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Slavery and Social Life: Attempts to Reduce Free People to Slavery in the Sertão Mineiro, Brazil, 1850–1871

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Judy Bieber Freitas
Judy Bieber Freitas
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
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Extract

In 1859 the district attorney of Montes Claros, in a long dispatch to the provincial chief of police, enumerating the many evils prevailing in his jurisdiction, included ‘craven traffickers who abduct little free children of colour whom they trick and seduce with fruits and presents, to sell as if they were slaves, trading them for livestock or mere trinkets’. This complaint was not an isolated incident; it reflected a larger trade in free people of colour which took place in the sertão of northern Minas Gerais after the closing of the transatlantic slave trade in 1851 and before the passage of the law of the free womb in 1871. The internal trade in free persons ceased in the early 1870s, when mandatory slave matriculation made illicit transactions more detectable.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , October 1994 , pp. 597 - 619
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 Luiz Gomes Ribeiro, district attorney of the comarca of Rio do São Francisco, to Manoel José Gomes Rebello Horta, provincial police chief, 1 June 1859, Arquivo Público Mineiro [hereafter cited as APM] Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, seção da provincia [hereafter SP], codice. 762.

2 For an overview of this debate see the bibliographic essay by Libby, Douglas Cole, Historiografia e a Formação Social Escravista Mineira. Acervo: Revista do Arquivo National, vol. 3 (01–06 1988), pp. 7–20Google Scholar.

3 Machado, Bernardo Mata, História do Sertão Noroeste de Minas Gerais—1690–1930 (São Paulo, 1990), pp. 30–86Google Scholar.

4 I address the intricacies of municipal administration, politics, and social control in the interior of Minas Gerais during the Empire in my dissertation, ‘Marginal Elites: Power, Politics, and Patronage in the Backlands of Northern Minas Gerais, Brazil, 1830–1889’, unpubl. Ph.D. diss., The Johns Hopkins University, 1994.

5 Martins, Roberto B., ‘Growing in Silence: The Slave Economy of Nineteenth Century Minas Gerais, Brazil’, unpubl. Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 1980Google Scholar; see also Martins, Roberto B. and Filho, Amilcar Martins, ‘Slavery in a Non-export Economy, Nineteenth Century Minas Gerais Revisited’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 63 (08 1983) pp. 537–68Google Scholar with responses by Slenes, Robert W., Dean, Warren, Engerman, Stanley and Genovese, Eugene in ‘Notes and Comments,’ Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 63, no. 3 (08 1983), pp. 569–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Martins's, response is in ‘Slavery in a Non export Economy: A Reply’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 4 (01 1984), pp. 135–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 This pattern also emerges in Hebe Maria Mattos de Castro's study of the subsistence-oriented município of Capivary in Janeiro, Rio de, Ao Sul da História (São Paulo, 1987)Google Scholar. Engerman, Stanley and Genovese, Eugene have criticised Martins on his claim to mineiro uniqueness in ‘Notes and Comments’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 63, no. 3 (08 1983), pp. 569–90Google Scholar.

7 Junior, Caio Prado, História Econômica do Brasil, 35th ed. (São Paulo, 1987), pp. 173–5Google Scholar.

8 Martins & Martins, ‘Slavery in a Non-export Economy’, p. 550.

9 Slenes, Robert W., ‘Os Múltiplos de Porcos e Diamantes: a Economia Escrava de Minas Gerais no Século XIX’, Estudos Económicos, vol. 18, no. 3 (09–12 1988), pp. 449–96Google Scholar. In his study of slave matríiculas in Campinas, Slenes discovered larger numbers of women and children than were revealed in the official census of 1872. These data suggested a population enjoying natural increase. See ‘O que Rui Barbosa não Queimou: Novas Fontes para o Estudo da Escravidão no Século XIX’ Estudos Econômicos, vol. 13, no. 1 (Jan.–April, 1983), p. 127.

10 A similar criticism was made by Warren Dean in ‘Notes and Comments’, pp. 582–3.

11 Libby, Douglas Cole, Transformação e Trabalho em uma Economia Escravista. Minas Gerais no Século XIX (São Paulo, 1988), pp. 58–61Google Scholar. However Libby does comment that data from the 1830s suggest that Minas Gerais was still importing slaves during that decade.

