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THE FIGHT AGAINST SLAVERY AND RACISM IN CEARÁ (1838-1884)

BY TSHOMBE L. MILES B.A. CITY COLLEGE OF NEW YORK M.A., BROWN UNIVERSITY, 2002

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AT BROWN UNIVERSITY

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2008

© Copyright 2008 Tshombe Miles

This dissertation by Tshombe Lee Miles is accepted in its present form by the Department of History as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Date____________________

_________________________ Robert Douglas Cope, Advisor

Recommended to the Graduate Council

Date_____________

____________________________ Evelyn Hu-Dehart, Reader

Date_____________

____________________________ Anani Dzidzienyo, Reader

Approved by the Graduate Council

Date_____________

_____________________________________ Sheila Bonde, Dean of the Graduate School

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Vita Tshombe Miles graduate work at Brown University is in the field of Latin American history and Afro-diasporic studies. He holds a second Master degree from the City College of New York, in American Studies and Latin American history. Tshombe also holds a bachelor’s degree in International Studies from the City College of New York. He has worked as an adjunct Lecturer at the City College teaching courses in World Civilization and US history. He was also a Social Studies teacher in the public school system for seven years. Tshombe has been traveling and doing research in Brazil since 1992 and has lived in Brazil since 2003. He has carried out several research projects in Ceará, Bahia, and Maranhão and has been awarded several scholarships to study in Brazil including a Winston Fellowship and two Tinker fellowships.

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Acknowledgment This project really started some fifteen years ago under the tutelage of Dr. Fernando who encouraged me to study abroad and to pursue my undergraduate thesis on a comparative study of race relations of the United States and Brazil. It was her intellectual support and her helping me obtain a Winston fellowship that started my love affair with Brazil. She deserves a special thanks and acknowledgment. Other sources of intellectual support from the City College of New York came from Gerardo Renique (my first intellectual role model), Juan Flores, David Jaffee, (two scholars who introduced me to many great writers and who are generally excited about the life of the mind), my homeboy Keith Mayes who was my comrade at City College. At Brown University I like to thank Robert Cope who is an enormous intellectual and great person. I am proud and happy to have him as an advisor and to be his student. Also I want to thank Anani Dzidzienyo for being a great teacher and reading several drafts of the dissertation and for being a wonderful mentor. A special thanks is in order to Evelyn Hu-Dehart, who went way beyond the call of duty to support and help me. She not only opened her home to me but also helped me obtain a Teaching Assistantship, which gave me the chance to work on the dissertation. She is the definition of the type of scholar/teacher and the type of support that a graduate student dreams of, many thanks. Also I want to thank Rhett Jones for introducing me to the many debates in the Black Atlantic world and for also introducing me to many important texts in the field. Thanks are in order to James Green for reading many drafts and making brutal but often-valuable criticisms, even if sometimes I disagreed. I want to thank the Kinory brothers, Ari Ariel, Tony Marin, Bongani Nglunga, the Secor family, and a special shout out of appreciation to Rubain Dorancy. I want to thank you all for being true friends. Finally I want to thank my family, my Mom and Dad who have given all their love and are responsible for anything right that I have done in my life; A special mention is in order to my brother Niger, I love you. I want to acknowledge my wife Denise Costa, my partner and love. I want to thank her family and friends for their generosity. Also a special acknowledgment is in order to my daughter Beatriz who soon will join this struggle called life. You are an inspiration.

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Table of Contents List of Charts

Page vii

Glossary

Page ix

Introduction

Page 1

Chapter 1 A Historical Overview of Race and Ethnicity In Ceará’s Labor Market Page 20 Chapter 2 Weapons of the Weak: How Slaves Fought For Freedom In Ceará Page 57 Chapter 3 Black Leaders and Their Concept of Freedom in Nineteenth Century Northeast Brazil Page 99

Chapter 4 Reading Race, Class, Identity, and Freedom in The Great Drought of 18771879 Page 140 Chapter 5 The Meaning Of Freedom and the Fight From Above Against Slavery in Ceará

Page 176

Conclusion

Page 214

Bibliography

Page 219

Appendix

Page 228

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List of Charts Chapter One Chart 1.1: page 30 Income from Cotton in Ceará (1803-1807) Chart 1.2: page 30 Fortaleza-Export in Kilos Chart 1.3: page 37 Population of the Captaincy of the Pernambuco and her Annexes (1763) Chart 1.4: page 38 The Population of the Captaincy of Pernambuco and her Annexes (1782) Chapter Two Chart 2.1: page 66 Letters of Freedom from Taua (30 total) Chart 2.2: page 88 Run away Slaves Apprehended in Vila Vicosa, 1817-1823 Chapter Three Chart 3.1: page 108 Slave Trade Between Maranhão and Africa Chart 3.2: page 108 Slave Trade in Major Slave Ports from 1801-1839 Chapter Four Chart 4.1: page 142 Ceará State Obituary Records (1870-1879) Chart 4.2: page 143 Major Droughts in Ceará Chart 4.3: page 144 The Population of Ceará Before the Drought Chart 4.4: page 145 Cattle Production: Before, during, and after The Great Drought, 1877-1879. Chart 4.5: page 150 Number of Slaves Exported from the Province of Ceara, 1872-1880. Chart 4.6: page 155 vii

Part of the Credit Went to the Following Cities Chapter Five Chart 5.1: page 192 Program of the Libertador Chart 5.2: page 207 The Dates of Emancipation in the Cities of Ceará 1883-1884

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Glossary Agregado-A landless squatter, sharecroppers, day laborers, living on an estate of a landowner Caboclo-An “uncultured” Sertanjero usually somehow associated with a person of indigenous ancestry Cabra-A dark skinned mulatto, the word literally meaning is goat Cearense- A native from Ceará Creole-A person born in the Americas and not in the “Old World” (Europe, Africa, or Asia); this word is often also used derisively to describe a person of African ancestry Mestiço/a-A person of mixed racial ancestry Mulatto/a-A person of mixed European and African ancestry, this term literately means mule Morador-A landless peasant who derives his living from a landowner, usually in a sharecropping arrangement Pardo/a-A person of mixed racial origin that usually includes African ancestry, it is rare to hear this word used in public though it is still used in the official census. A pardo is often referred to as Moreno/a Seca-Drought Sesmaria- A Portuguese Land Grant Sesmeiro-Holder of sesmaria Sertão-The Interior; semiarid land that is distinguished from land receiving more rainfall Sertanjero-A person who lives in the interior Vaqueiro-Cowboy

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INTRODUCTION May 13th, 1888 is one of the most significant dates in Brazilian history. It is a watershed moment in Brazil because it marks the end of legal slavery. Although this day was monumental, it was, in part, a great illusion. Racial discrimination continued, and Brazilians of Afro-descent as a group remained disproportionately in the lower classes of society. 1 The tensions of slavery, racism, and the meaning of freedom in Brazil began during colonial times. If the end of slavery was not necessarily a transformative moment of freedom and equality for people of African ancestry then what was the meaning of abolition? How were slavery, racism, and freedom intertwined? 1

It is not my focus to prove Brazil is not a racial democracy; nevertheless, there are a plethora of studies in the social sciences on the subject. In the past it was argued that Brazil was a racial democracy that could serve as a model for the United States. This is not a complete bibliography, but rather some of the studies relevant to this dissertation. The two most important studies that help promote the myth of racial democracy in Brazil and also promoted the idea that slavery was more benign and humane there are Gilberto Freyre’s, The Master and the Slaves, translated by Samuel Putnam (New York: Knopf, 1946) and building on Freyre’s work, Frank Tannebaum’s, who extended this idea to all of Latin America in his Slave and Citizen: The Negro Citizen in the Americas (New York: Vintage Books, 1946). In the last thirty-five years the concept of Brazil as a racial democracy has been all but destroyed. It was first challenged by an UNESCO study carried out to understand, ironically, why Brazil was a racial democracy. Instead this study helped undermine various aspects of the racial democracy theory. One of the most strident attacks on the idea was Florestan Fernandes’ study, A Integracão do Negro na Sociedade de Classes, 2 vols. 1st ed. (1st ed., São Paulo: Dominus, 1965), also see the English translation The Negro in Brazilian Society (New York: Atheneum, 1971). This study showed that cases of racial discrimination were quite prevalent, but Fernandes tended to dismiss racial problems as more economic than racial. He argued that the former slaves were ill equipped to compete with the recent Italian immigrants because of their lower educational levels. He also argued that blacks exhibited psychological deficits from slavery that prevented their mobility. One of the first works that successfully challenge the myth of racial democracy in Brazil was a book by Abdias do Nascimento, Racial Democracy in Brazil, Myth or Reality?: A Dossier of Brazilian Racism (Dover: Majority Press, 1977). Nascimento was one of the founders of the black movement in Brazil. After the military dictatorship he became a congressman and senator of Rio de Janeiro. Anani Dzidzienyo’s essay in the pamphlet The Position of Blacks in Brazilian and Cuban Society (London: Minority Rights Group, 1970) was one of the first studies to successfully challenge the notion of racial democracy in Brazil. Thomas Skidmore, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought (London, Oxford University Press, 1974) and A.J.R Russell-Wood, The Black Man in Slavery and Freedom in Colonial Brazil (New York: St. Martins Press, 1982) are both historians who were among the first to thoroughly document some of the racist ideas of the government and intellectual elite. Skidmore’s study examines how, during the empire and Old Republic, the elite were quite worried about Brazil’s black population and actively sought European immigrants, not only for economic reasons, but to whiten the population. Russell-Wood documents the Portuguese government’s discriminatory laws that were imposed, not only on slaves, but also on all non-white citizens, particularly free blacks. Pierre Michel Fontaine’s edited collection, Race, Class, and Power in Brazil (Los Angeles: CAAS/U.C.L.A, 1985), George Reid Andrews, Blacks and Whites in São Paulo, Brazil 1888-1998 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991) also contribute.

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2 This study will investigate the different perspectives and motives of the elite and the subaltern classes in their fight against slavery in Ceará, Brazil. Why and when did elite abolitionists fight to end slavery in Ceará and what were the concrete reasons behind their efforts? Also what were the particular contexts in which both freed people and enslaved people of African ancestry resisted slavery? Finally, this study will look specifically at how slaves and free people of African heritage struggled for a better life within the context of the particular socio-economic circumstances of Ceará, which I will discuss later in this introduction and further in the next chapter. This study will help challenge the somewhat simplistic view in Raimundo Girão’s book O Abolicão no Ceará, which until this day remains the only scholarly monograph about the abolition of slavery in Ceará. He portrays abolition in Ceará as solely the vision of the elite, and he ignores the attitude of the popular classes toward slavery. In many ways his text has become the definitive reading of abolition of in Ceará. In the text he focuses on the benevolence of the abolitionists, but ignores the region’s particular socio-economic realities. I will add a needed complexity to his view of how the elites understood race and saw slaves and the popular classes, and what the idea of ending slavery meant to them. This dissertation also attempts to documents the non-elites’ long history of fighting against slavery or at least making life more tolerable in the confines of slavery as well the struggle against racism by freed people of color as well. Although freedmen were not always aligned with slaves, they often played a role in the undermining and sabotaging of slavery. More importantly this dissertation will argue that the particular socio-economic circumstances of Ceará created a different

3 dynamic in race relations compared to other regions where slavery was more central to the economy. The theoretical basis for understanding resistance and how subalterns of African descent responded to slavery is grounded in James C. Scotts Weapons of the Weak, and Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts and follows Robin D.G. Kelley’s Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class, a more sophisticated and nuanced usage of Scotts’ conception of infrapolitics. Infrapolitics is Scott’s idea that the daily acts of surviving form a type of politics. Kelley documents the African-American popular class struggle against racism and oppression in early twentieth century by using the idea of infrapolitics. He argues in the introduction, “The veiled social and cultural worlds of oppressed people frequently surface in everyday forms of resistance—foot-dragging, the destruction of property---or more rarely, in open attacks on individuals institutions, or symbols of domination.” 2 This project builds on the work of James Scott and Robin D.G. Kelley and the whole school of scholars that believe the day-to-day actions of subaltern classes matter and that there is a “public transcript” or “secret code” to unlock in the daily actions of these classes. 3 This school argues that by studying the day-to-day actions and particularly the agency that the subaltern classes possessed we can, in Kelley’s words, 2

Robin Kelley, Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class. (New York: The Free Press, 1994), 8. 3

James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University, 1985). Kelley is a historian of African-American history and uses Scott work in an imaginative and nuanced way that differs from Scott. Kelley does not dispense with Gramsci’s idea of hegemony. He follows Stuart Hall’s usage of hegemony. See “Gramsci’s Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity” in Stuart Hall Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 1996). Stuart Hall’s work shows how race and class are entwined in the struggle for power. The theoretical approach in Roger Kittleson’s, The Practice of Politics in Post Colonial Brazil: Porto Alegre, 1845-1895 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006) is also heavily influenced by James Scott’s reading of how subalterns struggle for a better life and the power dynamic between elites and the popular classes. Kittleson is an example of an historian who studies nineteenth century Brazil, using a similar approach.

4 “illuminate how power operates, and how seemingly innocuous, individualistic acts of survival and resistance shape politics, workplace struggles, and the social order generally.” 4 One of the major intellectuals in British cultural studies, Stuart Hall, has said “Hegemony is hard work.” 5 In other words, the day-to-day resistance to slavery, and the larger, more organized protests forced elites to negotiate power, and more importantly, the ability of the elite to maintain hegemony required constant negotiation on their part. The popular classes and even slaves in Ceará had agency. They were not completely helpless victims. Though slaves and freed people were mostly illiterate and did not have coherent ideologies based in enlightened or liberal thought, this does not mean that they did not have ideas of a better life and were not in a daily struggle to shape their lives. 6 Also it is important to note that when I am discussing freedom or questions of how slaves understood freedom and how they conceptualized it, I am not interested in philosophical or intellectual meanings of freedom. 7 The day-to-day is how the subaltern responds to concrete forms of oppression. Again quoting Kelley: I am rejecting the tendency to dichotomize people’s lives, to assume that clear-cut “political” motivations exist separately from issues of well being, safety, pleasure, cultural expression, sexuality, freedom of mobility, and other facets of daily life Politics is not separate from lived experience or the imaginary world of what is possible: to the contrary, politics is about these things. Politics comprises the

4

Kelley, Race Rebels, 9.

5

Quoted in George Lipsitz, “The Struggle for Hegemony”, The Journal of American History (1988), 1.

6

It should be noted that when I use the word liberal I am using the word to mean classical liberalism. It should also be noted that liberalism had different meanings to different people. However liberals all shared the idea that scientific understandings of the world was preferable to total reliance on sole theological understandings of the world. More importantly classical liberals believed that man had natural rights. How these rights were defined varied. Moreover the definition of who was a “man” was gendered and racialized in the new world. 7 I am not arguing that slaves or the popular classes lacked a philosophical world-view, or were not intellectuals, it just is not my focus.

5 many battles to roll back and exercise some power over, or create some space within, the institutions and social relationships that dominate our lives. 8 In looking at the day-to-day resistance of slaves and freed peoples, and in some cases attacks on individual institutions and symbols of domination, combined with the perspectives of political and intellectual elites regarding of the abolition movement, we can gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of freedom in Ceará and specifically what the ending of slavery in Ceará meant for elites and the popular classes. These questions are not new to Brazilian historiography, but there are few regionally specific studies from this particular and nuanced perspective that bring a more holistic and complex understanding to these issues. Particular circumstances led Ceará to be the first state to end slavery and it was a place traditionally considered non-black by most scholars, although the majority of its population is of partially African ancestry. 9 Studying these particular circumstances helps to highlight the contradictions and multiple meanings of race and identity in Brazil. Therefore a regional study of Ceará can help illuminate the linkages of race, class, and identity in Brazil. The study of Ceara’s struggle against slavery will enrich the historiography because of its unique ethnic formation and socio-economic circumstances. Moreover, I hope to join a vanguard of scholars such as Eurpide Funes, Roger Kittleson and Matthias Rohrig Assuncão who have engaged in this type of regional study and have shed light on the meanings of race, freedom, and identity by looking

8 9

Kelley, Race Rebels, 9-10.

Raimundo Girão has argued that there are few blacks in Ceará. See Pequena Historia do Ceará 2nd Edicão. (Fortaleza:Instituto Do Ceará, 1962), 100-101. What Girão should have said is that people of African heritage have a long history of ethnic mixture.

6 more closely at regions often neglected in the scholarship. 10 Mathias Rohrig Assuncão documents black resistance to slavery and racism in Maranhão in his article “Elite Politics and Popular Rebellion in the Construction of Post-Colonial Order. The Case of Maranhão, Brazil (1820-41)” in the Journal of Latin American Studies (1999) and Eurpides Funes has done this with his work on nineteenth century black runaway slaves and quilombo communities in the Amazon. Both studies show how people of African ancestry have strived for their own personal ideals of freedom, especially as related to the particularities of the ethnic, demographic and socio-economic regional context. For instance, Maranhão is a region where contact with first generation Africans was normal and resulted in a stronger tradition of African-influenced culture. In the Amazon, where slaves were in contact with indigenous populations, the case was reversed. Roger Kittleson’s work, The Practice of Politics in Post Colonial Brazil, Porto Alegre, 1845-1895 on Porto Alegre, Rio Grande Sul is not specifically about slavery. Rather it deals with different conceptions of freedom from elite perspectives, in addition to agency from below, and includes chapters on slavery. My work shares many characteristics with his in that I am also looking at the politics of postcolonial Brazil from elite and subaltern perspectives and making sense of those differences, except I am particularly interested in the politics that lead to the end of slavery and I am looking at the politics of race in Ceará. Kittleson is concerned with the politics of Porto Alegre in more general terms. He looks at the debates among regional elites on the abolition of

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Kittleson, The Practice of Politics in Post Colonial Brazil. The work of Matthias Rohrig Assuncão and Eurpide Funes can also be found in João José Reis and Flávio dos Santos Gomes Liberdade Por Um Fio: História dos Quilombos no Brasil (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1996. See also Funes’s doctoral thesis Nasci nas Matas Nunca Tive Senhor: Historia e Memória dos Mocambos do Baixo Amazonias (1995).

7 slavery but also studies the popular classes. He says: “The enslaved, that is, practiced a wide range of subtle forms of resistance in their daily relationships with their senhores and other social superiors.” He also notes that slaves revolted against their masters in what he calls “over dramatic revolts.” For Kittleson the day-to-day acts of resistance and “over dramatic revolts” represent “a vibrant and complex popular political culture in mid-nineteenth century Porto Alegre.” 11 In other words Kittleson also understands that slaves and poor people in Brazil had agency and were thinking people but realizes this discussion of the political meanings of freedom is enriched by a discussion of politics from different perspectives. All of these studies of race, class, and identity continue to complicate the rich history of Brazil and help elucidate its uniqueness. They specifically show a country that had a history of chattel slavery. Also a society that maintained explicit de-jure laws that discriminated against non-Europeans during colonial times, and, during the empire, discriminated against non-European people more implicitly than de facto but in some cases specifically by law. Also these studies explore acts of agency on the part of the subalterns. They show how the elites co-opted and

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Kittleson, The Practice of Politics, 75. Also, Ceará is similar to Rio Grande do Sul. Although the latter was and is wealthier than Ceará, it also is dependent on cattle ranching, and never was a major area for slavery. Moreover it was a contested area for abolitionist in Brazil, which enabled slavery to end earlier. Kittleson’s work is in many respects a counterpoint to this one, though in Rio Grande do Sul and Porto Alegre specifically, black identity was much more pronounced than in Ceará. Porto Alegre had a black newspaper in the late nineteenth century, something that has never existed in Ceará, and notions of a black identity also were more noticeable. Rio Grande do Sul was a region of immigrants, mainly Germans, whereas Ceará never had a large immigrant community. Also the population of slaves increased after 1850 in Rio Grande does Sul, while by this period the slave population in Ceará had decreased to 4%. The history of droughts in Ceará made the region a source of huge outward migration to Amazonia, Pará, and later to southern states like São Paulo. Still Rio Grande do Sul is a kindred in spirit to Ceará because elites there were more vocal against slavery than in other regions, but concepts of freedom were not necessarily the same as those from down below.

8 oppressed a country that was (and still is) overwhelmingly non-white and how subalterns resisted oppression. 12 By studying the political perspective of the Afro-heritage population and the elite abolitionist community of Ceará, we can gain a better understanding of the contradictions and multiple meanings of freedom throughout Brazil. Moreover, this study will compare and contrast how the elite and Afro-Brazilians interacted and influenced, or failed to influence, each other in order to gain a better understanding of race and identity in the country. The Northeast of Brazil, particularly Ceará, is a good site for this type of investigation. One reason that Ceará is often seen as an anomaly in the historiography of Brazil is that slavery ended there in 1884, four years earlier than in the rest of the country. The traditional historical interpretations of Ceará often explain the end of slavery as the result of a radical abolitionist movement. 13 Although the abolitionist movement against slavery was important in Ceará, economic and geographical factors also contributed to the end of slavery in the state. Unlike Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and later São Paulo, Ceará was not dependent on a plantation economy. In addition,

12

In general the meaning of Afro-hertiage people that are of partial African ancestry. For other works that document Afro-Brazilian agency against racism and oppression, see Michael Hanchard, Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, 1945-1988 (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994) and Kim Butler, Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in São Paulo and Salvador (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998) and James Sweet, Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship and Religion in the Portuguese World, 1441-1770 (University of North Carolina Press, 2003) In the last couple of years there has been more nuanced scholarship that has acknowledged that Brazil is not a racial democracy, but there are substantial differences between racial ideology in the United States and Brazil: see Livio Sansone, Blackness Without Ethnicity, Constructing Race in Brazil (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)and Edward Telles, Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil (Princeton: Princeton University, 2004). 13

Raimundo Girão, who was a mayor of Fortaleza and probably the most distinguished historian of Ceará, wrote A Abolição no Ceará (Fortaleza: A.Batista Fontenele, 1956). This works remains the definitive study of the abolition movement of Ceará and is the source, upon which most writers and historians rely.

9 slaves were not needed for mining in the way they were in the diamond region of Minas Gerais. Slaves in Ceará had been used since the seventeenth century for small farming, cow tending, domestic work, artisan jobs, and other skilled labor and, in the early nineteenth century, for cotton cultivation. With the exception of Bahia, racial attitudes and identity in the Northeast still tend to be understudied. Therefore, an in- depth study of race in Ceará will also contribute to a more dynamic understanding of race relations in that region. 14 The majority of studies about slavery, race, and identity in the Northeast have focused on Bahia because of its overwhelming Afro-derived population. Yet in many ways, Bahia’s black population is atypical in comparison with the rest of the population of the Northeast, which, with the possible exception of Maranhão, is overwhelmingly mestiço or caboclo. 15 The majority of the population of Ceará is also of African descent but unlike Bahia there is not necessarily a type of negritude, or black consciousness among the black population. 16 The majority of people in Ceará are mestiço, which is a racially ambiguous Portuguese term that has been used to describe non-white people. In contemporary times theses categories are problematic, since people of color in Brazil

14

The only study in English that touches on slavery in Ceará in any significant way is Billy Chandler The History of a Family and a Community in the Northeast Brazil, 1700-1930 (Gainville: University of Florida Press, 1972) Until the one-hundred year anniversary of abolition in Brazil, no comprehensive studies were done of slavery in Ceará except Eduardo Campos, Revelações do Condição de Vida dos Cativos no Ceará (Fortaleza: Ceará: Secretária de Cultura e Desporto, 1982). Two other prominent books that were written to mark the one-hundredth year anniversary of the abolition of slavery were the late historian Geraldo Nobre, Amor de Branco em Tráfico de Negro (Fortaleza: Grafica Editorial Cearanese, 1988 and the anthropologist Oswaldo de Oliveira Riedel, Perspectiva Antropologica do Escravo no Ceará (Fortaleza: Fortaleza Ediçoes UFC, 1988). 15 16

Many caboclo and mestiço are of African ancestry, also see glossary for definition.

One should understand that most people of African ancestry in Ceará are of partial African ancestry and have a history of not emphasizing this part of their ancestry. I will continue to develop the unique history of people of African ancestry in Ceará in chapter one.

10 tend to assume a variety of racial identities. Nevertheless these racial definitions articulate an identity that best describe people of color who have African ancestry but do not necessarily assume a “black” identity. A contemporary term used to describe a person of color is Moreno/a, but this term is even more problematic because it can refer to nearly any person who does not have blond hair even if he or she is of European descent. The term caboclo refers to a person of indigenous ancestry, but again a caboclo could also be a person of Afro, or European ancestry or both or all three. A caboclo could be a “pure” Indian who was assimilated. Nevertheless what is important to understand is that people of Ceará do have a strong biological heritage that is African but this heritage is not always assumed or recognized. The slave trade lasted well into the middle of the nineteenth century and the major slave port in the Northeast was Salvador, Bahia. The creole (native born) Brazilians of Bahia had much more direct contact with African cultures and newly arrived slave communities than other Brazilians in the Northeast had. 17 Slaves from Africa were constantly renewing Bahia’s rich and dynamic African identity. This identity manifested itself in a variety of traditions. For example, modern candomblé is heavily influenced by the traditions of the Yoruba that were developed in the nineteenth century. The Malé ethnic group helped to inspire a full-fledged revolt in 1835 in Bahia, intending to spread

17

In accordance with treaties that Brazil had signed with Britain, since 1831 slaves entering from foreign countries were considered free once touch in upon Brazilian soil. The slave trade was made illegal in 1850 by Brazilian law. However a clandestine slave trade in Brazil lasted until the end of slavery in1888. See Leslie Bethell The Abolition of the Slave Trade: Britain, Brazil, and the Slave Trade Question, 1807-1869. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970) Other important works are Robert Conrad’s, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 1850-1888, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972). Also see Robert Brent Toplin, The Abolition of Slavery in Brazil (New York: Athenum, 1972) and for a more current article on the subject see Jeffrey Needell, “ The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade in 1850, Historiography, Slave Agency, and Statesmanship” Journal of Latin American Studies, 2001.

11 an African worldview based on Islam. 18 It is no accident that the richest and most vibrant New World black traditions were cultivated in Bahia. 19 Wherever slaves were in the New World they used their African heritage in the most productive ways that they could to improve their lives. In Bahia where there had been ongoing cultural dialogue with Africa because of the slave trade and even after, there was continued cultural contact between Afro-Brazilians and Africans. These travelers continued to participate in enriching Bahian culture by exchanging different ideas about African religions such as candomblé. African travelers continued to enrich Bahia with an African sensibility. 20 In Ceará there was never direct contact with Africa via the slave trade and people of African heritage never had ways to maintain cultural continuities as in Bahia. In present day Ceará, there is no memory of black culture among the popular classes as there is in Bahia. 21 The identity of blackness in Ceará is not linked 18

João José Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835, translated by Arthur Brakel. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986),112-128. 19

There are numerous studies on slavery and black identity in Bahia. I will reference some of the most important. See Katia Mattoso, To Be a Slave in Brazil, 1550-1888, translated by Arthur Goldhammer. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1991),) Rachel Harding, A Refuge in Thunder: Candomble and Alternative Spaces of Blackness (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), Mieko Nishida, Slavery, Identity, Ethnicity, Gender and Race in Salvador, Brazil 1808-1888. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002) and the edited collection by Hendrik Kraay, Afro-Brazilian Culture and Politics: Bahia, 1790s to 1990s (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1998).

20

The opposite was also true. Afro-Brazilians helped enriched African culture on return trips to Africa. J. Lorand Matory, “The English Professors of Brazil: On the Diasporic Roots of the Yoruba Nation” Comparative Studies in Society and History 1999,72-103.

21

There has been a long debate on how to define black culture. In the past, scholars such as E. Franklin Frazier in The Negro Family in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) argued that African culture had all been destroyed in the New World, particularly the United States, but Melville Herkosvits in his book The Myth of the Negro Past. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1990) argued that Africans had retained elements of “authentic” African culture in the new world. However over time both definitions of African culture have proven too narrow. One of the best definitions of African-American culture is by Sidney Mintz and Richard Price in The Birth of African-American Culture: An Anthropological Perspective (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992). They understand that culture is not static and can never be “pure culture,” once in contact with other cultures and other economic circumstances. Rather, African-American culture is

12 in the popular imagination to Africa through music, culinary cuisine, dance, and most of all religion, as is the case in Bahia. In fact, in Ceará it is an insult among some people of African descent to be described as black. 22 The refusal to identify with blackness is a legacy that reverberates throughout the African diaspora, both as a function of colonialism and of the institution of slavery. In his book Neither Black nor White, Carl Degler argues that one strategy that peoples of African ancestry in Brazil have used in order to advance socially has been what he calls “the mulatto escape hatch.” 23 He argues that people of African ancestry could advance if they married lighter-skinned people and somehow distanced themselves from all things culturally African or associated with blackness A good example of this notion can be found in a comment once made by the a Creole or gumbo, in other words a syncretic experience. Discussions of a lack of black identity in Ceará can be found in Pedro Alberto de Oliveira, “A Cultura Negra e a Negritude no Ceará” Revista do Instituto do Ceará IX (1995), 41-50. There is a debate among politicians, scholars and activist about black identity. The Movimento Negro, which is a variety of political and advocacy groups that exist in almost all states in Brazil believe people of African ancestry should assume black identity no matter what their phenotypic color is. They argue that non-whites are far worse socio-economically than whites, no matter if they are of “mixed heritage” or purely phenotypically “black”; probably the best discussions of this are in Melissa Nobles’, Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000). Also see Hanchard, Black Orpheus, 1994. 22

I am not arguing that all people of Afro-ancestry in Brazil or Ceará in particular are ashamed of their African ancestry. There are former quilombo communities in Ceará where Afro-constructed identities are very much celebrated such as Conceição dos Caetanos. See O Povo May 24, 1981, 7. There are many other examples of Afro-Brazilian communities that exist in Ceará, but these communities tend to be small and are anomalous.. Moreover the black movement has had an impact on people’s perspectives. Still the vast majority of people of African descent are either not aware of their ancestry or are prone to down play the African component even in contemporary times. It should also be noted that I am not placing a value judgment on this denial. More importantly I am suggesting that color, and ancestry are factors that determine social mobility, and this has always been true in Brazil.

23

Carl Degler’s book Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States, (New York: Macmillan, 1971) has since been challenged by Carlos Hasenbalg and Nelson do Valles. They show by using census information that there is not much difference between black and mulatto mobility. It is more appropriate to argue that non-whites fair much worse than whites across the board. Hasenbalg and Valle’s work can be found in the edited collection Fontaine, Race, Class, and Power (1985) 32-67 and Rebecca Reichmann, From Indifference to Inequality: Race in Contemporary Brazil (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999) 53-66, and 67-82. Edward Telles also confirms that those classified as Pardo statistically tend to fare worse than those classified as white in contemporary Brazil, though in most cases better than those classified as Negro. Still, even using Telles’s statistics it is clear that being non-white puts one at a large disadvantage. Pardos are underrepresented in the upper classes of Brazil.

13 famed abolitionist Joaquim Nabuco. In response to his article honoring Machado de Assis, another Brazilian writer referred to Assis as a mulatto. Nabuco took offense and replied, “Mulatto, he was indeed a Greek . . .” I would not have called Machado mulatto and I think that nothing would have hurt him more . . . I beg you to omit this remark when you convert your article into permanent form. The word is not literary, it is derogatory...For me Machado was a white and I believe he thought so about himself.” 24 These responses are typical of how many saw in the past and continue to relate now, to blackness in Brazil. 25 Why would Machado, Brazil’s most important literary figure, be offended by his partial African heritage, and more interestingly, why would Nabuco, an ardent abolitionist engage in such a fiction about Machado’s ethnic identity? This issue about changing black identities will be explored more below, however much of the answer can be found in the demographics of Brazil. Brazil by 1872 was a country where people of African heritage made up more than two-thirds of the population. Though the ruling class was of European ancestry, as was the case in the Caribbean, they could not sustain policies, as did the United States, completely excluding all of the non-white population from any positions of power or prestige. 26 Therefore the white elite were forced to allow a small number of non-whites to high positions. Clearly the individuals that were most successful 24

Quoted in Emilia Viotti da Costa, The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 241.

25

There has been a vigorous debate among Sociologists and Anthropologists about color, identity and racism in Brazil. Edward Telles has emerged as the most prominent North American, with a distinctive viewpoint. See his article where he challenges scholars such as Marvin Harris. See Edward Telles “Who are the Morenas” Social Forces, 1995, 1609-11 and the reply by Marvin Harris “A Reply to Telles” Social Forces, 1995, 1613-14 for a better understanding of this debate.

26

Even in the United States blacks were allowed to rise to higher positions in areas where AfricanAmericans were the majority. Ira Berlin discusses this in his book Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998)

14 in this system were non-whites who did not challenge or undermine the class and racial structure. 27 As a result Brazil lends itself to a rather schizophrenic culture in which identity is malleable, particularly in places such as Ceará that do not have a significant historic contact with or memory of Africa, despite having a significant number of citizens of African heritage. Ceará was never a major part of the slave trade, like Bahia, Maranhão, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and Pernambuco. It did have a history of slavery and more importantly a population of free people of African ancestry who played a vital role in the economy and development of the region. The mainly free population of African heritage did not have contact with Africans or African culture in the ways people from Bahia did. Therefore the strategy of African heritage people was schizophrenic behavior that down- played their heritage because the majority no longer had a connection to it. Moreover political elites did not reward people of African ancestry anyway manifesting this heritage, but rather did everything they could to undermine such continuities. 28 African cultures, religions, and traditions were seen as backward and detrimental to progress in Brazil. 29 In areas where there was major slave trade directly from Africa,

27

Stuart Hall has used Antonio Gramsci’s ideas about hegemony to discuss race and ethnicity. The brilliance of Hall’s work is that he shows the linkage of how class and race are linked. Race is a social construction used as what Gramsci would call “common sense” to maintain class supremacy among certain Euro-descendent elites. In the Americas those elites were European, and in many cases, where nonEuropeans were the majority the elite had no choice but to share power with non-European people. In different countries racial ideologies function in different ways but in the end European maintained dominance. For a more concrete understanding of racial ideologies see Howard Winant, The World is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy Since World War II (New York: Basic Books, 2001). His work shows us concretely how racism works on the ground but how implicit in all of these approaches are nuanced postMarxist approaches that have put race at the center at how elite hegemony is maintained.

