverer; the third to the Crown; the fourth to the royal representative (ouvidor, governor, etc.). The rest were distributed by drawing lots, the size varying in proportion to the number of slaves each prospective miner could mobilize: a full data of thirty square fathoms (braças) for twelve slaves or more, smaller fractions of a data for lesser numbers, on the basis of 2.5 sq. braças per individual slave.Google ScholarDI, vol. 51, pp. 71–3.Google Scholar The same provisions are found in the mining code of 19 April 1702, See also André, João Antonil (pseudonym for João Antonio Andreoni), Cultura e Opulência do B asil par suas Drogas e Minas (Lisbon, 1711), part 3, ch. vi.Google Scholar

7 Teixeira Coclho blames the decay of the mines, at least partially, on the lack of slaves, Instrucção…, p. 500. The 200-slave yearly quota is discussed in several letters published in DI: the quota was first established in 1701,Google ScholarDI, vol. i, pp. 12–14;Google Scholar and it was finally abolished in 1711, DI, vol. 9, pp. 7–9.Google Scholar The intervening debate is illustrated in DI, vol. 51, pp. 51–2, 71–3, 122–4, 133; vol. 2, pp. 34–5, 182–3.Google Scholar

8 Boxer, op. cit., pp. 197–200.

9 Black slavery in Minas is discussed in Boxer, , The Golden Age of Brazil; Edison Carneiro, ‘O Negro em Minas Gerais’Google Scholar, and Waldemar de Almeida, Barbosa, História de Minas, vol. 2, ch. 2. I was informed of a recent book by John Russell-Wood which deals extensively with this subject, The Black Man in Slavery and Freedom in Colonial Brazil. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a copy before writing this paper.Google Scholar

10 For Minas Gerais, this thesis is defended by Waldemar de Almeida Barbosa, especially in his Negros e Quilombos em Minas Gerais (Belo Horizonte, 1972), and Edison Carneiro, ‘O Negro em Minas Gerais’. For a more interesting discussion of slave images in general, and the ‘Sambo’ image in particular, see Emilia Viotti da Costa, ‘Slave Images and Realities’, a paper delivered at the 1976 Conference on Slavery of the New York Academy of Science.Google Scholar

11 This is the view of Clovis, Moura, Rebeliões da Senala (Rio de Janeiro, 1972),Google Scholar and Artur, Ramos, O Negro Brasileiro (São Paulo, 1940),Google ScholarA Aculturação Negra no Brasil (São Paulo, 1942).Google Scholar

12 Carneiro, , ‘O Negro…’, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

13 See, for example, a document quoted by Carneiro, dating from 1735; some masters gave their slaves ‘pólvora e balas e todas as mais armas de catena e facas para entrarem pelos rios e fazerem negócios de compras de diamantes, ou os tirarem por força aos negros que andam minerando’; ‘O Negro…’, p. 16. Cf. also DI, vol. 13, p. 109.

14 The examples are numerous; cf. DI, vol. 13, pp. 101–3, 109, 110–12; vol. 22, pp. 140, 164, Teixeira Coelho alludes to this problem in the following terms: “[Lourenço de Almeida] cohibio as desordens q'os Negros das vendas volanres introduzirão nos Serviços mineraes, pela Portaria de 13 de Março de 1725, e pelos Bandos de 18 de Junho do rnesmo anno, de 11 de Junho de 1728, e de 11 de Setembro de 1729…’, Instrucção…, p. 471.

15 DI, vol. 50, pp. 33–4, 60–12.

16 RAPM no. 2, pp. 787–8; Carneiro, op. cit., pp. 8–12.

17 Ibid. pp. 8–9.

18 See, for example, Frederick, Bowser, The African Slave in Colonial Peru, 1540–1650 (Stanford, 1974).Google Scholar

19 Luís Gomes, Ferreira, Erário Mineral dividido em doze Tratados (Lisbon, 1735 ).Google Scholar Also, Boxer, op. cit., pp. 173–5.