12 Luna, Francisco Vidal, Minas Gerais: Escravos e Senhores: Analise da Estrutura Populacional e Econômica de alguns Centros Mineratórios 1718–1804 (São Paulo, 1981), p. 132Google Scholar.

13 Botelho, Tarcíscio Rodrigues, Demografia da Escravidão Norte-Mineira no Século XIX unpublished BA. monograph, FAFICH-UFMG, Belo Horizonte, 1990Google Scholar.

14 Libby, Transformação e Trabalho, pp. 47–52.

15 ‘Notas Prévias sobre a Escravidáo na Zona da Mata em Minas Gerais [Século XIX]’ Anais do V Seminário sobre a Economia Mineira (Belo Horizonte, 1990), pp. 53–84.

16 M.A. thesis in progress.

17 Conrad, Robert estimates that 300,000 slaves were relocated in the interprovincial trade between 1850 and 1880: Worlds of Sorrow. The African Slave Trade to Brazil (Baton Rouge, 1986), p. 47Google Scholar.

18 These documents came to my attention during a systematic survey of the APM collection of police records, dating from 1835 to 1889. More than fifty different cases were reported, almost all occurring in the 1850s and 1860s. Numerous references to the illegal enslavement and sale of free people were exchanged between the police chief and the municipal police delegates and sub-delegates. Documentation ranges from perfunctory and inconclusive memos to lengthy court cases which took years to resolve.

19 Martins Filho and Martins, ‘Slavery in a Non-export Economy’, p. 548. Most of the correspondence addressing illegal enslavement of free people of colour was confidential [reservado]. Although mentioned in manuscript police reports to the president, the topic does not appear in published police statistics.

20 SP 707, Subdelegate of Alegres, C. S. de Oliveira to PPMG, 13 Feb. 1858.

21 SP 710, Substitute police delegate João Procipio to PPMG, 12 Dec. 1858.

22 SP 933, Report of second section of the provincial police to the provincial president of Minas Gerais, 21 Jan. 1862.

23 SP 933, Joaquim Pedro Vellaça to the provincial president, Paracatú, 8 April 1862.

24 SP 707, Francisco Januário da Gama Cerqueira to PPMG, 11 March 1858.

25 SP 763, Francisco Januário da Gama Cerqueira to PPMG, 15 Oct. 1859; SP 763, José Pinto de Barros, Municipal Judge of Santa Maria, GO to PPMG, 31 Aug. 1859.

26 SP 819, Joaquim Pedro Vellaça to PPMG, 21 April 1860, APM.

27 SP 878, Police Chief Quintiliano José da Silva to PPMG, 11 June 1861, APM.

28 SP 932, João Chrysostono Pinto da Fonseca Jr. to PPMG, 22 Feb. 1862.

29 SP 937, delegate of Januária, João Elisberio de Souza to provincial police chief, 29 Nov. 1862.

30 SP 987, Antônio Alves de Souza Soares to PPMG, 6 April 1863; SP 988, Soares to PPMG, July 1863.

31 SP 986, Joaquim Pedro Vellaça, district judge of Paracatú, to PPMG, 22 Jan. 1863; SP 932, Eufrario José de Andrade Cabral to PPMG, 2 March 1862; and SP 566, Police Delegate José da Costa Rangel to PPMG, 20 Aug. 1855.

32 SP 707, CS.d e Oliveira, subdelegate of Alegres to PPMG, 13 Feb. 1858, and Joaquim Pedro Vellaça to PPMG, 21 March 1858.

33 SP 566, autos of Silvério Rangel, 21 Aug. 1855.

34 SP 879, Vicente José Christiniano, 6th police subdelegate of Paracatú to PPMG, 31Dec. 1861.

35 SP 933, Padre José de Moira Barbosa, acting justice of the peace to PPMG, 2 April 1862 and Joaquim Pedro Vellaça to PPMG, 8 April 1862.

36 SP 932, Vicente José Crispiano to district judge of Paracatú Joaquim Pedro Vellaça, 27 Feb. 1862; Joaquim Pedro Vellaça to PPMG, 2 March 1862.

