¹ Carl, Degler'sNeither Black Nor White (New York, 1971) is the first attempt at a detailed and systematic explanation of the contrasting patterns of race relations in Brazil and the U.S. It includes consideration of some but not all of the factors suggested in this article.Google Scholar

² The best account of the last decade of the abolitionist campaign in Brazil is Robert, Brent Toplin, ‘The Movement for the Abolition of Slavery in Brazil, 1880–1888’ (Ph.D. thesis, History, Rutgers University, 1968),Google Scholar shortly to be published by Atheneum Press. See also Thomas, E. Skidmore, ‘The Death of Brazilian Slavery’, in Frederick, Pike, ed., Select Problems in Latin American History (New York, 1968), pp. 134–71;Google Scholarse and Richard, Graham, ‘Action and Ideas in the Abolitionist Movement in Brazil’, in Magnus, Mörner (ed.), Race and Class in Latin America (New York, 1970), pp. 51–69.Google Scholar

³ Toplin, , ‘The Movement for the Abolition of Slavery in Brazil’, p. 69.Google Scholar

⁴ Arthur, Ramos, La métissage au Brésil (Paris, 1952), p. 68.Google Scholar

⁵ One of the best general discussions of comparative race relations is Pierre, L. van den Berghe, Race and Racism A Comparative Perspective (New York, 1967).Google Scholar I have drawn also upon Hoetink, H., The Two Variants in Caribbean Race Relations (New York, 1967),Google Scholar and Michael, Banton, Race Relations (London, 1967).Google Scholar All three attempt to place Brazil and the United Slates in a wider comparative context. The most comprehensive comparison of present-day race relations in Brazil and the U.S. is Degler, , Neither Black Nor White, chs iii and iv.Google Scholar

⁶ E. Franklin Frazier visited Brazil in 1940–1 and later reported (in a paper published in 1944) that ‘in Brazil there is lacking, both on the part of the Portuguese and the “white” Brazilians and, on the part of the “black” or “colored” Brazilians, a consciousness of racial differences’. Frazier, E. Franklin, On Race Relations (ed. by Edwards, G. Franklin) (Chicago, 1968), pp. 87–8.Google Scholar Frazier corrected this misleading description in a later paper, published in 1958, ibid., pp. 75–81. Brazil has been described as totally without color discrimination in Alan, K. Manchester, ‘Racial Democracy in Brazil’, The South Atlantic Quarterly, 64 (No. 1, Winter 1965), 27–35.Google Scholar One of the most experienced observers of Brazilian racial behavior found the application of racial categories i n a Bahian fishing village so confusing and inconsistent that he despaired of trying to describe the process. Marvin, Harris, ‘Racial Identity in Brazil’, Luso-Brazilian Review, 1 (No. 2, Winter 1964), 21–8.Google Scholar

⁷ Marvin, Harris, Patterns of Race in the Americas (New York, 1964).Google Scholar

⁸ See, for example, the description in Florestan, Fernandes, The Negro in Brazilian Society (New York, 1969), pp. 360–79.Google Scholar Degler finds the essential difference between the two societies to be the ‘mulatto escape hatch’, a graphic characterization of bi-racial vs. multi-racial. Neither Black Nor White, p. 223–5.

⁹ Gilberto, Freyre, The Mansions and the Shanties (New York, 1963).Google Scholar

¹⁰ The practical difficulties of describing this system are discussed in Marvin, Harris and Conrad, Kotak, ‘The Structural Significance of Brazilian Categories’, Sociologia, 25 (No. 3, 09. 1963), 203–8.Google Scholar

¹¹ Hoetink, , The Two Variants, pp. 120–6.Google Scholar

¹² Thomas, E. Skidmore, ‘Brazilian Intellectuals and the Problem of Race, 1870–1930’, Occasional Paper No. 6: Graduate Center for Latin American Studies, Vanderbilt University (03 1969).Google Scholar

