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Illegal Enslavement, International Relations, and International Law on the Southern Border of Brazil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2016

Keila Grinberg
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Extract

The La Plata River Basin, bordering Uruguay and Brazil, was the site of constant disputes between the Spanish and Portuguese crowns into the eighteenth century. The conflicts dated back to the seventeenth century with the founding of the Colônia do Santíssimo Sacramento on the left bank of the river. Although both sides engaged in diplomatic efforts over the years, these were not enough to prevent war, and there were ongoing battles interspersed with short periods of calm until the end of the 1860s and the so-called Paraguayan War (1865–70).

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Law and History Review , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , February 2017 , pp. 31 - 52
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Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2016 

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Footnotes

This article was translated from Portuguese by Kristin McGuire. Previous versions of this article were presented at the seminar “Brazil: History, Human Rights, and Contemporary Slavery,” University of Michigan Law School and at the seminar “A Crime Against Humanity: Slavery and International Law, Past and Present,” at Stanford Law School and at the University of Maryland at College Park. The author thanks Anita Correia Lima de Almeida, Ira Berlin, Sueann Caulfield, Alejandro de la Fuente, Ariela Gross, Jean Hébrard, Martha Jones, Beatriz Mamigonian, Jenny Martinez, Claudia Regina Andrade dos Santos, Ricardo Salles, Rebecca Scott, Lisa Surwillo and Daryle Williams for their insightful comments and suggestions.

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15. “Nota do ministro britânico nesta Corte ao supremo governo das Provincias Unidas do Rio da Prata,” November 27, 1813, in Report of Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1857, Annex E, no 15:41; and “Nota daquele governo [de Buenos Aires] ao ministro de S.M. Britânica nesta Corte,” December 28, 1813, in Relatório do Ministro das Relações Exteriores, 1857, AnnexE, no 16:42.

16. Eugenio Petit Muñoz, La condición jurídica, social, económica y política de los negros durante el coloniaje en la Banda Oriental, Tomo 1. Montevideo, 1948, 243. An agreement was established only in 1774 between the governors of both sides on the reciprocal return of slaves and deserters. See Gabriel Aladrén, “Sem respeitar fé nem tratados: escravidão e guerra na formação histórica da fronteira sul do Brasil (Rio Grande de São Pedro, c. 1777–1835)” (PhD diss., Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, 2012).

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18. Royal Decree of 1550. Cited in ibid., 246–47.

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21. Royal Decree of September 24 1750, according to Lucena Salmoral, Leyes para esclavos, 259.

22. Lucena Salmoral, Leyes para esclavos, doc. no. 472:1026.

23. Lucena Salmoral, Leyes para esclavos, 1147–50.

24. Landers, “Spanish Sanctuary;” and Salmoral, Leyes para esclavos.

25. Landers, “Spanish Sanctuary,” 312–13.

26. Lucena Salmoral, Leyes para esclavos, 350–53.

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33. Relatório da Repartição dos Negócios Estrangeiros apresentado à Assembleia Geral legislativa. Correspondência dos Governantes, box 21, Arquivo Histórico do Rio Grande do Sul. See also Itamaraty Historical Archives (where the original lists are held), 310/1/1. These relationships, as well as the exact number of fugitives, have been intensively analyzed in the Rio Grande do Sul historiography. Petiz, Buscando a Liberdade, 53–54; and Caratti, Jonatas Marques, O solo da liberdade: as trajetórias da preta Faustina e do pardo Anacleto pela fronteira rio- grandense em tempos do processo abolicionista uruguaio (1842–1862). (Porto Alegre: OIkos, 2014)Google Scholar.

34. “Tratado entre o Senhor D. Pedro II, Imperador do Brasil, e a Republica Oriental do Uruguay para a entrega reciproca de criminosos, e desertores, e para a devolução de escravos, assinado no Rio de Janeiro em 12 de Outubro de 1851, e ratificado por parte do Brasil em 13 do mesmo mez, e pela da referida Republica em 4 de Novembro do dito ano,” articles VI e VII, in Sistema Consular Integrado – Atos Internacionais – Ministério das Relações Exteriores, Brasil. http://dai-mre.serpro.gov.br/atos-internacionais/bilaterais/1851/b_26/ (October 9, 2013).

35. In 1850, Francisco Pedro Buarque de Abreu, the Baron of Jacuí, organized the largest armed incursion (a “california”) to retrieve cattle and goods in Uruguay, having recruited an army of approximately 300 men, paid at his expense. Reclamaciones de la Republica Oriental del Uruguay contra el Gobierno de Brasil (Montevideo: El Pais, 1864), XIII; Torres, Miguel Gustavo de Paiva, O Visconde de Uruguai e sua atuação diplomática para a consolidação política externa do Império (Brasília: Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, 2011), 79–85 Google Scholar; Ferreira, Gabriela Nunes, O Rio da Prata e a Consolidação do Estado Imperial, (São Paulo, Hucitec, 2006), 116–17Google Scholar; and Rafael Peter de Lima, “A Nefanda Pirataria de Carne Humana': escravizações ilegais e relações políticas na fronteira do Brasil meridional (1851–1868)” (Master's Thesis, Porto Alegre, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 2010).