28

We will see in chapter two that even against all political odds many people of African heritage have maintained a type of black culture.

15 like Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, and Pernambuco, slaves were able to retain a strong Africaninfluenced culture despite attempts of the white elite to destroy it. It is in this context that the “mulatto escape hatch” was, and to a lesser degree is, a real phenomenon in Brazil. In other words, the dominant society has always undervalued non-European culture and people descended from non-European countries. Therefore people of non-European background often found it more advantageous to underplay their Afro or Indian ancestry. However, many scholars such as Carlos Hasenbalg, Nelson Valle, and Edward Telles have shown that all people of non-white ancestry in Brazil, whether pardo or negro, did disproportionably worse than whites in socio-economic terms. 30 Therefore though the popular classes were influenced by Eurocentric ideas and often undervalued their African past for purposes of socio-economic mobility, they have also found ways to make a mockery of white supremacy in forms that are not necessarily Afro-centric or Eurocentric. 31 In other words, Afro-Brazilians have not always bought into the notions of their inferiority. I will discuss these strategies more in the following chapters but what is important to understand is that Carl Degler’s mulatto escape hatch has truth to it in that

29

Before the nineteenth century, racism in Brazil was not rooted in euro-centric rationale of progress and science but rather in the logic of Christianity and more poignantly Catholicism in the case of Brazil. In the mid to late nineteenth century the intellectual elite were heavily influenced by much of the philosophical ideas that was coming out of the intellectual community of Europe. The major European scholars of the day believed in the idea of superior and inferior races. Thomas Skidmore, Black into White, and A.J.R RussellWood, The Black Man in Slavery and Freedom in Colonial Brazil, 1982. Russell-Wood study documents how during the colonial period, how non-Europeans, and the population of other religions such as Jews and Muslims, who were not born or descendent from the religion Catholicism were actively discriminated by the law and were considered to have “impure blood”. Also for a pioneering study of Racial understanding in the Portuguese empire, see A.J.R. Russell-Wood’s mentor Charles Boxer, Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, 1415-1825 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1963). 30

The edited collection by Pierre Michel Fontaine, Race, Class, and Power in Brazil, 1985 and see Edward Telles, Race in Another America, 2004.

31

See the Italian resident of Bahia, Livio Sansone’s anthropological study Blackness Without Ethnicity, Constructing Race in Brazil (New York: Macmillan Press, 2004) for a concrete understanding of how people of African ancestry do not “naturally” accept white supremacy.

16 many people of African ancestry sought upward mobility by adopting Eurocentric perspectives. However, I will also show there was ambivalence toward this stance among the popular classes even in less Afro-dominated regions. This study focuses on the years spanning 1838-1884 when slavery was on the decline in Ceará. 32 In 1831 the Brazilian government would officially end the transatlantic slave trade under the pressure of the British government who were the preeminent power in the nineteenth century and were anti-slavery. This law in Brazil was created with the international community in mind and was not followed nor practiced. The British, aware of the Brazilians’ refusal to stop slavery or the slave trade and continued to apply pressure and in 1850 the government passed another law finally stopping the trade. With the end of the slave trade, labor was more expensive and a new, cheap labor force was needed. To give a sense of how these changes affected demographics, in 1819, the height of black slavery in Ceará, slaves composed close to 28 percent of the total population whereas, by 1872, they comprised merely 4 percent. In the period under consideration, freed people of African ancestry were more numerous than black slaves. 33 The trend toward freed people of African ancestry outnumbering slaves could be seen all over the Northeast, including in Bahia, the most prominent northeastern slave region during the era when sugar plantations reached their peak. According to the first national census (1872), Bahia had over 830,431 freed people of African or partial

32 33

In chapter five I will discuss the national abolition movement in more detail.

This information will be discussed in the first chapter and I will provide the Census data to verify my claims. See Appendix I at the end. However keep in mind that 28% may be high number, but even if the number was closer to 11%, there was a dramatic decrease in slavery.

17 African ancestry and some 167,824 slaves of African ancestry. Although slaves were still numerous in Bahia, their numbers were becoming less significant. The decrease of the slave population suggests that by 1884, particularly in Ceará, there was no real need for slavery. Free labor was more prevalent. Meanwhile, European ideas of liberalism and the Enlightenment caused elites to start to re-access their notions of progress and freedom. Although the slave trade was abolished in 1850, an effective elite anti-slavery movement in Ceará would begin only in 1879, with the rise of the Sociedade Cearense Libertadora the most important anti-slave group there. Another law that helped undermine slavery was the 1871 Free Womb Act, which freed the children born to slaves, beginning a process that helped bring a final end to slavery in the province in 1884. This law, passed in 1871, illustrated the ambivalence of the Brazilian elite. On one hand a segment of elites hoped to end slavery. On the other hand there was still resistance to its actual end. The elite were slow to find a compromise between these conflicting ends. This dissertation will examine how the popular classes and elites struggled against slavery and conceptualized freedom in Ceará, specifically from the years 1838 to 1884. The first chapter explores the economic structure and the formation of the labor market in Ceará, particularly how it affected racial and ethnic relations. The second chapter examines resistance and the political meaning of freedom among the slave population in Ceará and how this resistance may have differed from that of other regions. In studying how slaves obtained freedom, we are able to understand better what freedom and abolition meant from below. Granted it is not possible to know the exact thoughts of the slaves even with the written documentation that we do have, which are

18 mainly records of court cases. Nevertheless we can arrive at a better understanding of their motives by understanding the infrapolitics of their day-to-day lives. The third chapter consists of two case studies. The first concerns Cosme, a leader of quilombo and a co-conspirator of the Balaiada Revolt (1838-1842) who was executed. The second is the life of Francisco Nascimento, better known as Dragão do Mar, the most famous man of color in the abolition movement of Ceará, who earned recognition across Brazil. These case studies were chosen to understand why the latter was lionized in Brazilian society after the former was condemned to death. How did their concepts of freedom differ and what were their goals? Studying the lives of these men will help historicize the process of slavery in the early empire, when it was still acceptable, and when the political elite passionately fought to maintain the system without any reforms. In fact, before the 1850s slave life was much harsher and the elite sometimes limited the freedom of the slaves. Moreover, the political elite kept a tighter social control over the popular classes in general. However, by the time of Dragão do Mar (the late 1870s), slavery was no longer an acceptable type of labor, and major sectors of the elite embraced and supported a non-threatening form of black leadership in the fight against slavery. The fourth chapter discusses the Great Drought from 1877 to 1879, to understand the political elite’s responses to it. I will discuss the drought as a way to shed light on the political elites’ concept of freedom and how they viewed the subaltern classes’ rights as citizens. This chapter serves as a precursor to the fifth chapter because it provides insights into the thinking of the same elite class that later would support the

19 abolition movement. Moreover this chapter discusses the prevalent elite mentality in terms of how they envisioned freedom for the subaltern classes. The fifth chapter explores the abolition movement in Ceará, some of the mainstream personalities of the movement, and finally the elite abolitionists’ conceptions of race, class, and freedom, and specifically their views of the popular classes in Brazil.

Chapter 1 A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF RACE AND ETHNICITY IN CEARÁ’S LABOR MARKET This chapter explores the formation and economic structure of the labor market in Ceará, particularly as they affected race and ethnic relations. As one of the poorer states in Brazil, the area known today as Ceará has never been a major economic center of the nation. During the colonial era, it was a backwater, belonging to the captaincy of Pernambuco until 1799, at which point it became an independent captaincy. As a result of being linked to Pernambuco, Ceará was not allowed to engage in international trading until 1799. All trading had to go through Pernambuco’s capital, Recife, a very successful sugar trading port that imported many African slaves to work on the plantations. The life of slave masters in Ceará was far less grandiose than in Pernambuco and Bahia, states that were known for their large plantations and multitude of overworked slaves, which Gilberto Freyre described in his Magnum Opus The Masters and the Slaves. Although small areas eventually cultivated sugar, Ceará would never reach the scale of the major sugar producers. 1

Background For thousands of years, two indigenous groups, the Tapuias and the Tupi, and other smaller tribes, such as the Cariri, had inhabited Ceará. 2 By and large these groups 1

Sugar produced in Ceará was not meant for international export but rather for regional markets, in the form of Rapudura and Cachaça. The main region of production was Cariri, See Engenhos De Rapudura Do Cariri: Trabalho e Cotidiano (1790-1850) (Universidade Federal do Ceará, Master’s dissertation), 2003. See Raimundo Girão, Historia Econõmia do Ceará 2nd Edition (Fortaleza: Casa de Jose de Alencar Programa Editoral, 2000) This book was originally published in 1947, and still remains one of the more important references concerning the economic history of Ceará. 2

The Tapuia and Tupi are generic names. These groups can be further divided along linguistic and ethnic lines. For a brief description see Aristides Braga Neto, Historia do Ceará Um Resumo. (Fortaleza:

20

21 were nomadic and did not established cities like the Aztecs or Incas. The Portuguese did not establish permanent settlements in Ceará, but in the mid 1500s they made temporary settlements and engaged in rivalry with other European groups, such as the Dutch and the French. In 1649, the Dutch established Fort Schoonenborch, in what is now Fortaleza, but their dominance ended in 1654, when the Portuguese allied themselves with the indigenous population and established hegemony over the region. The Portuguese built forts along the coast of Ceará, at Aracati, Barra do Ceará, Camocim, and Jericocoara. These became ports for commerce in Ceará, particularly at Fortaleza and Aracati. 3 Since Ceará lacked gold, silver, or Brazil wood, and was not a good area for major sugar plantations, the Portuguese empire showed little interest in settling the area on a grand scale.

The Cow in the Colonialization of Ceará If the Portuguese military settled the coastal areas of Ceará then it can be argued that it was cows and their masters that settled the south. 4 The new settlers entered mainly from Pernambuco and Bahia, following a course that led to the Jaguribe and Acarau

Aristedes Braga Neto, 2001), 22. Also for full length books discussing the indigenous community see João Cordeiro, Os Indios no Siara: Massacre e Resistencia (Fortaleza: Hoje, 1989) and the classic study by Carlos Studart Filho, A Resistencia dos Indigenas a Conquista e Povoamento do Terra. (Fortaleza: Fortaleza I.H.C., 1966). 3

For a general history of early colonial encounters between the Indians, the Dutch, the French and finally the Portuguese see Neto, Historia do Ceará, 13-21; Joao Brigido, Ceará:Homen e Fatos. (Fortaleza: Classicos Cearenes, 2001), 24-36. For a full-length study that utilizes Portuguese, Dutch, and British archival sources, see the classic study by Charles Boxer. The Dutch in Brazil, 1624-1654 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957). 4

My discussion of the cattle herders’ settlement and my idea of the cow as colonializer is taken in part from Neto. Historia do Ceará, 27-28. Also see Tristão de Alencar Araripe. Historia Da Provincia Do Ceará:Dos Tempo Primitivo Ate 1850 (Fortaleza: Classico Cearenses, 2002), 128-155.

22 rivers. These two rivers were the first “roads” that made it possible for the European conquerors to occupy the interior. Ceará began to be developed when Bahia and Pernambuco ran out of available land. In the middle of the 1600s, there was ample empty land available for raising cattle in Ceará. The semi-arid Sertão is well suited to raising cattle, an activity that did not require huge investments in slaves or equipment. The cattle ranches were developed in semarias, or land grants. The concept of semarias dates back to 1375 in Portugal. 5 It gave special authority to the grantee to oversee abandoned lands. Obviously these lands were not really abandoned; various indigenous groups had lived there for hundreds of years. However, in the eyes of the Portuguese, these people did not count because they were not Christian and were mainly nomadic. The typical semarias was located on 3-4 leguas (leagues); and each legua was about 4.10 miles long. Therefore these vast estates were ideal for grazing cattle. The semarias were granted to elites connected to the royal government. Often the lands were granted to men in Pernambuco and Bahia who already had held lands, but were willing to settle new ones. 6 It is unclear when the first semarias were established in Ceará, but by 1663, during a period of mass migration to the Sertão, numerous semarias were granted in southern Ceará to the new migrants. The last semaria grants were awarded in 1850 during the era of the Brazilian monarchy, after which the legal conditions for the possession of land changed.

5

Araripe, Historia Do Provincia Do Ceará, 130.

6

Chandler, The Feitosas and the Sertão, 9-11. Araripe, Historia Do Ceará, 130-136.

23 Robert Southey gives an adequate description of life on semarias in Piauhy, which can be applied aptly to neighboring Ceará: The lands in Piauhy were given in semarias of three-square leagues; between every two, a league was left common to both for the use of the cattle; but neither owner might build either house or fold upon this intermediate land. This was thought necessary, because of the frequent droughts, and consequent failure of pasturage. The owners also were jealous of neighbors, and liked their state of lonely lordship: they had some reason, considering that there were times when a watering place was as valuable as in Arabia; and that dogs were a nuisance to all cattle, except those which they trained to guard. But this system tended to keep them barbarously ill mannered. A house was built, usually with a thatched roof, some folds were enclosed, and twelve square miles were then peopled, according to the custom of Piauhy. Ten or twelve men sufficed for managing an estate of this extent. Part of their duty was to destroy the wild cattle and horses.1 The grantees of the semarias were a small percentage of the population. The government often gave the same families numerous grants. If the grant was not awarded to the patriarch of the family then it was given to other close kin, such as the son or brother. Most of these families in Ceará were considered white by law, though in reality they had some indigenous blood. 7 As Southey noted, the sesmeiros (grantees) were isolated in the backland and lived in their own world. The families of semarias often fought one another over land. There are numerous disputes recorded between occupants. In some cases these disputes could lead to violence and mini-wars, as was the case between the Feitosa and Monte families. The Feitosas and Montes were two of the most prominent families in Ceará during the eighteenth century. Both families had been granted numerous semarias and both exercised enormous influence over the equivalent of local and state governments. Between the years of 1724 and 1725 both families feuded, probably over property and honor. This war between neighbor’s involved alliances with

7

Koster, Travels in Brazil, 168.

24 Indians and full scale violent attacks on the residents of the estates, resulting in the murder of some members of the Monte family. 8 In the Sertão of Ceará guns and military might were the law. Hostile indigenous groups often stole the cattle and horses from the sesmeiro owners and the other dwellers on the land. As a result, the settlers of the backland lived in a state of war. From early on, law and order were organized along the lines of patronage and a patriarchic hierarchy. Elite families, who did not have to worry much about an outside state imposing control over them, determined the economic order. 9 Thus these families were in control of the means of production and influenced the social world. Clearly, as in all of Brazil and the new world, there was a definitive racial hierarchy that was engrained in colonial laws, customs, and attitudes, but there was also enormous racial fluidity in the Sertão. The imperial gaze was far away, so the owner of the sesmeiro often did what he thought was most profitable and would best maintain political stability. The economic order in Ceará was predominantly based on free labor as Southey explains: If the owner has no slaves, Mulattos, Mamlucos, and free blacks, who abound in the Sertoens of Ceara, Pernambuco, and Bahia, and particularly about the Rio S. Francisco in the higher part of its course, are eager to obtain employment on these farms. These men, who hate any other labour, are passionately fond of this way of life, which not only gratifies their inclinations, but holds out to them the fairest prospect of attaining to wealth themselves. Everyone hopes to become a

8

See Billy Chandler, The Feitosas and the Sertão dos Inhamuns: The History of a Family and a Community in Northeast Brazil 1700-1930. (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1972), 20-34. Also see João Brigido for an account of the war in Ceará (Homens E Fatos) (Fortaleza: Classicos Ceareneses, 2001), 101-105. 9

This was true during the colonial period, the empire, and early republic. Again I am not suggesting that the federal government had no power, but I am suggesting that the federal government was often ineffectual in controlling daily affairs, and at other times showed little interest.

25 Vaqueiro, Creador, or Homen de Fazenda, as the managing is called in turn. These superintendants serve for five years without pay; from that time they are entitled to a fourth of the herd every year. This gives them an interest in its prosperity, and in the course of a few years, some of them establish Fazendas of their own. 10 Slave labor was not needed on cattle ranches as it was in diamond mines, and sugar and coffee plantations, because ranching was not labor intensive. 11 Free labor was far more effective as the employer was able to access cheap labor without any substantial investment. In the Sertão, cattle ranchers often lacked the capital to buy African slaves, especially before the eighteenth century. Indian slaves were used often, but never proved to be as useful as African slaves. Therefore, employing poor freemen proved to be most successful for cattle herders and other middle or small-scale farmers. Although these men were nominally free, landowners had enormous control over workers. However, there was a possibility for the laborer to achieve upward mobility. This mobility was very limited, but did give the free person an incentive to work and to dream.

The disadvantage to raising cattle in the Sertão of Ceará during the colonial era was that the Portuguese often found themselves in conflict with the indigenous population. During the early colonial period they often had to ally themselves with the indigenous community, ironically to massacre other indigenous communities. There were a series of

10 11

Robert Southey, History of Brazil, 756.

Henry Koster’s Travels in Brazil is the best known account in any language of a foreigner who gives a well-defined first hand account of life in the Northeast of Brazil. What is particularly valuable about this source is that Koster traveled extensively in Ceará. For a description about life on the cattle ranch: see Travels in Brazil. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orman, and Brown, 1816), 233-235.

26 massacres that occurred in 1666, 1708, 1713, 1721, and 1741. Some of these were responsible for the deaths of whole tribes. 12 The massacre of the Indigenous population was not without the help of some indigenous ethnic groups. The Europeans were greatly influenced by the indigenous population, culturally and, in fact, after a few generations, most of the offspring of the Portuguese and Africans who originally migrated to the Sertão of Ceará had been mixed with that of the so-called “savages”. The Sertão has always been known as outlaw territory, a reputation that continues into the twentieth century. The most famous example of this rebelliousness is Lampião, who is often mythologized, as a type of Robin Hood of the Northeast. Canudos is another example of an independent movement outside the mainstream that emerged in the late nineteenth century. 13 In the Sertão, the rule of law was made to be broken, especially during the colonial and imperial eras, when the central authority had little control over the peripheral parts of Brazil.14 Lawlessness in this region highlights how local elites often had the opportunity to create their own unique alliances that were not always the usual European against Indian, or European against black alliances. The local European elite was mainly concerned with their own economic interests, and was not above making alliances with the “savages”. 15 The lack of social control over local elites

12

Neto, Historia Do Ceará, 28.

13

The Canudos settlement did not take place in Ceará but is an example of how outside the mainstream life could be in the Sertão. For an understanding see Robert Levine’s book Vale of Tears: Revisiting the Canudos Massacre in Northeastern Brazil, 1893-1937 (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995).

14

Billy Chandler emphasizes this point in The Feitosas and the Sertão, 79.

15

Again I will discuss this idea further in this and later chapters.

27 in Ceará, allowed for what the Portuguese crown deemed an unholy alliance. However, these were necessary for the survival of the European settlers. 16 Another disadvantage for the free laborers of settling in the backlands of Ceará was the frequent droughts, a continuous problem throughout the history of the northeast, particularly in Ceará. 17 However, droughts did not deter the men and women from traveling to and settling in the Sertão. In fact, over time the settlers developed a thriving trade in leather and beef. The economic historiography of Brazil generally ignores cattle ranching because it did not generate nearly as much wealth as the sugar plantations in Pernambuco, Bahia, and Rio de Janeiro, or the diamond mines in Minas Gerais. Nevertheless, the cattle ranches were able to sustain the northeasterners with subsistence crops that were grown adjacent to the cattle ranch estates. Unlike the famous estates that scholars such as Gilberto Freyre describe in The Master and the Slaves, Ceará’s cattle estates were small labor operations that normally consisted of a large white or mameluco family which owned or operated the semarias and worked side by side with four or five slaves and perhaps hired hands. 18 The sesmeiro’s main source of labor was the moradores who lived on the land rent-free and grew subsistence crops in exchange for their land. They were mainly humble families of

16

Please note I use this word savage to suggest how the Europeans viewed people of Indigenous ancestry. Araripe, who, lived during that era is constantly referring to the indigenous people as savages or primitive in his book, Historia Do Provincia Do Ceará. 17

There has emerged a rather large literature about droughts in the northeast. One of the classics is Joaquim Alves, Historia das Secas. (Fortaleza: Instituto do Ceará, 1953). This book is old but documents the major droughts in Ceará and the responses of the government. 18

For discussions of the economics and labor market of the cattle ranches see Chandler. The Feitosas and the Sertão, 125-143 and Araripe, Historia Da Provincia Do Ceará, 128-155. It should be noted that the moradores were responsible for growing subsistence crops in an equivalent of a share cropper arrangement. Also, although the estates did not require large amounts of labor,they were vast. The average sesmaria was approximately 9,000 hectares.

28 various races, overwhelmingly non-white, who came with the Vaquiero (Cowboy) or sesmeiro from Bahia or Pernambuco. 19 Usually when slaves were freed, they chose to stay on the estates and live as moradores. Many indigenous refugees were allied with the landowners and chose to stay as well. There were large groups of free mixed bloods that were part of the original moradores and many were of Afro-descent or of partial Afrodescent, especially in the early days of the settlement when the landowner did not live there. In that case, the moradores and slaves took orders from the Vaquieros. The Vaquieros were skilled with cattle, and were responsible for the commerce of the cows. It was they who ran the day-to-day affairs of the estate. If the Vaquieros were not the Sesmeiro, they would have their own house near the Sesmeiro family. Naturally the Sesmeiro had the largest house, the Vaquiero had a smaller house, and slaves lived with or in close proximity to their owner. The moradores did not have to live as near. They sometimes served as overseers to protect the borders of the Patrão’s estate. Moreover they needed space to grow crops for themselves. Cotton in Ceará The other major industry to develop in Ceará was cotton. However cotton did not develop there on any major scale until the late eighteenth century. 20 At first it was produced for local consumption by the popular classes, mainly to make clothes, hammocks, and to crochet. Over time cotton became a major industry and was traded

19

Ibid. Also see João Capistrano de Abreu book Caminhos Antigo e Povoamento do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Sociedade Capistrano de Abreu, 1960) give a brief description of these folks “…mulattos, mestiços , e os pretos forros,”115. Over the next few generations, the morador population increased through natural birthrates and grew through the addition of people of Indigenous ancestry and of African descent. 20

Eduardo Campos, A Memoria Imperfeita (Idéias, Fatos E Costumes) (Fortaleza: Expressão Gráfica E Editora, 1993), 43-51. Raimundo Girão. Historia Do Ceará: Historia Economica (Fortaleza: Instituto Do Ceará, 1947), 205-231. Also see Neto, Historia Do Ceará, 35-38.

29 internationally. The cotton trade became particularly important when Ceará was no longer a part of Pernambuco and could trade directly with Portugal and later Europe. Unlike sugar and coffee, cotton could be cultivated in the semi-arid land of the Sertão without intensive labor. In other words, cotton cultivation was not as dependent on black slaves as was sugar or coffee cultivation. In fact, cotton was produced on the cattle estates and functioned under the same system. Moradores made financial arrangements with their Patròes, and smaller landowners grew cotton and sold their produce to bigger landowners, who in turn paid for the transportation of the cotton and brought it from the interior to the ports of Fortaleza, Aracati, Acarau, and Camocim, where it was sold mainly to foreign merchants. The cotton industry in Ceará had two economic peaks, one during the American independence movement, and the other during the American civil war, after which the U.S. trade again dominated export to Europe, causing the market in Ceará to experience a decline, though it still maintained a market share. Brazil as a whole was never dependent on cotton as an export crop in the way that the United States was. In the 1850s cotton represented about 60% of the United States’ international trade. Already by 1819, Brazil’s market share had dropped from 28% in 1805 to 18%. 21 Despite the decline, in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century Brazilian cotton was competitive with the United States products and held its own in the world market. Ceará became one of several regions in Brazil to export cotton. Although it was one of Ceará’s main exports, the cotton that was exported tended to be of very poor quality. 21

Girão, Historia Do Ceará, 205-231.

30 Nevertheless, the cotton industry allowed the owners of the farms to invest in more black slaves, and, as a result, in the late eighteenth century, the population of Ceará became blacker. Black slavery increased in Ceará at around the same time that Indian slavery was outlawed. Nevertheless, it was cotton that was able to finance this increase. However, working side by side with the slaves was freemen of all races, although most were people of color. Chart 1.1 Income from Cotton in Ceará (1803-1807) 22 1803- 13:934$720 1804- 15:600$690 1805- 39.987$200 1806-54.219$200 1807- 91:330$560 In 1810 the port of Fortaleza was exporting 169,072 kilos, Aracaty 138,750 and Acarahu 87,885 for a total of 395,707 coming from Ceará. Chart 1.2 Fortaleza-export in Kilos 1811-172,021 1812-152,550 1813-312,675 1814-361,705 1815-245,895 1816-358,876 1817-181,440 1818-462,960 1819-636,360

The charts above attest to the fact that Ceara’s economy was growing more and more profitable in the early nineteenth century. The country was also was exporting more

22

Jose Jobson Arruda, O Brasil no Comércio Colonial, (São Paulo: Atica, 1980), 278.

31 cotton, though the price did not always rise in the early years. The boom years lasted until 1822, when the international market collapsed. In addition, the drought of 1825 further undermined cotton production in Ceará. Still it remained a valuable commercial crop there. The major port of export was Fortaleza. There were moments as in 1845 and 1878-1880, when the cotton exports decreased due to droughts. 23 Cotton production created an opportunity for the investment in slaves. With production of cotton came an increase in the slave population, but the free population remained predominant in the overall economy of Ceará, including in cotton production. The slave increase of the early nineteenth century was temporary, and slaves remained a minority in the labor force. After the initial boom ended in 1822, the slave population actually experienced a rapid demise, because it was not as essential as free labor. Slaves in Ceará never reached more than 28% of the population if we are to believe a local census of 1819, which estimated that there were 55,439 slaves in a population of over 201,170 people. The free population was able to plant and pick cotton with more efficiency. Also, free labor was inexpensive in Ceará. The owners of the semarias did not have to pay for labor. Instead they merely had to provide land and allow the peasants to farm, with perhaps some other minor incentives to get them to accept the job. The free laborers did other services for their patròes, especially after the crisis in the second decade of the nineteenth century when buying slaves became difficult and expensive.

23

Ibid., 213-240. Also see Appendix II , for price flucations of cotton in one of Ceará’s most important ports. I should note that though cotton played an important role in the economy of Ceará, and played a role in the expansion of slavery in Ceará, it never played the role it did in the south of the United States and slaves were never critical in sustaining cotton production in Ceará. Cotton allowed for the capitol to buy slaves in the late eighteenth century, and the early nineteenth century. However cotton production was not dependent on slave labor at all. I have provided some discussion of cotton for the reader to gain a basic understanding of the economy in Ceará during the nineteenth century, not because cotton was so critical in understanding slavery.

32 Cotton was an important crop for the economy of Ceará, but it was never relevant as an export crop to the entire economy of Brazil. Therefore Ceara’s cotton industry differed from sugar production in Bahia, mineral extraction in Minas Gerais, and coffee production in Sao Paulo, which were essential to Brazil’s economy. In fact, regions like São Paulo exported even more cotton than Ceará.

The Indian in Ceará It is impossible to discuss slavery and racial identity in Ceará without an investigation of the role of the indigenous population in the formation and development of the labor force. The diverse indigenous population was the basis of the labor force well into the late colonial period. 24 Even after the colonial period, the various indigenous communities played a central role in the development of Ceará. Historians have been slow to articulate their importance to the formation of Ceará. The nineteenth century historian and writer Tristão Araripe documents the diverse history of the indigenous population extensively, but he sees them as a menace to the “civilizing project” of Brazil, and does not acknowledge their extensive cultural contribution. Historians like Raimundo Girão acknowledge that contribution and its biological component in Ceará, but only in reference to the popular classes. Despite his reference to the different indigenous groups, Girào underemphasizes the role of people of nonEuropean descent in the formation of Ceará. 25 No doubt, this silence is due to the value 24

The decline of Indian participation in the labor market of Ceará can be attributed to the Pombline laws that successfully ended all forms of legal slavery and second-class citizenship for the Indian population. Studart, Historia do Ceará, 275-276. 25

Raimundo Girão, Pequena Historia do Ceará 2nd Edicão (Fortaleza: Instituto Do Ceará, 1962), 90-101.

33 that, historically, many Brazilians have placed on a fictional white identity, as the nineteenth century English traveler Henry Koster observed: “…asked if a certain Capitam-mor was not a mulatto man; he answered, he was, but is not now.” I begged him to explain when he added “can a Capitam-mor be a mulatto?” I was intimately acquainted with a priest, whose complexion and hair plainly denoted from whence his origin. I liked him much. He was a well- educated and intelligent man. Besides this individual instance, I met several others of the same description”. 26 Koster was referring to people of African descent, but the notion of passing for white was even more common among those of indigenous ancestry. Many leading families in Ceará, such as the Feitosa family, had indigenous ancestry. 27 During colonial times, the indigenous communities were considered heathens because they were not Christians. Citizenship and Christianity were synonymous. Yet, it was impossible for Indians to truly be Christians because, in reality, to be Christian was to be white. It was the norm in colonial times for top government and religious positions to be reserved for men of “pure blood,” that is those of European ancestry. 28 Even when anti-Indian discrimination was banned after the Pombal era,

26

Koster, Travels in Brazil, 176.

27

Ibid.,168.

28

A.C. Saunders in his book A Social History of Black Slaves and Freed Men in Portugal, 1441-1555. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) brilliantly documents that Portugal was home to a large black community since the fifteenth century. In fact many European countries such as France, England, Italy, and Spain all had sizable populations of African ancestry. Therefore it is problematic to conceptualize Europeans as purely white, because there were Europeans who were of African ancestry Yet Saunders in his book on Afro-Portuguese, documents the enormous discrimination that they faced during the era of the transatlantic slave trade. Theoretically this discrimination was based on the fact that they were not Christian, but again they never could be defined as Christian because of their origin, and unlike their Jewish brethren who often passed, the Afro-Portuguese were marked by their color.

34 discrimination and prejudice has continued to the present day. 29 Therefore, there has always been a Brazilian tradition of people of Indian or African ancestry concealing their identities, and claiming a white identity. It was the Jesuits who incorporated indigenous peoples into the colonial community. Indian villages were formed to contain and train them in the Christian way of life; also Indians who were captured in wars were enslaved and forced to serve the colonial slave masters. Unlike in Pernambuco or Bahia, where Indian labor never played an essential part in the economy after the sixteenth century, in the early colonial period Indian labor was the basis of the economy in Ceará. It was the indigenous community that innovated cattle farming and more efficient ways of preserving the beef that was exported to internal markets in Brazil. Subsistence in Ceará was based on Indian staple crops like corn and manioc. Local clothing and hammocks were influenced by indigenous groups designs. Even many linguistic patterns can be traced to different indigenous languages. The Indian population was instrumental in the formation of the Cearense community and identity. 30 Indian villages produced subsistence crops on common lands. In the indigenous groups cosmologies, there was no conception of individual property. Therefore, even in villages the Portuguese colonists controlled, the various indigenous communities

29

Alex Ratts has documented the invisibility of the black and indigenous community in several anthropological studies. For discussions of the indigenous communities in contemporary times see Alecsandro Ratts, “Os Povos Invisíveis: Territórios Negros e Indígenas no Ceará”. Cadernos CERU (FFLCH/USP),1997, 109-127. Alecsandro Ratts, “Almofala dos Tremembé: A Configuração de Um Território Indígena” Cadernos de Camo,1999, 61-81.

30

For a good description of the indigenous influence see Maria Amélia Leite and Ed. Gilmar Chaves, “O Cearnese é um Povo Caboclo” in Ceará de Corpo e Alma: Um Olhar Contemporãneo de 53 Autores Sobre a Terra da Luz (Fortaleza: Instituto do Ceará, 2002), 29-35.

35 continued to practice communal land use. Though the Jesuits imposed Catholicism on the indigenous community as they did throughout Latin America, the people were mainly autonomous. They developed a hybrid culture. In other words, while Catholicism and Portuguese culture irrevocably changed their culture, they retained many important preColumbian traits. The reverse must also be emphasized. The Indians irrevocably changed Portuguese culture in Ceará. John Hemming illustrates this influence when he quotes a priest describing a cattle rancher saying, “This man is one of the worst savages I have ever met. When he came to see me he brought an interpreter, for he cannot even speak correctly. He is no different from the most barbarous Tapuia, except in calling himself a Christian. And although recently married, seven Indian concubines attend him---from which one can infer his other habits”. 31 Another example Hemming’s gives of the hybridity of Portuguese culture, is in his discussion of Martim Soares Moreno. He shows that Moreno would not have been able to colonialize Ceará without the support of the indigenous population. Moreno spent many years living with the indigenous community and even fathered a child with an Indian woman. It was with Indian support that he was able to defeat the French in a battle in 1611. He reportedly fought naked with Indian painting covering his body. 32 Of course, in the cultural exchange between the Portuguese and the Indigenous, the balance of power ultimately favored of the Portuguese. When we speak of material and political advantage, it was the white descendents of Europe who were dominant in Brazilian society while the majority of indigenous people remained subservient.

31

John Hemming, Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians (London: Macmillan, 1978), 255.

32

Ibid., 209.