¹³ There is ample evidence of police suppression of Afro-Brazilian religious cults during the 1920s and 1930s in Arthur, Ramos, O Negro brasileiro (2nd ed., São Paulo, 1940).Google Scholar

¹⁴ In the 1940 census racial classification was supposed to be made by the census enumerator, whereas in 1950 the respondent was asked to declare his own racial category. Saunders, J. V. D., Differential Fertility in Brazil (Gainesville, Fla, 1958), p. 42.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Saunders, , Differential Fertility, p. 51;Google ScholarSmith, T. Lynn, Brazil: People and Institutions (Baton Rouge, La, 1963), pp. 101–6;Google ScholarFernandes, , The Negro in Brazilian Society, pp. 57–71.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Smith, , Brazil, pp. 73–4;Google ScholarSaunders, , Differential Fertility, pp. 58–62.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Roger, Bastide, ‘The Development of Race Relations in Brazil’, in Guy, Hunter (ed.), Industrialisation and Race Relations (London, 1965), pp. 9–29.Google Scholar A more detailed treatment of the black nationalist movement may be found in Fernandes, , The Negro in Brazilian Society, pp. 187–233.Google Scholar Fuller documentation for the movement will be found in the original Brazilian edition of Fernandes' book, A Integração do negro à asociedade de classes (Rio de Janeiro, 1964), ch. 4. Sources on the largely still-born attempt at a black nationalist revival since 1945 are in Abdias, do Nascimento, O Negro revoltado (Rio de Janeiro, 1968).Google Scholar His bitterness over the failure of the revival comes out clearly in the round-table discussion on race relations reproduced in Edison, Carneiroet al., O Negro Brasileiro (séie ‘Cadernos Brasileiros’, No. 7) (Rio de Janeiro, 1968).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Bastide, ‘The Development of Race Relations in Brazil’.

¹⁹ René, Ribeiro, Religião e Relações Raciais (Rio de Janciro, n.d.), p. 159.Google Scholar

²⁰ Russell-Wood, A. J. R., Fidalgos and Philanthropists (Berkeley, 1968), p. 140;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBoxer, C. R., Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, 1415–1825 (Oxford, 1963), pp. 116–7, 119.Google Scholar

²¹ Floresan, Fernandes describes this as the white Brazilian's ‘ prejudice of having no prejudice’, The Negro in Brazilian Society, p. xv.Google Scholar

²² Correio da Manhã (Rio de Janeiro), 9 August 1904; 4 February 1906.

²³ Anais da Assembléia Constituinte, III (Rio de Janeiro, 1946), 409.

²⁴ Decree No. 528 of 28 June 1890.

²⁵ Decree No. 6455 of 19 April 1907.

²⁶ The constitutional clause of 1934 (superseded by the Constitution of 1937) and the decree of 1945 are given in Manuel, Diégues Júnior, Imigração, Urbanização e Industrialização (Rio de Janeiro, 1964), pp. 335–7.Google Scholar

²⁷ Law, No. 1390 of 3 07 1951.Google Scholar

²⁸ Leslie, B. Rout Jr, ‘Brazil: Study in Black, Brown and Beige’, Negro Digest, 19 (No. 4, 02 1970), 21–3; 65–73.Google Scholar

²⁹ This research is ably synthesized in Degler, , Neither Black Nor White, ch. III.Google Scholar

³⁰ The difficulties of writing truly comparative history have been forcefully emphasized in Robert, R. Berkhofer's review of Van Woodward, C. (ed.), ‘The Comparative Approach to American History’ in the Journal of Social History, 3 (No. 2, Winter, 1969–1970), 163–71.Google Scholar

³¹ One experienced student of the subject has concluded that ‘there is a generalization of an identical pattern of racial relations, inherited from slavery, throughout the whole of Brazil, in spite of the economic, cultural, demographic and social differences which distinguish its diverse regions’. Bastide, , ‘The Development of Race Relations’, p. 13.Google Scholar Although acknowledging regional variations, Degler has also chosen to compare the societies on a national level, Neither Black Nor White, pp. 98–101.