37 SP 932, Eufrário José de Andrade Cabral to PPMG, 2 March 1862.

38 SP 935, Caetano Rodrigues Horta, interim district attorney to police deputy of Paracatú, 7 July 1862. Chrysostono, accused of trafficking in illegal captives in 1855, denounced Captain Bernardo Bello Soares for the same crime in 1862, SP 932, Chrytostono Pinto da Fonseca Jr to PPMG, 22 Feb. 1862.

39 SP 937, Municipal judge João de Pina de Vasconcellos to PPMG, 22 Dec. 1962.

40 SP 936, Padre José de Souza Nogueira, Paracatú, 15 July 1861.

41 SP 935, Annual report of Ludgero Gonçalves da Silva, July 1862. It is interesting to note that in the published version, included in the provincial president's annual report, this section is absent.

42 SP 989, Police subdelegate of Serro to PPMG, 19 Dec. 1863.

43 SP 878, Quintiliano José da Silva to PPMG, 2 Sept. 1861, SP 1046; João Antônio Afronso to provincial vice president of Minas Gerais, 13 June 1864, SP 935; Ludgero Gonçalves da Silva to PPMG, July 1862, SP 1045; police statistics, 17 May 1863; SP 104;.

44 SP 935, Ludgero Gonçalves da Silva to PPMG, 18 Aug. 1862.

45 SP 762, petition of Reverendo Padre da Barra do Rio das Velhas, 12 July 1859.

46 SP 763, Chief of Police of Minas Gerais, 27 Oct. 1859.

47 SP 988, Antônio Alves de Souza Soares, police delegate of Patrocínio, to PPMG, 7 June 1863.

48 SP 935, Manoel Ferreira de Almeida, municipal judge of Patrocínio to VPPMG, 21 July 1862; requisition of Francisco Rodrigues Marins, Subdelegate of Santa Anna da Barra do Espírito Santo Municipal Judge Almeida, 2 July 1862 and Ludgero Gonçalves da Silva to VPPMG, 22 July 1862; SP 936, Ludgero Gonçalves da Silva to VPPMG, 1 Sept. 1862, SP 936.

49 SP 935, Secretary of the Police of São Paulo to PPMG, 11 July 1862.

50 SP 935, João Jacintho de Mendonça, Police Chief of São Paulo to VPPMG, 22 July 1862; SP 936, Manoel José Pinto da Silva, district judge of the Comarca of Parana to VPPMG, 11 Sept. 1862; SP 986, Constantino José da Silva Braga, district judge of Paranaiba to PPMG, 12 March 1863; SP 986, José Luciano de Resende, police subdelegate of Santa Anna to police delegate of Bagagem, 6 March 1863.

51 Legal and political distinctions did exist between libertos and those born free, however. In 1867, when Malheiro's treatise on slavery was published, libertos could only vote in primary elections and could not serve as officers in the National Guard. Malheiro, Perdigão, A Escravidäo no Brasil – Ensaio Histórico, Jurídico, Social (Rio de Janeiro, 1944; 1st pub. 1867), p. 182Google Scholar.

52 Russell-Wood, A. J. R., ‘Colonial Brazil’, in Cohen, David W. and Greene, Jack P. (eds.), Neither Slave nor Free: the Freedmen of African Descent in the Slave Societies of the New World (Baltimore, 1972), p. 109Google Scholar.

53 Lara, Silvia Hunold, Campos de Violência (Rio de Janeiro, 1988), p. 268Google Scholar.

54 Russell-Wood, A. J. R., ‘A Cause Célèbre of Colonial Brazil: Antonio Fernandes' personal struggle for justice’ Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Pesquisa Historca, vol. 4 (1987–1988), pp. 1–8Google Scholar.

55 Conrad, Robert, Children of God's Fire. A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil (Princeton, 1983), p. 326Google Scholar.

56 SP PP 1/18, cx 63, doc 10, Felipe Pereira de Carvalho to Oliveira e Castro, 10 Jan. 1835.

57 SP 1140, Quintiliano José da Silva to PPMG, 25 May 1856 [italics mine].

58 Kopytoff, Igor and Miers, Suzanne, ‘African Slavery as an Institution of Marginality’, in Miers, and Kopytoff, (eds.), Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives (Madison, 1977), pp. 1–83Google Scholar.

