Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T12:18:22.624Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Juggling Race and Class in Brazil's Past

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Extract

There was never anything merely black or white about brazilian notions of race and the differences attributable to it. IT IS easy to see today that the poor tend to be darker than those in the middle and upper classes and that those of darker color are most often poor. Yet there are dark-skinned persons in positions of power and prestige, and many whites live cheek by jowl with nonwhites, especially but not only in poor neighborhoods. Despite regional variations, Brazil is characterized by the complex interweaving of racial and social categories, making it hard to separate color from class as the predominant marker of differentiation. Racial identity has always been a tangled business, and in the past the existence of a finely ranked but permeable social order meant that society could absorb individual mobility without becoming egalitarian.

Type
Correspondents at Large
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by The Modern Language Association of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Alabama Slave Code of 1852.” A Documentary History of Slavery in North America. Ed. Rose, Willie Lee. New York: Oxford UP, 1976. 178–96.Google Scholar
Algranti, Leila Mezan. O feitor ausente: Estudo sobre a escravidão urbana no Rio de Janeiro. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1988.Google Scholar
Avé-Lallemant, Robert. Viagens pelas províncias da Bahia, Pernambuco, Alagoas e Sergipe (1859). Trans. Eduardo de Lima Castro. Reconquista do Brasil 19. Belo Horizonte: Itatiaia; São Paulo: EDUSP, 1980.Google Scholar
A Black Irmandade in Colonial Brazil.” Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History. Ed. Mills, Kenneth, Taylor, William B., and Graham, Sandra Lauderdale. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 2002. 280–96.Google Scholar
Cabassu, João Francisco. Letter to José Martiniano de Alencar. 11 Apr. 1838. “Correspondência passiva do Senador José Martiniano de Alencar.” Anais da Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro 86 (1966): 326–31.Google Scholar
Comissão da Caixa, Militar. Letter to Conselho Interino, Maragogipe, 31 Aug. 1822. Seção de Manuscritos, I-31, 6, 2, Doc. 4. Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro.Google Scholar
Corpo do Comércio. Letter to the prince regent. N.d. [Apr. 1814]. Formação e evolução étnica da cidade de Salvador: O folclore bahiano. By Carlos Ott. Evolução Histórica da Cidade do Salvador, 5. Vol. 2. Salvador: Manú, 1957. 103–08. 2 vols.Google Scholar
Curtin, Philip D. The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1969.Google Scholar
Degler, Carl N. Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1971.Google Scholar
d'Orbigny, Alcide. Viagem pitoresca através do Brasil. Reconquista do Brasil, 29. Belo Horizonte: Itatiaia and EDUSP, 1976.Google Scholar
Dundas, Robert. Sketches of Brazil Including New Views of Tropical and European Fever with Remarks on a Premature Decay of the System Incident to Europeans on Their Return from Hot Climates. London: John Churchill, 1852.Google Scholar
Eltis, David. “The Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Slave Trade: An Annual Time Series of Imports into the Americas Broken Down by Region.” Hispanic American Historical Review 67 (1987): 109–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garcez, Maria Bárbara. Letter to Luís Paulino d'Oliveira Pinto da França. N.d. [Sept. 1823]. Cartas baianas, 1821–1824: Subsídios para o estudo dos problemas da opção na independência brasileira. Ed. da França, António d'Oliveira Pinto. Brasiliana 372. São Paulo: Editora Nacional, 1980. 122–24.Google Scholar
Gardner, George. Travels in the Interior of Brazil, Principally through the Northern Provinces and the Gold and Diamond Districts during the Years 1836–1841. 1846. Boston: Milford, 1973.Google Scholar
Graham, Maria [Lady Maria Calcott]. Journal of a Voyage to Brazil and Residence There during Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823. 1824. New York: Praeger, 1969.Google Scholar
Keila, Grinberg. O fiador dos brasileiros: Cidadania, escravidão e direito civil no tempo de Antônio Pereira Rebouças. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2002.Google Scholar
Klein, Herbert S. The Atlantic Slave Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.Google Scholar
Kraay, Hendrik. “‘As Terrifying As Unexpected’: The Bahian Sabinada, 1837–1838.” Hispanic American Historical Review 72 (1992): 501–27.Google Scholar