36 The process of domination of the indigenous groups in Ceará was a slow and arduous one for the Portuguese. It would have been impossible if not for the various divisions that existed in the indigenous communities. The Portuguese depended on alliances with particular ethnic indigenous groups. In many of the major Portuguese massacres of Indian communities, the Portuguese were allied to specific ethnic Indian warriors. They fought side by side with their Indian allies against other Indian tribes. For example in a letter written to the Capitão mor during the massacre of 1666, the government document reports that 40 soldiers and 170 Indians defeated the Gendoins and Baiquis, killing the chief Panaty and his son. 33 In hindsight one may ask why any Indigenous group would agree to fight against their own interest. In reality it is no mystery why different Indian ethnic groups allied against other Indian ethnic groups. There had always been rivalries between certain groups. They had never been aligned with one another and did not see each other as having the same interests. They spoke different languages and had different cosmologies. The Portuguese, like the Spanish, were experts in exploiting the rivalries of the Indigenous population to their advantage. Moreover, the indigenous groups benefited materially since they bartered with the Portuguese in ways they could not with their Indian brethren. Additionally, the Jesuits did succeed, finally, in converting indigenous people to the Christian faith. 34 Indian labor was organized in a very complex manner. The colonial powers were of contradictory opinions regarding the rights and legal status of the Indians in the Portuguese empire. The royal crown passes laws as early as 1570 that prohibited Indian 33 34

Guilherme Studart, Datas E Factos Historia Do Ceará,81.

John Hemming’s book Red Gold probably is the best book that documents Indian and European interaction.

37 slavery. 35 However, the Portuguese colonizers found ways to circumvent this freedom. This was especially true in Ceará. Many Indians were enslaved. In fact, this became such a problem that there were several laws that chastised the Portuguese colonists who abused the Indians. There were many cases in Ceará in which Indians were bought and sold as slaves. Although Indian slavery was illegal after 1570, it continued because the law still allowed Indians to be enslaved under certain conditions: if they fought against the Portuguese crown or did not pay tribute or give services to it. One of the main ways an Indian could become a slave was if he was imprisoned in a “just” war. The crown passed many other laws that qualified the Indians for enslavement. According to the historian Tristão Alencar Araripe, who was a contemporary of the Brazilian empire (1821-1908), there were never more than 2,500 Indian slaves at any one period. 36 Even if Araripe is correct, this number was considerable considering the size of the population of Ceará in the colonial period.

Chart 1.3

Population of the Captaincy of the Pernambuco and her Annexes (1763) 37 35

Stuart Schwartz. “Indian Labor and New World Plantation: European Demands and Indian Responses in Northeastern Brazil” The American Historical Review, 1978, 44. 36

Araripe, Historia Da Provincia Do Ceará,144. In the Studart collection there are many government documents that discuss the selling of Indians in war. Studart, Data e Factos, 99 documents an example “12 De Dezembro Carta Regia a Caetano de Mello de Castro sobre a conta dada ela Junta das Missões a respeito da Guerra, e cativeiro de indios do Ceará.” Studart dates this letter 1695. 37

Pedro Alberto Silva, O Declinio da Escravidão no Ceará. (Master Thesis: Federal University of Pernambuco, 1988), 38.

38

Captaincy

Slaves

Free Population

Total Population

Pernambuco

23.299

66.810

90.109

Paraiba

9.293

29.865

39.158

Rio Grande do Norte

5.570

18.806

23.305

Ceará

2.128

14.882

17.010

Chart 1.4 The Population of the Captaincy of Pernambuco and her Annexes (1782) 38 Captaincy

Inhabitants

Births

Deaths

Pernambuco

229.743

8.578

7.357

Paraiba

52.468

1.615

956

Rio Grande do Norte

23.812

1.125

673

Ceará

61.470

2.470

995

These censuses were taken after the Pombline laws (1755) were enacted, officially prohibiting Indian slavery, so that, by law, only those of African ancestry were slaves. Although Indian slavery was illegal, it is not clear that slave owners were following the law. Also, a good number of slaves were of mixed ancestry. If that mixture included African ancestry, then the slave most likely was not freed under the Pombaline decree. In reality, there is still good reason to believe that many slaves of “pure Indian” ancestries 38

Ibid., 39. Please note that census data from this period are at best educated guesses, and are highly unreliable. Still the fact that the population tripled in nineteen years is very probable. A contemporary of the time, Tristão de Alencar Araripe, in his Historia Da Provincia Do Ceará,93 put the population at 34,000 in 1775, but in 1808. he puts the population at over 130,396 and 1810 at 150,000. What is clear is that there was major migration to the region particularly among free men of color from parts of Pernambuco and Bahia. Also Pedro Alberto obtains his sources from government documents.

39 were not freed. Certainly the Portuguese authorities had little control over regions like Ceará. We can often determine the “race” of the slave because the owner documented it when he or she was bought and sold. In Ceará there were many slaves that probably were of indigenous ancestry. 39 More than likely, these slaves were descendants of slaves from the colonial era when Indian slavery was still legal, which explains why there a number slaves in the mid- nineteenth century were called caboclo, a term usually denoting indigenous ancestry. 40 Jesuit-run lands were, in theory, places of possible autonomy for the Indians. 41 The sesmeiro would pay a below market rate for the services of these Indian communities, especially after the Jesuits were forced to leave. 42 Legally, Indian communities were incorporated into the Portuguese empire as sesmeiros that were to be directed by the Jesuits, until the Jesuits were expelled in 1758. The Jesuits were to instruct the Indians in how to become good Christians. It should be noted that while the Jesuits were paternalistic and did not value the culture of the indigenous peoples, they were for the most part very serious about educating the Indians to be good Christians, and many were against the wholesale exploitation of the indigenous population. Numerous Jesuits were outraged by the extermination campaigns that were carried out by the sesmeiro classes. Many have argued that the Jesuit missions failed to create an Indian

39

Compras e Vendas of slaves Livro 1515, 1865-1872, APEC. There are five examples of slaves listed as acabolado, a definition of a person of at least partial Indian ancestry. 40

Ibid.

41

The Studart collection of documents constantly refers to giving Indian communities Semarias. See Studart, Data e Factos, 103. “8 De Janeiro-C. R. ao governador do Maranhão mandando dar semarias aos indios do Ceará e marcando por limites dessas semarias a barra do Timonha”. The date on this letter is 1697. 42

Koster, Travels in Brazil, 158.

40 peasantry. 43 In Ceará, the Jesuits can be seen as successful, if we define success as survival of a strong predominance of indigenous heritage people that became a major part of the peasant classes. 44 If one argues that the Indian villages were a failure because disease played a part in diminishing the population, and wide spread flight was common in most Jesuit run Indian villages, then one can say the villages were failures, because the population of Indians did decrease. However in Ceará, unlike in Bahia, the Indian villages were in fact thriving “Christianized” communities until the early nineteenth century. By the time of the Pombaline law and the subsequent expulsion of the Jesuits, these communities were still thriving Indian communities that played a vital role in the economy of Ceará as sources of day laborers Many former Jesuit run Indian villages became Vilas run by a Portuguese directorate and an Indian directorate. By the time this transfer occurred, the goal of integrating the Indians into the colony was accomplished. This integration may not have occurred as the Portuguese had envisioned, and the numbers were small in the villages, but the remaining Indians of Ceará were integrated into the empire as Christian peasant workers. Thus, by the nineteenth century, “mestiço” culture had emerged. Though there was still a sizable indigenous population living in these villages, they were a culturally hybrid society with European and Indian values. In addition poor whites, blacks, and people of mixed blood

43

Stuart Schwartz argues that the Jesuit-run communities were failures this in his article “Indian Labor and New World Plantation,” 50-52, because of the large population decline due to disease and flight. In the case of Bahia, the region he studies, he has a valid argument, but in Ceará the Indian decline was not as dramatic. There were still Indian villages there in the nineteenth century. See Henry Koster, Travel in Brazil for a vivid description of these communities, 155-165. Also a fellow English traveler, Daniel Kidder, discusses specifically the remains of a large indigenous communities as late as 1839 which he describes several times as having a large Indigenous influence in Sketches of Residence and Travels in Brazil.2vols.(London: Sorin and Ball and Wiley Putnam, 1845), 224-225. Araripe, Historia Da Provincia Do Ceará speaks of length of the Indigenous communities that still challenged European, or European descendent supremacy. I will discuss his thoughts more in chapter four.

41 lived illegally on the communal lands of the Indians. 45 Therefore by the time of the Brazilian empire people of Indian ancestry who spoke Portuguese and worked in the economic structure of the Brazilian empire were integrated in the lower strata of the society. Moreover by the time of the first national census in Brazil (1872) the term Indian no longer existed, the term mestiço, and specifically caboclo was used to describe people of Indigenous ancestry. The historian Cintia Maria de Almeida Vasconcelo, in her study of marriage records for 1725-1798 in the Catholic archdiocese, looks at over 1,372-recorded marriages and studied 140 cases where at least one person classified as an Indian in the marriage. 46 In her study, she found that of the 140 cases only 7.87% of Indians married other Indians. Over 52% were married to those classified as white, and over 39.2% were married to those of African or partial African descent. Marrying officially in a church was a bureaucratic process that took time and financial resources. The majority of the subjects of the colonial empire were not recognized as married in the eyes of the church. Therefore, marriage documents are just evidence that there was widespread miscegenation among the indigenous population, with both people of African descent and those considered white. It must be stressed that though there was considerable inequality between the so-called white community and the communities of Indian descendents, there

45

If one looks at the census information and looks at the Indian villages, it becomes clear that there was a minority non-Indian population living on these settlements. See Apendix I and look under Villa do Indio. 46

Cintia Maria de Almeida Vasconcelos, “As Vivencias Indigenas no Arcaraú (Seculo XVIII) Documentos Revista Do Arquivo Publico Do Ceará: Indios E Negros (Fortaleza: Arquivo Publico Do Ceara, 2006), 103-120.

42 was also wide spread integration among the descendants of Africans, indigenes, and Europeans. 47 The indigenous groups did not mysteriously disappear as some historians have suggested. 48 The indigenous ethnic groups were integrated into Brazilian society as a part of the subaltern classes. Moreover they left their mark on Brazilian society through culture. The Blacks in the Labor Force of Ceará Blacks played a vital role in the population and labor force in the early settlement of Ceará. The first slaves to be reported in any serious quantity were found in 1756. According to government documents, over 73 slaves were brought to S. José to mine for minerals. The population was apparently large enough to form quilombo communities. 49 In fact, there were several quilombo communities of Blacks in Ceará, which I will explore in the next chapter. Blacks were recorded as participating in segregated militias and fighting and capturing Indians. 50 João Brigido, one of the most important historians of nineteenth century Ceará, writes that it was a black slave who helped settle a region where Cariri Indians lived, because he spoke the language and knew the roads of the Cariri

47

The primary evidence for the wide ethnic mixture that existed in Ceará can be found in the census data in appendix I. The marriage records just help to reconfirm this information. 48 49 50

See Araripe, Historia Da Provincia Do Ceará, 128-155. Studart, Datas e Factos, 270.

Studart, Datas e Factos, 105. “8 DE Novembro-C.R. a Caetano de Mello de Castro mandando que faca agar as resectivas congruas aos sacerdotes, que seguem ara os residios de Jaguaribe e Assú segundo elle requisitara, e approvando o acto que praticara dando meia farda aos trinta soldados pretos; que foram situar-se no Jaguribe.”

43 population. 51 This slave became a power broker because of his ability to speak and understand both the Cariri and Portuguese cultures. Interestingly, Brigido describes this slave as a Vaquiero, which, if correct, demonstrates his importance to his master, since the Vaquieros were highly esteemed on the cattle ranches. It should be noted that Indians were not necessarily natural allies of the black slaves. One of the wars of extermination was even caused by the cruelty of an Indian tribe to black slaves. 52 The majority of the black slaves came from Bahia and Pernambuco when the ranchers arrived with their cows, moradores, and vaqueiros. Although cattle ranching were not labor intensive, black slaves participated in nearly every aspect of the economy. 53 There were cases of black slaves who worked on sugar cane plantations in Ceará, producing Cachaça, one of Brazil’s most successful business enterprises. Ypioca was founded on black slave labor in Maranguape, Ceará. Starting in the eighteenth century, there were many sugar plantations that utilized black slaves. 54 There was one in Rendenção, or what was then known as the Villa Acarape, the first city to end slavery. The city had one large sugar plantation that produced Cachaça. When the city ended slavery in 1883 the plantation had about 50 slaves while the town had no more than 200 and no more than 12,000 residents. What separates these sugar plantations from other northeastern plantations in the nineteenth century and much earlier was that their product was not for international export. They served the needs of the local market, producing rapadura and

51

Brigido, Ceará, 85.

52

Chandler, The Feitosas and the Sertão, 14.

53

Ibid. Also see Boletim Do Arquivo V. 6 number 11, APEC.

54

See Antonio José de Oliveira. “Engenhos de Rapdura do Cariri” Trabalho e Cotidano (1790-1850) Masters in Social History Universidade Federal do Ceará, 2003.

44 Cachaça for local consumption and subsequently were far less wealthy than the majority of sugar plantations in Pernambuco or Bahia. Moreover, it was common for free laborers to work on many of these plantations as well, though there were estates that depended exclusively on black slavery as in Rendenção and Maranguape. Still, the use of black slaves, on sugar plantations in the region, was limited. It was with the end of Indian slavery, and more importantly with the profit of cotton, that black slavery began to play a vital role in the labor force of Ceará in the middle of the eighteenth century. Because cattle ranching were less labor-intensive, the mortality rates were lower than on the sugar plantations of Bahia, Pernambuco, and Rio de Janeiro. Additionally, the ratio of male to female slaves was more balanced, enabling them to find heterosexual mates. Slaves were allowed to procreate and thus replenish the slave population naturally. In the sugar plantations, this was not possible because of the gender gap (female slaves were not seen as valuable). On the cattle ranch, male slaves were still more valuable than female slaves, but the number of slaves needed was smaller. However, some owners did have huge slave holdings. For example in 1777, Moreira Gomes possessed some 200 slaves, 55 but interestingly the slaves were spread among the different estates that he owned. João Vales owned some 263 slaves in 1843, 56 which were again dispersed to several different estates. The vast majority of slave owners in the Sertão, and in urban areas, owned fewer slaves; Nevertheless, the population of slaves increased dramatically

55

João Brigido, A Capitania do Ceará e seu Comércio (Fortaleza: Instituto Do Ceará, 1910),174.

56

Chandler, The Feitosas and the Sertão, 147.

45 until the second decade of the nineteenth century when a rapid decline in the servile population began. 57 In urban areas, female slaves still worked primarily in semi-skilled, domestic capacities as maids, vendors and cooks. 58 Interestingly, in the 1872 census, there were more female than male slaves. Men worked in all areas of the labor market, doing both skilled and unskilled labor. 59 What distinguishes Ceará is that all work that did not require literacy could be considered slave work. 60 In fact, the unskilled free population fared worse than slaves in many areas. In Ceará, the people who owned slaves were most likely privileged and had the means to take care of them. On the highly populated slave plantations in Recife, Salvador, and Rio de Janeiro, access to slaves was easier and less expensive because these cities were close to ports that transported thousands of them yearly. This was not the case in Ceará where until 1799; the ports were prohibited from trading directly with foreign merchants. They were unable to receive slaves directly from Africa until 1818. Even after this period, Fortaleza never developed a slave trade from Africa. Instead they were traded 57

Eurpide Funes, “O Negro em Ceará, 104-105. As I have discussed, this decline was in large part due to the lack of capital to continue financing slaves in a region where it was not really necessary. You can see the decline of slaves in the census data. 58

Campos, A Memoria Imperfeito, 57.

59

Chandler, The Feitosas and the Sertão, 148. Livro do Notas Boletim Do Arquivo V.6 number 11, APEC.

60

Chandler, The Feitosas and the Sertão, 147-148. I am borrowing this idea from Chandler who argues that slaves not only worked as domestics, but in a variety of jobs in the Inhamuns. This is true in general for all of Ceará. For further evidence See Registro de Venda, 1865-1872, APEC, this contains an excellent sample of over 255 slaves. There was diversity in the jobs of the slaves who are listed, but about those that are not listed with a profession we can make an educated guess based on newspaper clippings that advertise slaves for rent. Male slaves that were rented often did a variety of task. For slave advertisements to rent slaves see O Cearense, July 20, 1858 and Dom Pedro December 11, 1873. My samples are cases in Fortaleza but if we combine an urban center like Fortaleza and a rural area like the Inhamuns, then we can postulate that the rest of the region was more or less the same, because patterns in the economy and slave populations were the same.

46 from Recife and São Luis. Therefore, the slave masters on the sugar plantations were more likely to kill their slaves through overwork by denying them proper nutrition and sleep. The mortality rates on these plantations were high because the slave masters in these places could always buy slaves cheaply. 61 In Ceará, it was expensive to buy a slave, and it did not make sense from an economic standpoint to exploit them completely. Therefore life in the Sertão was much less harsh. This is not to say that the slaves were happy with their lives in captivity. One of the main reasons they ran away was because they were beaten and brutalized. 62 Nevertheless life in the Sertão was preferable to life on the big sugar or coffee plantations. Koster aptly sums up life on the Sertão, when he says: In the back settlements, beyond the plains of the Sertam, bordering upon the mountains where cotton is planted, and from which the plains are in part supplied with food, the number of Negroes is becoming considerable. I have had opportunities of conversing with Negroes from the sertam; and have invariably found that they preferred their residence in the cattle districts even to a removal into the country bordering upon the sea. The diet of the Sertam Negro is preferable to that of the plantation slave; so that this circumstance independently of all others would make the former be well aware of the superiority of his situation. Fresh beef and mutton are the usual food of the Sertam slaves: but upon the plantations these are rarely served out 63

On the big sugar plantations, it was easier for blacks to maintain a hybrid African culture because black slaves formed the overwhelming majority. The number and variety

61

See Laird Bergad for a general account of the slave family in the Americas and a short description of Brazil The Comparative Histories of Slavery in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 172-176. Also see James Sweet, Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship and Religion in the Portuguese World, 1441-1770. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003). 62

There are many newspaper announcements that document slaves running away. In the next chapter I will examine the announcements of the O Cearense, Dom Pedro and others. On April 19, 1855 a slave named Benedicto was put to death. See Studart, Datas e Factos, 153. We will explore in the next chapter how slaves resisted slavery. 63

Koster, Travels in Brazil, 234.

47 of Afro- influenced cultures on the plantations in places like Rio de Janeiro, Pernambuco, and Bahia were the reason why a hybrid African culture became so dominant. In the Sertão, slaves were in proximity to Indian and the Portuguese cultures. In many instances they worked side by side with these groups, which blacks could not have done elsewhere because there were no large white or Indian groups around. Traveling in Rio de Janeiro, one British woman remarked that she thought that she was in Africa. 64 No traveler could have made that error in Ceará because no group would have dominated that much. Therefore it should be of no surprise that the slaves also played and socialized with these other groups. According to the slave records of Ceará, the majority of them were creole, or native born. 65 A large percentage of the slave community had mixed European and Indian blood. During the colonial period, inter-ethnic sexual relations were often frowned upon, but in reality they seem to have occurred with normal frequency, particularly between white men and African slaves. While there were more female than male slaves in the 1872 census, in the free community there were more men than women. Based on the information that exists for Brazil in general, it is hard to believe that slave masters did not initiate sexual relations. 66 In many cases masters reduced their female slaves to prostitutes, though there are many cases of women resisting the advances of 64

Maria Graham, Journal of a voyage to Brazil, and residence there, during art of the years 1821, 1822, 1823 (London : Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, Paternoster-Row; and J. Murray, Albemarle-Street, 1824).

Oswaldo Riedel, Persectiva Antroologica do Escravo no Ceará (Ceará: UFC, 1988), 34. He documents many slaves who were not listed by African ethnicity but as Creole nation or mulatto nation. Also see Livro do Notas Fortaleza Public archives V.1 1838-1843. Also if one looks at the census of slavery in 1872 the majority of slaves were mulatto, but even before this period there was a high rate of Creole slaves, and a low rates of purchased slaves because slave rates increased by natural birth.

65

66

The relationship between master and slave has been well documented, and there is no reason to think that these relationships were somehow different in Ceará. The classic and most controversial text is Gilberto Freyre, The Master and the Slaves, translated by Samuel Putnam (New York: Knopf, 1946).

48 their slave masters, particularly if they were attached to another man. There is one case of a male slave killing a master who slept with his wife 67 . However it was more common for slaves to use sex to gain freedom or material benefits for themselves. 68 It was also not uncommon for slaves to have sexual relationships with free people of all colors who were not their masters. Interestingly, sugar plantations were often adjacent to rich and thriving cities like Salvador, Recife, and Rio de Janeiro, These were prosperous cities in the early nineteenth century, largely due to the sugar trade. Numerous artisans lived in all them, many of whom were free men of color, and others who were enslaved. A slave in Brazil, who was a skilled laborer, probably had the best chance of gaining his or her freedom. This was probably true in the Sertão as well, though exact statistics are hard to find in Ceará. What we do know is that in the cities, the free population and the enslaved population often worked and lived together in the same social spaces, as was the case in the rest of urban Brazil. The semarias in the northeast formed a close-knit community of free and slave labor. In the early stages, it was more likely that the laborers were Indian, Portuguese, free blacks and those of mixed blood with only a small minority of black slaves. However by the late eighteenth century, this ratio had changed. The percentage of black slaves increased until the early nineteenth century, but this increase was temporary so that by the end of the second decade of the nineteenth century their numbers had decreased drastically. The percentage of free labor increased, and because of reasons that I have already explained, the number of “pure Indian” laborers declined dramatically. The free

67

Pedro II, October 13, 1867.

68

Campos, A Memoria Imperfeito, 57-60.

49 men who labored were mostly of mixed blood or white, with a minority classified as black, and to a lesser extent Indian. Black slaves in Ceará brought their own culture and there are reports of slaves practicing “brujaria.” The records are replete with slaves getting drunk and dancing samba. 69 Still, the instances of slaves overwhelming the dominant culture are few in Ceara, when compared with places such as Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas Gerais. This is explained by demographics. The census information shows that the population of Ceará was racially and culturally integrated, and no one culture dominated the region. 70 The Invisible Man: The Free man of Color As Eurpide Funes notes in his article “O Negro em Ceará,” scholars have often insisted that blacks played a minimal role in the development of Ceará. 71 Yet the census information strongly contests this analysis. The black and Afro-descendant population has held a definitive majority since the census was first taken in the eighteenth century, if

69

See Boletim Do ArquivoVol.1 No.1, APEC.

70

This will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter.

71

Eurpide Funes, “O Negro em Ceará,”103-104. Raimundo Girão is probably the most important and most insistent that the black was virtually absent from the formation of Brazil. See his Pequena Historia do Ceará, 100-101. Billy Chandler should be given credit for being one of the first of any nationality to note the presence of the Afro-descendent in his study of the Inhumuns. See his short chapter on slavery in Ceará ,146-156. However his footnote on page 155 is problematic. He uses Gustavo Barroso, a native of Ceará and esteemed intellectual in the early twentieth century, as an example of a popular writer and intellectual that does not give proper credit to people of African heritage in Ceará. Barroso does acknowledge the influence but he rightly points out that they are mixed with Indian or Portuguese ancestry. He is right. It is very rare to see a “pure Negro” in Ceará. Most people of African ancestry in Ceará have Indian and/or Portuguese ancestry. Barroso says that blackness in this mix exists in smaller proportions. I would argue with this statement, because it is not clear that among the popular classes, which element is more important genetically. There is no real documentation to prove this one-way or the other. This observation is important because it does not necessarily contradict my argument. People of African ancestry are a part of the mix, this much is clear from the census information. Gustavo Barroso wrote his classic Terra do Sol originally in 1912, but has been republished numerous times. See Terra do Sol: Natureza E Costumes Do Nortes (Edicoes Democrito Rocha, 2003),185. The original statement about the Afro population is “Os mestiços do Negro com o indio-cabras, e do negro com todas as suas gradacões-existem em menor proporcão.”

50 one includes the free non-white categories. 72 Funes points out that historians writing about Ceará have made the faulty assumption of linking blackness to slavery. 73 There is ”common sense” logic 74 that blackness and slavery are one and the same, and, since black slaves in Ceará never approached more than 28% of the population, people of African ancestry were an insignificant part of the population of Ceará. 75 However, if one studies the census information it becomes clear early on that if you count the free mulattos or pardos with blacks, then whites are in the minority. Many slaves in Ceará were mulatto or pardo and by the 1872 census there were more pardo slaves than black slaves. Also in the 1872 census there were more free blacks than black slaves. 76 Therefore free people of color were not necessarily phenotypically distinguishable from their enslaved brethren. There were enormous socio-economic disadvantage to being non-white in Brazil. Those who were light enough to pass as white had more opportunities and greater access to better positions than darker skinned people. Even during the Brazilian empire, when the color bar had been erased legally, people of color were excluded from most important

72

A non-white majority can be confirmed by looking at the census information in the appendix I.

73

Euprides Funes “O Negro em Ceará,”103.

74

The idea of common sense logic is taken from Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 1971) 75

In reality the traditional historians such as Raimundo Girão and Gustavo Barroso made these claims without actual documentation. We can make the claim of 28% with census data from the local government in Ceará in 1819 and this information appears in the Brazilian politician and scholar, Pandiá Calógeras’s work. Artur Ramos first published the census data in his book, Introducão a Antropologia Brasileira 1vol. (Casa do Estudante do Brasil, 1943,323. Census information in 1840 shows a decrease to 20% of the population. See Pandiá Calogeras’s study from the mid-nineteenth century and republished, A Escravidão no Brasil (Petrópolis: Vozes,1976),35. 76

See the changes in census charts in the appendix I.

51 positions in government and commerce. 77 Free blacks and pardos were not only connected by blood, but in Ceará there was not much socio-economic difference between them. In other words Degler’s mulatto escape hatch argument is rendered useless because there was never any major social difference between pardo and blacks. 78 For example, census information of 1872 shows us, there were more pardo slaves than black slaves. It seems it was only when one’s African ancestry was no longer phenotypically discernable that one could truly reach the top of Brazilian society. This is not to say that there were not successful mulattos. As Koster points out there were cases of what he termed rich blacks and mulattos. For instance, he describes the success of one mulatto landowner while traveling in what today is Ceará: I asked for water to drink at one of the houses: some was brought to me by a pretty white girl, who was apparently about seventeen years of age. She talked a great deal and in a lively manner, so as to show that she had inhabited more civilized regions. There were in the house two children of colour, which she told me were her’s. She was the daughter of a man of small property, who had married her wealthy mulatto man. She gave a message to the guide to deliver to her husband. We met with him; he was of a dark complexion and about forty years of age. I learnt her story from the Acu guide. He said, it had made some noise in these parts at the time 79 This quote reveals some interesting tensions in late colonial Brazil and in Ceará. It shows that it was possible for a mulatto to be very poor, as was quite common, but it was

77

A.J.R. Russell-Wood, “Ambivalent Authorities: The African and Afro-Brazilian Contribution to Local Governance in Colonial Brazil” The Americas , July 2000,13-36. This article shows that people of African ancestry were able to participate in local government but mobility was limited to lower positions, and higher positions were virtually impossible for people of color to achieve. 78

See the Introduction for a discussion of Carl Degler’s “mulatto escape hatch” theory. Also I want to make it clear that I am not saying that many mulattos did not believe in whitening, many did, but the reality was that a mulatto’s socio-economic chances were not much different that of “pure” blacks. In other words the perception and cultural beliefs have not held up to the socio-economic data. 79

Koster, Travel in Brazil, 136.

52 also feasible for mulattos and blacks to have a degree of monetary success. 80 Though there was tension surrounding interracial marriages, as long as the man was financially well off, caste was of no real consequence. However, as we know, most black or nonwhite men had no financial means. Due to the labor market and geographic circumstances in the Sertão and the urban spaces of Ceará, a very unique ethnic and cultural dynamic was present. As African cultures influenced Bahia, indigenous culture influenced Ceará. However, the indigenous role in Ceará is not the same as in the Amazon region. In Ceará the nonwhite population was dominant and the African component was very significant. In the Amazon, the indigenous component was clearly more dominant, particularly if one includes the caboclo component. Much of the census data for the nineteenth century does not distinguish between the mixtures of black and white (mulatto), or black and Indian, until the 1872 census introduced the term caboclo. 81 This vague term connotes a relationship to indigenous people but not necessarily a blood relationship. Billy Chandler gives a telling definition when he describes a caboclo as: “an uncultured Sertanejo.” 82 In the eyes of the “cultured white elite,” caboclo people were backward and connected to indigenous

80

Ibid.

81

See appendix I: I must provide a few caveats for reading the census information from Ceará. First, as I have discussed, passing for white in Brazil was and to a lesser extent still is quite prevalent and socioeconomic success was and in many ways still is predicated on the fact that the whiter one is, the more opportunities one has in life. Therefore, those in the census that called them white were probably people with a mixture of indigenous blood, or minor African ancestry who could pass for white. Also economic and social connections were important to achieve the fiction of whiteness. In other words, people like Machado de Assis could pass for white because they were socially accepted by other white elites like Joaquim Nabuco. For a contemporary analysis see C.A. Hasenbalg “Race and Socio-economic inequalities “ and Nelson Valle do Silva “Updating the Cost of not Being White in Brazil” in Race, Class, and Power in Brazil (Los Angeles: University of Los Angeles, 1985). 82

Chandler, The Feitosas and the Sertão, 177.

53 culture. The Indian population was decreasing, but it was not entirely extinct, rather identity formation had been radically reoriented. Instead of using the term Indian, the census and many writers started to use the word caboclo, as a way of looking at a phenotypically multi-ethnic group with indigenous roots at it cultural core. Nevertheless, the caboclos were the most visible descendents of the Indian population. If the caboclo was synonymous with people of Indian ancestry in the 1872 census than the term pardo was even more complicated in its use, since its literal definition is brown, and it could mean a mixture of any race or ethnic group. The local census of the earlier nineteenth century uses the term mulatto or pardo to describe people of mixed blood. For example, one local census of 1808 uses the terms white, mulatto, Indian, and Black (Negro). An 1813 census uses the terms white, pardo, Indian, and black. The 1872 census uses white, caboclo, pardo, and black. Many people who were classified as pardo were of indigenous ancestry, but there were many people who were classified as pardo who were also of African ancestry. The exact proportions are not clear, because the census operators of 1872 were not very precise about the question of ethnic identity. What we do know is that a majority of the remaining slaves in the 1872 census were pardo. These mixed-blood slaves were not classified as caboclo, even though they may have had Indian ancestry. We also know that pardos were of African ancestry because in 1872 this was the only group that could be enslaved. Therefore, it is not irrational to assume that many of these free pardos were also of African ancestry because those that were considered noticeably Indian would have been considered caboclo. In other words,

54 we cannot escape the fact that, like caboclo, which has a loose connotation with people of Indian ancestry, pardo has a loose connotation with people of African ancestry. 83 The cultural and genetic legacy of the indigenes was still very strong in Ceará even if it was a hybrid influence, no longer recognizable as the exclusive domain of any specific Indian ethnic groups. Most people of Afro-heritage in Ceará have strong biological and cultural ties to the indigenous groups of the area. In contrast, the mixed race Portuguese, African, and Indian population in Bahia had strong ties to its African heritage. 84 The indigenous legacy in Ceará is probably predominant, but the people of Ceará also have strong genetic ties to Africa. 85

83

Oswaldo de Oliveira Riedel, in his book Perspectiva Antropologica do Escravo no Ceará (Fortaleza: Fortaleza Edicòes UFC, 1988. conceptualizes the category of race as the following: branco and branco=branco, branco and negro= mulatto, branco and Indio= caboclo, negro and negro=crioulo, negro and mulatto = cabra. He goes on to note that a mulatto and mulatto, mulatto and caboclo, or a mulatto and crioulo=pardo, 59. Therefore a pardo is also a person of African ancestry because in order to be a pardo you have to have mulatto blood, and all mulattos are of African ancestry. If we used this logic then the most common mixture in Ceará is of mulattos mixed with caboclos, a conclusion supported by the census information. 84

See João José Reis,. Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia. Translated by Arthur Brakel (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1993) and Rachel Harding, A Refuge in Thunder Candomble and Alternative Spaces of Blackness (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000). Kim Butler, Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition São Paulo and Salvador ( New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998). Reis and Harding’s books show in their own way how African culture formed a vital role in resisting oppression. Harding’s book shows how African cosmology in the form of religion played a progressive role in the identity of people from Bahia. Finally Butler’s section on Bahia shows that though black consciousness did not play a political role as in the case of São Paulo but black culture played a critical role in forming the identity of Baianos. 85

If one looks at the 1808 census one recognizes that the “Preto” population of 19% and the “mulatto” population of 37%, if taken as a collective, form a majority. No doubt people of partial Indian were included in this 1808 census as mulatos but there is no reason to believe that a large number of these mulattos were of partial African ancestry. In many cases they were probably all three. In the past scholars such as Raimundo Girão, tended to ignore the strong Afro-component or like Gustavo Barroso, under stated it. Although if you read closely Barroso does not completely deny that people of Ceará are of AfricanAncestry. He just denies the existence of “pure” blacks and he is right, because most Cearense of Afroancestry are mixed. I am not the first to argue that Afro-Brazilians played a vital part in the formation of the Afro-population. It was another American that got the debate started with an article he published in a distinguished Cearense journal, but in more recent time the two leading scholars to acknowledge the existence of African ancestry in the mixture of Ceará, are Funes and Ratts. Ratts’s work is of particular

55 I have argued that these differences are the result of geographic and economic factors. The political and economic elites of Bahia embarked upon an economic project that put sugar cultivation and production at the center of its economy. As a result this economy became dependent upon African slaves who, over time, dominated the population and culture. The economy of Ceará never depended on slave labor to the extent that Bahia or many other sugar or mineral producing regions were. The economy of Ceará was dependent on cattle ranching and initially lacked the capital to employ black slaves. They were reliant on an indigenous population and a free population that was of all colors. Only later, when cotton became a primary cash crop in the late eighteenth century and some business people were able afford slaves, did African slavery become a more significant factor in the economy of Ceará. Yet slavery was never dominant in the region, even though by 1819, slaves represented up to 28% of the population. By the second decade in the nineteenth century this number gradually decreased and by the second half of the nineteenth century was drastically reduced. The end of the national slave trade in Brazil increased the price of slaves and helped generate a profitable intercountry trade from north to south. The abolitionist movement and droughts helped destroy slavery in Ceará as well. 86 Slave owners there found it profitable to sell their slaves to southern states, particularly São Paulo, where in the second half of the nineteenth century there was an expansion in coffee production for international export

interest because he has not only relied on census data or Livro do Notas, his studies are based on ethnographic studies.