36. I am using the concept of a border of slavery as suggested by Joseph Miller and used throughout Africanist historiography. Miller, Joseph, Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and The Angolan Slave Trade, 1730–1830 (Wisconsin, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996)Google Scholar. See also Candido, Mariana, An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and its Hinterland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

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38. Statement from Basilio A. Pinilla, Head of the Department of Paissandu, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uruguay, Dr. D. Juan José de Herrera, on May 12, 1864. Documentos Oficiales Justificativos de la Conducta de las Autoridades Departamentales de la Republica Oriental del Uruguay contra las acusaciones de las Camaras Brasileras (segunda edición aumentada). Montevideo: ‘El Pais’, No 67 (1864): 11, cited in Lima, “A Nefanda Pirataria de Carne Humana,” 50.

39. Vásquez Sagastume cited in Lima, “A Nefanda Pirataria de Carne Humana,” 74.

40. In the Chinese case, after China's defeat by Britain, the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing established that several Chinese ports would be opened to foreign traders and that the British, when involved in a crime, would be tried in courts provided by their own consular authorities, rather than in the Chinese legal system. Horowitz, Richard S., “International Law and State Transformation in China, Siam, and the Ottoman Empire during the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of World History 15:4 (2004): 445–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41. Benton, “The Laws of This Country”; Lima, “A Nefanda Pirataria”; and Eliane Zabiela, “A presença brasileira no Uruguai e os tratados de 1851: de comércio e navegação, de extradição e de limite” (Master's Thesis, Porto Alegre, UFRS, 2002), 125.

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44. Torres, Miguel, O Visconde do Uruguai e sua atuação diplomática para a consolidação da política externa do Império (Brasília: Funag, 2011), 20Google Scholar; and Ferreira, O Rio da Prata e a Consolidação do Estado Imperial, 139–42.

45. Grinberg, Keila, “Slavery, Manumission and the Law in 19th Century Brazil: Reflections on the Law of 1831 and the ‘Principle of Liberty’ on the Southern Frontier of the Brazilian Empire,” European Review of History/Revue Europeene d'Histoire 16 (2009), 401–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Nequete, Lenine, O escravo na jurisprudência brasileira: magistratura e ideologia no Segundo Reinado (Porto Alegre: Editora Revista de Jurisprudência, 1988), 125–35Google Scholar.

46. Ferreira, O Rio da Prata e a Consolidação do Estado Imperial, 229.

47. About the historiography of slavery in Brazil, see Jean Hebrard, “Slavery in Brazil: Brazilian Scholars in the Key Interpretive Debates,” Translating the Américas, vol. 1, 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/lacs.12338892.0001.002 (accessed November 11, 2016) and Keila Grinberg, “Historiographie et usages publics de l'esclavage au Brésil”, Revue d'histoire du XIXe siècle 51 (2015): 127–44.

48. Malheiro, Agostinho Marques Perdigão, A escravidão no Brasil: ensaio histórico-jurídico-social (São Paulo: Edições Cultura, 1944 [1st ed. 1866]), 117Google Scholar.

49. Malheiro, A escravidão no Brasil and Da Silva and Grinberg, “Soil Free from Slaves.”

50. Law of November 7, 1831 in Câmara dos Deputados. Coleção das Leis do Império do Brasil. http://www2.camara.leg.br/legin/fed/lei_sn/1824-1899/lei-37659-7-novembro-1831-564776-publicacaooriginal-88704-pl.html (October 22, 2013).

51. Soares, Macedo, Campanha Jurídica pela Libertação dos Escravos, 1867–1888 (Rio de Janeiro: Jose Olympio, 1938), 79–83 Google Scholar.

52. The decrees of July 20 and September 10, 1858 established that in addition to cases of escape, already included in Article 6 of the Treaty of Extradition, the slaves should be returned when they randomly crossed the border with permission from a master, and when a slave crossed the border with the master's orders for “an occasional and momentary service.” “Notas Reversais sobre Extradição de Escravos,” in Sistema Consular Integrado—Atos Internacionais—Ministério das Relações Exteriores, Brasil. http://dai-mre.serpro.gov.br/atos-internacionais/bilaterais/1858/b_68/ (October 22, 2013).

53. Opinion, Council of State, March 20,1858, Brazil–Uruguay. Extradiction of Slaves. do Conselho de Estado de 20 de março de 1858, Brasil–Uruguai. Extradição de Escravos. Itamaraty Historical Archives, 5/58.

54. Malheiro, A escravidão no Brasil, n. 543.

55. Grinberg, As fronteiras da escravidão e da liberdade, 54, 68, 86.

56. Historical Archive of Itamaraty, Brazilian Diplomatic Missions, Special Mission of the Visconde of Rio Branco (1856–1859), Livro de Ofícios 1857, August 18, 1857, September 16, 1857.

57. Ibid., October 30 1857 (emphasis mine).

58. “Brasil-França. Projeto de Tratado de Extradição. Consulta de 27 de fevereiro de 1857,” in House of Representatives/Ministery of Foreign Affairs, Conselho de Estado 1842–1889, Consultas da Seção dos Negócios Estrangeiros, vol. 4 (1854–1857). (Brasília: Centro de Documentação e Informação, 1981), 523–524.