20 DI, vol. 13, pp. 101–3: ‘…(e) porq'tambern me consta q'alguns dos dos. negros q'costumão minerar são maltratados de seus Senhores, e administradores, do que poderá nascer o dezemcaminharem alguns o ouro q'tirão pa. revirem a sua vexação, ordeno outro sirn q'os Senhores dos dos. mineiros, ihe assistão corn o mantimento e vestuario nccessro. pa. se ihe atalharem as occaziões de furtarem, e serem castigados corn razão quando o fação’.

21 Teixeira Coelho, op. cit., p. 471; DI, vol. 13, pp. 101–3, 109, 110–12, 133–4; vol. 22, pp. 140, 164.

22 DI, vol. 13, pp. 101–3, 130–1; RIHGMG, iii (1959): ‘Quilombos em Minas Gerais’, pp. 2–3. Barbosa, História de Minas, vol. 2, pp. 302–3; Carneiro, op. cit., p. 16.

23 Clovis, Moura, Rebeliões da Senzala, pp. 93–4.Google Scholar

24 Carneiro, op. cit., p. 17; Teixeira Coelho, op. cit., p. 473; Barbosa, Negros e Quilombos…, p. 57.

25 White store- and innkeepers did not always profit from the commercial ventures of the blacks. A São Paulo edict of 1727, forbidding peddling and the setting up of bread ovens outside the towns, referred to the complaints of the owners of established inns and stores; DI, vol. 13, pp. 126–7.

26 DI, vol. 13, pp. 110–12.

27 DI, vol. 51, p. 133; vol. 52, 34–5.

28 Teixeira Coelho, op. cit., p. 501.

29 Ibid., pp. 472–5; Boxer, op. cit., pp. 197–200, 204–5, 258–9. The definitive text of the capitation tax (1734) is reproduced in RAPM no. 4, pp. 37–44.

30 Teixeira Coelho, op. cit., pp. 500-1.

31 DI, vol. 13, pp. 103–4.

32 A letter from Sâo Paulo's governor Rodrigo César de Menezes, written on 2 September 1722, says the following: ‘Sr.-Constando-rne q'nas Villas desta Capitania andavão mtos. negros escravos fugidos aos seus Sres., e que alguãs pessoas os induzião retendo-os em suas cazas, obrigando-os a trabaihar em suas fazendas corn prejuizo de seus proprios senhores, q'depois de se saber onde estavão, procurando havellos os achavão vendidos…’, DI, vol. 32, p. 25.

33 DI, vol. 53, pp. 192; RAPM no. 3, pp. 251–2.

34 The 1722 ordinances for the capitaesdo mato can be found in RAPM no. 2, pp. 389–91.

35 RIHGMG, vi, pp. 435–6.

36 Teixcira Coelho, pp. 484; DI, vol. 53, op. cit., p. 192. The governor Count of Assumar detailed the career of one of the most notorious among such regulos, the Emboaba leader and once self-appointed governor Manoel Nunes Vianna, in one of his letters to the king. Cf. RAPM no. 3, pp. 252–61. On the general lawlessness of the first mineiros see Antonil, Cultura e Opuléncia do Brasil, part 3, ch. v.

37 Boxer, op. cit., ch. 2, esp. pp. 42–3. Antonil, whose book was published in 1711, felt constrained to devote the longest chaper in his mining section to ‘the obligation to pay the King our Lord the fifth of the gold extracted from the Brazilian mines’; Cultura e Opuléncia…, part, ch. ix.

38 Boxer, op. cit., ch. 3; Barbosa, História de Minas, vol. i, pp. 89–91.

39 Both these rebellions were precipitated by the imposition of new royal taxes: that of 1715 is mentioned in Barbosa, História…, vol. 1, p. 64. The Vila Rica uprising of 1720 was the subject of a long explanatory report by the Count of Assumar, reproduced in RAPM no. 6, pp. 213–37. See also Clovis, Moura, Rebeliões da Senzala, p. 60;Google ScholarBarbosa, , História, vol. 1, pp. 135–8;Google ScholarFrancisco Antonio, Lopes, ‘Conde de Assumar’, RIHGMG, v, pp. 123–6.Google Scholar

40 RAPM no. 6, pp. 213–14; Lopes, ‘Conde de Assumar’, p. 123.

41 DI, vol.50, p. 61.

42 Teixeira Coelho, op. cit., p. 471. See also DI, vol. 13, pp. 130–1; vol. 22, pp. 180–1; vol. 53, p. 192.

43 ‘Registro de hum bando sobre os negros não uzarem de armas prohibidas, de porretas, e capotes nestas minas’, 14 December 1727, DI, vol. 13, pp. 130–1; reiterated on 27 October 1740, DI, vol. 22, p. 152.