56 markets. As a result of these factors, by the eve of the abolition of slavery in Ceará, slaves were actually only 4% of the entire population 87 . Black slavery never played the role in Ceará that it did in Bahia, Rio, Minas Gerais or other regions where production depended on a slave population, but black slavery did exist, as did a free non-white population that also had a strong African heritage. By the 1872 census, these communities taken collectively formed an overwhelming majority. This is important too, because, although this population did not relate to their identity as did the afro-descendent people of Bahia or other regions, Ceará had and has a strong component people of African-descent in her population. 88

87

It is also important to recognize that slavery had declined overall on the eve of abolition in Brazil. The vast majority of people were legally free, but the case of Ceará is in many ways more pronounced than the national situation, because the percentage of slaves was even lower than nationally. According to the 1872 census, over 27% of the national population were slaves while only about 8% were in Ceará. 88

It also should be noted that Ceará’s community of Afro-descendants different from those in places where they had been forced to compete with European immigrants for jobs, and where a small educated middle class was not able to gain social mobility. The best examples of these were Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Rio Grande do Sul. Each of these states had large populations of European immigrants. These European immigrants were given special privileges over the native population of color. The northeast experienced large outward migration and had a less dynamic economy than the south.

Chapter 2 WEAPONS OF THE WEAK: HOW SLAVES FOUGHT FOR FREEDOM IN CEARÁ The literature written in the last twenty years about slaves in Brazil has emphasized agency and focused on slaves as actors, not just as passive victims. 1 The focus, however, still tends to be on the regions where slavery dominated the labor force. Places such as Ceará tend to be understudied. 2 Resistance remains an important area of study because usually slaves were illiterate so we cannot know their sentiments or thoughts. What we do have, in court documents, police reports, wills, and burial records, is access to how they resisted slavery. This chapter looks at a small sample of these records to gain an idea of how slaves acted, particularly how they conceived of freedom. Obviously none in society wanted to be enslaved or subject to the sever limits imposed on them, but slaves’ views on freedom and liberty were as varied as those of the elites who will be discussed in the next two chapters. This chapter focuses on slave resistance and agency in the state of Ceará. As in all regions of Brazil, slaves in Ceará sought multiple and innovative ways to assert their

1

In the last two and a half decades there have been numerous studies that have dealt with the question of slave agency. The books that have influenced this dissertation the most are João José Reis, and Flávio dos Santos Gomes, Liberdade por um Fio: História dos Quilombos no Brasil (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1996), João Reis, Slave rebellion in Brazil: The African Muslim uprising in Bahia, 1835 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), and João Reis and Eduardo Silva. Negociação e Conflito: A Resistência Negra no Brasil Escravista. The studies about slavery in general that still exercises enormous influence are Kátia Mattoso’s To be a slave in Brazil, 1550-1888; translated by Arthur Goldhammer (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1986), Mary Karasch’s, Slave life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1850 (Princeton: Princeton University, 1987) and). John Thornton’s, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

2

Please note the operative word here is understudied. In the last 10-15 years there are studies particularly in Brazil that have focused on lesser slave areas. But these studies still have not transversed or covered all areas and there are still few studies on Ceará, or on Piaui, Rio Grande do Norte, Alagoas, and Paraiaba, states that share many similarities geographically and economically with Ceará.

57

58 agency within a repressive system. They used the terrain, the culture and the weapons that they had at their disposal to fight for freedom. This chapter will also discuss the various strategies that slaves used to fight against slavery. The discussion will connect their struggles to the larger struggle that slaves fought all over the New World, but will also show the differences and uniqueness of Ceará. There is still an assumption that slaves were mainly domestics and that slave masters were somehow more benevolent in Ceará. Therefore it is important to document that slave masters were not more benevolent than elsewhere, and slaves worked in almost every sector of the plebian economy, a point I will return to later. Slavery was often as cruel in Ceará as in any other region in Brazil. It was an evil institution wherever it was practiced. This point, though obvious, has been surprisingly neglected in the scholarship about lesser slave regions like Ceará. It is clear that the slave masters did not always act in their economic interest but maliciously inflicted violence on their slaves. 3 Though life in Ceará may have been easier for slaves than in other regions of Brazil, it is clear that many slaves there were not happy with their plight. There is some truth to the argument that the work of slaves in the cattle regions was less grueling. 4 Slaves in cattle regions were able to eat better and were able to have a better social life. Sex ratios in the cattle regions like Ceará were more balanced. In fact, in many cases there were slightly more female slaves than male slaves. Therefore it was easier for slaves to maintain heterosexual relationships. This was in stark contrast to sugar producing regions where male slaves were more valued and as a result there was a

3

Euripide Funes, “Negros no Ceará” in Uma Nova Historia do Ceará (Fortaleza: Democrito Rocha, 2002), 111.

4

See Henry Koster, Travels in Brazil, 234.

59 shortage of females. 5 In many ways slaves in Ceará may have had a “more normal” life than slaves in other regions. Still this `normalcy’ should not to be interpreted as some kind of paradise. I will show that the slave master in Ceará could be just as sadistic as in other regions. What was different about slavery in Ceará was not the kindness of the slave masters but rather the economy. As I have discussed in chapter one, slaves were not numerically as important as they were in other regions. Cattle producing regions simply did not need, nor could they afford the high numbers of slaves in the sugar and mineralproducing regions. As a result, economics determined the fate of slaves in Ceará, not gentle slave owners. Slaves were often able to exploit openings in the economy of cattle herding and subsistence farming that were not as readily available to them in other regions. They were often able to renegotiate or redefine the boundaries of slavery and live a life that was not much different than that of a poor subaltern of any race. Slaves were able to do this legally and illegally. All of these methods for gaining freedom were linked to a project of resistance and are fundamental to understanding the complexity of the day-to-day quest for survival. As I have discussed in the introduction, I am not interested in the philosophy or even the inner thoughts of slaves. Rather this chapter looks at concrete forms of resistance in order to understand the everyday meanings of freedom. In other words, I am trying to analyze slave perspectives through their small actions, not over-sized rhetoric, to examine the infra-political actions taken towards freedom. I do not assume slaves who did not start revolts, run away, or kill their masters, were not interested in their own forms of freedom.

5

James Sweet, Recreating Africa Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 14411770 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003).

60 In fact, many slaves accepted the institution of slavery without question. 6 Although the slave was usually fighting for his or her own form of freedom, it did not mean that kind of freedom was in conflict with the system. Manumission is an example of struggling for freedom within the system. For a slave to be manumitted was enormously difficult. What I am interested in understanding is how slaves tried to resist the cruelty and injustice of slavery and created both a community and a better life in such a tragic world. I will argue that many slaves took a conservative approach, uninterested in ending slavery, while others very much wanted to end it believing it was unjust. The common denominator is that no matter the goal, every time a slave of non-European heritage, whether a

6

If we observe black slavery from the perspective of a cross national perspective analysis, than we realize that freed men of color in the United States never accounted for more than 20% of the national population. During the age of slavery, freed black people were further restrained. They were not allowed to vote. In some states they were not allowed freedom of movement, and often there were other limitations on their freedom. In Brazil during the colonial era there were many laws preventing nonwhites from having full rights. Yet by the time of the empire, in theory, freed men, born in Brazil, who owned property had the same rights and privileges of all other citizens. Therefore a person freed during the age of empire, who was Brazilian born, had an opportunity for social mobility. In some cases African born slaves bought their freedom and amassed property and wealth, though African born slaves were never allowed to vote. In the end I am arguing there was a real chance that a lucky slave who worked hard and played by the rules might achieve social mobility, in ways that were not possible in the United States, because, although an ex-slave in the United States might have gained freedom and even in some cases gained social mobility, ex-slaves in the United States were always second-class citizens. In Brazil because of demographics, it was not in the interest of the white elite to exclude freedmen strictly by color. This was not only true in Brazil but in the Caribbean and all over Latin America, where nonwhites were a numerical majority. Therefore as in the rest of Brazil slaves in Ceará employed a number of strategies to gain freedom through manumission, because this provided a real possibility for the individual to become a member of society, and explains why many slaves had such faith in the system. Carl Degler discusses in the introduction of his book Neither Black nor White; Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States (Macmillan: 1971) the question of demographics and opportunity. See Zephyr L. Frank Dutra's World: Wealth and Family in nineteenthcentury Rio de Janeiro (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004) for an economic understanding of how former slaves were able gain for social mobility in early nineteenth century Brazil. However to get an understanding of how freed men of African origin reacted to concepts of white supremacy, read Eduardo Silva’s Prince of the People: The Life and Times of a Brazilian Free man of Colour (London; New York : Verso, 1993). This book helps gives us a better understanding of racism in nineteenth century Brazil and although there were opportunities for freedmen this was in many ways because of the lack of eligible white men, because all black people whether mulatto, African born or not, faced racism. To date, Leo Spitzer still does the best job of documenting this with the case of Andre Rebouças in his work Lives in Between: Assimilation and Marginality in Austria, Brazil, and West Africa, 1780-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 123. He shows that although Rebouças had achieved enormous success in Brazilian society, there was virulent racism against him. I will discuss more about the idea of freedom among freed blacks in chapter three.

61 conservative or radical, gained freedom, he or she was testing the limits of freedom, and the meanings of citizenship in Brazil. Freed slaves challenged the notion that a nonwhite could not be a citizen or a fellow human being, only chattel. The African blacks were not brought to the Americas to be citizens and participate in society as equals. They were brought to fulfill very real economic needs. Since colonial times there had been racial and caste limits imposed on blacks and Indians. Therefore whether it was through manumission, slave revolts, or by running away, the act of changing status was subversive and was not something readily accessible without resistance and negotiation on the part of the slave. I will focus mainly on the particularities that affected how a slave won freedom in Ceará. The chapter will emphasize how slave resistance was different in Ceará than in other regions with larger slave populations because of the lack of sugar or tobacco plantations. Unlike in the large slave trading regions where most slaves were born in Africa, or had direct contact with large African populations and culture, in Ceará most slaves were creole (native born) like freed people, particularly during the years 18381884, the focus of this study. However, the slaves of Ceará tended to be native born even before this period, as opposed to those in places where slaves had been traded directly from Africa and were numerous. Second, because of the dominance of cattle farming, in which slaves and freed people were more integrated, there were fewer differences between them in terms of profession, skills, and ethnicity. The significance of slaves in Ceará being more acculturated to the New World was the more radical slaves, who were not willing to follow the rules, formed quilombo communities in Ceará, that were often different from those in other areas where black

62 culture was more predominant and where the economy was different. I would argue that even when African cultural retentions were being practiced in Ceará, these influences were quickly being absorbed into the creole cosmology. Slaves in Ceará did not necessarily draw upon Afro-identities to resist slavery and expand their notions of freedom. Instead they were imbued with what I would call creole consciousness. In other words they were sons and daughters of Brazil. The overwhelming number of slaves in Ceará resembled the free population. We know this to be true from the travel accounts and observations of people that lived at that time, but also because of the documents left from the buying and selling of slaves. Usually when they were bought or sold there were brief descriptions of them in the letters of freedom granted by the owners. I have obtained a sample of these Alforrias dating from 1830 until the end of slavery. Looking at 255 slaves who were bought from 1865-1872, only 22% were first generation Africans, the rest were native born. Also looking at a sample of 156 announcements of run-away slaves from 1839-1881 we can see that the vast majority, anywhere from 70-80%, were native born. Sometimes a slaves’ ethnicity was unclear. The slave announcement did not include ethnicity, although they usually included color. We do know that if a slave was described as being from a particular place or tribe then they were African. There are several slaves described in those terms in Ceará, but the vast majorities were described as creole, cabra, mulatto, pardo, or acabolado. Also if a slave was described as preto there was a good chance that he or she was African born, though this was not necessarily true. For example in a local 1808 census over 19% of the population of Ceará was considered preto. It is highly unlikely that all of these blacks were African born. The vast majority of free

63 blacks were definitely native born. 7 Therefore the term preto was not always synonymous with African born, but rather had to do with color. In the end the slave population of Ceará was ethnically very similar to the free population. In other words slaves and freed people shared a common identity unlike many slaves in Bahia or other regions where high percentages of slaves were native-born, and were of very diverse backgrounds. Slaves and free people of color in Ceará overwhelmingly shared a common world cosmology: in this case a creole consciousness. This allowed slaves an opportunity to integrate into the non-slave popular classes more readily than their enslaved counterpart in other regions like Bahia, where their existed real cultural and often even linguistic barriers. Manumission, running away, and the particular instances of how slaves reinvented slavery were all elements unintended by slave masters that afforded slaves social space and more opportunity to gain dignity in their lives. We will explore these specific modes of agency within the context of Ceará, below. Manumission Manumission was one very real way for a minority of slaves to achieve freedom and autonomy in Ceará, and in Brazil more generally. Slaves seem to have been more readily freed in Ceará, though, as we will, see many were freed with conditions that ensured their continued servitude to the master. Slaves were granted manumission for a variety of reasons, though slave masters seldom freed a slave without a compelling incentive. Occasionally they were freed because a slave master was benevolent, but this

7

As I have already discussed, there was no direct slave trade from Africa, and there are many reports of people of African ancestry living in Ceará since colonial time. João Capistrano de Abreu’s book Caminhos Antigo e Povoamento do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Sociedade Capistrano de Abreu, 1960) describes the free population as “…mulattos, mestiços, e os pretos forros,”115.

64 was rare because the slave was an investment, and very few owners would have been willing to dispose of their assets. Still, some masters freed slaves to be benevolent, or more importantly to be good Christians. Christianity played a large part in the lives of many slave masters and the love of God is often cited as the reason for freeing their slaves. 8 Many slaves were manumitted when they were old and of little value to their owners. Such were the cases of Marcelino, who was “Benguela” and was freed by Jose Dias Macieira, in 1841 when he was 90 years old, and Ignacio, a mulatto of 83 years of age in 1860. 9 In some ways these gestures were disingenuous because both were too old to really enjoy freedom. Moreover, freeing an old slave was not an economic sacrifice. On the contrary, an elderly slave was dependent on a slave owner for his or her livelihood. If the master were to abandon the slave, he or she would be left in a precarious position. The more common type of manumission consisted of slaves buying their way out of slavery. However, if one surveys letters of freedom or looks at the scant statistics that exist for this period, one realizes that, in Ceará, it was initially quite difficult for a slave to raise the necessary funds to buy freedom. The economy of Ceará was not based on cash crops or mining as in other regions of Brazil and as a result there was less over-all wealth produced by the economy, but often slaves could work as hired hands for others and earn money on their own terms. 10 There were always more opportunities for a slave

8

Telha , Livro de Notas 1869/1875 Box 52, APEC.

9 10

Ibid.

For studies that explore how mining economies work see Kathleen Higgins’s Licentious Liberty in a Brazilian Gold-Mining Region: Slavery Gender and Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Sabara, Minas Gerais (Pennsylvania:The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999).Her study is the best work on the slave economy in Minas Gerais.

65 to buy his or her freedom in an urban context in Ceará, particularly for those who possessed some kind of trade or skill that enabled them to earn extra money. This was the case in the larger port cities such as Fortaleza and Aracati. Slaves in the urban context were quite often used as hired hands or day laborers for a variety of tasks. It was quite common to see advertisements in the newspapers to rent a slave woman to cook, clean and/or do other types of domestic work. 11 Men were often hired out to do the same work a free laborer would do in the rural area. This was another means of making extra money on the side. The cotton boom of the late eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century also brought with it more opportunities for slaves to buy their freedom in Ceará. The very ambitious and lucky slave could save and buy her way out of slavery. However this method was not always guaranteed because, prior to 1871, there was no law preventing a slave master from, in effect, stealing the extra earnings of a slave. Therefore a slave needed to have enormous luck and a slave master who could see business from a long-term perspective. In the long-term, if a slave were able to keep a part of his or her earnings the slave would most likely work that much harder, and the harder the slave worked the better it was for the master. If slaves were able to save enough money to buy freedom, then owners would then have enough to buy another slave with some left over. Also it is important to note that a slave did not always get paid in cash, particularly in rural areas. It is more likely that they were paid in the crops they produced or in some other form of barter. We must keep in mind that free laborers often were not paid in cash either. Cattle herding and small subsistence farming did not lend it themselves to paying for labor in cash.

11

See Dom Pedro, 1850-1884 and O Cearense 1871-1884. In both papers these advertisements appear in nearly every addition.

66 The 40 Cartas da Liberdade (Letters of Freedom) from 1795-1841 that I have surveyed, indicate that more than 32% of the slaves who were freed won their freedom from self-purchase. The other Cartas da Liberdade comes from other cities in Ceará. The lists below are of samples that I gathered from the state archives of Ceará. 12 They were found in box of documents that were from an inventory from a municipal cartorio. In the documents were the buying and selling of slaves, but also sales of property, cattle, and other animals. Also in the documents were letters of freedom. The samples date from 1830-1837, in what is now known as Taua. This region is in the interior of Ceará and has been economically dependent on cattle since the early Portuguese settlements. Chart 2.1 Letters of Freedom from Taua (30 total) 1.Anaceleta: She gained her freedom because she was very old and sick. 2.Angelina (mulatto): She bought her Freedom without restrictions. 3.Antonia Leoteria: The owner freed her without restraints for reasons not stated. 4.Antônio and Raimunda (Mulatto married couple) Freed for good service. 5.Delfina (mulatto): She was given her freedom at twelve months of age and without restrictions. 6.Faustina Criolla (Creole): Given freedom without restrictions after her owner died. 7.Faustino (Creole): He bought his freedom without restrictions. 8.Florentino: His godparent bought his freedom at eight months of age, and without restrictions. 9.Francisca (Cabra): She bought her freedom after her owner died.

12

Tauá, Livro Notas, 1831-1837, APEC.

67 10.Francisca: Slave bought her freedom after her owner died. 11. Francisco (Creole): He was freed at two months because of his mother’s good service and the he was to be raised as the owner’s own child. 12.Genoveva (Mulatta): She was freed at the age of sixteen for good service and for buying her service, but she gained her freedom only when the owner’s heir married. 13. Germana (Mulatta): She was freed because of her good service. 14. Gonçalla (Creole): She was freed without any specific reason, and without restrictions. 15. Gonçallo (Mulatto): Slave bought his freedom after his master died. 16. Gonçallo II (Creole): Slave bought his freedom after his master died. 17. Ignez (Angola) He was freed for good service at the age of ninety-years old. He had injured arms. 18. Izabel (mulatta): She was freed for good service and the love of god. Her owner had no heirs and had raised her. 19. Januaria (Cabra): She bought her freedom. 20. Januaria II (mulatta): She bought her freedom, she provided good service, and for the love of god. 21. João, (Benguela): He was given freedom because he was old and for good service. 22. José (Mulatto): His freedom was bought at eight months of age. He was given freedom without restrictions. 23. Luiz (Creole): He was freed with conditions. He worked for his master until he died. 24. Manoel: His master freed him at the age of fourteen and was to raise him like his child, without restrictions. 25. Maria (Cabra): She was freed with conditions. She remained a slave until her master died. 26. Maria II (Creole): She bought her freedom and was freed without restrictions. 27. Maria III (Angola): She was freed because she was very old.

68

28. Nazario (Cabra): He was freed with conditions. He gained freedom after his master death. 29. Pedro (Cabra): He was freed for good service, but with conditions. He gained freedom after his master death. 30. Raimundo: His Godparents bought his freedom at 11 months of age and the former slave was to be raised by the slave master. This random sample is representatives of how slaves gained their freedom before 1871, when new laws enabled them to be freed more easily. Other studies have shown that this sample is representive of manumission practices in Ceará. 13 Appendix II is a chart of letters of freedom from Fortaleza from 1861-1880, compiled by the scholar Pedro Alberto de Oliveira Silva. It indicates that in an urban context in the later period, the majority of slaves were able to win their freedom without any conditions. The chart shows that two-hundred and eighty one were freed and were not obligated to any conditions while 81 were given freedom with conditions, meaning that they were most likely forced to stay in the service of the master, for at least a number of years before he or she could leave. Even the statistics concerning slaves given freedom without conditions should be read carefully. They are deceptive because they imply that the former slave master, now Patrão, would lose the services of the former slave. Skilled slaves who could buy freedom probably no longer needed a Patrão. In other cases the exslave may have continued to work for the slave master, as a freed worker. The Patrão would not accrue any extra expenses because agregados lived on the land and grew their own crops. In exchange for shelter and the right to grow their own subsistence crops, they supplied crops to the Patrão. Thus, the loss of a slave was a real income loss for the 13

See Pedro Alberto de Oliveira Silva. O Declínio da Escravidão no Ceará (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco Máster dissertation.), 1988.

69 owner only when he or she could no longer be rented, and it is clear that only some slaves were ever rented. In addition, The value in the market place of a rented slave depended on the work he or she was able to do. Unskilled labor could also be done by poor freed people, and for the most part for no or very little cost. Therefore an unskilled laborer no doubt was paid relatively little or worked for no salary, only commission, and for shelter. The majority of slaves gained their freedom through self-purchase or by having their freedom bought by a spouse, a family member or godparent. 14 Another popular, though not as common as one might imagine, form of manumission was when an owner freed either his own progeny or a slave for whom he felt a sense of kinship. It is important to understand that, as Eugene Genovese has explored in his classic Roll Jordan Roll, slavery was in part based on a paternalistic relationship. Therefore it is not farfetched to believe that the master/slave relationship was in some ways based on an extended kinship that was reminiscent of a familial one. No doubt this family was a dysfunctional one in which children were subject to beatings, being over worked, humiliated, and forced to live an inhumane existence. Nevertheless, there were aspects of a familial environment. As I have noted, the majority of slaves in Ceará were not on huge plantations and were never isolated from the free community, as was often the case in the sugar plantations of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro. Slaves in Ceará almost always worked side by side with the freed population. Slaves were often in contact with the non-slave community, and to bestow freedom on a slave was a way of reaffirming the warm feelings of kinship that slave masters may have felt for their slaves. Most slaves in Ceará

14

The random sample of Alforrias illustrate this point. Also Pedro Alberto de Oliveira Silva ‘s more extensive study of manumission confirms this in O Declínio da Escravidão no Ceará, 1988.

70 worked within an economy of freed people. Therefore, it is not surprising that some humane slave owners developed relationships with their slaves and sometimes freed them, even in cases in which no actual blood relationship existed. This was particularly true if a slave was fortunate enough to have free godparents, who often bought their godchildren’s freedom. Another way of gaining manumission was when a slave child was granted freedom because the slave master was his or her father, or when a slave master gave his slave mistress freedom, but the latter was rarer than one might imagine. In all slave societies in the Americas, slave masters took sexual liberties with their slave women. In the United States, despite the existence in many states of strict laws prohibiting such behavior, this practice was widespread. 15 Still, it is salient how widespread such relations with slave women were in Brazil and how many slave masters had children with their slaves. Often these slaves were given special treatment and in some cases were freed and treated with the rights and privileges of any other children. It is striking to note that in the Sertão of Ceará it was not uncommon for slaves to be married. Unlike in the sugar regions of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, where the slave trade predominated, there was no gender imbalance, making it usual for male slaves to have mates. This also explains another way kinship relation’s facilitated gaining freedom in Ceará. A slave who was married to a free person, white or non-white, had the assistance of his or her spouse to get out of slavery. This was particularly true for female slaves. For example, her husband Pedro Antonio freed Maria Benedict, the slave of João Antonio do Amoral, in 1872. Francisca, slave of Manuel January Pereira, obtained her freedom with

15

Eugene Genovese. Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made, (New York: Vintage Books, 1976).

71 the help of her husband Lucian Ferreira dos Santos. 16 There were, however, also cases of non-white freed women who helped their enslaved husbands gain freedom. Ignacio, the slave of D. Francisca Maria da Justa, married a free woman, and was freed himself in 1863 17 . This type of manumission was more common in Ceará than in the rest of Brazil. Because of the region’s distinct demographic and economic circumstances, which allowed for the proximity of slaves and freed people, not only was it common for a slave to marry, but also it probably happened that a spouse was free far more often in regions like Ceará than elsewhere. Free men often had illicit sexual relations with slaves rather than marry them. It was not uncommon for slave masters to prostitute their slaves or turn a blind eye to such activity. Prostitution may have provided slave women with an additional income toward gaining freedom. Campos has documented several cases of slave prostitution in Ceará, but does not indicate how this may have affected the women’s slave status, and I have found no records of male prostitution as a strategy for winning freedom. As James Sweet has documented, homosexual relations between master and slave did exist, so it is not unlikely that there may have been cases of male slaves using their sexuality to gain autonomy, but these cases remain hidden because homosexuality was not recognized by Catholicism and was not readily documented. 18 Another form of manumission that was common in Ceará and in Brazil in general, was a freeing slave to fight with the army. The best example of this was during the war of

16

Fortaleza, Livro Notas, 1869-1875, APEC.

.

17 18

Fortaleza, Livro Notas, 1858-1863, APEC.

James Sweet, Recreating Africa, 50-57. Sweet notes that in some African societies there probably was no real stigma to same-sex relationships and he documents some cases. Moreover, due to gender imbalances on plantations, homosexuality may have been more prevalent but it is difficult to know because I have found little documentation on the matter for Ceará. However, it is not a great leap to infer that not only females may have benefited from sexual favors.

72 Paraguay where over 350 slaves were manumitted for combat. Many Brazilians did not want to fight in this war because of the obvious danger, so they sent slaves in their place. Of course, only the elite had this opportunity. Over 5, 468 men from Ceará went to war, of which 350 were conscripted slaves. 19 Considering the percentage of slaves in this region and the number of elites that had the means to send slaves in their place, this was a substantial number. It indicates that a high percentage of slave masters had the capacity to sell their slaves to the state. This number of 350 manumitted slaves also demonstrates that free labor was readily available, because the state of Ceará sold a higher percentage of its slaves than provinces with far more of them. 20 Many states, particularly in the south, were not so eager to sell their slaves because it was of no benefit to them. In the case of Ceará selling a slave was beneficial because it provided useful revenue, and the loss of a slave in a cattle driven economy was no threat to the labor force, particularly as they never numbered more than possibly 28% of the work force. For the period of 1850-1884, the focus of this study, slaves were never more than 10% of the population and by 1884 only 4% of the population. Therefore the slave masters in Ceará were never as dependent on slave labor as those in places in Brazil where the economy was dependent on large plantations that produced sugar or coffee. In the end, manumission was possible for a privileged minority in Ceará, but in 1868 a special law was passed that freed newborn slaves (mainly girls), and in 1871 the

19

For discussions about Ceará in the Paraguayan war see Diogo Velho Cavalcanti de Albuquerque. Fala Recitada na Abertura da Assemblea Legislativa Provincial do Ceará pelo Exmo. Presidente da Provincia Dr. Diogo Velho Calvalcanti de Albuquerque no dia 1 de Novembro de 1868. Fortaleza, 1868., 19. 20

Ibid. It is important to recognize that slavery was not particularly necessary in Ceará as was the case in southern regions like São Paulo. Having a slave was far more a luxury than an economic necessity.

73 Free Womb act was passed. 21 There was even more of an impetus for slaves to fight for freedom with the passage of this act. The Free Womb Act of 1871 is often remembered as a law that freed the children of slaves, but it also provided for slaves to buy themselves out of slavery and pass their wealth to their spouses and kin. It wasn’t in the interest of the government of Dom Pedro to end slavery suddenly so what he did was to gradually weaken it. In so doing he gave the slaves new tools for gaining freedom. 22 After the law was introduced, numerous slaves took advantage of it, mainly clever creoles who saved money and purchased their freedom. One of the most famous from Ceará was José Napoleão, who not only bought freedom for himself, but for his whole family. 23 The law ensured that slave owners could no longer exploit slaves as they had in the past, but it was the slaves who had to have the agency and courage to fight their masters, and there were many cases of that. 24 Still, it was not always easy. Many times the slave lost the case but at other times he won it. This law also gives us an insight into how slaves were fighting for freedom. Before this, there was no documented record of how they were actually gaining manumission, other than the letter of freedom that was given to the slave. However with this new law, slaves could go to court and sue for freedom. Even in lost cases, we can see the real fears and concerns of the slaves on a day-to-day level and thus their infrapolitical strategies. For example, Bernardo, a mulatto, sued for his freedom in 1874 and

21

Robert Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery 1850-1888 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 307. Also for the exact wording of a provincial act passed in 1868. 22 For more specifics of the Free Womb Law see the attached appendix III. 23 24

Edson Carneiro, Antologia do Negro Brasileiro (Porto Alegre: Globo, 1950), 51.

I have looked at 20 examples of court cases in the public archives of Ceará. These court cases provide insight into how slaves were strategizing for freedom.

74 lost. 25 It seems that Bernardo was worried about being sold by his slave master João Antonio do Amaral to Rio de Janeiro, a place known for being far worse for a slave. Bernardo was apparently quite aware of this reality, and moreover, it is clear that Bernardo was accustomed to Ceará and may have had loved ones there, Bernardo had accrued some savings and was able to demand a court hearing. 26 Unfortunately, the savings that Bernardo had was insufficient and did allow him to gain his freedom. His lack of savings thwarted his chances to have control over his life. This case is an example of a slave who was seeking freedom, but not necessarily for social status, or to improve his or her economic standing. He appeared too motivated by a need to control his life. A slave could be up-rooted from his loved ones, without having a say. 27 There were other slaves that did gain their freedom. One case was Benedicta who won her freedom on technicalities. She had not been legally registered in city records, and she had lived far away from the control of her master. 28 Maria Luiza da Conceicão also won her case not because of money, but because she argued that he old slave master did not in effect pass a deed of ownership to her new master and she was not legally registered. 29 She won the case because she was able to attack the legalities successfully. These slaves were especially skillful in using the system against it self. They were not revolutionaries but exercised an enormous amount of agency and showed that they were fighting for their freedom, in their day-to-day way.

25

Tribunal da Relacão, Acão de Liberdade, Box 64, APEC.

26

Ibid.

27

Ibid.

28

Tribunal da Relacão, Acão de Liberdade, Box 71, APEC.

29

Tribunal da Relacão, Acão de Liberdade, Box 64, APEC.

75 Another factor that contributed to the decline of slavery was the Great Drought (1877-1879), which proved to be a burden for the masters. As a result, many slaves were sold to the south and many others ran away (this will be discussed further in chapter 4). Also, the work of abolitionists became more important, and many organizations sprang up that bought slaves freedom. In many ways abolitionists were attempting to sabotage slavery by purchasing so many slaves they would disrupt the market. (I will discuss this in chapter 4). Abolitionists had an enormous impact on the numbers of manumitted slaves in those years right before the end of slavery in Ceará. In the end, slaves in Ceará were not so different from slaves in the rest of Brazil when it came to fighting for manumission. Slaves in the New World always fought for freedom in the legal realm. However in Ceara, there were subtle differences in the ways that slaves gained manumission. One of the differences is that after the Free Womb Act (1871) slaves were being manumitted on a major scale, in the main because of a very active abolition movement (also to be discussed further in chapter 4) that started after the Great Drought in 1879. In many ways it is clear that manumission was easier to achieve in Ceará than in the south of Brazil, because there was little need for wide scale slavery since the region’s economic labor market was based on cattle and subsistence farming, which did not require the large number of workers that sugar, and later coffee, plantations did. Therefore, although the majority of elites were not active in fighting against slavery, they were indifferent, and had no problems with manumitting a slave particularly if they could gain a profit, because losing a slave was not necessarily a major lost of income unless the slave was skilled in a profession which the majority of slaves in Ceará were not. Also there were more opportunities for slaves in Ceará to work as rented hands,

76 because the cattle based economy was less intensive, allowing them more leisure time than their counterparts on the sugar and coffee plantations. The white political and economic elites in Ceará were probably less focused on the possibility of slave uprisings than those in other places such as Bahia. Elites there were in constant fear of black uprising, and with good reason. In Bahia there were many instances of slave uprisings or revolts resulting in non-whites taking power from whites. This was not the case in Ceará. During the colonial period, the constant threat of the indigenous population to the creole settles in the Sertão was the main anxiety of the white elites, while black slaves presented a continuous but minor nuisance until the late 1700s. There were cases of slaves killing their masters or plotting to take over the land. For example, one woman killed her master by giving him snake poison. 30 Yet these cases seem to be infrequent. One can argue that the lack of revolts was due to the relatively small slave population there, in comparison to other regions in Brazil. Also black slaves were, in the main, creole and were not connected to particular African ideologies. For example, João José Reis in his classic Slave Rebellion in Bahia: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia, explores how black slaves revolted using the ideology of Islam that they learned in Africa. This kind of revolt was very unlikely to happen in Ceará. There were far too few African born slaves to organize such a revolt. Moreover, with the advent of the monarchy, there were no more legal castes, as in the case of the Tailor revolt of 1798, which was actually led by freed men of color, but also included slaves, and even had the support of some whites. This revolt hoped to end slavery. It was based on the ideas of the enlightenment, and more specifically the French 30

Editor, Francisco Jose Pinheiro. Colecão Documentos Históricos (Os Debaixo Resistem: As Formas de Resistência dos Escravos no Ceará), 12-16, APEC.