Kraay, Hendrik. Race, State, and Armed Forces in Independence-Era Brazil: Bahia, 1790s–1840s. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2001.Google Scholar
Kraay, Hendrik. “Soldiers, Officers, and Society: The Army in Bahia, Brazil, 1808–1889.” Diss. U of Texas, Austin, 1995.Google Scholar
Lavradio, marquês de [Luís de Almeida Portugal]. Letter to João Cosme da Cunha. Cartas da Bahia, 1768–1769. Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo Nacional, 1972. 3436.Google Scholar
Martyn, Henry. Memoir. Ed. Sargent, John. London: J. Hatchard and Son, 1820.Google Scholar
Mattoso, Kátia M. de Queirós. Bahia: A cidade de Salvador e seu mercado no século xix. Coleção Estudos Brasileiros 12. São Paulo: HUCITEC and Secretaria Municipal de Educação e Cultura, 1978.Google Scholar
Mattoso, Kátia M. de Queirós. Bahia, século xix: Uma província no Império. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1992.Google Scholar
Mattoso, Kátia M. de Queirós. Presença francesa no movimento democrático baiano de 1798. Salvador: Itapuã, 1969.Google Scholar
Morton, F. W. O.The Military and Society in Bahia, 1800–1821.” Journal of Latin American Studies 7 (1975): 249–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mulvey, Patricia Ann. “The Black Lay Brotherhoods of Colonial Brazil.” Diss. City U of New York, 1976.Google Scholar
Portugal, Francisco José de. Letter to Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho. 4 Apr. 1799. Seção de Manuscritos, 1, 4, 13, no. 490. Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro.Google Scholar
Reis, João José. Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia. Trans. Arthur Brakel. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Resende, conde de. Letter to Luiz Pinto de Souza. 11 Apr. 1796. Codex 69, Vol. 6, fols. 38–40. Arquivo Nacional, Secretaria do Estado do Brasil.Google Scholar
Russell-Wood, A. J. R.Black and Mulatto Brotherhoods in Colonial Brazil: A Study in Collective Behavior.” Hispanic American Historical Review 54 (1974): 567602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell-Wood, A. J. R. The Black Man in Slavery and Freedom in Colonial Brazil. New York: St. Martin's, 1982.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell-Wood, A. J. R. Fidalgos and Philanthropists: The Santa Casa da Misericórdia of Bahia, 1550–1755. Berkeley: U of California P, 1968.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell-Wood, A. J. R.Prestige, Power, and Piety in Colonial Brazil: The Third Orders of Salvador.” Hispanic American Historical Review 69 (1989): 6189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, Stuart B.The Formation of a Colonial Identity in Brazil.” Colonial Identity in the Atlantic World, 1500–1800. Ed. Canny, Nicholas and Pagden, Anthony. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1987. 1550.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Stuart B.The Manumission of Slaves in Colonial Brazil: Bahia, 1684–1745.” Hispanic American Historical Review 54 (1974): 603–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, James C. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale UP, 1990.Google Scholar
Seixas, José Venâncio, (Provedor da Casa da Moeda). Letter to Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho. 20 Oct. 1798. “Inventario dos documentos relativos ao Brasil existents no Archivo de Marinha e Ultramar.” Ed. de Castro e Almeida, Eduardo. Anais da Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro 36 (1914): 4243.Google Scholar
Silva, Luiz Geraldo. “‘Sementes de sedição’: Etnia, revolta escrava e controle social na América portuguesa.” Afro-Ásia 25–26 (2001): 960.Google Scholar
Silva, Marilene Rosa Nogueira da. Negro na rua: A nova face da escravidão. São Paulo: HUCITEC, 1988.Google Scholar
Spitzer, Leo. Lives in Between: Assimilation and Marginality in Austria, Brazil, West Africa, 1780–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989.Google Scholar
Stampp, Kenneth M. The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-bellum South. New York: Vintage, 1956.Google Scholar
Taunay, Hippolyte, and Denis, Ferdinand. Le Brésil, ou histoire, mœurs, usages et coutumes des habitans de ce royaume. Vol. 4. Paris: Nepveu, 1822. 4 vols.Google Scholar
Telles, Edward E. Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vilhena, Luís dos Santos. A Bahia no século XVIII. 2nd ed. Ed. Braz do Amaral. Introd. Edison Carneiro. Salvador: Itapuã, 1969.Google Scholar
Wagley, Charles, ed. Race and Class in Rural Brazil. 2nd ed. New York: UNESCO, 1963.Google Scholar
Walsh, Robert. Notices of Brazil in 1828 and 1829. 2 vols. Boston: Richardson, 1831.Google Scholar