44 DI, vol. 53, p. 192.

45 Teixeira Coelho, op. cit., p. 469. See also Moura, Rebeliões da Senzala, p. 61.

46 Barbosa, História…, vol. 2, p. 337.

47 Teixeira Coelho praises the late eighteenth century governor Count of Valladares (1768–73) for his zeal in punishing and weakening the regulos, p. 484. See also ‘Colecçāo sumaria das proprias Leis, Cartas Régias, Avisos e Ordens que se acham nos Livros da Secretaria do Governo desta Capitania de Minas Geraes, deduzidas por ordem a títulos separados’ (Vila Rica, 1751)Google Scholar in RAPM no. 16, pp. 448–52.

48 Barbosa, , História…, vol. i, p. 128;Google ScholarDI, vol. 33, pp. 180–2.Google Scholar

49 DI, vol. 13, p. 106; ‘Regimento dos capitães do mato’,Google ScholarRAPM no. 2, pp. 389–91.

50 ‘Colecção sumaria das proprias Leis…’, n. 18, RAPM no. 16, pp. 451–2; Carneiro, ‘O Negro…’, p. 16.

51 DI, vol. 53. p. 192.

52 ‘Colecção sumaria das proprias Leis…’, RAPM no. 16, pp. 448–52.

53 Barbosa, História…, vol. 2, pp. 309–11; Negros e Quilombos em Minas Gerais, ch. 9.

54 Teixeira Coelho, op. cit., p. 479.

55 ‘Sobre a inquetação em que oje vivem os Moradores dessas Minas, e os continuos roubos, e mortes, que nellas fazem os Negros fugidos, será precizo que eu conceda ás Camaras das ditas Minas, dispender tudo o que for precizo de porcao Certa, e annual aos Capitães do Matto, ou Cabo Mayor não só pa. continuamente dezinfestarem as estradas destes Negros, mas pa. os hirem acometer em seus proprios Quilombos, sendo os milhores Cappitães do Matto, os Indios dos quaes se podião mandar dos portos do Mar pa. cada Comarca hua Aldea, que tenha athe quarenta homens. The King to Captain General Gomes Freire de, Andrada, 13 10 1745;Google ScholarRIHGMG vi, pp. 439–40.Google Scholar See also Count of Assumar to King, , 13 07 1718,Google ScholarRAPM no. 3, pp. 251–2.

56 Count of Assumar to King, 20 Apr. 1719, RAPM no. 3, p. 263.

57 Teixeira Coelho, p. 471.

58 DI, vol. 13, pp. 130–1; vol. 22, op. cit., pp. 152, 180–1.

59 DI, vol. 53, p. 192; Governor of Rio de, Janeiro to King, , 07 1716,Google ScholarDI, vol. 50, pp. 60–1.

60 DI, vol. 33, p. 182.

61 Teixeira Coelho, p. 471; DI, vol. 13, pp. 101–3, 110–12, 126–7; vol. 22, pp. 140, 164.

62 DI, vol. 13, pp. 110–12.

63 DI, vol. 22, p. 164.

64 DI, vol. 13, pp. 101–3.

65 DI, vol. 13, pp. 110–12; vol. 53, pp. 194–5.

66 ‘Registro de hum Bando sobre os Negros q'ogarem serem açoutados no pelourinho, e taõbem aqueles q'perderem o respto. aos soldados serem castigados’, 13 September 1738, DI, vol. 22, pp. 124–5.

67 TeixeiraCoelho, op. cit., p. 547; DI, vol. 13, pp. 133–4.

68 Barbosa, Negros e Quilombos…, pp. 107–8.

69 DI, vol. 53, pp. 194–5.

70 Boxer, op. cit., pp. 171–2.

71 Carneiro, op. cit., pp. 19–20. See also Boxer, op. cit., p. 177 and Appendix iv.

72 DI, vol. 53, p. 193. Also, ‘Carta régia a D. Alvaro da Silveira de Albuquerque ordenando-Ihe não consentisse que as escravas usarem sedas, pelles e ouro’, 23 Nov. 1703, vol. 51; and Antonil, Cultura e Opuléncia…, part 3, ch. XVII.