³² I have been warned by specialists in American history that seriously misleading oversimplifications are easy to make on this subject. Nonetheless, I find the present-day reluctance to discuss the historical role of the American mulatto somewhat puzzling. The heavy predominance of light-complexioned persons among the Negro leadership was specifically emphasized in Richard, Bardolph, The Negro Vanguard (New York, 1959).Google Scholar Bardolph concluded, however, that the importance of complexion in determining status within Negro society had greatly diminished in the twentieth century, pp. 136, 284–5, 327. One American anthropologist wrote a scholarly monograph in 1918 in which he called the mulatto ‘the key to the race problem’. Edward, Byron Reuter, The Mulatto in the United States (Boston, 1918).Google Scholar The allegedly central role of the American mulatto was stressed also in the writings of the Southern planter-essayist, Alfred, Holt Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem (New York, 1908).Google Scholar Degler discusses the closing of an ‘incipient mulatto escape hatch’ in the United States in the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century, Neither Black Nor White, pp. 239–45.

³³ Reprinted in Sidney, Fine and Gerald, S. Brown (eds.), The American Past (New York, 1961), 1, 380.Google Scholar I am indebted to Richard Sewell for this reference. One Southern planter wrote in 1903: ‘ If the statutes of those states which have been charged with discriminating against the Negro were not in any wise enforceable against the mulatto, I strongly suspect that America's race problem would speedily resolve itself into infinitely simpler proportions’. The quotation is taken from an Atlantic Monthly article (May 1903) by Alfred Holt Stone, reprinted in his Studies in the American Race problem.

³⁴ See, for example, the speech of Malcolm X reprinted in John, H. Bracey Jr, et al. (eds.), Black Nationalism in America (Indianapolis, 1970), pp. 413–20.Google Scholar

³⁵ My discussion of ‘racial ideologies’ parallels the discussion of ‘attitudes’ in Degler, , ‘Slavery in Brazil and the United States: An Essay in Comparative History’, American Historical Review, 75 (No. 4, 04 1970), 1026–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁶ Newby, I. A., Jim Crow's Defense: Anti-Negro Thought in America, 1900–1930 (Baton Rouge, 1965),Google Scholar ch. i. Brazilian thought is briefly analyzed in Skidmore, ‘Brazilian Intellectuals and the Problem of Race’. The most comprehensive analysis of American racial thought in this period is George, Frederickson, The Black Image in the White Mind (New York, 1971).Google Scholar

³⁷ The contrast between the two ideologies was never clearer than in the paper delivered at the First Universal Races Congress in 1911 by the Brazilian anthropologist João Baptista de Lacerda, who explained that within a century his country would have become entirely white, since the blacks were dying Out and the mixed bloods were steadily approximating the white. João, Baptista de Lacerda, ‘The Metis, or Half-Breeds, of Brazil’, in Spiller, G. (ed.), Papers on Inter-Racial Problems Communicated to the First Universal Races Congress (London, 1911), pp. 377–82.Google Scholar Lacerda was promptly attacked in Brazil for having implied that whites were not already a majority in his country! Lacerda, , O Congresso Universal das raças reunido em Londres (Rio de Janeiro, 1912), pp. 85–101.Google Scholar In America, on the other hand, only a few years later the author of an influential study of the mulatto could pose the question: ‘would the infusion of 10% of Negro blood so materially lower the ideals and the intellectual and cultural capacity of the population as to cause the country to drop out of the group of cultured nations?’ Edward, Byron Reuter, The Mulatto in the United States (Boston, 1918), p. 5.Google Scholar

³⁸ Woodward, C. Vann, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (2nd rev. ed., New York, 1966);Google ScholarCarl, Degler, Out of Our Past (New York, 1959), pp. 233–7.Google Scholar