59 Parish birth, marriage and death records submitted to the provincial government show a pardo/mulatto majority in the communities of Northern Minas Gerais. SP 256, Barra do Rio das Velhas, 1 June 1837; São Romão, 6 July 1839; Contendas, 10 July 1839; Montes Claros, 16 July 1839; São José de Gorutuba, 15 July 1839. SP 257, Contendas, 15 Jan. 1840; São José de Gorutuba, 15 Jan. 1840; Montes Claros, 26 Jan. 1840. SP 572, Contendas, 22 Jan. 1855; São José de Gorutuba, 9 Feb. 1855; Barra do Rio das Velhas, 19 Feb. 185; Coração de Jesus, 1 Sept. 1855; Manga, 2 Sept. 1855; Morrinhos, 15 Sept. 1855. SP 609, Montes Claros, 10 Jan. 1856; Januária, 2 Feb. 1856.

60 See Hoetink's, Harry critical essay, Caribbean Race Relations. A Study of Two Variants (London/New York, 1967), p. 120Google Scholar.

61 Patterson, Orlando, Slavery and Social Death. A Comparative Study (Boston, 1982), pp. 5 and 13Google Scholar.

62 Chaloub, Sydney, Visöes da Liberdade (São Paulo, 1990), p. 38Google Scholar. For Gorender's, Jacob Marxist formulation of slave as object [coisaficação] see O Escravismo Colonial 4th ed. (São Paulo, 1985), pp. 46–69Google Scholar.

63 A notable exception is Franco, Maria Sylvia de Carvalho, Homens Livres na Ordem Escravocrata 3rd ed. (São Paulo, 1979)Google Scholar.

64 Carvalho Franco, Homens Livres, pp. 124–31.

65 Flory, Thomas, Judge and Jury in Imperial Brazil I808–1871 (Austin, 1981)Google Scholar.

66 Carvalho Franco, Homens Livres, p. 100.

67 SP 1187, Police Delegate of Jaguary, Bento Gomes de Creobar to police chief Pedro Francelino Guimarães, 18 May 1867; statement of Paula, Maria Francisca de, 18 May 1867 and copy of baptism records of Anna, 2 02 1803Google Scholar, Luiz, 1819 and Antônio, 1824.

68 SP 1187, autos de libelo civil between Paula, Maria Francisca de and Ribeiro, Antônio Pinto and the defendants Anna Crioula and her procurador Borges, Andrade, Baependi, , 18 05 1867Google Scholar.

69 Malheiro, ‘A Escravidão’, p. 139.

70 Ibid., p. 148.

71 Ibid., p. 150.

72 In her meticulously detailed work on slavery in Janeiro, Rio de, Karasch, Mary found evidence suggesting that children of conditionally manumitted mothers were considered to be slaves, Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1850 (Princeton, 1987), p. 354Google Scholar.

73 Chaloub, Visöes da Liberdade, pp. 122–31.

74 Chaloub located one case out of 215 examined; Karasch, 13 out of 1,319, Lara, 2 out of 133 and Eisenberg 2 out of 2,277. These figures cited in Chaloub, Visöes da Liberdade, p. 137.

75 Malheiro, Escravidão, p. 176.

76 SP 710, Police Chief Rabelo Hotta to PPMG, 16 Nov. 1858.

77 SP 1304, district judge of the comarca of Rio São Francisco, Francisco Manoel Paraiso Cavalcante to PPMG, 19 Jan. 1869, SP 1305; 27 Jan. 1869, SP 1306; 22 June 1869.

78 SP 1307, Police Chief Francisco S. da C. Belém to PPMG, 2 Sept. 1869.

79 SP 1306, Francisco Manoel Paraiso Cavalcante to PPMG, 22 June 1869.

80 SP 927, municipal judge of Pouso Alegre to PPMG, 24 Nov. 1862.

81 Carvalho, José Murilo de, ‘Elite and State Building in Imperial Brazil’, PhD diss., Stanford University, 1975Google Scholar.