77 Revolution. However this revolt was made possible because of laws that specifically limited the mobility of freed people of African ancestry. As a result, people of African heritage mobilized to fight against the Portuguese colonial regime. Similar revolts would occur during the age of monarchy in Brazil. The only serious revolt to have an impact in Ceará was the Balaiada. In fact it was partly led by a native son of Ceará, a freedman named Cosme. However this revolt did not have its genesis in Ceará; it was started in Maranhão, and than spread to Piauí and Ceará. The slave population that Cosme controlled most likely consisted of first generation Africans or slaves who had memories of Africa. Cosme never could have based such a revolt in Ceará. I will discuss this revolt in more detail in the next chapter. The point is that in Ceará racial revolts were rare. Instead, quilombos constituted the major form of resistance there. There seems to be three types of quilombo in Ceará: the traditional type where African culture was retained, quilombos where slaves ran away and blended into a multiracial free community, and quilombo communities that were actually started after slavery was abolished. I will discuss all three briefly, but focus on the second type because this was the most common in nineteenth century Ceará. The first type most likely existed during the colonial era in Ceará. These most closely resemble the quilombo that are discussed in the scholarly literature dealing with black slavery in Brazil and in the Americas in general.31 These settlements, or maroon communities, were influenced more by African culture. Perhaps the slaves were able to communicate in a language of African origin, or retain some elements of their African

31

For a recent historiographical discussion of Quilombo communities see João José Reis, Flavio Gome, and Liberac C.S. Pires’s “Quilombos no Plural” in Revista Historia Biblioteca Nacional, 18-40.

78 past. Still, these quilombos were small and never posed any threat to the European settlers. What makes quilombos in Ceará fascinating is that they existed in a region where slavery played a minor role. There had been quilombo settlements since the introduction of slaves in Ceará. The state has many mountain ranges, vast wooded areas, and many rivers, and it was a fairly easy place to grow crops, hunt, and fish. 32 It is important to understand that these quilombos communities were often in contact with clandestine merchants and other businessmen who profited from trading with them. For example seventy-nine slaves described as of Costa and Angola origin that were brought to work in the mines in the region of Cariri (a region in Ceará) in 1756, were quilombos sometime later described as running away, and forming a mocambo of contraband. 33 These kinds of small quilombo communities were found all over Brazil and were found even in Ceará, where slavery played a minor role in the development. There are government documents catalogued by Barão Studart (Instituto do Ceará) that verify the existence of many quilombo communities in the early colonial period. One government report from 1741 describes a quilombo of runaway slaves, which used the letter F to distinguish its members. 34 Maroon communities had become such a problem that by 1738 the government had created Capitães de Campo whose distinct purpose was to capture run-away slaves. Interestingly many Capitaes de Campo were mulatto or black. This was the case in Ceará. Jose Cardigo, a native born black 35

32

At least when there is no drought, this area was a place that crops and wild game were available.

33

Guilherme Studart, Notas para a Historia do Ceará (Segunda Metade do Seculo XVIII), 64.

34

Capitancia do Ceará Grande Correspondência Recebida, 1741, APEC.

35

Guilherme Studart. Notas para a Historia do Ceará (Segunda Metade do Seculo XVIII),59. “O P.e Antonio Correa Vas pede hua ordem para hum crioulo chamado Jose Cardigo servir da Capitam do Campo

79 was appointed Capitães de Campo, and João Francisco da Costa a pardo, was also a Capitãe do Campo. This was actually considered a position of power. 36 Many scholars argue that allowing people of African ancestry to be Capitães do Campo was a way for the white elite to maintain hegemony because the Capitàes de Campo were people of African ancestry who gained prestige and economic benefit by oppressing their own brothers of African ancestry. Another government report, to the King of Portugal, speaks of slaves without owners, who seemed to be living in the region of Ceará without anyone questioning their whereabouts. It was quite common in the colonial period to find communities of African and creole slaves referred to as slaves without owners. It is important to emphasize that the Sertão of Ceará was a backwoods and it is not implausible that if a slave master could not claim the slave, if the slave posed no threat but actually benefited merchants by trading with them, or if groups could benefit from the labor of the slave, these communities could thrive on some level. It is important to note that it must have been hard for quilombo communities to thrive economically without the support of the state and, in fact, the state was constantly trying to wipe out such communities. This is clear from the document that discussions the quilombo community that marked itself with the letter F. As this document shows,

nestes Lugares e eu lha dei em nome de V.Exa. pela necessidade que julgo de que haja quem se empregue nas prisões dos negros fugidos criminozos, que se acham nestes mattos amucambados; e em consta que para p.e dos Correntes tem sahidos negros dos mucambos a algumas pessoas a roubar, e he precizo cuidar muito em destruir estes mucambos e outros que se possam ir fazendo pela grande dezinquietacão que cauzam quando nelles se ajuntam pelas mortes, ferimentos, roubos, estupros a forca de mulheres que costumam commetter e ser”a precizo se mandam as ordens mais apertadas aue ha nessa Secretaria para cá.” 36

See A.J.R. Russell-Wood, “Ambivalent Authorities: The African and Afro-Brazilian Contribution to Local Governance in Brazil” The Americas , 2000,13-36, and Kathleen Higgins, Licentious Liberty, 195196 on the importance of the Capitão do Matos and how freed men of color used these positions as a means of mobility.

80 the authorities wanted all of these communities destroyed. Not only were they considered a threat to the social order, but they threatened the economic order also. In many ways the Sertão of Ceará was a refuge from the brutal mercantile system that slaves endured throughout the colonial era, and later during the Brazilian empire. Slave labor was, by and large, used to derive profit for the slave master. When a slave ran away he was in control of his own labor, and most likely was interested in creating a subsistence economy that allowed him to have as little contact as possible with the mainstream society. 37 What is unique about the region of Ceará is that, though cattle, and later cotton, represented the major source of revenue; Ceará was already geared toward a subsistence economy. Much of the day-to-day food, clothing, and material for housing came from within the region. As I discussed in the last chapter, much of Ceará has always been isolated from the rest of Brazil. It was never a major trading point because of colonial restrictions on exports, and even during the age of the Brazilian empire there never was major trading. Also, as I pointed out in the last chapter, the rule of law had always been weak in the Sertão of Ceará. This factor made the it a perfect place to create a Mocambo, and also explains why slaves from so many neighboring places ran away to quilombos in Ceará. The second type of quilombo, were runaway slaves joined multi-racial communities, which existed during the nineteenth century. However these quilombos existed in earlier periods as well. In Ceará this type of quilombo often took on a more complicated meaning, referring to slaves running away to join pre-existing communities of freedmen. As noted, slaves in Ceará were racially and ethnically identical to the

37

For discussions of Quilombo communities see Katia Mattoso, To Be a Slave, 137-142, Mary Karasch, Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro 1808-1850, 302-334 and Kathleen Higgins, Licentious Liberty, 176-179.

81 majority of freed men of color. Moreover, they were creole and did not have a language barrier. The slaves of Ceará were able to do the same labor as free men. In this way if they were clever they could blend in on a cattle ranch, or small farm. There were many cases where the Patrào, actually would turn the other eye. In the Sertão, as I have discussed, slaves were expensive, therefore many landowners would welcome a slave to work for them; the Patrão did not have to pay him and he would be a good worker who could be controlled and manipulated. In this arrangement the slave had an opportunity for more socio-economic benefits. The Cearense newspaper in 1858 reports that the region of Carcaras was known as a region of Quilombo de Negro’s because many landowners were accepting run away slaves to work as free laborers. It is important to note that, although he used the word quilombo, in this case it had a different meaning. It simply referred to slaves that ran away and joined free communities. The cases of slaves running away and posing as free men date back to the eighteenth century. There is a summary of testimonies in a court case in 1784 in the Capitania do Ceará that describes a slave by the name of Francisco, who was freed with the help of the free black, Andre Goncalves dos Santos Lima. Allegedly, during the festival of Saint Antonio, André Gonclaves convinced the slave Francisco to run away to a quilombo in a forest near their town. 38 Francisco was recaptured six months later but this document contains a variety of interesting information. It reveals the possible cultural and ethnic affinity that a slave and free black may have shared. More importantly it shows that free people aided the slaves and had relationships with the “quilombo community.” This could not have been a maroon community because the people in the community were not slaves. Andre invited Francisco to work on a small farm. It is 38

Pinheiro. Colecão, 9-12, APEC.

82 possible that André’s Patrão knew that Francisco was a slave, and was willing to look the other way if he were productive and a good worker. Or perhaps the Patrão did not know Francisco was a slave until the authorities caught up with him. This story illustrates that through the right cunning and proper connections a slave in the Sertão and even in the urban areas could blend into the free population. Moreover, one can easily see why a slave like Francisco would run away to a “quilombo”, because in Francisco’s mind he was maneuvering himself into the same type of manumission as a person had who had won a letter of freedom. Obviously the slave could be caught as in the case of Francisco. However we should not assume that all the slaves who ran away were caught. In all likelihood, many slaves were not caught. As I discussed in the first chapter, Ceará has a long history of weak authority and the Patrão, particularly of a large estate, had enormous autonomy from local and national authority. Therefore if a Patrão wanted to harbor a runaway slave, he could. If the slave had run from far away, there was a possibility that he could find sanctuary. I am not suggesting that this was normal practice, but rather it was in the interest of the Patrão to look the other way. Unlike the coffee plantations of the south that were dependent on slavery, the landowners of Ceará did not depend on slaves but on free labor. In areas where slaves were more numerous it was in the interest of the slave owner to respect another slave master’s “property”, but in Ceará there were fewer incentives. The majority of Patrões owned very few slaves. There were exceptions, but the majority of slaves were used in the same way free labor was used. We also know that slaves were running away and not necessarily being caught because the many announcements in the local newspapers suggest that specific run away

83 slaves were trying to hide or pose as free people. For example one slave in 1865 was reported as a mulatto who was thought to have run away to Sobral in a Samba band. 39 José was a 25-year-old musician and skilled stonemason. Clearly talented slaves like José could blend into the community and had many skills with which to function in the society. There was João a “Criolo”, about 55 years in age, who reportedly ran away to “pass as free” in neighboring Piauí. Piauí a state bordering on Ceará, had a similar economy based on cattle. João Criolo was reported missing in 1857. There were also cases of slaves who ran away in hopes of gaining the support of relatives or loved ones who were already freed. For instance, Luiza, a parda enslaved in Recife, Pernambuco, but a native of Ceará, ran away in 1839 to her son Raimundo who was free and apparently a respected person in the community. It was said that he had intended to free his mother. 40 The slave Benedicto, described as acaboculado, ran away to join his free family. Thus, there were many cases of slaves that no doubt could rely on the support of relatives or friends and there were other slaves who had skills that would sustain them in a free society. More importantly these slaves were not fleeing to isolated communities; they were running away mainly to pose as freed people. There are more examples of this in the runaway slave announcements. During the droughts slaves were known to run away, posing as freed folk to gain assistance from the government, for the opportunity to escape slavery and start a new life in the Amazon or even in urban areas like Fortaleza. 41 In the end, the majority of slaves in Ceará were not running away or forming quilombo communities that were outside of society. The majority of run away slaves were 39

Cearense, July 29, 1865.

40

Correio da Assembléa Provincial, 1839.

41

O Povo, May 24, 1981, 7.

84 demonstrating their agency. Since they could not earn their letters of freedom, they took their liberty. It is possible that many of these slaves were successful. Many slaves appeared more than once in the newspaper, meaning that they were not always captured. Also many slaves who were recaptured were able to elude the law for long periods of time. The third type of quilombo community in Ceará emerged after abolition. There are modern day communities composed of former slave descendents quilombos, which probably were formed after slavery. In Ceará there are reports of over 54 of these quilombo communities. 42 These are places---even in Ceara--- where people of African ancestry have been able to reinvent an African-American culture. 43 These communities were probably created so that former slaves who faced racism and marginalization, could find a place where they could have a modicum of pride and peace as subsistence farmers. All of these communities are poor, remote, and usually have the worst land. Most of these quilombo identify with a hybrid form of culture that is rooted in an Afro and indigenous traditions. Moreover many of these communities also share indigenous ancestry. 44 In fact in many of these designated quilombo, there are no African retentions in cultural production. The most famous quilombo community was founded in 1891 and

42

Ratts, Alexandro, “Pontos Negros na Terra da Luz: Mapeamentos de Comunidades Negras Rurais Quilombolas no Território Cearense” For the number of Quilombos in contemporary Ceará see Un Retrato dos Quilombos Brasileros www.unb.br. 43

Please note that I am using the definition of Sidney W. Mintz and Richard Price in The Birth of AfricanAmerican Culture: An Anthropological Perspective (Boston : Beacon Press, 1992) 44

This observation is based on two field trips made to a Quilombo outside of Ceara in Russa, where I conducted several interviews in January 2006.

85 was a closed community. 45 People of non-African ancestry were not allowed to marry within the community. Although the community may not have strong ties to Africa in the realm of candomblé or other Afro-derived culture, it has a memory linked to blackness and exhibits strong negritude. This type of negritude is unusual in Ceará, due to its history. However one should be careful to see the community Conceicão Dos Caetanos as an authentic African community because of its strong indigenous ethnic and cultural roots, like most or all of the other communities of African descent in Ceará. Yet I would argue that today’s quilombo communities are obviously very different from the ones that existed in the nineteenth century. The modern day in Ceará were created in many ways to preserve a type of negritude that allowed former slaves to live in communities that valued their black identity. The mere existence of modern day is evidence that former slaves need socio-economic spaces where they can live outside of the dominant Euro-centric and often racist society. However, as the reference in the 1858 newspaper article shows, and other slave runaway announcements indicate, in the nineteenth century blacks were not forming many quilombos based on African culture. One could argue that they were fleeing their black slave identity, because to be a free person in Brazil and probably even more in Ceará was to redefine blackness or Africaness, which was linked to slavery. Slaves most likely were interested in gaining more autonomy and the ability to control their lives and running away and blending in with the free community was the best way to do so, if one could not gain freedom through manumission. Other Types of Runaways

45

O Povo May 24, 1981,7.

86 As has been discussed before, slaves tried to gain autonomy or freedom in Ceará by running away and passing as freed people. Ceará contrasts to some degree with the larger slave areas such as Minas Gerais, Bahia, and Rio de Janeiro. In Ceará a great majority of the slave population was of mixed heritage, a significant percentage of the free community of color was black, and an even larger percent was pardo, or have mixed blood. This racial mixture made it much easier for a runaway to blend in without necessarily being marked a slave. In Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, there was a large African population, who did not speak good Portuguese and maintained a distinct cultural identity. The proportion of first generation African slaves in Ceará was small in comparison with places such as Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and even Pernambuco. Even when there was a larger percentage of a slaves in Ceará during the rise of the cotton boom, African-born slaves never reached the proportion of other places like Bahia. Therefore the difference between the slave population from the rest of the population in Ceará was not so pronounced, making flight that much easier. Newspapers from that period testify that runaway slaves were habitual and chronic. 46 Also, it is clear from the documentation that slaves that ran away usually had good reason to. The documentation is replete with slaves being brutally treated. The newspaper announcements often described run away slaves by their scars and injuries sustained at the hands of the slave masters or from being over worked. For example, a run away “criolo” slave by the name of Luis was said to have a big scar on his body and two small

46

There are newspapers that document slave runaways in Ceará from 1839-1880. I have reviewed slave runaway announcements in several newspapers. A Constituicão, Cearense, Correio da Assembléa Provincal, Jornal da Fortaleza, O Commercial, Pedro II and O Araripe.

87 ones on his face. 47 P.J. Foulkes, another “criolo,” was said to have two stab wounds on his chest. 48 Paulo, a light skinned “mulathinho,” who was approximately fifteen at the time that he ran away, had a big scar on his body from a burn. 49 Other slaves suffered physical defects worse than scars, like Jeronimo “Cabra” who was eleven years old and had had a finger cut off of his right hand. 50 Senhor Henrique Goncalves da Justa, “ a mulatto” whose right foot was so crippled he could not walk without a crutch, was 34 when he ran away. 51 According to the slave announcements that I surveyed, approximately half of the slaves had serious scars or some kind of injury. Life may have been more bearable for a slave in Ceará than in some other regions of Brazil because of the type work they did, but the institution of slavery was oppressive everywhere in the New World, and slaves resisted wherever they were, even in the cattle region. This challenges the claims of scholars who argue that slave owners in cattle based regions like Ceará were less harsh than elsewhere. 52 It is interesting to note that slaves showed no consideration for political boundaries or regions. They went wherever they thought they could gain freedom. As noted in the document below compiled by the officials of Vila Vicosa from 1817-1823, slaves ran away from many neighboring municipalities and other states. Slaves were captured in Ceará from as far as the state of Pará. Slaves from Maranhão, Piauí, Paraiba, 47

Correio Da Assembléa Provincial, October 26, 1839.

48

Ibid, May 16, 1840.

49

Ibid, November 12, 1864.

50

Cearense, July 23, 1869.

51

Ibid, July 23, 1869.

52

See Chapter one where I quote the British historian Robert Southney, who was one of the first historians to suggest this idea but as Funes points out, this perception still persists.

88 and many other captaincies were caught in Ceará. This is evidence they thought there was a possibility of finding freedom, or at least refuge from the oppression of slavery, in Ceará. The opposite was also true. Slaves from Ceará often ran away to places such as Piaui, Rio Grande do Norte, and Pernambuco. Particularly in states like Piaui, Rio Grande do Norte, and Pariaba, the economy was very similar to Ceará and the freed community of color had the same ethnic make up as that of the slaves in Ceará. Nevertheless, as the chart indicates, slaves from neighboring states also had the same idea of running away to neighboring states. This evidence is from the early nineteenth century, when there was a large native-born population of African descent in Ceará. This chart suggests that African born slaves were more likely to be caught, particularly in places like Ceará, where African born free people were less likely to live. Slaves in Ceará were very unlikely to be born in Africa and unlikely to have foreign accents, and in many cases were of lighter complexions, as a result it would have been harder for a foreign born to blend into the population without raising suspicions. Chart 2.2 Run away Slaves apprehended in Vila Vicosa 1817-1823 53 Origin

Partial Totals

From Ceará

2

From Other Captaincies

30

Piauí

14

Maranhão

11

Pernambuco

3

53

Livro do Registro dos Termos de Apreensões de Escravos Fugidos e apreensões de Escravos Fugidos e apreendidos no Termos da Vila Vicosa Real, 1817-1823, APEC.

89 Paraiba

1

Pará

1

From Sea Ships

2

Gender

Partial Totals

Male

29

Female

5

Age Up to 19 years old

3

From 20 to39

13

From 40 and up

6

Age unknown

12

Ethnicity

Partial Totals

Congo

5

Angola

7

Mina

2

Mocambique

2

Cassange

2

Benguela

1

Nago

1

Crioulo

9

Cabra

3

Mulato

1

Malé

1

90

Running away was the most common and effective way for slaves to resist slavery in Brazil, and this was also the case in Ceará. One can observe this by looking at the newspapers from the era. Slaves were in constant flight. In almost every newspaper from 1839-1881 that I surveyed, there were slave masters complaining that their slaves had run away. Many of these slaves ran away temporarily, to see a loved one, or just for leisure time. However the vast majority had no intention of ever returning, and fled to new places to pass themselves off as freedmen and join the labor market.

Reinventing Slavery The majority of slaves never had the opportunity to win their freedom, run away, or successfully passes as free men, However, slaves were constantly reinventing slavery to suit their social needs and give their lives some dignity and meaning. Scholars such as Katia Mattoso and Mary Karasch have been trailblazers in documenting the various ways slaves engaged in work slow downs and participated in cultural or religious rituals, such as candomblé, capoeira, and samba. 54 Slaves in Ceará also created the space to reinvent their positions. On the 23rd of May 1858, in the capital of Ceará, two slaves, Manuel and Martiniano, were imprisoned for being the ringleaders of Samba meetings. According to the documentation, free persons of all colors were engaging in laviscious behavior, including the drinking of cachaça. 55 It is well documented that the government in Brazil prohibited all types of cultural expressions that were considered unchristian. These laws

54

Mary Karasch, Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro and Katia Mattoso, To Be a Slave both offer good examples of how slaves had the uncanny ability to control and negotiate aspects of their life. 55

Rol Culpados, 176, APEC.

91 existed all the way into the Vargas era. 56 The case of slaves engaging in Samba festivals is interesting on a variety of levels. As noted, in Ceará, slaves coming directly from Africa were a minority, and considering that most of the population was isolated from the rest of Brazil, it is fascinating that these Samba festivals were so prominent that the police saw them as a threat. Moreover, it is interesting that slaves, who were in the minority in the society, were able to create a social space that attracted people of various ethnic groups, free and not free. One can read the comments of a Bahian, Luis Vilhena do Santos, who lived there during the colonial period to understand that the fear of African culture was very real in Brazil:

Moreover, it does not appear to be a very discreet policy to tolerate crowds of Negroes of both sexes in the streets and public squares of the city, performing their barbaric bataques [Afro-Brazilian song and dances] and playing their many and appalling abataque [a kind of drum]. They dance indecently, singing Gentile songs, speaking several tongues, and this with such a horrendous and dissonant hubbub that they cause fear and wonder even among the most dauntless consequences which could result there from, given the number of slaves in Bahia 57 56

Many scholars have presented very good interpretations of the significance of Afro-Brazilian culture. Two of the best are Kim Butler’s discussion of government repression of black culture in Bahia in the post slave period in Freedoms Given Freedom Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post Abolition São Paulo and Salvador (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998) and Mary Karasch’s Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro 18081850 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987) also documents the influence of black culture in Rio during the empire.

57

Ed. Gilbert M. Joseph and Mark D. Szuchman. I Saw a City Invincible: Urban Portraits of Latin America (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1996), 93. I have quoted elites in Brazil in the colonial past and how these same tensions exist in post slavery Brazil and illustrate the fear of and anxiety toward Afro-influenced culture in Brazilian society. This was a real preoccupation until Gilberto Freyre’s influence marked a renaissance in Brazilian culture and African retentions were celebrated. But until this time all Afro-derived culture was under attack including in Ceará. The writer Jorge Amado often promoted the myth of racial democracy in his writings but nevertheless best sums the anxiety of the elite in his novel Tents of Miracles when the erudite but racist character Nilo Argolo (who was inspired by Nina Rodrigues, the Bahian academic who wrote much about race in the early twentieth century) describes the very real African influence of Salvador, Bahia: “How dare you call our Latin culture Mulatto? That is a subversive monstrous statement…..You confuse the horrid sounds of sambas and batques drumming with music; abominable fetishistic figures carved without the least respect for the laws of aesthetics are a form of culture, I tremble for this country if we ever assimilate such barbarism, if we do not react in time against

92

Among the Brazilian elite, the idea that people of African ancestry could dominate Brazilian culture was a very real phenomenon that caused them anxiety about their identity as a nation. From the beginning of colonial times in the sixteenth century, until the Vargas era in the twentieth century and particularly in the period under study (1839-1884), until the elites learned the Freyrian way to incorporate meanings of blackness into the national identity in a manner more palpable to them, Afro-influenced culture was considered not only barbaric, but dangerous and possibly subversive. Even in places like Ceará, where Afro-derived culture did not have a strong influence there was still a fear of people of non-European ancestry dominating the cultural spaces with their music and cosmology. One has to ask why the authorities would arrest participants for dancing Samba if they did not, indeed, believe this behavior to be a subversion of the social order. It was common practice during the era of slavery, and until the Vargas era, to harass people of African descent participating in anything that remotely suggested African influence. A friar traveling to the city of Pactuba, Ceara was horrified at what he saw: on the porch there was a big circle of black men and black women that I would calculate at over 100 people, family and others from Pactuba. The instruments that they used were tambores and caquinhos that was tormenting to hear, still more flooded on the porch with live song. The women arrived entering the circle so did the men that watch the lewd dances of the black women, and grotesque jumping……Dona Maria Teofilo was very interested to dance with her blacks. 58

this avalanche of horrors. Listen to me: We must cleanse our country’s life and culture of this mud of Africa which is befowling us. Even if it becomes necessary to resort to violence against Jorge Amado. Tents of Miracles (New York: Knopf, 1971) 168. 58

Frei Alemão, Manuscritos do Botãnico, 146, APEC. All Portuguese translations into English are mine unless other wise stated.

93 On November 11, 1879 a law was passed in Fortaleza, Ceara that prohibited the use of the drum or batuque, which was in essence an African instrument. 59 People from Fortaleza and from the territory could be put in prison for five days or pay a fine of 5 thousand Reis for playing the drum. This dancing and drumming was something right out of the Ishmael Reed novel Mumbo Jumbo. The elite viewed it as a plague that had to be stopped because, as the case of Pactuba shows, there was fear that all classes of people would begin to appreciate the music of Africa, which was unacceptable. Indeed the popular classes in Brazil were attracted to Afro-derived music. However, most white elites approved of slaves or free blacks participating in Catholic festivals and, in fact, encouraged this behavior. They were, presumably, hoping to indoctrinate and incorporate the blacks as good Christians. Instead they seem to have helped them maintain their Afro influenced identity. Slaves and free blacks were able to transform Catholicism into a space that fostered their identity and dignity. There were two known religious Brotherhoods in Ceará that admitted people of African descent. The Brotherhood of Nossa Senhora do Rosário, located in Sobral, admitted black men and slaves. It allowed: “Black men, free and enslaved and also any other color that wishes to have a membership.” 60 Another brotherhood, called Senhora dos Prazeres existed in Aracati, Ceará. This one admitted “pardo.” These Brotherhoods gave blacks and nonwhites a space to assert their cultural identity. This was most evident in the celebrations of King and Queen or Os Congos. The religion was based on a ceremony that still exists

59

Resolution 1278 November 11th 1879 in Liberato Barroso, Colecào de Atos Legislativos da Provincia do Ceará (Fortaleza: Typ. da Republica, 1892). 60

Compromisso de Irmandade de Nossa Senhora de Rosário de Povoacão da Lapa,1868, APEC.

94 in the northeast of Brazil. A new King and Queen are chosen and crowned at the festival every year. This festival, like carnival, has its roots in Catholicism, but because of the liberty that the slaves and free blacks were given in organizing it, it took on many African characteristics and became a hybrid cultural manifestation that had contradictory meanings. 61 Henry Koster gives an excellent account of the ceremony in his travels to Ceará in 1816: In March the yearly festival of our Lady of the Rosary , which was directed by Negroes; and this period the King of the Congo nation if the person who holds this situation has died in the course of the year, has any, or has been displaced by his subjects. The Congo Negroes are permitted to elect a king and queen from among the individuals of their own nation; the person-ages who are fixed upon either actually be slaves, or they may be manumitted negroes. These sovereigns exercise a species of mock jurisdiction over their subjects which is much laughed at by the whites; but their chief power and superiority over their countrymen is shown on the day of the festival. The Negroes of their nation, however pay much respect to them…….The expense of the church service was to be provided for by the Negroes; and there stood in the body of the church a small table, at which sat the treasurer of this black fraternity (irmandade), and some other officers, and upon it stood a box to receive the money. This was produced slowly, much too slowly for the appetite of the vicar, who had not breakfasted, though it was now nearly mid-day, for he and his assistant priests were to chant high mass. 62 What was apparently tolerated by the elite in the early nineteenth century seemed somewhat dangerous by the mid to late nineteenth century because by 1872, elites were complaining about free blacks and slaves playing batuques and engaging in illicit behavior and by 1879 they would pass a law prohibiting African drumming. The Brotherhoods in Ceará, as in other regions, helped liberate slaves. Therefore there is evidence that the black brotherhoods were inverting or expanding their meaning,

61

Eduardo Campos, As Irmandades Religiosas do Ceará Provincial (Fortaleza: Secretaria de Cultura e Desporto, 37-40. 62

Henry Koster, Travels in Brazil, 25-27.

95 which benefited the social and economic interest of the slaves. 63 Originally blacks were forbidden to participate in most Brotherhoods and during slavery were restricted from joining most of the religious fraternities. 64 Fraternities that people of African ancestry were permitted to join were not intended for the liberation of people of African descent nor to Africanize Christianity, but rather to promote Catholicism and create proper Christians in the black community. There is no evidence to suggest that the blacks in the fraternities were not devout Christians, The Congos—dances with African roots---are examples of how African culture influenced Brazilian culture. The influence of African culture in Ceará is even more extraordinary when one considers that slaves born in Africa never made up more than a minority of the population. It shows that when given the opportunity, people of African ancestry practiced their culture with pride. Afro derived cultural retentions were products of creole consciousness or hybrid experience. In other words the legacies or African traditions that remained were not necessarily seen as African but rather were mediated in a hybrid or new culture. The main Brotherhood in Sobral, the Irmandade de Nossa Senhora de Rosário, was open to the participation of all races and ethnicities. The only group completely excluded was women. Nor were the events exclusionary. Slaves and free people of all races attended the samba dances.

63 64

Campos, As Irmandades Religiosas do Ceará, 75-79.

See A.J.R. Russell-Wood, Fidalgos and Philanthropists: The Santa Casa da Misericórdia of Bahia, 1555-1755 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 143-144.

96 Conclusion As in all regions of Brazil, the slaves of Ceará did all they could to resist the exploitative system of slavery and used the same methods and tactics that their brothers and sisters used in other regions. Still Ceará differs from other slave regions. Ceará was never a major importer of African slaves and as a result the population of slaves was likely to be native born or Creole. In Ceará, slaves were more likely to bear children because of gender ratios were balanced, unlike in the more intensive sugar or tobacco regions where male slaves far outnumbered female slaves. It is significant that slaves were more likely to be creole because this dictated the kinds of choices that they made in resisting slavery. The type of resistance that emerged in Bahia was not likely to occur in Ceará. Bahian culture was a slave culture dominated by various African ethnic groups. The culture of African people was imprinted on all aspects of society. This influence did not prevail in Ceará. It was present in Ceará in the Samba festivals and the Congos, but unlike Bahia, there is little documentation of Africans practicing candomblé or engaging in other Afro-derived traditions. 65 Rather, slaves seemed to resist slavery with what I would call a creole consciousness. The cosmology of the slaves in Ceará was rooted in liberalism, Christianity, and both indigenous and African cultural influences. These influences allowed slaves to develop a cosmology that informed and helped them sustain their lives. Fortunately the slaves of Ceará were not in labor-intensive sugar or coffee areas. Nevertheless, the demands of slave masters compelled them to resist no less than those slaves who had memories of Africa, or taught their children the traditions of Africa, and worked in the labor-intensive

65

See Rachel Harding’s richly documented book, A Refuge in Thunder: Candomble and Alternative Spaces of Blackness, (Indiana University Press, 2000).

97 regions. Slaves wanted autonomy and freedom. Solely Enlightenment or Afro-centric ideologies did not drive them, but in Ceará, they influenced them. In the end, the obvious lesson is that no one wants to be a slave, and human beings will act in a variety of ways to gain autonomy and freedom. It is that simple. What are complex are the various meanings of freedom for people with different ethnic, regional, and socio-economic backgrounds, or what Braudel and the Annales school of historians would call people’s mentalities. In the case of the slaves of Ceará their mentality was influenced by a variety of factors. It is clear from their actions that there is no simple way to understand what freedom meant to slaves or to what they aspired. As is the case with all human beings, their identities were complex. Nevertheless, the slaves’ resistance to their situation undermined the slave masters’ aim to maintain slavery and helped them in their quest to re-imagine community. 66 Clearly people of color, rejected by mainstream society because of their ancestry, began to developed strategies for upward mobility. The run away slave was a nuisance to society because they slowed the slave masters’ economic production by trying to pass for free. Finally, slaves were subversive because their culture had the effect of reinventing the meaning and values of Brazilian society. I will develop these meanings of resistance and conceptions of freedom in another chapter when I discuss Dragão do Mar and Cosme from the Balaida movement. This everyday resistance was in no way revolutionary. Many years after slavery, racial hierarchies still exist in Brazil. Nevertheless this shows that slaves had their own agendas and their own conceptions of freedom which are worth exploring even if they were not Afro-centric or based on radical 66

When slaves were manumitted they were free, but for many this freedom was incomplete, and they continued to struggle to gain more freedoms, whether economic or cultural. See Frank Dutra's World and Silva’s Prince of the People for an explanation of how this struggle took place.

98 notions of liberalism or on enlightenment ideologies of freedom. These slaves were engaged in everyday resistance Understanding how they conceptualized freedom is a worthy project.

Chapter 3 BLACK LEADERS AND THEIR CONCEPT OF FREEDOM IN NINETEENTH CENTURY NORTHEAST BRAZIL In the last chapter we explored the slaves’ day-to-day responses to slavery. In this chapter I want to investigate black leadership, in the framework of what the Italian theorist, Antonio Gramsci, called the “organic intellectual.” 1 This chapter explores how people of African ancestry Ceará and to a lesser extent Maranhão, conceptualized the meaning of freedom, particularly in the context of the organic leadership of two black leaders. In looking at the actions of these two men we can gain an idea of how subalterns fight when given limited opportunities. The most prominent symbol of the abolition movement in Ceará was a man of African heritage, Francisco do Nascimento, also known as Dragão do Mar. He remains, to this day, the most well known hero of the abolition movement in Ceará. However a generation earlier there lived another abolitionist, Cosme Bento Chagas, who was born in Sobral, Ceará. 2 He also was a fierce advocate against slavery but he was not lionized. Rather he was criminalized and until recently in the historiography he has been viewed as infamous. 3 How did one man of African ancestry

1

Antonio Gramsci, The Prison Note Book (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971). Gramsci meant the organic intellectual to be an active participant and member of the popular classes that fought to change the social order. He saw traditional intellectuals as members supported and sustained by elite ruling classes. Although traditional intellectuals often gave the allusion of being independent, they generally reproduced the ideology of the dominant ruling class.

2

The exact date of birth of Cosme is not known.