³⁹ Winthrop, D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550–1812 (Chapel Hill, 1968), pp. 78–80.Google Scholar For the origins of discrimination against Negroes, see Degler, , Out of Our Past, pp. 26–39.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ The best single source on Afro-Brazilian cults is Roger, Bastide, Les religions africaines au Brésil (Paris, 1960).Google Scholar Information on the lay brotherhoods is given in Boxer, , Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire.Google Scholar

⁴¹ See, for example, Pinto, L. A. Costa, O Negro no Rio de Janeiro (São Paulo, 1953),Google Scholar ch. III; Fernando, Henrique Cardoso and Octávio, Ianni, Côr e Mobilidade Social em Florianopolis (São Paulo, 1960);Google ScholarRoger, Bastide and Florestan, Fernandes, Brancos e Negros em São Paulo (2nd ed., São Paulo, 1959).Google Scholar A recent study of social mobility in the radio broadcasting industry of São Paulo indicates only a very limited access for men of color, especially to help promote products designed for the ‘Negro market’: João, Baptista Borges Pereira, Côr, Profissão e Mobilidade (São Paulo, 1967).Google Scholar

⁴² A lucid methodological guide for the comparative study of slave treatment is offered in Eugene, D. Genovese, ‘The Treatment of Slaves in Different Countries: Problems in the Application of the Comparative Method’, in Laura, Foner and Eugene, D. Genovese (eds.), Slavery in the New World: A Reader in Comparative History (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1969), pp. 202–10.Google Scholar The most systematic comparison between Brazilian and American slavery to date is Degler, Neither Black Nor White, ch. II. Degler concludes that differences in the slave systems ‘are not fundamental to an explanation of differences in contemporary race relations’, ibid., p. 92. There is frequent comparison of American and Brazilian slavery and race relations in chs 2 and 3 of Eugene, D. Genovese, Th World the Slaveholders Made (New York, 1969).Google Scholar

⁴³ A pioneering effort has been made by Herbert, S. Klein, ‘The Colored Freedmen in Brazilian Slave Society’, Journal of Social History, 3 (No. 1, Fall 1969), 30–52.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Kenneth, M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution (New York, 1956), p. 320.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Maurício, Goulart, Escravidão Africana no Brasil (São Paulo, 1949), pp. 155–7.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Philip, D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison, 1969), p.28.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Philip, D. Curtin, ‘Epidemiology and the Slave Trade’, Political Science Quarterly, 83 (No. 2, 06 1968), 190–216.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Curtin, , The Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 41.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Stanley, J. Stein, Vassouras: A Brazilian Coffee County, 1850–1900 (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), pp. 76–7.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Stampp, , The Peculiar Institution, pp. 245–51.Google Scholar

⁵¹ The contrast in the rate of natural increase among American and Brazilian slave populations is explored in Degler, , Neither Black Nor White, pp. 61–7.Google Scholar

⁵² Smith, , Brazil, pp. 101–6;Google ScholarSaunders, , Differential Fertility, p. 51; Klein, ‘The Colored Freedmen’.Google Scholar

⁵³ Saunders, , Differential Fertility, pp. 59–62.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Frazier, E. Franklin, The Negro in the United States (rev. ed., New York, 1957), pp. 177–80.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Klein, ‘The Colored Freedmen’.

⁵⁶ Leon, F. Litwack, North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790–1860 (Chicago, 1961);Google ScholarEugene, H. Berwanger, The Frontier Against Slavery: Western Anti-Negro Prejudice and the Slavery Extension Controversy (Urbana, 1967). Berwanger may well have overstated. his thesis.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Researchers should note two recent articles: Magnus Mörner, ‘ Historical Research on Race Relations in Latin America During the National Period ’, and Octávio Ianni, ‘Research on Race Relations in Brazil’, both in Magnus, Mörner (ed), Race and Class in Latin America.Google Scholar