73 Count of Assumar, to King, , 13 07 1718,Google ScholarRAPM no. 3, pp. 251–2.

74 ‘Regimento dos Capitães do Mato’, RAPM no. 2, pp. 389–91.

75 DI, vol. 13, pp. 117–19.

76 DI, vol. 22, pp. 198–9.

77 ‘Quilombos em Minas Gerais’, RIHGMG, vi, pp. 43–6.

78 ‘Regimento dos Capitães do Mato’, RAPM no. 2, p. 390.

79 Teixeira, Coelho, op. cit., p. 479; ‘Colecção sumaria das proprias Leis…’, n. 18,Google ScholarRAPM no. 16, pp. 451–2.

80 Boxer, op. cit., p. 170.

81 ‘Expedição mandada fazer por Gomes Freire de Andrada para bater os quilombos’, RAPM no. 8, pp. 619–21.

82 Waldemar de Almeida Barbosa carries a yearly survey of quilombo activity from 1718 to 1865 in his Negros e Quilombos…, ch. 6, pp. 55–77.

83 Stuart Schwartz, lecture delivered at Yale University, 25 April 1983.

84 The exchange is reproduced in DI, vol. 50, pp. 33–4, 60–1.

85 ‘Quilombos em Minas Gerais’, last document on p. 442, RIHGMG, vi. See also Count of Assumar, to King, , 29 04 1719,Google ScholarRAPM no. 3, pp. 263–6.

86 Barbosa, Negros e Quilombos…, p. 49.

87 See ‘Letters of the Count of Assumar’, RAPM no. 3, pp. 251 ff.

88 DI, vol. 22, pp. 194–5; 198–9.

89 RAPM no. 8, p. 619; Barbosa, História…, vol. 2, p. 302.

90 Barbosa, Hisiória…, vol. 2, p. 301.

91 Waldemar de Almeida, Barbosa, Negros e Quilombos em Minas Gerais.Google Scholar

92 RAPM no. 8, pp. 619–21.

93 ‘Officio sobre quilombos na margem do Rio Tieté’, São Paulo Governor to King, 9 Dec. 1778, DI, vol. 43, pp. 201–2.

94 RAPM no. 8, 619–21.

95 The RAPM published one of these under the name ‘Caihambolas’, by Januario Pinto Moreira, no. 9, pp. 827–66.

96 Barbosa, História…, vol. 2, pp. 302–3; Moura, Rebeliões…, pp. 93–4, 109.

97 Barbosa, Negros e Quilombos…, ch. 5; ‘Colecção sumaria…’, n. 11, RAPM no. 16, p. 450.

98 Barbosa, Hislória…, vol. i, pp. 206–9.

99 ‘Ordem do Sor. Gvor. e Capam. Gnal. pa. o superintendente Jozeph Rebello Perdigão, tirar devassa do Levantamo. q'intentarão os negros minas do Ribeyrão abaixo’, 9 May. 1711; RAPM no. 2, pp. 787–8. Translated here as document i.

100 Teixeira Coelho, op. cit., pp. 469–71; Boxer, op. cit., pp. 192–7, 204–8.

101 Xavier da, Veiga, Epbemerides Mineiras 1664† 1897(4 vols, Ouro Preto, 1897), entry for 15 April 1756.Google Scholar See also Barbosa, Negros e Quilombos…, pp. 41–5.

102 Barbosa, Neros e Quilombos…, pp. 107–8; DI, vol. 53, pp. 191–5.

103 Barbosa, Negros e Quilombos…, p. 108.

104 Francisco Antonio, Lopes, Os Palácios de Vita Rica (Belo Horizonte, 1955 ), pp. 194–7;Google Scholar Boxer, op. cit., pp. 177–9.

105 Petição dos Homens Pardos Livres da Capitania', RIHGMG, vol. vi, p. 425.