3

In Caio Prado Junior’s classic political study of Brazil, he refers to Cosme as a backward criminal, ignores the revolutionary aspect of his resistance and continues to mimic the sentiments of the government reports written about Cosme; see Evolução Politica do Brasil (São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1985). However more recent studies have been more flattering and dealt with the revolutionary aspects. See Maria Januária Vilela Santos, A Balaiada e a Insurreição de Escravos no Maranhão (São Paulo: Ática, 1983) and the most important work on the movement by Mathias Assunção Rohrig, “Elite Politics and Popular Rebellion in the

99

100 become a hero of his time while the other became a criminal who was punished for fighting for his community with the death penalty? In understanding the struggles of Cosme and Dragão do Mar we can better understand the complex perspectives of both the Afro-Brazilians and the elites moreover, we can gain an understanding of how their thinking changed over time. Cosme and Dragão do Mar represented different moments in Brazilian history. Dragão do Mar was an abolitionist at a moment in history when slavery was no longer acceptable to the elites. Indeed, by his time slavery was being contested by many sectors of the elite. In contrast, Cosme was seen as a revolutionary who threatened to subvert the established hierarchies at a time when slavery was still the primary source of labor in Brazil. 4 There was no room for Cosme in the Brazil of his era, while a generation later, black abolitionists like Dragão do Mar played an important role in a reformist project that did not threaten the established order, and in some ways actually helped to support the interests of the elite. It is important to understand that Cosme was fighting against slavery some forty years before Dragão do Mar. In his era (1838-1842) there were no organized, elite movements against slavery. There was no space for abolitionist debates to emerge. 5 However this did not mean that there were no efforts to end slavery at this time. On the contrary, groups of free and enslaved people, were engaged in many such efforts. Often their struggles were not subversive but, as discussed in chapter two, the popular classes and particularly slaves were always fighting against slavery. There are many examples in

Construction of Post-Colonial Order. The Case of Maranhão, Brazil, 1820-1841.” Journal of Latin American Studies, 1999, 1-38. 4 5

Please note I will discuss in detail in chapter five why many of the elite class no longer accepted slavery. Also I will discuss more elite debates against slavery in chapter five.

101 Brazilian history where the concepts of liberty and freedom were more radical than those of Dragão do Mar’s time. As will be discussed below, Cosme, a co-leader of the Balaida movement, conceptualized freedom quite differently than many of the elite abolitionists. It is also important to recognize that during the time of the Balaio (participants of the Balaida), slave revolts and general revolts were quite common. 6 Emilia Viotti Da Costa demonstrates in her brilliant study The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories, that there were various interpretations of liberalism during the period. 7 As she shows there were various factions of the popular classes that adopted more radical interpretations of liberalism or interpreted different aspects of liberty, and in fact acted on these ideologies in the form of protest or armed revolts. By analyzing these revolts and acts of protest, we are able to gain more insight into the identities of people of African descent and to better understand how they imagined their community and how they envisioned freedom in nineteenth century Brazil. Conceptualizing Freedom in Early Ninetieth Century Brazil

Brazil became an independent nation without a rebellion by the Creole elite or the mobilization of the popular classes against the mother country. In most Latin American countries freedom was taken rather than given. In some Spanish American countries, independence meant the end of slavery and guaranteed the rights of “freedom” and

6

A discussion of these other revolts is outside the scope of my study but for a brief overview see Leslie Bethell, ed. Brazil, Empire and Republic, 1822-1930 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 45112. 7

Emilia Viotti Da Costa. The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories, 53-77.

102 equality to all, at least in the language of the law. 8 In Mexico people of humble backgrounds and of groups once discriminated against were able to rise to high political offices. For example, Vincente Guerrero was a man born into humble circumstances and was of Indigenous and African ancestry, yet he rose to become the first president of Mexico. 9 Non-Christians and particularly people of African and Indigenous ancestry, were thought of as impure during the colonial period in Brazil as well. 10 They were thought unfit to be true subjects of the empire. There were also major restrictions against them during the colonial period. The advent of the Brazilian empire brought about more equality in the civil society, at least in the language of the law. Brazilians who were born free were given full rights in society provided they had property. Scholars have documented that there was a segment of the middle class composed of creole persons of African heritage who owned property and were fully integrated into Brazilian society. 11 Still, although there were numerous examples of persons of African heritage that were able to rise to prominent positions in the empire, there is also evidence that they too faced

8

It should be noted that even after independence from Spanish rule in Spanish America, many countries still maintained slavery for another generation. Still, after the independence movement’s slavery was in decline and in many countries was ended. For an overview see George Reid Andrews, Afro-Latin America, 1800-2000, (New York :Oxford University Press, 2004).

9

Theodore G. Vincent, The Legacy of Vicente Guerrero: Mexico's First Black Indian President (Gainesville : University Press of Florida, 2001). 10

A.J.R Russell-Wood, The Black Man in Slavery and Freedom in Colonial Brazil (New York: St. Martins Press, 1982). 11

Herbert Klein “The Colored Freedmen in Brazilian Society” Journal of Social History, 1969, 30-52. For a more recent article on the subject see Herbert Klein and Clotilde Paiva, “Freedmen in a Slave Economy: Minas Gerais in 1831” Journal of Social History, 1996, 933-962. Also many travel journals remark on affluent free “Negroes.” See Henry Koster, Travels in Brazil, 1809-1815 (Philadelphia, 1817) Maria Graham, Journal of a Voyage to Brazil and Residence There, During Part of the Years, 1821, 1822, 1823, (London, 1824).

103 discrimination. 12 As long as slavery existed, people of African ancestry were often subjected to the same treatment as slaves. For instance they were made to carry passes to prove that they were not slaves and if they did not have the documentation they could be put in jail. They were often ridiculed and denied jobs based upon their color. In fact libertos, or ex-slaves who gained a carta liberdade, were denied voting privileges and were not allowed to hold most public offices. 13 Free people of African ancestry gained a distinct advantage by distancing themselves from slaves and libertos. However for people of obvious African ancestry it was often hard to distance themselves and as a result they faced prejudice. 14 In the early to mid-nineteenth century free people of African ancestry participated in a variety of movements with slaves and libertos, for example in the Malé revolt of 1835. 15 In addition to the many revolts that occurred by the popular classes and the

12

In many societies in Latin America there were examples of socially mobile African-Americans Even in the United States there was a brief moment during reconstruction when blacks participated in the south as full citizens. However by 1877, the process of full citizenship was reversed. Nevertheless these ruptures in the narrative of black progress are not straight movements. In the case of people of African heritage in Brazil, there were ongoing moments of resistance that seem to have meant different things depending on space and time. For a diasporic overview see Andrews, Afro-Latin America. Also see Robin D.G. Kelley and Earl Lewis, eds., To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans to gain a truly comparative perspective.

13

Assunção discusses the limitations imposed on freed men of color. See “Elite Politics” 19-22.

14

Ibid.

15

The 1835 Malé revolt was based on the ethnicity of free and enslaved Africans, who in that case used Islam as an organizing ideology. The conspirators in this revolt were not particularly influenced by the ideas of liberalism. The slaves and freed Africans were focusing on creating an inversion of the political order where a privileged black class would rule and the whites would become the slave class. The principals of Liberty, equality and fraternity did not influence the Malé ethnic group. It is most likely the Malé would not have completely ended slavery. African cosmology and Islam influenced their worldview. In the world of Africa, slavery was not immoral. Slave masters in Africa were hostile toward some ethnic groups and enslaved them, but slaves in Africa did not bear racial stigma. It was very common for Africans to allow a slave to prove his loyalty and become a full member of the community over time. In the New world a person could remain a slave for life and the children would be slaves also, until the passage of the Free Womb Act (1871).

104 slaves there were also local elites who felt that they were paying too many taxes, and in some cases wanted to secede from the Brazilian Empire. This was the case in Ceará and other Northeastern states in the Line of Equator conspiracy.16 In these types of revolts, the main issues was not to free slaves nor were local elites interested in creating equality between “races”. They wanted more control and autonomy from the federal government but did not seek a true alliance with the mainly Afro-descendent popular classes. This was why the Brazilian monarchy could maintain empire first as a part of Portugal and later as an independent empire. Local elites were often strongly ambivalent about their relationship with the popular classes. Unlike the Spanish monarchy, the Portuguese crown surrendered Brazil without a fight. In many Spanish American countries like Mexico, the elites were forced to end slavery and ensure the rights of all citizens irrespective of race, or they would not have been able to defeat the royal government in Spain. They depended upon the popular classes and in many instances, the slave classes, to fight in the independence movements, and even if they did not free all slaves, many gained their independence in the Independent wars. In other words, the Spanish elite were forced to compromise on the issue of slavery and the rights of people of African and indigenous ancestry. In these wars for independence, people of African and indigenous ancestry were able to negotiate for more autonomy and the opportunity to improve their lives. 17

16

For discussions of the revolt see Guilherme Studart, Datas E Factos: Historia do Ceará (Fortaleza: Typographia Studart, 1896), 9-23. 17

In some cases slavery in Spanish America did not immediately end. It would take another generation but the Independence movement set in motion the end of slavery. Peter Blanchard, Slavery and Abolition in Early Republican Peru (Wilmington: SR Books, 1992).

105 In Brazil the majority of the local elite welcomed the monarchy. They saw it as a stabilizing force in the society. By and large, they supported slavery and the hierarchies and divisions that existed in Brazil, and they had no interest in implementing the radical Jacobin ideals of the French revolution. In fact, they saw those ideas as dangerous. 18 All slave holding societies envisioned the possibility of another Haiti, therefore the monarchy in the early empire was overwhelmingly accepted. Naturally there were several exceptions but those proved the rule. During the empire, the royal government was called upon several times to quell uprisings that had the support of local elites. In each case the revolts were stopped. However, stopping the Balaida proved to be a tough fight.

Black, Red, and White Jacobins in the Northeast of Brazil? For over four years (1838-1842), the province of Maranhão would experience a revolt that was overwhelmingly led and controlled by a multi-racial group from the subaltern classes. This revolt would spread into Piaui, and Ceará. The revolt would only be stopped by the national military. The revolt of Balaida began officially in December of 1838 when the mestiço Raimundo Gomes, with the support of 40 men, liberated a group of cowboys from a

18

The Haitian revolution loomed large in the minds of elites during the empire, and for good reason. There were many slave revolts in Brazil, and several had the intention of overthrowing the government as in the case of The Muslim Uprising of 1835. See Joao José Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia (Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1993), 48. Reis also documents that elites had fears of another Haiti. “Also Mathia Rohrig Assuncão “Elites Politics,” 2.

106 prison in the small town of Manga in Maranhão. 19 These men were the workers for a respected priest by the name of Inacio Mendes de Morais e Silva who was very influential in the Sertão of Maranhão. It is believed that he was in opposition to much of the politics of the state’s dominant party. The following year this motley group took control of Caxias, the second largest city in Maranhão. For another two years this created terror in the hearts and souls of the white oligarchic elite of Maranhão, Piaui, and Ceará. The local legislators of Ceará were so terrified that the Balaios would attack the region, that they discussed it in their legislation. 20 The Balaios attacked the borderland of Ceará in what is now the municipality of Granja. The history of the Balaiada movement is extraordinary because it was one of the rare moments during the empire that socio-economically diverse groups of people fought together in a revolt against the government and where people of African and Indigenous heritage held key leadership positions in a movement. It is not clear that this movement, even if successful, would have transformed society because, at least in written rhetoric, it remained loyal to the empire. The empire was clearly not sympathetic to the violence and ultimate destruction that the movement had brought about. Moreover the monarchy saw this rebellion as it saw all regional rebellion---as a threat to its sovereignty. However, when one studies the movement, it becomes clear that if the organic leadership had made different tactical decisions, the revolt would have actually represented an alternative to

19

There are a variety of sources that discuss the history of Balaida. I rely heavily on an edited book of documents, Documentos para a Historia da Balaiada (São Luis: Fundacão Cultural Do Maranhão, 2001) and an essay written by a friend, André Frota De Oliveira, an archivist at the state archives of Ceará, who encouraged me to write about the history of Balaida. In his book Quadros da Historia de Granja no Século XIX (Fortaleza: Expressão Grafica Editora, 1996), which is a fine local history of a small town on the outskirts of Ceará, there is a chapter on how Balaida spread to Ceará and its significance in the northeast, 75-109. I am truly inspired by his guidance and inspiration. 20

Frota, Quadros da Historia de Granja, 88-105.

107 reformist projects like the abolitionist movement of thirty years later which, ironically, did have the sympathetic ear of the empire. The Balaiada was not a movement that had a political ideology. The Balaiada was based on the ideals of liberalism, and by the end of the rebellion had taken on many of the same attributes of the Haitian revolution, that is to say a radical liberalism inclusive of the society at large. The Balaida revolt became poor against rich, overwhelmingly white against nonwhite, and slaves made up the largest sector of the struggle. The Balaida were defeated before they had any real opportunity to gain power of any kind, and more importantly they were never able to consolidate their philosophical perspectives as did the Haitian revolutionaries. It is also important to note that the Balaida movement, although known as a phenomenon of Maranhão, spread to neighboring Piaui and Ceará the implications of which I will explain in depth later in this analysis. Although the Balaida movement did reach Piaui and Ceará, a note about the economy and demographics of Maranhão are in order, since it was the focal point of the movement. Maranhão was and is a state with an Afro-Brazilian heritage and, more importantly, the black slaves numbered close to 50% of the population. This black population was the result of years of slavery, but as in Ceará, this slavery came rather late compared with Pernambuco and Bahia. As in the case of Ceará, Maranhão’s economy was initially based on cattle, and then began to diversify by focusing on export crops such as cotton. It also produced some sugar and rice. 21 The society and the economy were divided into three major sectors: an oligarchic planter class that was controlled by a small 21

Matthias Rohrig Assuncão “Elite Politics and Popular Rebellion in the Construction of Post-colonial Order. The Case of Maranhão, Brazil (1820-1841),” Journal of Latin American Studies 31, 1999, 3-10. Also see Maria Januária Vilela Santos, A Balaiada e a Insurreicão de Escravos no Maranhão (São Paulo: Atica, 1983), 7-21.

108 group of Portuguese descent and worked by the slave population, cowboys that worked with cattle in a variety of sectors, and subsistence farmers. In some areas, for example west of the capital São Luis, there were also farmers growing cash crops such as manioc flour. In fact, many former slaves had come to Maranhão, both legally and illegally, in the hope of finding farmland in the south where much of the area was uninhabited. By the time of the Balaiada conflict, the vast majority of the population of Maranhão was of Afro-Brazilian descent. Yet the majority of the power remained in the hands of a small white elite class who refused to share it, even with rival white elites. Moreover, Afro-Brazilian culture was prominent as compared to Ceará or even Piaui. The slaves of Maranhão often were brought straight from Africa into the trade port of São Luis.

Chart 3.1 Slave Trade between Maranhão and Africa 22 Year Slaves Arriving 1812 1,672 1813 1,729 1814 2,526 1815 3,476 1816 3,377 1817 8,128 1818 6,636 1819 6,058 1820 2,844 Total 36,446 Chart 3.2 Slave Trade in major slave ports from 1801-1839 Rio de Janeiro Bahia Pernambuco 570,000 220,000 150,000 22

Santos, A Balaiada, 19.

Maranhão 40,000

109

The slave population of Maranhão was never the size of Pernambuco, Bahia, or Rio de Janeiro’s but the overall population of Maranhão was smaller than in those areas, so the African population was quite significant. Yet the Balaida movement was not a slave revolt per se. It was loosely organized around the ideals of liberalism, although underlining this was a strong sense of class resentment. The rebels of Balaida were mostly from the ranks of the disenfranchised. Runaway slaves probably represented the largest faction, but there were also white cowboys, poor unemployed whites and indigenous groups. Most of all, free men of color were heavily involved in the struggle. As already discussed, free people of color were, by and large, excluded from the elite classes of society. Yet this coalition of disenfranchised subalterns was also aligned with disenfranchised elites who felt profoundly alienated from the local provinces and local politics. These elites called themselves the Bemtivis, while the subalterns who participated were referred to as the Balaios. 23 Naturally there were tensions, because the elites and the subalterns did not share the same interests. Moreover there were tensions among the subalterns, principally between slaves and nonslaves and whites and nonwhites. The specter of race created the potential to unite the majority of people of color (the majority of the population) and was therefore horrifying for the mainly white elite. The elites who were opposed to the current government were in no way interested in ending slavery or giving up white privilege. On the contrary they were interested in reorganizing local and state government, so they might have more political and economic autonomy. The Bemtevis represented elites outside of São Luis and Alcantara, the major cities of Maranhão, in the nineteenth century. Also there was a 23

Frota, Quadros da Historia, 78-79.

110 group of middle class freed men of color who felt particularly alienated from the Cabanos, merchants and large estate owners who were centered in São Luis and Alcantara. This group was usually of Portuguese descent and many of the merchants were Portuguese who had become naturalized citizens of Brazil. The rebels called for all Portuguese to be deported regardless of whether they were naturalized or not. 24 Among the Balaios there was a language that had racial overtones. “Cabano” was a word used to denote whiteness. 25 The Portuguese immigrants overwhelmingly occupied privileged positions in Brazil even after the colonial period, particularly during the early empire. This was also the case in Ceará. The Portuguese were over represented in commerce and trade. Free men of color acted in contradictory ways more often than any of the other socio-economic groups in Brazil. Although it is well documented that social mobility among people of color was limited and few men of color were able to get to the top in the Brazilian empire, free blacks were not natural allies of their slave brethren. 26 It is clear that freed men of color, as a group, acted in contradictory ways toward slaves. In many cases blacks formed groups to raise money to free their brethren of color from slavery and there are, of course, numerous cases where family members freed their loved ones. But there are also cases of people of African ancestry owning slaves, and moreover, numerous examples in Maranhão, Ceará, and all over Brazil, of Blacks and brown folk

24

Assunção, “Elite Politics,”15.

25

Ibid.

26

As I have stated before, there were many examples of men of color reaching great heights in the Brazilian empire but the majority suffered from limited social mobility. Leo Spitzer. Lives in Between Assimilation and Marginality in Austria, Brazil, and West Africa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989) details this limited mobility in great detail by using the pardo, Andre Rebouças, and his family as a case study.

111 working as Captião Matos, or slave catchers. This job was the domain of men of color. 27 In fact, for a middle class status in society and mid-level financial remuneration, some people of African ancestry were infamous for their willing participation in the capture of slaves. However, as early as the Tailor’s Revolt of 1798, there were free blacks that were influenced by the enlightenment and the idea that all men were created equal, irrespective of race or color. 28 Moreover, they understood that this included slaves. This was true for the Balaida, because, although it began as a revolt that was centered on the ideals of elite liberalism, concerned with issues of trade and taxes, it ended up supporting a more radical brand of liberalism. Indeed, if this movement had been allowed to reach its logical conclusion, it would have created an opportunity to end slavery and improve the lives of freed men of color. 29 The revolt not only involved runaway slaves but also quilombo communities. Cosme was a leader of one such Quilmbo community. At the height of his power he was to control over 3000 runaways. 30

27

I discuss the phenomenon of Capitão Matos in the second chapter, but people of color owning other people of color is mentioned frequently in secondary sources, though there seems to be not that many studies of blacks owning other blacks. We do know that Africans in Africa practiced slavery, but the dynamics of slavery were completely different and were not based on ideas of racial inferiority. The relationship between blacks and their slaves was a complex one and in Brazil it was often different from a white owning a black. This was especially true in the case of libertos who owned slaves and who were born in slavery. For limited discussions of this subject see Hendrik Kraay Afro-Brazilian Culture and Politics Bahia, 1790s to 1990s (London: M.E. Sharpe, 1998) 30-57, and Katia Mattoso, To be a Slave 1550-1888 (New Brunswick: New Brunswick Press, 1987). Zephyr Frank, Dutra's World: Wealth and Family in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro (Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, 2004). 28

See Donald Ramos “Social Revolution Frustrated: The Conspiracy of the Tailors in Bahia, 1798.” LusoBrazilian Review, (summer, 1976), 74-90, Hendrik Kraay, Afro-Brazilian Culture and Politics Bahia, 1790s to 1990s (London: M.E. Sharpe, 1998), 30-57.

29

Araújo, Documentos para a Historia da Balaiada “Tendo tocado o dezespero dos rebeldes, ao ponto de seduzirem a escravatura, com promessas de liberdade; e posto tenha dado as mais energicas providencia á respeito; com tudo ainda existem grupos de rebeldes de mistura com escravos, sendo o mais notável o que me consta haver na fazenda Agoa Fria, a margem do rio Munim; o que tem feito entimidar á maior indeferenca, 221. 30

Frota, Quadros da Historia, 78.

112 By all standards Cosme was an extraordinary man. He was literate and he seemed to have a philosophical view of the kind of world he wanted to create. 31 His biography is vague, but we do have some biographical information from court testimony taken when he was arrested and condemned to death in 1841.32 Cosme was from Sobral, Ceará, and claimed to be a free man. At some point in his life he moved to Maranhão, where he was arrested for allegedly killing a man in 1831. 33 He escaped to São Luis and became a leader of a quilombo. 34 It is not clear what type of career Cosme had before this. He was obviously from an unusual background because he was literate. 35 Yet he does not seem to have been from a middle class or professional background because he never had a fixed address, and did not own property. He was a vagrant, even in Sobral. When asked about his profession in court, he gave no direct response, saying instead that he lived to command black troops with the Bemtevis. 36 Therefore, our knowledge of Cosme is limited to his days in Maranhão as a leader of a quilombo. It is clear that he was from the popular classes and was not a runaway slave; he was a runaway free man. He was escaping prison and possible execution; which is why he chose life in a quilombo community instead of social mobility in the dominant society. 37 After 1831, Cosme was

31

See Araújo, Documentos para Historia da Balaiada, 309.

32

Santos, A Balaiada, has many documents in the appendices including the court documents when Cosme was captured, 137. 33

Ibid. , 96-102.

34

Ibid.

35

Ibid.

36

Ibid. , 137.

37

Ibid., 96-102. It should be noted that men of various racial backgrounds had alliances with Quilombo communities, particularly criminals that were running from the law.

113 an outlaw with no possible future in Brazilian society. Instead he created an alternative world in the hopes of transforming the larger dominant society. Miraculously, he was able to organize a huge band of slaves under his control and form a loose alliance with the other Balaida rebels. 38 This was a fragile alliance because the idea of slaves working outside the dominance and control of white elites was too much even for many free rebels of color. Nevertheless there were moments when free men (non-white and minority white) and slaves do seem to have banded together in the Balaiada struggle. Also there are cases when other subaltern groups, who were by and large made up of free men, came together. Raimundo Gomes organized the best example of this type of alliance, the main leader of the Balaida movement, who led a multi-racial team of warriors comprised of free men and slaves of all colors. In fact, Raimudo Gomes was a man of African heritage. Several times in the Balaiada war, these men teamed up against the state. 39 According to one account, Cosme turned on Raimundo Gomes but there is a strong possibility that this is fiction and in fact the alliance between Gomes and Cosme was strong. 40 What is interesting is that the majority of fighters signed documents pledging loyal support to Dom Pedro and supporting a more radical liberalism. They wanted to expel the “Portuguese,” or, in reality, descendents of Portuguese who still enjoyed unfair political and economic advantages in post-colonial Brazil. They also wanted to expel mayors and tear down the local political apparatus that gave a small, predominantly Portuguese, oligarchy an advantage over the rest of the population. This project seemed to be the

38

Assuncão article “Elite Politics,” 30-36 for an analysis of Cosme alliances and relationships with other groups.

39

Ibid.

40

Ibid., 35.

114 project of both the disenfranchised and free, middle class elites. The latter class, known overall as the Bemtevis, supported the institution of slavery. For the slaves in the movement, freedom and recognition of such by the dominant society was the primary goal. Cosme’s Quilmbo was located on a former plantation where Cosme had forced the plantation owner to give letters of freedom to all of his slaves. Moreover, Cosme gave himself the title Tutor Emperor of Freedom, Defender of the Bemtevis. 41 However, ultimately, it was because of his inability to make appropriate alliances in his fight for freedom that he was unsuccessful. He articulated in testimonies and writings that he was fighting for the Bemtevis; but he was never really accepted by the rebel troops. At key moments he was tolerated, but many rebel leaders only enlisted slaves when there was no other alternative, and when they saw they could not win without their support. Also many free rebels were more than willing to turn on the slave component of the rebellion and fight for the federal government, if, when captured, it could earn them reduced charges. 42 In the end Cosme was captured and sentenced to death by hanging for a variety of crimes, including murder, inciting a slave revolt, and destroying property by burning several slave plantations. 43

41

Ibid.

42

Ibid., 33-34.

43

Documentos para a Historia, 405 “Tendo levado ao conhecimento de Sua Magestade o Imperador o officio de 5 do mez antecedene sob 2nd que V. Ex, me dirigio, cobrindo a copia da sentença do Jury da villa do Itapicuru-Merim, dessa Provincia, pela aual foi condenado á pena de morte o reo Cosme Bento das Chagas, e bem assim o relatorio do respective juiz de Direito, ha o mesmo Augusto Senhor por bem que V. Ex. faca dar execução á dita Sentença, por não ser digno aquelle reo da Gracado Poder Moderador, a vista de taes papeis.

115 A number of factors are to blame for the failure of Cosme’s revolt. Although he apparently wanted to reorganize society radically, he failed to come to terms with the tenuous nature of his alliances. The elites, or Bemtevis, were never going to accept slaves as equals. It was not in their interest. Other rebels of color, and possibly some poor whites who were outlaws or socio-economically marginal, might have joined the Balaios because it was in their economic interest to do so. We must keep in mind that in order for to function successfully, they had to have the support of diverse socio-economic groups. The people of the quilombo had to trade with clandestine merchants in order to survive. Cosme’s battle was different from that of the white elites. His interest was to improve the plight of slaves and people of African heritage. He could not win the war without the full support of other leaders. Leaders such as Raimundo Gomes waited far too late to seek support from Cosme. Moreover there was far too much division between the groups for success. Cosme was a leader but he lacked the vision of other leaders like Toussaint L’Overture of Haiti. Overture used the divisions of the elites in Haiti to overthrow all of the Europeans: French, Spanish, and British. 44 In contrast, the future Baron of Caxias, Luiz Alves de Lima, used the divisions within Cosme’s revolt to his advantage, by pitting freedmen against slaves. Many freed men had little to gain from siding with the government. Yet many of them could not escape the racial ideology and class hierarchies of the time and think of reinventing the nation without slavery. Moreover by 1839, many rebel leaders realized that they were losing the war and sided with Lima, in order to

44

I use Haiti has a point of reference because it represents an example of how a successful slave revolt worked. See Sibylle Fischer. Modernity Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures of Slavery in the Age of Revolution (Duke University Press, 2004). This book shows how a slave community not only wrested power from the Europeans but how they adapted notions of the enlightenment project for themselves. The Balaios were never this organized though they too were influenced by enlightenment ideology.

116 survive. Lima was clever enough to realize that an alliance of slaves and freedmen of color would spell doom for the established order. In order to prevent this, he deliberately fomented antagonism between the groups. He is quoted as saying: As one of the objectives, to which I gave particular attention, in order to avoid further insurrections, is to excite the hate between the slaves, and this people [free rebels], I ordered that those rebels should hunt down the new Quilombo of Cosme, which they did, turning the captured slaves over to me 45 Cosme might have wanted to end slavery and seemed to be quite sincere about changing the society at large, but he lacked the imagination of L’ Overture. Nor was Raimundo able to envision a true alliance until it was too late. The alliance could have been solidified if he and Cosme had integrated their forces and if they were both less dependent on the ideals and ideology of the Bemtevis elites. Balaidas ultimately linked themselves with an elite that was fundamentally not interested in their cause. Many documents show that the white elites perceived the Balaida as an explicitly racial war. The president of the providence is reported as saying: “it is affirmed that the declared factions in the present fight are men of color against the whites, and they want death to the Cabanos, the mayor,” He went on to say that the rebels intended to indiscriminately kill the whites and help all of the people of color. 46 This statement was made late in the battle. However there is evidence that the elite were quite afraid of this possibility from early in the revolt, but they realized that there was a class dimension as well. For example, a government report expressed the fear that Raimundo Gomes was leading his rebels

45

Assuncão, “Popular Elites,” 33.

46

Santos, A Balaida, 82.

117 without making distinctions in color. 47 It was obvious that he was leading a cross-racial alliance among the popular classes. This was a problem for the elites. In order for the state to function, the government had to maintain social control. The rebels were not a perceived threat on their own as long as they worked within the paradigms of the liberal elite. However, if Raimundo Gomes was able to foster racial solidarity early on, conceivably he could have maintained a dominant position in the revolt. In order to do this he would have had to follow the example of the Tailor Revolt that occurred in Bahia in 1798, which explicitly called for an end to slavery. Recent scholarship has noted that the Balaida never embraced explicitly embraced open support for ending slavery or for direct alliances with the slaves in their manifesto,. This ambivalence made it impossible for Raimundo Gomes and many of the rebels to strategically choose which allies were more important, liberal elites or the slave class. It is clear from earlier examples like the Haitian revolution, and other independence movements, including those in the United States that organized alliances with the slaves were important to success. 48 It is also clear, from the documentation that the maroon groups in Maranhão were eager to participate in the mass movement. In fact even before the Balaida movement emerged, slaves were engaged in battles with the dominant society. The maroon societies were marginal communities by definition. They were outlaw communities that were prepared to fight for freedom. Unfortunately, the principal leaders only recognized the importance of coordinating the slaves and free men of color when it was too late.

47 48

Documentos da Cámara Muncipal de Granja Box 40, 1839, APEC.

Assuncão discusses how slaves were often influenced in the northeast by other independent movements in Spanish America. See Assuncão, “Elite Politics.”

118 Balaida in Ceará Scholars of the Balaida movement have focused on Maranhão, but the revolt also merits discussion in the history of Ceará. One of the principals of the revolt, Cosme, came from Ceará and many of the Balaida were connected to Ceará. During earlier droughts a number of freed men had settled in Maranhão as peasant farmers, and it was from these regions that some of the strongest support came. 49 The type of labor that freed men performed in Maranhão was similar to the type of labor that freed men in Ceara performed, which was cattle raising, and working with cotton. Therefore, the socioeconomic divisions between Maranhão, Piaui, and Ceará were minimal. When the Balaida movement was extended beyond Piaui into what was a major nineteenth century city in Ceará, the rebels hoped to expand their manpower against the Imperial troops. The Balaidas came to Ceará in 1839 at the apogee of the revolt. Raimundo Gomes had made inroads in Piaui already, and the federal government had sent troops in an effort to combat them. The Balaida who invaded Ceará were, according to government documents men of all colors and included slaves. 50 The documents note no distinction among “races”, In fact, more interesting is a reference to “Indians” forming the majority of the troops fighting on the side of the Balaida, but also of there being “cabras,” and slave runaways. 51 The indigenous groups are not listed as caboclo, so most likely these groups were, like the maroon groups, either living in the hinterlands of Ceará or Piauí; they probably believed the Balaida represented a break from the dominant society and an

49

Assuncão, “Elite Politics” 4.

50

Documentos da Cámara Muncipal de Granja Box 40, 1839, APEC.

51

The documents of Maranhão and government reports in Granja use this word Cabra, which literately means goat.

119 opportunity to transform that society. The indigenes present in Ceará were not altogether obliterated in 1839. The English traveler Daniel Kidder noted “Multitudes of Indians inhabit Ceará, in a state of semi-barbarism. As a general rule they are idle and vicious, living chiefly upon indigenous fruits or those which are cultivated with scarcely any trouble-but seeking occasional plunder.” 52 The indigenous groups in Ceará had been pushed off their lands and were like maroons in that they lived on the periphery of a European descendent society that socio-economically dominated the geographical space. They were forced onto the worst lands and viciously attacked by the dominant society. It is clear that the majority of groups that attacked Ceará were deemed non-white and the official government saw them as a threat to society. Moreover, there was a class element in the attack on Ceará because the revolutionary troops were from marginal classes and more importantly, they were led from people of marginal backgrounds. A hymn sung by the “patriots” mentions by name one of the leaders of the Balaida saying “The goat/black Pedro Rodrigues why don’t you stay out of here.” 53 Also in a government document from Granja, the officials cite their alarm at Raimundo Gomes being able to command the groups irrespective of color: “he leads the whites just like the men of color.” 54 In government documents and the writings of the elite there, we see definite fear of the Balaida and that fear is rooted in race. The government of Ceará clearly racialized the

52

Daniel Kidder, Sketches of Brazil V.2, (London: Sorin and Ball and Wiley and Putnam, 1845), 224.

53

Vincentes Martins, “Noticia Historico-Chorographica da Comarca de Granja” in Revista do Instituto do Ceará, 1912, 334. The term Cabra is a way to describe a person who is part “mulatto” and part pure “African” How one judges this from observation is not clear, but the word literately means goat so it has double meaning and has always been a pejorative word. The word was commonly used in nineteenth century parlance demonstrating that people of African ancestry were commonly referred t0 animals in government documents. It should also be noted that the word mulatto means mule and can be an equally pejorative term, particularly in contemporary usage. 54

Documentos da Cámara Muncipal de Granja Box 40, 1839, APEC.

120 revolt in a way that Raimundo Gomes and many of his cohorts had not intended at its beginning. Also worth pointing out is that although the Balaida were despised in government reports, the populace may have held different views. were unwelcoming. Resistance to the Balaida takeover of Granja seems to have been very weak and the rebels maintained control of the city with very little effort. Only when federal troops came did they retreat. The federal troops closed all seven roads, but many of the Balaida escaped into the woods, thus avoiding major conflict with them. The troops did not leave Ceará until 1840, meaning that the Balaida were in control of some cities and parts of western Ceará for over a year. The freedmen thought that they would be able to establish an alliance with Bemtevis, but instability and violence brought very little support from elite groups and as soon as federal troops arrived, the elites quickly distanced themselves from the Balaida. The Balaida wished to end racial inequality. They stated so in their manifestos. 55 Apparently, this message was appealing, because the leaders of Balaida were able to attract many to their movement, from as far as Ceará. However, they were unable to establish racial equality or end white privilege in Brazil. 56 The Balaios had radically reinterpreted liberalism beyond what their elite allies had imagined. The end of the revolt radicalized Raimundo Gomes. Cosme who was a freeman, but an outlaw, and his maroon community wanted the same liberties, as did the free rebels. Eventually, Raimundo Gomes and some of the rebel leaders decided that the

55 56

Santos, A Balaidada, 82.

Not even the Haitian revolution accomplished this. Instead but is monumental in that it is the only case where a slave revolution was successful, and a slave class was responsible for ending slavery and for installing a black political class that valued blackness, while embracing the ideas of enlightenment.

121 ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity also applied to slaves. Although there is no manifesto by the Balaidas recorded in official documents that recognizes the freedom of the slaves, there are communications between Cosme and Gomes that recognize an alliance. More importantly, at the end Gomes’s forces were overwhelmingly maroon troops who were fighting for freedom along side of rebels who were freedmen. If the Balaiada had been successful, there is no reason to believe that slavery would not have ended then and all men would have been equal under the law as had occurred in many areas in Spanish America, and of course, much earlier in Haiti. 57 Nevertheless, the Balaiada was not successful, because there was a hesitancy on the part of the rebels to include maroons in the struggle, and because the rebels were unable to break with the elite ideology and organize their own philosophy. As a result, people of color waited another generation for a limited citizenship and what I would call a sanitized radicalism, where the actions of the popular classes were, overall, controlled.

The Chosen One: Dragão do Mar Unlike Cosme of the Balaida, Francisico do Nascimento, popularly know as Dragão do Mar (the Dragon of the Sea), was well respected by both the abolitionists of his time, and the Brazilian government. In an article published about the fiftieth anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Ceará, Francisco do Nascimento gets major

57

For example revolution in most of Spanish America had radicalized much of the population of Afro and indigenous origin. Places such as Mexico and the Dominican Republic are paradigms of men of color, particularly in the military, reaching the upper levels of society after independence. There are many examples of black social mobility in Latin America. The first president of Mexico, Vincent Guerro was of African ancestry. See Theodore Vincent, Mexico’s First Black Indian President (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001) The Dominican Republic has had many men of color rise to great political power. Ulise Henreaux, a general, became leader of the Dominican Republic through a coup. He was of Haitian ancestry and clearly, of African ancestry.

122 coverage for his role in the abolition movement. 58 During his era, other major abolitionists from all of Brazil’s regions acknowledged Nascimento’s role in fighting slavery. Antonio Bezzera describes his participation in the movement in great detail in his book, O Ceará e Os Cearense. 59 He was also a pivotal member of the Sociedade Cearenese Libertador (SCL) after the strike of the Jangdeiros, finally becoming president of the organization. Although Dragão do Mar was accepted and lionized by other white abolitionists, he was, by and large, not of the same background as most of the others in the SCL. The majority of them were major writers and intellectuals. This is also true of other distinguished abolitionists of color of that era. Outside of Ceará, Nascimento is written about and discussed differently than other major abolitionists of color, such as Andre Rebouças, José Patrocino, and Luiz Gama. I would argue that this is because, although Nascimento was well known, and had relationships with many in the national movement, he was neither an intellectual, nor a professional writer as the others were. Moreover he was primarily a local abolitionist. 60 Other, more renowned abolitionists are famous because they literately wrote themselves into history. For example, José Patrocino, who would meet Nascimento during the abolition movement, was a prolific journalist and novelist. 61 Andre Rebouças, an intellectual and engineer, was also a prolific writer. Luiz

58

O Nordeste de Fortaleza, March 24 ,1.

59

Antonio Bezerra, O Ceará e Os Cearenses, Ligeiras Apreciações. (Fortaleza: Editor Assis, 1906), 57.

60

He received no more than a primary education and was not even literate until a he was a young adult.

61

See Edmar Morel, Vendaval da Liberdade: A Luta do Povo Pela Abolição. (São Paulo: Global Editora, 1967) and see Edmar Morel. Dragão do Mar: O Jangadeiro da Abolição (Rio:1949) We owe what we do know about Nascimento to Edmar Morel. Morel was exceptional in his approach as an historian because he was interested in documenting the stories of the popular classes in the 1930s and 1940s when such

123 Gama, the lawyer, freed so many slaves during his time that even his enemies had to respect him. Gama was also a talented poet and writer in his own right. In fact, what we do know about Nascimento is not in his voice, but from the other abolitionist of the period. Francisco was born in 1839, into a humble family of free mulatto Jangdeiros in the small fishing village of Canoa Quebrada. 62 He, too, learned the trade of a Jangdeiro and fisherman. The occupation of the Jangdeiros was open to free people of color. In Nascimento’s era, Jangdeiros were considered low class and ignorant. The majority of them did not own their ships and, therefore, did not make much money, because the fish that they caught did not necessarily belong to them According to Nascimento’s biographer, he was basically illiterate until early adulthood, and was never formally educated. 63 The fact that he learned to read is impressive, since most people of his class did not. It is clear that Nascimento possessed leadership ability and was highly intelligent. Nascimento distinguished himself as a Jangdeiro by owning two Jangadas. This was highly unusual. Moreover, over time he approaches were not popular. Moreover he spoke about racism in Brazil before it was acknowledged in the academy. He was also one of the few to interview the remaining survivors of the abolitionist movement about Francisco Nascimento and his role in the movement. Interestingly, although there is information about Dragão do Mar in the abolitionist newspaper. Libertador, and in local news papers of the time: there is very little about him in the state archives of Ceará , nor are any of his papers located in the Instituto do Ceará or the state archive of Ceará. Morel seems to have had possession of a diary and other papers but none of these papers are located in Ceará. Morel documents that due to racism, Studart, who was Ceará’s preeminent archivist and director and co-founder of the Instituto do Ceará, deliberately excluded Dragão do Mar from the archives and his historical work, even though he was famous in Brazil and Ceará during his life and was well respected. Morel points out how Studart ignores him in his encyclopedia but this is also true of Data e Factos. Moreover it is shocking how Studart practically ignores all the contributions of people of African and Indian descent in Ceará. It is because of Studart that other scholars like João Brigido and even Raimundo Girão argue that there were no blacks in Ceará. See Chapter 1 for more of this discussion. 62

Morel, Dragão do Mar: O Jangadeiro da Abolição, 35-38. A Jangada is a small fishing boat that is unique to the northeast of Brazil. A Jangdeiro is a person who uses a Jangada and makes his/her living as a fisherman in the northeast of Brazil.

63

Ibid.,36.

124 became a leader among the Jangdeiros earning the distinguished position of dock porter. 64 Nascimento always had a strong hatred of slavery. As a young man he was told the story of a very important slave revolt that took place on a boat called the Laura Segunda. Sixteen men of color and one white man killed the captain of the ship because he treated them so poorly. These men were captured in Aracati and the ringleader was shot. The others were all sentenced to jail. According to Morel, this story would have a lasting impression on Nascimento even though he was a free man and neither one of his parents were slaves. Furthermore, it is not clear that his family was opposed to slavery. For example another famous, mulatto abolitionist who lived in the same time period, Andre Rebouças’ father, Antonio Rebouças, was a member of parliament though a man of color, and had owned slaves. 65 Some of the most ardent supporters of slavery, such as Barão Cotegipe, were mulatto. 66 Nevertheless, it is quite clear that people of African ancestry, free or enslaved, felt enormous anxiety about their place in society, as did the free men who fought in the Balaida movement. As Morel points, out Nascimento was free and his family was free, but he was a mulatto, and therefore vulnerable to all types of humiliation. 67

64

It was a government position.

65

Leo Spitzer, Lives in Between: Assimilation and Marginality in Austria, Brazil, and West Africa, 17801945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 123. 66

See Thomas Skidmore article “Race Ideas and Social Policy in Brazil, 1870-1930” in Richard Graham edited collection, The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870-1930 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), 8. 67

Morel,Dragão do Mar, 41. Dragão do Mar reports being humiliated by government soldiers in his diary and Morel acknowledges this as racism.

125 Nascimento’s colleague, the often forgotten abolitionist João Napoleão, had gained his freedom and the freedom of his family members. Napoleão’s hatred of slavery is easier to understand than Nascimento’s. Napoleão was born a slave, and his family was also slaves. He freed three of his family members from slavery. Napoleão participated in the first strike of the Jangdeiros, solicited Dragão, and disappeared from the movement. After he led the second strike of the Jangedeiros, Dragão do Mar was chosen by the elite abolitionists to be the symbol of the movement. In many ways the abolitionists saw Dragão do Mar as the embodiment of their cause. One wonders to what extent Nascimento’s ascendancy as a leader in the movement was based on his class and ethnic background. After all, because Napoleão was a Liberto (freed slave) and the law did discriminate against him, he was more subject to racism than Dragão do Mar. 68 Perhaps Jose Napoleão rejected the leadership role in favor of Nascimento? Napoleão led the first strike against the Espirito Santos with two other abolitionists, José Vasconcello and Isac Amarel, in late January of 1881, but the next strike, in August of that year, marked the emergence of Dragão do Mar, and subsequently it would be Nascimento who became famous and took an active role in the abolitionist movement. After the strike Nascimento became an activist in the main abolition group Sociedade Liberdade Cearense. He was even given an audience at the royal court in Rio de Janeiro and had become so famous that a crowd and many reporters met him there. Although he did not meet Dom Pedro or Princess Isabella, he was presented with a gold medal from the royal family, for closing the ports of Ceará. The royal court was against

68

Libertos were not allowed to vote or hold political office and were constantly forced to show their letters of freedom.

126 slavery and, in many ways, supported the cause of abolition, but did not have the political will or power to really end it. 69 Nevertheless, the monarchs made many symbolic gestures favoring the abolition movement. They freed all of the slaves that were linked to the monarchy directly, and supported the enactment of all kinds of reforms. 70 The royals did not see the need to actually meet Nascimento but they validated his cause and his actions to a degree. However, as I will discuss in chapter five they distanced themselves from more radical aspects of the movement.

Understanding the Significance of Dragão do Mar The validation of Nascimento by the elites must be questioned. Who benefited from the relationship between Nascimento and his sponsors? What was the nature of these relationships? Also, what did Nascimento hope to accomplish? In the end, none of this is really clear because of the lack of documentation. Nevertheless some ideas can be gleaned from the writings of Nascimento’s biographer, Morel, and the newspaper articles of that era. Nascimento was a reformer who was opposed to slavery. Though he was aware of, and even friendly with more radical blacks, he had no desire to overthrow the social order. 71 In fact, like other abolitionists of color, he personally thrived and prospered during the movement. There is no doubt that other people like Nascimento benefited from their actions, and were ultimately rewarded with fame and respect.

69

Morel, Dragão do Mar, 163-166.

70

For a discussion of Dom Pedro and slavery see Percy Alvin Martin “Slavery and Abolition in Brazil” The Hispanic American Historical Review, 1933, 161 and 172-173. 71

In other words Dragão do Mar’s project was not revolutionary like his counterpart Cosme who threaten the social order, and Dragão worked with elites in the society.

127 In Nascimento, the merchant, commerce, and professional classes found a mulatto from the popular classes who had overcome his low socio-economic status to become well respected in Ceará and within the abolitionist’s movement. He was a potent symbol for a new generation of Brazilians who wanted reform and modernization. 72 It is telling, that, although Nascimento was in many ways the symbol of a new Brazil, he never benefited from it in the way many white abolitionists did. His fame neither translated into wealth nor did he become politically powerful. His biographer notes that because of his color and class he was unable to translate his fame into a more profitable career. The white elite sponsored Nascimento, and he remained extremely loyal. This type of relationship was normal in Brazil. Patronage was how political movements were organized. Reading the abolitionist organ of Ceará, the Libertador, which was the most progressive abolition organization of that era, we can see that it advocated freedom and fraternity among all men. The rival abolition group O Centro portrayed it as radical because of its language, but it was not. 73 However, reformists engaged in a modernization project but not interested in the radical ideas of liberalism wrote it. In chapter five I will discuss their perspectives in more detail. What is important to stress is that the Balaios were mainly free men of color like Dragão do Mar, men of humble background, and groups from the margins, rising up and attempting to create a radically different society even if at first they excluded slaves and based their revolt on liberal philosophy. The implications and reality of the revolt were

72 73

I will discuss the motives of the elite abolitionists in chapter five. I will discuss the abolitionist group O Centro in more detail in chapter five.

128 revolutionary. Moreover the Balaios held military dominance over much of the three states in the northeast and during their rule had freed many slaves. Cosme’s group of maroons was educating their people. The two major leaders of that movement were men of African heritage. Raimundo Gomes was often referred to in government documents as “cabra,” a derogatory word referring to people of African ancestry. Cosme and his maroon group were the most important faction in the movement. In contrast, although there were people of African heritage in the later movement by the elites, they were not radical. The abolitionists wrote sincerely about a society that embraced the ideas of liberalism, but they did not act. After slavery was abolished, people of African and Indian ancestry continued to be excluded from power, with token exceptions. Even when people of African ancestry attained positions of power, such as Barão do Cotegige, they did not identify themselves as men of color, wishing to conceal that fact. When forced to acknowledge their race, they created a distance between themselves and the masses. Many influential mulattos, besides Machado do Asis, were guilty of this behavior during the empire and later. During the post slave period, Nina Rodrigues, Oliviera Vianna and Nilo Pechana either kept silent about their heritage, or minimized it. In fact, by modern day standards, many of these people would have been considered racist. 74 Nina Rodrigues and Oliviera Vianna were both light-skinned mulatto intellectuals who wrote 74

It is interesting that people of African heritage like Oliviera Vianna and Nina Rodrigues were heavily influenced by eugenics and repeated the works of their contemporaries in Europe. Nevertheless there were intellectuals like Manuel Querino who eloquently articulated the contribution of the Afro-Brazilians and showed the folly of assuming black intellectual deficits well before Gilberto Freyre was born, showing that the racism of writers like Vianna and Rodrigues was not natural or logical, but rather a path that they chose. In many ways, one can argue that these men of color chose this path because it was desirable. Embracing scientific racism in some perverse way distanced themselves from their African past and brought them closer to whiteness. See Thomas Skidmore’s article “Race Ideas and Social Policy in Brazil, 1870-1930” in Richard Graham’s edited collection, The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870-1940 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), 7-36. Also read Thomas Skidmore, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993) for a book length discussion of this subject.

129 books that were of exceptional intellectual rigor for that era, but were imbued with all kinds of ideas of superior and inferior races, yet this should not be surprising since scientific racism was widely accepted in Europe and the United States. 75 Nilo Pechana was of humble background and also was a light-skinned mulatto who was silent about his African heritage, but his opponents often attacked him because of it. Yet he showed no serious commitment to ending notions of white superiority. 76 It is clear that many lightskinned people distanced themselves from other people of color. Therefore within in the elite abolition movement that occurs circa 1870s in Brazil, among the people of African ancestry there was no real organic link between the mainly elite “mulatto” class and the popular class. Another factor that discouraged racial solidarity in nineteenth century Brazil was that the way to social mobility was through patronage and many people of African ancestry were able to achieve a fair amount of success this way. During the monarchy in Brazil, most of the famous abolitionists, such as André Reboucas and Jose Patrocino, were connected to the monarchy or to other patrons, and Nascimento was linked to his Cearense patrons, people in the abolition movement with strong republican leanings. 75

It is fascinating that it was the European-born, Jewish scholar, Franz Boas, a professor at Colombia University, who was largely responsible for undermining scientific racism and was directly responsible for the Brazilian re-assessment of ideas about scientific racism. His work against scientific racism not only helped undermine the legitimacy of these ideas, but his students also played a major role in disseminating his findings.. In Brazil, Gilberto Freyre would play the greatest role in undermining scientific racism. Lee D. Baker “Columbia University's Franz Boas: He Led the Undoing of Scientific Racism”, The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 1998, 89-96. 76

In more recent scholarship there is a tendency to underplay what Carl Degler calls the “mulatto escape hatch.” Scholars show that there was and still are very little socio-economic difference between “negros” and “pardos” and that both groups face an enormous disadvantage in the labor force and are way behind whites in most areas, such as education, health care, and housing. See Nelson do Valle Silva, Updating the cost of not being white in Brazil” in the landmark work Race, Class and Power in Brazil, ed. Pierre Michel Fontaine (Los Angeles: Center for Afro- American Studies, 1985) and see the more recent study by Edward Telles. Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).

130 One can gain insight into the power of patronage, by analyzing an episode that occurred between José Patrocino and Nascimento. Several years after slavery ended, Nascimento’s old friend called on his services again. Patrocino asked Nascimento to take a stand against the dictatorship disguised as republican and against Floriano Peixoto, the first leader of the Old Republic. Nascimento declined, stating the following: “I am with the government and I am with João Cordeiro” Cordeiro was governor of the province and had been one of the leading abolitionists in Ceará. 77 Although it is probable that Nascimento agreed with João Cordeiro, it is highly unlikely that he would have sided against Cordeiro because he was Nascimento’s patron. After slavery had been outlawed, his generation of abolitionists became the political leaders of Ceará, and by extension Nascimento had access to that new group. His access was limited in that he never personally benefited in the way that many of his “white” colleagues did. 78 The political policies of the Old Republic held very few benefits for persons of Nascimento’s socioeconomic class. They did not offer people of African heritage an opportunity for social mobility in the way that the monarchy seemed to, at least to those educated freed men of color like José Patrocincio or André Reboucas, who left Brazil after the fall of the empire. Moreover, one wonders if Nascimento thought deeply about the principles of a republic, or about what a post-slavery society would look like, or about the political or even theoretical approaches to improving the lives of the ex-slaves and people of African ancestry. Patrocino had been the editor of numerous periodicals and was sincere about 77

Edmar Morél, Dragão do Mar: O Jangadeiro da Abolição “Estou com o governo e com o João Cordeiro,” 200. 78

If you analyze the positions of his fellow colleagues in the SCL, it becomes clear that his success was moderate. Many of colleagues became important government officials or were successful businessman. There were very little opportunities for social mobility during the era of the empire of Brazil. See the biographies of SCL members in chapter five.

131 liberalism. He pursued a life of the mind, meaning he was an intellectual, though he was an ally of the monarchy and like his colleague, Andre Rebouças, was a friend of Dom Pedro II who had been supportive of the abolitionists. Dragão do Mar was loyal also, but to his benefactors, in this case João Cordeiro. However, at the end of the day these men of color had no real solidarity. Their solidarity was with their benefactors who held real influence over their life. Nascimento was no doubt connected to them in numerous ways, including financially. After all his business as a jangdeiro was linked to the merchants who formed the ranks of the abolition movement. After slavery, it is not clear if Nascimento was concerned with national politics. There is no evidence one-way or the other. Clearly the dictatorship had no real positive effect on his life or the lives of his fellow jangdeiros. His patrons had respected him and had fought with him against slavery. This was more than many had done. The rival abolitionists such as Barão do Studart and his organization O Centro Abolcionista had not respected him. In fact they seem to be alarmed by what they perceived as the radicalism of the Sociedade Cearense Libertadora. Studart, who was a founding member of O Centro, did not mention Dragão do Mar in any of his major writings. He did not even see fit to acknowledge the contribution of Dragão do Mar, to the abolition movement. He systematically ignores Dragão and chastises his patrons like João Cordeiro. 79 The spaces and opportunities for Nascimento were limited, because if he broke ranks with his patron, there were no other points of entry into elite society. Though he was respected among the abolitionist groups and known among the popular classes, there is no evidence that he was widely accepted among the elite classes. 79

Morel, Dragão do Mar, 203.

132

Dragão do Mar the Abolitionist and Other Black Abolitionists of His Time

We will see below that Nascimento did not “know his place.” Nor did he always respect the ideals of his patrons. He seemed to be fearless and sincere, like Andre Rebouças, José Patrocino and Luiz Gama, particularly about ending slavery and about creating a non-racist society. Still, it is not clear how Dragão dealt with his racial identity. In order to understand Dragão do Mar the abolitionist, it is important to understand him relative to the other abolitionists of African ancestry. For example, did he position himself away from blackness like Machado do Asis, and did he see his African ancestry as a source of shame? For Gama, his race and ethnicity were a source of pride. In an autobiographical sketch Gama proudly identifies his mother as of African origin. She was a black woman from the Mina Coast who refused to be baptized and accept Christianity. He also described her as short of stature but very beautiful. 80 In a poem, Gama mocks the expression cabra by assuming it with pride. He writes:

Who Am I/ If black I am, or a goat, it matters little. / For what should this denote? / Goats there are of every caste, / It’s a species that’s very vast/ Some goats are the color of ash, / some spotted/ some faded/ others faded/ other mottled/ black goats there are, white goats, / and let’s be frank, / there are goats of little note/ and some of highest rank. / Rich goats, poor goats/wise goats, prize goats/ and some wheeler-dealer goats/ Here in this good land, / everyone butts, everyone bleats. / Noble counts and duchesses/ wealthy damsels and marquises, / senators and deputies, / overseers and country lords, / lovely ladies proud, / flaunting their magnificence, / pompous princelings loud, /boasting their significance, / imperial dandies, / padres, bishops, cardinals, grandees, / poor folk, fine folk, / my kinsman 80

Morel has an appendix at the end of his book about Luiz Gama. See Vendaval da Liberdade, “Sou filho natural de negra livre, da Costa Mina, (Nago) de nome Luiza Mahin, pagã, que sempre recusou o batismo e a doutrina cristã. Minha mãe era baixa de estatura, magra, bonita; a cor era de um preto retinto e sem lustro, tinha , os dentes alvíssimos como a neve, era muito altiva, geniosa, insofrida e vingativa” 219-220.

133 every bloke. / In each resplendent army coterie/ One spots some highborn goaterie. 81 Gama fits squarely into the Afro-diasporic tradition of struggling against slavery that occurred everywhere in the new world. His intellectual outlook was firmly in the tradition of Alexander Crummel, Fredrick Douglass and many other people of African ancestry who fought racial oppression. Andre Rebouças was also of the same philosophical outlook of “uplifting the race.” 82 Rebouças believed that blacks could be helped given the proper opportunities in society. Jose Patrocino seemed to be more ambivalent about his racial identity. Although he was against racial slavery, he did support the idea of European immigration, hence embracing the whitening strategy that was prevalent among white elites. He made rather derogatory remarks about slaves, calling them stupid and ugly. 83 Still all of these men wanted to end slavery and hoped to integrate the former slaves into society. They viewed Brazil as a multi-racial society, thought deeply about incorporating people of African ancestry into this society and, (particularly Gama and Rebouças) were very active in seeing this become a reality. I will discuss Rebouças further in chapter four.

81

For a fine collection of primary documents concerning slavery and race relations see Robert Edgar Conrad, Children of God’s Fire: A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 229-231. 82

See Anthony Appiah, In My Fathers House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), Wilson J. Moses, The Golden Age of Black Nationalism, 1850-1925 (Hamden: Archon Books, 1978) and Kevin Gaines, Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996). These books are quite different in their theoretical orientation but all of these books are in there own way intellectual histories that document how intellectuals of Afro ancestry conceptualized freedom, race and identity. 83

David Brookshaw shows that, though Patrocino was a fierce abolitionist, this does not mean that he did not internalize many euro-centric ideologies. See Race and Color in Brazil Literature (Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, 1986) 30.

134

Dragão do Mar’s Fight Against Racism It is not clear how deeply Dragão thought about race. Though he had knowledge of the black world, as a jangdeiro and sailor he had come into contact with folk from all over the world. He was aware of the various slave revolts, like the Laura Segunda, that had come before him. 84 He was sympathetic to their cause, but was hardly an active revolutionary in the way that Cosme was. He had experienced racism in his life. He reports an incident in his journal of a group of men insulting him because of his color, but the slights he experienced did not entirely undermine his place in society. 85 Although he did not become extremely wealthy, he was respected in Cearense society. His second marriage was into the prominent family of a major writer and intellectual in Ceará, João Brigido. In the end, Dragão do Mar fought against slavery, but it was in his benefit, and he had support from key white elites. By 1881, he had wide support and sympathy nationally, including the medal from the king and princess. One can argue that the white elites accepted Nascimento as long as he stayed within a certain political framework. This framework was one that embraced the basic tenets of classical liberalism. 86

84

Morél, Dragão do Mar: O Jangadeiro da Abolição 35-38. We also know that his mother assumed the identity of “preta” because Morel quotes her as calling herself preta. Therefore there was racial consciousness in Nascimento’s family, and they definitely recognized themselves as being of African heritage. 85 86

Morel. Dragão do Mar, 202.

Classical liberalism of the nineteenth century should not be confused with new deal liberalism. Classical liberalism promoted limited government, free trade, and its ideas were in many cases a reaction to monarchies that derived their power from god. When I speak of modern day liberalism I am referring to an ideology that came about after the great depression, and embraced Keysian economic ideology, and government social programs by in large to save capitalism. See Alan Brinkley for a modern discussion of liberalism, Liberalism and its Discontents (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998).

135 However after slavery the life of the popular classes did not fundamentally change, nor were people of African ancestry incorporated in the society. Slavery ended but racism did not. Nascimento never addressed this problem directly, nor did his sponsors. Leading abolitionists, such as Joaquim Nabuco, believed Brazil was a multi-racial society that was without serious racial conflict, despite the fact that the notion of whiteness was embraced by the elite society. 87 With the end of slavery all men were free, but the abolition of slavery did not end the idea of white supremacy, nor did it produce economic opportunity for the vast majority of Afro-Brazilians. The economic order of post slave Brazil maintained the overwhelming population in a miserable state, and this was particularly true for Afro-Brazilians. 88 With the end of slavery there was no restitution or radical plan to assimilate the ex-slave community or people of African ancestry into the mainstream---no land redistribution, no major educational reform, and finally no protection against the continuing discriminatory practices of white supremacists. This was not lost on Nascimento. Some twenty years after his initial strike, he led a very `different one, protesting not slavery, but the forced conscription of poor men into the military when they had wives and children to protect. However, this time Nascimento did not have wide support from the elite. In fact, the governor, who was a former abolitionist, did not support him. 89 In this protest Nascimento saw over 90 people injured

87 88

I will discuss Nabuco’s ideas more in chapter 5.

For descriptions of post-slave society see Sam Adamo, “The Broken Promise: Race, Health and Justice in Rio de Janeiro, 1890-1940.” Ph.D. diss., University of Arizona, 1983, George Reid Andrews, Blacks and Whites in São Paulo, Brazil, 1888-1998 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991) and Kim Butler, Freedoms Given Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition Sâo Paulo and Salvador (News Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998).

136 and maimed. 90 No doubt the majority of the jangdeiros were men of color. In fact Dragão do Mar put the strike in racial terms by suggesting that he did not understand why white boys were not drafted instead of sacrificing men of color only, some of who were grandfathers. 91 In many ways this strike demonstrates Dragão’s naiveté. It was poorly planned and without any of the support of the elite that he had in his campaign against slavery. We know that Dragão do Mar promoted social justice and racial justice, but unlike Andre Rebouças or José Patrocino, he did not articulate a specific plan for what a post slave society could be. But we should not disregard his work or his sincere anger at injustice, because in his battle at Catraeiros he showed that he had the interest of the popular classes at heart. Moreover the strike of Catraeiros showed that Dragão do Mar was a fearless advocate for the popular classes and he was as conscious of racial discrimination, as the Balaios were some generations before. He was not an elitist in the way José Patrocinio was or even André Rebouças. He was very comfortable with the popular classes and helped to organize them. Also he was not afraid to go up against the elites for the right cause. It was he who had helped organized the strike that forced the government to officially bar slaves from entering the ports of Ceará. In retrospect it is clear that Dragão do Mar was a brilliant and courageous organizer, but he did not strategize from any particular philosophy. Although he was against racism and slavery, he seemed to lack any plan to reorganize Brazil into a true racial democracy. He accepted

89

Morel, Vendaval, 204-26.

90

Ibid., 205.

91

Ibid,“Por que os moços brancos não são sorteados em detrimento do sacrificio de homens de idade, alguns ate avos, 204.

137 the leadership of Libertador and rarely questioned their actions. Though they helped to end slavery they did not think of including people of African and indigenous heritage in the mainstream of society. For The Balaida, the ideas of racial equality were at the center of their program. Paradoxically, this idea was more important than ending slavery. Raimundo Gomes was a freedman of African ancestry, and in order for him to make the movement work he realized that slaves had to be freed, as well. Cosme became the center of the movement because it was his soldiers who had the most to fight for and therefore, were the most reliable. The vast majority of the Balaida and the potential sympathizers in Bemtevis, were co-opted so it was the slave class that remained loyal to the end and were the key to Gomes’s control of the revolt for so long. Some four years later, Lima Alves made Gomes and Cosme the symbols around which to rally the elites against the Balaida movement. He realized that Cosme and Gomes represented everything contradictory to the interests of the elite classes. 92 Slavery represented the economic lifeline in that era, and the fact that a maroon community formed an alliance with freed men of color, turned their world upside down. This would have been akin to another Haiti. Cosme had to be killed very publicly. He violated every code of Brazilian society. He undermined all aspects of Brazilian order. Raimundo Gomes was a radical who threatened to overthrow the Brazilian socio-economic order, but he did not begin that way. He began by advocating reforms with which many white elites could sympathize because they too wanted many reform, including the economic and social benefits that they considered to be monopolized by the Cabano political class However, sympathy with slaves was not a part of this negotiation. 92

Santos, A Balaiada.

138 Conversely, two generations later, Dragão do Mar was acceptable to the mainstream as a voice against slavery. By this time, slavery was unacceptable throughout the western world. Therefore most elites in Ceará were willing to accept that chattel slavery was on the way out. Ceará was never dependent on slavery so it could be abolished with no real burden on her economy. Moreover, for the more progressive abolitionist, being led by a man of African ancestry was not a source of shame but a point of pride. He posed no threat to the elite. In fact he was dependent on them and when he tried to act independently, as in the strike with the Catraeiros, he was violently crushed. He had neither the agency nor the philosophical or political independence of Cosme, who was able to command a group of three thousand slaves. Dragão de Mar was a leader and did have the popular classes supporting him, but he never organized that support to truly reorient society, The Balaidas were also too reliant on the language of liberalism. All of their manifestos acknowledged the ideas of the white elite Bemtivis. Unlike their brethren from Haiti, they did not expropriate the language of the French Revolution. They did not become “Black Jacobins.” 93 By the end they had were radicalized and were fighting for social justice. Not only did they want to end slavery but also they wanted to change the racial hierarchy and end racial oppression, but also by the time they turned away from the elitist project, it was too late. The elite generation of Dragão do Mar’s time was reformers. Dragão do Mar unlike the Balaida that came before him, ending slavery no longer held the same meaning. Dragão

93

This is a reference to C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1989) which documents how slaves had used the rhetoric of the French Revolution to their own ends. The rhetoric of liberal thought, which indeed was the basis for the French revolution, also became the basis for the Haitian revolution.

139 do Mar represented a new, sanitized, black leader who was against slavery, but lacked some of the radical edges. He was no longer called a cabra. He had become a respectable pardo who helped solidify the ideals of racial democracy and progress for a new generation of Brazilians. “Progress” was happening slowly in Brazil, but it did not deal with inequality or any of the ideals of the Balaida, though the illusion of social justice was imbued in their language of equality. 94 In law there was progress, but the ideals that the Libertadora spoke of, as we will see in chapter five, were not realized. The end of slavery allowed Brazil to create a myth of freedom and equality, as happened in the rest of the Americas, but ending of slavery never meant racial equality anywhere in the Afro-diaspora. In Ceará specifically, we can see that after slavery Dragão do Mar’s strike was directed against the same elites who championed abolition but did not champion racial equality. We will discuss this disconnect between racial equality and the abolition of slavery in chapters four and five.

94

The abolition of slavery and the fall of the empire appeared to signify the triumph of democracy and the ideals of liberalism, but in fact for people of color, socio-economic circumstances did not change significantly. For more discussion about racial democracy, one should go to footnote one in the Introduction, for references.

Chapter 4 READING RACE, CLASS, IDENTITY, AND FREEDOM IN THE GREAT DROUGHT OF 1877-1879 From 1877 through 1879, Ceará experienced one of the worst natural catastrophes in its recorded history. Northeast Brazil experienced a drought that was responsible for the deaths of over 200,000 people during this three-year period. In one year more than 56, 791 people in Fortaleza died out of a total of population of 124,000. An additional 118,927 people died in Ceará, and another 54,927 migrated elsewhere in 1878. 1 This drought constitutes an important historical moment in the history of Ceará, not only because of the misery and suffering it caused, but also because it gives us a window into the socio-economic and cultural dynamics of imperial Brazil, and particularly in the Northeast. This chapter considers the responses of the political elites to the Great Drought of 1877-1879, to shed light on how they defined freedom and what they thought to be the subaltern classes’ rights as citizens. This section will also serve as a precursor to the fifth chapter, because it introduces many of the same political elites who supported the abolition movement. However there were several notions of freedom put forth by both elites and subalterns that were often contradictory. 2 1

One of the best histories about the drought comes from the pharmacist Rodolpho Theohilo. He lived during the era and wrote the most important work about the drought of that period Historia da Secca do Ceará (1877-1880) (Rio: Imprensa Ingleza, 1922). 2

This chapter hopes to contribute to the understanding of the elite notions about the subaltern classes and how they viewed race, particularly in the context of Ceará. This chapter has absolutely no intention of contributing per se to the scholarship on the Great Drought. There is a burgeoning scholarship already emerging about the drought. The best of the works is the edited collection by Simone de Souza and Frederico de Castro Neves, Seca:Historia de Fortaleza (Fortaleza:Edições Demócrito Rocha, 2002). For a more general understanding of the drought as it pertained to Ceará see Cicinato Ferreira Neto, A Tragédia dos Mil Dias: A Seca de 1877-1879 no Ceará (Fortaleza: Premis Editora, 2006). I also agree with the intellectual Mike Davis in his work that social-welfare programs were lacking in helping the popular classes in Ceará and it was elite government policies that were responsible for the enormous misery of the

140

141 There have been several studies that have dealt with the elite understanding of nationalism and how they viewed the popular classes’ role in the nation, and even more recently there have been a few that have been concerned with how people in the Northeast responded to regional realities or the intersection of race, nation, and class in the northeast region. 3 This chapter concurs with the more recent historiography on the subjects. 4 Although this is in no way a history of droughts in Ceará, I will begin the chapter with a brief background of the Great Drought and a brief overview of droughts in Ceará in more general terms to give context to what the elite were debating and discussing and also to a tragedy in which the popular classes were disproportionately the victims.

The Great Drought of 1877-1879 Droughts were quite regular occurrences in the history of Ceará. 5 The conservative historian, Guilherme Studart, wrote the tragedy in his documentary history, Datas e Factos Historia Do Ceará by looking at the death statistics from the state’s obituary records: 6 .

drought see Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of theThird World (London ; New York : Verso, 2001). 3

Durval Muniz de Albuquerque Jr, A Invenção do Nordeste e Outras Artes (Recife: Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Editora Massangana; São Paulo: Cortez Editora, 1999) Also see Gerald Greenfield The Realities of Images: Imperial Brazil and the Great Drought. (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2001). Also for a older but solidly researched account of the Great Drought see Roger Cunniff, “The Great Drought: Northeast Brazil, 1877-1880.” PH.D. diss. University of Texas Austin, 1970. 4

I particularly follow the arguments by Gerald Greenfield in The Realities of Images who has studied the drought from a northeastern perspective. His work helps us to gain insights on how elites thought about race and national identity in their response to the drought. I follow his method but I focus on Ceará specifically where he focused on the whole northeast.

5

See list below.

142 Chart 4.1 Ceará State Obituary Records(1870-1879) 1870-651 1871-624 1872-683 1873-878 1874-666 1875-725 1876-811 1877-2008 1878-57,780 1879-6822 As the list above shows, in 1878 over 57,780 deaths were reported in Fortaleza alone. This does not account for the untold deaths in the rest of the state that were not officially reported. We must keep in mind that by 1878 when the drought was at its worst, the interior was all but shut down since its population was so depleted. Although this drought was the worst in Cearense history it was far from the first drought to affect the population. Travel writers have discussed the massive suffering caused by drought in the region. The drought of 1790-1793 is the first for which the state demanded aid from the national government. 7 Daniel Kidder, one of the many British writers who left first hand travel accounts of Brazil in the nineteenth century writes the following: During the droughts, years have been known to pass by without rain. At such times vegetation perishes, and both animals and human beings die off without number. It was painful to listen to the descriptions given of these seccas, and the famine consequent upon them. I was prepared to understand them by details previously given me of a similar scene, which a gentleman, with whom I met in Pernambuco, had witnessed a few years previously in Rio Grande do Norte. Absolute starvation prevailed in the country, and the only hope of the inhabitants was in finding their ways to parts of the coast to which supplies had been brought 6

Guilherme Studart, Datas e Factos Historia Do Ceará (Fortaleza: Typographia Studart, 1896), 253. Studart base these statistics on the local government records. See APEC Legislatura da Assemblea Provincial no dia 1 de Novembro de 1878 (Fortaleza, 1878)

7

Ibid.,402 “ A camara do Aracaty pede a D. Thomaz José de Mello a remessa de alguma farinha para remediar a fome do povo.”

143 from abroad. Hundreds died upon the way, and their emaciated corpses were scattered upon the sand, often without interment, but so emaciated and withered as scarcely to taint the air, or offer a banquet to the worm. Some who had strength to arrive, and money with which to purchase food, survived. Others arrived too late, and being so exhausted and enfeebled, the morsel which they craved to sustain life only served to hasten their dissolution. 8 The Reverend Kidder traveled to Brazil in 1841, so he is describing a drought in Ceará that occurred before the Great Drought of 1877-1879. He is reporting on the severity and danger that a drought presented for the region but is illustrating that they were not unusual. In fact droughts still remain a common occurrence in the region. The chart below demonstrates their normality: Chart 4.2 Major Droughts in Ceará 1710-1711 1723-1727 1736-1737 1744-1745 1777-1778 1790-1793 1808-1809 1816-1817 1824-1825 1844-1845 1877-1879

9

Therefore before we analyze the Great Drought of 1877-1879, we must ask what differentiates the drought of 1877-1879 from previous ones. One of the major differences was the extent of the human suffering and not just from the lack of rainfall that caused it. The death toll and migration had myriad negative consequences for what was once a

8 9

Daniel P. Kidder, Sketches of Residence and Travels in Brazil (London: Wiley and Putnam, 1845), 226. Theophilo, Secca,11.

144 thriving region. The successful cattle industry, cotton production in the sertão, and even the ability of peasants in the interior of the province to grow subsistence crops, were all affected. After the drought of 1845 there was a thirty-two year period with no significant droughts and the region seemed to flourish. The ranching, cotton and export economies were healthy and there was an increase in population. There is also evidence that subsistence farmers were able to eke out a living. Settlement communities prospered during this era. 10

Chart 4.3 The Population of Ceará Before the Drought 1775: 34,000 1810: 130,000 1812: 149,000 1819: 201,170 1835: 240,000 1857: 486, 208 1860: 504, 000 1872: 721, 688

11

Theophilo, who was a resident during the drought and moreover one of the preeminent scholars of that era, estimates the Cearense population to have been 900,0001,000,000 at the beginning of the drought in 1877. 12 Afterwards he estimated the

10

In no way do I mean to imply that their daily lives were easy. On the contrary, the life of the average person in Ceará was a rustic and harsh one. Unlike Rio, Salvador, or Recife, even the elite did not lead a luxurious life. In Fortaleza and Aracati there are little of the rich architect that the elites built in the urban neighborhoods of Pelhrinho, Salvador, downtown Rio, or Olinda, Pernambuco. 11

Theophilo, Historia da Secca, 47.

145 population to be at 600, 000 in 1879. 13 The exact number of deaths remains unclear, but we do know that more people died in that drought than statistics indicate. The index for economic growth also went down during those years. The drought may have been no more economically devastating than any prior droughts, but we do know the death toll was notably higher. Chart 4.4 Cattle Production Before, During, and After The Great Drought, 1877-1879 14 (1845) 7:622$ 500 (1846) 6:406$ 500 (1847) 10: 528$ 000 (1848) 15: 921$000 (1849) 13: 336$000 (1850) 13: 792$000 (1851) 14: 287$000 (1852) 15: 466$000 (1853) 15: 137$000 (1854) 16: 861$000 (1855) 20: 814$000 (1856) 22: 796$000 (1857) 22: 22: 945$000 (1858) 26: 990$000 (1859) 27: 200$000 (1860) 31: 200$000 (1861) 37: 764$000 (1862) 40: 467$000 (1863) 39: 050$000

(1864) 41: 845$000 (1865) 43: 967$000 (1866) 55: 419$100 (1867) 64: 225$520 (1868) 69: 554$500 (1869) 84: 268$750 (1870) 109: 106$961 (1871) 115: 245$830 (1872) 74:788$342 (1873) 82: 571$588 (1874) 85: 030$181 (1875) 82: 226$405 (1876) 78: 119$283 (1877) 25: 026$000 (1878) 23: 684$322 (1879) 29:826$557 (1880) 22: 614$600 (1881) 24: 697$500

12

Ibid. This means that there was a possible increase in population of 200,000 in a five-year period. His statistics are problematic, but he took his data from census information, which is the most accurate information we have. 13

If we assume that the population was close to a million then there was a decrease in population of over 400,000, which is highly plausible since over 90% of the population left the interior, a good many left the state altogether, and many died. 14

Ibid.,34-35.

146 If we study the chart above we see normal productivity in the thirty-two years without a drought, but we see a significant decrease in Ceará‘s most important economic resource, cattle. The cattle industry in the sertão was literally destroyed during these years. It was not unusual to come upon the remains of cattle that had died of disease, thirst, or hunger. It is important to note that the chaos and migration following the drought were in many ways responsible for the deaths of the men, women, and children moving from the country to the city due to the unhealthy and unsanitary conditions of the latter. The U.S. scientist Herbert H. Smith observed: My personal observations of this great calamity were confined to part of December 1878. I reached Fortaleza on the 19th of that month, when the death rate from smallpox had gone down to about 350 per day. Aided by his Excellency, President Julip, and by Sr. Morsing, I was able, during my stay, to make careful observations, both at Fortaleza and in the interior….I was much impressed with the apparent indifference of the people to their danger. The pestilence was, indeed, a universal subject of conversation, but everybody seemed to rest in an easy fatalism or blindness; speaking of the daily death-rates as one tells of the killed and wounded in a battle- a real event far away….Later in the day, I walked out to the refugee camps on the southern side of the city. The huts were wretched beyond description; many were built of boughs, or poles, covered with an imperfect thatch of palm-leaves, and patched up with bits of boards and rags. Here whole families were crowded together in narrow spaces; filthy, as only these Ceará Arabs can be; ragged, unkempt, lounging on the sands, a fit prey for disease. No measures had been taken to cleanse the camp; the ground, in many places, were covered with filth and refuse; water, obtained from a pool near by, was unfit to drink. If the pestilence was hidden in the city, it was visible everywhere in the camps. Half-recovered patients sat apart, but scarcely healed; in almost every hut the sick were lying, horrible with the foul disease. Many dead were waiting for the body carriers; many more would be waiting at the morning round. Yet here, among the sick and dying and dead, there was the same indifference to danger that I had noticed in the city 15 . In this description we can see that one effect of the drought was an increase in small pox. There were also several other diseases that were reported during the era and were responsible for the deaths of many people. It is clear that the makeshift camps that were 15

Ed. E Bradford Burns A Documentary History of Brazil (New York: Alfred A. Knopf ,1966), 268-269.

147 created in the major cities such as Fortaleza and Acarati, where thousands of people were forced to live in small cramped conditions with poor sanitation systems, were unhealthy. Although Smith claims that people were being fed properly, this seems very unlikely based on other reports, though the government did indeed supply food to many people. 16 Food and water were still scarce for the very poor particularly for the retirantes that left the interior for the city.

Responses From Down Below Unfortunately, the people who suffer the most from natural catastrophe are the popular classes. In the case of the Great Drought of 1877-1879, this was most certainly the case, though it should be noted that some elite families also suffered, as Billy Chandler documents in his study of the Inhumans. The Feitosa family, one of the most prominent, elite families were economically devastated by the drought, but other elite families actually might have benefited from the drought because they had the resources to withstand it, and although even the richest family in those years suffered losses, they did not starve to death. 17 Moreover, the economic elite was by and large, connected to the political elite, and in many cases they were one and the same. The political elite had access to aid and resources while the vast majority of the population of Ceará did not. Ninety percent of the population in the interior in Ceará left their homes during the first year of the drought. Many from the interior went to neighboring Piaui, and Pará,

16

See Billy Chandler, The Feitosas and the Sertão dos Inhamuns: The History of a Family and a Community in Northeast Brazil 1700-1930 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1972),162. 17

Ibid. ,165-166.

148 and the Amazon, and others went to the capital, Fortaleza. From the port of Fortaleza, some 6,106 migrated; 1,496 went south, and 4,610 went north. 18 From the port of Aracati, a big number went to the south of Brazil and other major cities such as Cariri, and Aracaty. In March of 1878 Fortaleza reported over 100,000 and Aracaty reported 60,000 indigents needing help 19 . Through all of the years of the drought there were comparable numbers of migrants to the capital and other cities where aid was available. As we have discussed in previous chapters, Ceará was never the site of traditional plantations or mines requiring enormous numbers of slaves. Nevertheless the vast majority of the population was of partial African descent, whether free or slave. In addition to having different modes of economic production from many other regions of Brazil, the droughts of Ceará further distinguished its race relations from those of the regions outside of the Northeast in Brazil. This was particularly true of the Great Drought, which created wide spread socio-economic chaos. Although it did not affect the elites as much as the region’s poor and thus the classes were divided in this tragedy, the Great Drought contributed to the disruption of social hierarchies resulting from slavery. Slaves became an enormous burden during the drought because, although they were accustomed to being treated poorly and over worked, slave owners were obligated to provide a meager sustenance to ensure their investment remained alive and productive. During the Great Drought this became impossible for the majority of slave owners, particularly those in the interior who were most affected. Therefore one of the real watershed moments contributing to the end of slavery in Ceará started during the drought

18 19

Theophilo, Secca, 48. Ibid.,175-176.

149 era. The number of slaves being sold during this period is quite notable. The majority of these slaves were sent to the South to work on the southern coffee plantations that were still in need of labor. Also many of the slaves were sold to urban areas such as Fortaleza and Aracati, in some cases for as little as a bag of farinha. 20 The drought also created an opportunity for slaves to run away. The droughts were a time of confusion and chaos. Imagine up to 90% of the interior population leaving their homes in flight to the major cities or in many cases to bordering states or beyond. It was very hard for the government to police and impose the normal social order. Reports suggest that many slaves took advantage of the chaos. In the newspapers of the day there were several announcements of slaves running away and it was believed they had run to camps that were set up for the free people where they had integrated themselves into the migrant population. For example, there was a notice about Jacintha who was 24 years old “and was to be passing as a retirante” Other slaves, too, were reported in the newspapers of the day. 21 No doubt many were able to blend in with the rest of the migrants who were headed to the Amazon or Pará, as one paper had announced. 22 As I have discussed in chapter two it was quite normal for slaves to run away in Ceará and pass for free, but what made the drought experience different was that it gave slaves an additional opportunity to be successful in their attempts to flee and claim freedom. In this case, the

20

Teófilo, Historia da Seca, 250.

21

Correio Da Assembléa Provincial, November 25, 1877.

22

Ibid, May 12, 1878. If we check clippings of runaway slaves during the period of the drought, we will find that most of the newspapers make reference to the slaves escaping with other retirantes or emigrants who were leaving the region because of the drought.

150 state actually unwittingly financed the voyages of slaves passing as free to other states like Pará and Amazonia. 23 Chart 4.5 Number of Slaves Exported from the Province of Ceara 1872-1880 Year Number of Slave Export in Ceará 1872 291 1873 501 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880

24

710 894 768 1,725 2,909 1,925 1,108

As the chart above demonstrates, there were huge numbers of slaves sold in this period; more than double the usual number were exported from Fortaleza to the south in 1877, and more than triple in 1878. In 1879, this trend continued and the number of slaves sold increased. After the drought, in 1880, the export of slaves continued, though the numbers were less than during the droughts; The yearly rates remained higher than pre-drought rates, mainly because there was a market for slaves in the south of Brazil. The distinction between free and non-free people was destabilized in these regions. As I shall discuss in more detail, the majority of free people were forced to endure a type of humiliation that only slaves had endured till then. They were treated

23

As I discussed in chapter two, it was not uncommon for slaves in Ceará to runaway and blend into the normal population. Slaves in Ceará were most often native born, in most cases the same color of the majority of the free population, and performed the same work as the popular classes. 24

Ferreira Neto, A Tragedia Dos Mil Dias: A Seca De 1877-79 No Ceará, 192.

151 with little respect and were characterized as lazy. The monarchy aided the region economically but the help was inadequate to rebuild the region. Elites began to believe that the best way to help these folk was to provide work. But in reality the work was created was also quite inadequate and did little to alleviate the crisis. Often the retirantes were paid nothing more than food. The workers often felt like they were slaves. In fact one newspaper, O Eco do Povo referring to the notorious public work project that successfully built the Baturite railroad wrote that “Each engineer is a Feudal lord of the line that treats the public, especially the workers and employees, like slaves...they rise when they (the engineers) pass, hats in hand, and eyes looking to the ground in a signal of absolute obedience”. The majority of the political elite of Ceará also believed that the Sertanjeros were racially problematic and had to be disciplined. One project was intended as a training ground to transform the retirante into a productive citizen. The second president during the drought said: In my humble opinion the right to assistance is correlated with the obligation to work. A worthy man always needs to work, in any industry. Thinking that it is not appropriate to work is socialism, and I recognize only this, the obligation of man contributing his service. Really, society is nothing more than a general exchange of services, between the state and the citizens. 25 The ideology of liberalism was dominant among the elite and the building of the Baturite railroad was an example of how this ideology played itself out. Both the liberal and the conservative parties meant it, locally and nationally, to be humane, but in reality this kind of work did not solve the basic problem of saving the people from disease and starvation. Moreover, most of the retirantes did not appreciate the supposed gift of working on the 25

Tyrone Apollo Pontes Cãndido, Trem Da Seca (Fortaleza: Museu do Ceará, 2005), 58.

152 railroad. The workers from the Sertão were over worked and paid very little, particularly if they had no real skills applicable to building railroads, and what they were paid they were forced to spend at the company store. During the second year of the drought many of the workers were so unhappy with the jobs that they left the next year to go back to the sertão in the hope that there would be more rain. The elites saw this type of behavior as indicative of why the workers had to be disciplined and trained. The politicians and intellectuals from above thought they the Sertanjeros should be grateful for work, but the Sertanjeros knew they were being exploited and negotiated for better wages. 26 Violence also erupted between the employees and employers. The bosses often traveled with armed security to ensure order. In many ways the work on the railroad was similar to slavery, because the retirantes were not truly free. They were coerced into their jobs. There were armed security men ensuring that they were productive, and did not abandon, their work. There was a sense that no charity should be given but rather, that the Sertanjeros needed to learn the value of good work. For the elite, the Baturite railroad project was an example of training the Sertanjeros to work in the modern world. Under these circumstances one could understand that differences between slaves, urban freed men, and the poor peasants in Ceara were disappearing. The elite were becoming more and more interested in liberalism and believed a disciplined free labor market was a way to promote progress The elite of Ceará were interested in developing a class of free labor that would modernize Brazil. Slavery was becoming an anachronistic labor force. The problem with their ideas was that there were 26

Ibid.

153 no protections for the popular classes, and there were no plans to improve the conditions of their life. As the public projects during the droughts illustrate, there was very little real differences between the free labor that the elites envisioned and slavery. Response From Above Generally, Brazil’s elite classes did not respond to the drought by aiding the poorer classes with free food or money. The only organization that provided any significant relief was the Catholic Church. The church’s mission was to help the poor. They did not support the notion that charity was bad and only work could solve the crisis. The church was of great service to the people, providing hospital care, burial services, and help to orphans in almost every major municipality. 27 However the church was unable to solve the substantial problems of the retirantes. The only institution that could possibly handle such a catastrophe was the state, but aid through charity was rejected across the entire political spectrum with the exception of a few individuals and leaders. The unifying belief of almost all the elites was that providing work was providing aid. In 1877 a group of engineers studied the situation of the retirantes and proposed ways to remedy it. They considered many legitimate proposals, but few projects were actually implemented because the monies were never adequate and the funds that were provided often went to corrupt government officials rather than the projects. Some projects were completed such as a railroad from Baturite to Pactuba in 1878. 28 Projects to pave roads and clear woods, as in Coco where some 3000 retirantes were given the work, were

27 28

Cunniff, “The Great Drought,” 131.

Kempton Webb, The Changing Face of Northeast Brazil (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), 32.

154 successful. 29 Other construction projects included building chapels and cemeteries like the one that was built in 1878 in Granja, but these public projects had almost no impact on really helping the victims of the drought. 30 The majority of the population continued to move to the capital or to other major local cities where at least there were camps and other minor forms of assistances. 31

29

Ibid,100.

30

Andre Frota de Oliveira. Quadros da Historia de Granja no Seculo XIX (Fortaleza: Expressão, 1996), 183-186.Theophilo, Secca ,145-148. 31

Theophilo, Secca, 97.

155 Chart 4.6 Part of the Credit Went to the Following Cities 32 S. Francisco 2:000$000 Icó 2:000$000 Pacatuba 2:000$000 Aracaty 2:000$000 Telha 2:000$000 Quixeramobim 1:000$000 Jaguribe-mirim 1:00$000 Quixadá 1:000$000 S.Benedicto 1:000$000 Morada Nova 500$000 Pedra Branca 5000$000 Acarape 500$000 As the list above indicates, many of the major cities of Ceará received limited aid from the national government almost from the beginning of the drought. It was agreed that the best way to help the retirantes was to put them to work on public projects but the reasoning behind this varied. In 1877 a group of engineers gathered at the Polytechnic Institute in Rio de Janeiro for a conference to consider how to alleviate the conditions of this drought as well as future droughts. The leader of the group was the famed engineer and future abolitionist, Andre Rebouças. He believed the drought victims should be put to work but only as a way to help them solve their problems in the long term. Andre Rebouças and his colleagues had written several proposals to end the suffering and misery of the drought. Rebouças wrote “In Ceará and her sisters of the unfortunate, there are enormous lands in the maritime littorals and rivers, in the region of perpetual vegetation, that are still

32

Ibid., 85. As Roger Cunniff notes in his dissertation “The Great Drought” on page x“the basic unit of Brazilian currency was the milreis, composed of one thousand reis (singular, real). One thousand milreis made a conto. Thus one hundred reis was written $100, one hundred milreis, 100$000, one hundred conto 100:000$000, and one thousand contos 1.000:000$000.” A conto is equal to about one thousand United States dollars in contemporary times.

156 uncultivated due to the lack of population. To put the retirantes in these lands subdivided in colonial plots is undeniably the best of projects to combat and lessen the actual calamity of this drought and to prevent a repeat in the future.” 33 Andre Rebouças believed that scientific progress could be used to improve the lives of the popular classes and not just the rich. He even proposed land reform as part of the solution, but even the most progressive people who, like himself, were the visionaries of the nineteenth century, fell victim to some of the language of scientific racism, although he refused to embrace all aspects of scientific racism. He believed that through education, one could overcome one’s “racial” past and be “civilized”. He said: Raise the Negro; cover his barbarous nudity; provide him with a piece of land; permit him to create a family by allowing him Rural prosperity; accelerate his Well- Being…; teach him; instruct him; educate him in everything and with everything for the final fusion of the Great Human Cosmos. 34 Rebouças’s writing is evidence that though intellectuals from his era were trained in a Eurocentric ideology, they did not have to be racist or buy into biological determinism. Moreover one could argue that Rebouças, who was of African-ancestry, was seeking a way to erase racial barriers in Brazil and he envisioned a nation where people of all races and backgrounds had a chance to participate as full citizens. He realized that in order to do this, the poor had to be educated and trained, but more importantly they had to have land that they could cultivate. Rebouças remains one of the few exceptions on the right side of history. Many of his ideas were Jeffersonian. He advocated a rural democracy where all citizens would have access to a plot of land, and where there was a school and 33

Joaquim Alves, Historia Das Secas: Seculos XVII a XIX (Fortaleza: Colecão Instituto Do Ceará, 1953), 180. 34

Leo Spitzer. Lives in Between: Assimilation and Marginality in Austria, Brazil, and West Africa, 17801945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 151.

157 church in every town. 35 Moreover, he believed that all races had the capacity to be civilized, unlike Thomas Jefferson, who thought blacks were incapable of participating in society as citizens. In that way his ideas were ahead of his time, because even in Brazil there were very few intellectuals that were able to think so deeply about the nature of race and democracy. Many local intellectuals wanted reforms that would alleviate the misery of the droughts. Tristão de Alencar Araripe, a Cearense politician, was actively trying to provide long-term state services to alleviate the suffering of the people from the interior. Araripe is another example of a man who was trapped in the racist thinking of his time. Unlike Rebouças, Araripe could not escape these views, which were often racist and Eurocentric. However he too, genuinely wanted to end the misery in Ceará, and was more vocal than many about helping the poor. Still Araripe could not, by contemporary standards, be considered as progressive as Rebouças, though when one reads his history of Ceará one is impressed with the amount of documentation and information about the region that includes and with his ability to process all the latest scholarship of the day about Ceará. However, in his view, only Europeans could truly push Brazil forward; therefore, there is no question that Tristão Alencar was ambivalent about the people he was helping. One way that he seemed to reconcile his belief in European superiority with his ideas about race, was to reinvent the popular classes as white. He engaged in the same kind of fiction that Joaquim Nabuco did about Machado de Asis. In his history of Ceará, he announced that in Ceará, the Indian race had died, and there is no mention of blacks in his book. In fact this was the strategy of writers who followed Araripe, including one of

35

Alves, Secas.180-181.

158 Ceará’s most popular historian, and Ceara’s equivalent to Euclyde da Cunha: Gustavo Barosso. All of these writers ignored the influence of indigenous and African people, and when they did mention them, they treated them as inferiors or problems. Another strategy, employed by progressive writers such as the abolitionist Joaquim Nabuco and Raimundo Girão, was not to treat blacks as problems but to argue, rather, that Brazil is a place where race relations are good. In many ways this is the whole point of Girão’s book about the abolition movement in Ceará. 36 He argued that Ceará did not have many blacks, and suggested the Cearense were quite civilized because they freed their slaves earlier than the rest of the country out of the altruism of a mainly white abolition movement. Unfortunately, it was not pure altruism that was the real reason for the demise of slavery in Ceará. As Girão himself points out, slaves represented a small percentage of the society and were not really economically necessary. 37 What was needed was a free, disciplined work force that listened to instructions and obeyed orders. The drought showed that the elites did not think the popular classes were worthy even of charity in a time of crisis. Many elites believed these folk of “dubious”38 racial backgrounds deserved what happened to them, or, if they did not go so far as this, they felt contempt or hatred for the retirantes because they were indolent and backward and were retarding progress in Brazil. Also, land reform was not a concern of the elites as it was for Rebouças. There was no mention locally or nationally of such reforms.

36

Raimundo Girão, A Abolicão no Ceara (Fortaleza: Secretaria de Cultura e Desporto, 1984).

37

Ibid.

38

Alves, Secas.180-181.

159 The deputy 39 from Ceará, Tristão de Alencar Araripe, suggested creating several canals. He noted that: When Ceará has canals from São Francisco, artificial lakes through the middle of dams, perennial fountains, small artezianos, adopts the ports to the necessity of business and build train tracks until the fertile valleys of Cariri , will Ceará be able to secure her destiny and will challenge her sisters without fearing the consequences in force of production and vitality40 All of these suggestions were ignored. The regional and national governments were divided on how to implement these long-term solutions. Rebouças, who was a proponent and friend of the monarchy and Araripe, who represented the regional government, were not divided by party or region, but by mentality. The majority of the elite seemed to have neither the interest nor vision to solve the problems caused by the drought, either in either the short or long term. The question, naturally, is why this was the case. Why did the elites respond to the Great Drought with such indifference? The constitution of 1824 states that aid was to be given to citizens in an emergency. 41 Yet few resources were marshaled either to by private citizens or the government to assist drought victims. The anti-abolitionist, Barão Cotegipe, who was the finance minister of the Empire, argued that the government had neither the monies nor the resources to carry out the type of reforms that the polytechnic school proposed, which were far less than what Rebouças suggested. Cotegipe did support giving limited resources to several projects and did like the idea that the retirantes should be used as a source of cheap labor. The idea that the Sertanjeros should be put to work was the one unifying notion among the intellectual

39 40 41

The Brazilian deputy was equivalent to an American congressperson. Alves, Secas, 190.

João Camillo de Oliveira Torres, A Democracia Coroada, Theoria Politica do Imperio do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1964), 373.

160 community. The local and national political elites were overwhelmingly in favor of this type of aid. As I have shown, the droughts were a common occurrence, but the response to the droughts was not preventive. Thousands of people were allowed to die or be dislocated despite the educated scientists and engineers who claimed to know ways to minimize the suffering. The engineers were considered unrealistic. They were trying to change an environment that could not be changed and even more critically, they could not change the mentality of the underclass or Sertanjeros who had brought their suffering on them selves. There were bizarre ideas promoted by scientists who claimed that they could alter the weather or change the climate with the science of the nineteenth century. One scientist proposed planting special trees that could attract moisture. 42 In contemporary times many of the ideas of these scientists seem ridiculous. Yet we must not forget that many scientists, particularly those from the Polytechnic School, were very proactive in trying to solve the problems of the drought and some, like Rebouças, cared deeply about alleviating the misery of the popular classes. The indifference to the drought is all the more troubling when one considers all the leading scientists of the day who had devised plans to alleviate the suffering. There were political elites who were appalled at how poor the response was to the drought. The majority of them were in opposition to the party that was in power, and believed the monarchy’s response to the drought was insufficient. A newspaper article entitled “A Letter to the King”, in O Retirante, the only newspaper to officially champion the drought victims, argued that the king should do something about the drought. The author went on to say that:

42

Cunniff ,“Great Drought” 189.

161 If in Egypt they had a drought, we are certain that his majesty would have gone to the state and would have communicated to the French Academy and consulted the results of their studies, this is what we heard in some conversations with some wise men. But the drought is in Ceará, where he knows only how to listen so that our excellent monarchy who speaks all the languages living and dying and knows the exact and inexact sciences. 43 There were other reports in the newspaper of the era denouncing the national government for closing their eyes to the drought. José Alencar, the great writer and intellectual, was a powerful politician in the mid nineteenth century. He was a confidant of Dom Pedro and was thought to have considerable influence with the royal circle. Yet during the Great Drought he was very slow to support any action to help the retirantes, even for monies to support the construction of a railroad in Baturite, although it was argued that it would help provide jobs for them. One could argue that Alencar did not support the project on the grounds that he saw the public works project as manipulative and preferred a less exploitative way to help. However, he argued it was a bad investment for the crown. The main critics against José Alcencar were members of the liberal party, and one of their Newspapers, Os Cearense, also acknowledged the severity of the drought. There is no drought, they say in the conservative press, and meanwhile the hunger and the misery continued spreading horribly. From the interior they began to arrive. They come from persecuted emigrants from the misery. The day before yesterday thirty-two people came from Aracaty in the boat “Maria Amelia”. What is the significant of these facts? Is it pure inventions, mere exaggerations, political speculations that Cearenese are driven from funeral carts in the Praca Ferreira. 44 From the very beginning, the Liberal party supported funding public works but, ironically, though they complained about the ineffectiveness of the conservatives they did 43

O Retirante, September, 16, 1877.

162 not support aid in the form of charity either, and proved equally ineffective in stopping the misery. They too were imbued with the notion of the backward Sertanjero. Moreover, when the government did respond with limited resources, many of the liberals who were complaining were also responsible for the corruption. 45 The president of the conservative party, Caetano Estelita Pessoa, also advocated fighting the drought from the beginning. Interestingly, he was pressured to resign some six months after the drought had begun. 46 Members of his own party believed that Pessoa spent too recklessly in his efforts to solve the problem. Although he was actually trying to mobilize the national and local government to take action, his actions were undermined by the national bureaucracy. Help from Barão Cotegipe was slow in coming, and the small amount of aid that the president did receive for the province never actually made it way to the victims because of corruption. Moreover, he was willing to give charity, not just relief through public work. The president of the province seemed to care about the problems of the citizens and took the drought seriously, trying to do something about it. A good portion of the money sent by the Empire was ultimately used to help local elites induce the retirantes to work as cheap laborers. Other money was directly stolen and the victims never benefited from the aid. The support from Pessoa was genuine but his support, as well as that of a few others was not sufficient to stop the loss of life, prevent the local elites from stealing, or convince the royal government to invest even more resources.

45

Cunniff. “Great Drought,” 160-161.

46

Ibid.

163 Benign Neglect Nordestino Style

It is important to emphasize that perhaps fewer people would have died if it were not for the benign neglect that prevented the elite from acting. The people who suffered were disproportionately poor peasant farmers who were of “dubious” racial background in the eyes of most elites. The free peasants or Sertãjeros from the interior of Ceará were seen as backward, uncivilized, and lazy by both regional and national elites. Often the drought was blamed on them. Even the author of the most important study dealing with the drought, Rodolpho Theophilo, who wrote Historia da Secca do Ceará and was an abolitionist, showed little tolerance for the popular classes. In another book he wrote in the early twentieth century called Variola e Vacinacão no Ceará, he described his work as a pharmacist vaccinating drought victims. He says: Ordinarily half-drunk. excited by alcohol, they sleep on their carts talking incessantly. You can see them arriving from the window like a vision from a tombstone laid out in the street. This sad spectacle is tolerated when our decency is not offended. It is not rare that these marginal’s are poorly dressed and practically nude, and they highlight the parts that we wish they would hide. 47 Rodolpho Theóphilo is articulating his image of the Sertanjero as backward and uncivilized. When reitirantes were heading to Recife from the interior, it was noted by the head of Recife’s Public Health department that “from everywhere there rise complaints against the populations, enervated by laziness and the absence of the habit of labor. Healthy men, robust and without defects…judge it their right to be fed while spending their life lying down in a hammock…As a consequence, our province is becoming the

47

Sebastião Rogerio Ponte analyzes the contempt and anxiety toward the drought victims, in his article “A Belle Epoque em Fortaleza” in Uma Nova Historia de Ceara.Edited by Simone de Souza (Fortaleza:Edicões Democrito Rocha 2nd editora, 2002),168. SeeRodolpho Theóphilo, Variola e Vacincão no Ceará (Fortaleza: Fundacão Waldemar Alcantara), 13-14.

164 receptacle for the inert and vicious population of the neighboring provinces.” 48 Another official from Ceará argued that these people were without law or manners and that their behavior even further deteriorated when the backlanders congregated in big crowds. A judge from Ceará blamed much of the suffering on “ the habitual idleness of men….caused by climate, who knew nothing about how to save for times of adversity.” 49 In fact when the engineers and scientists of Rio de Janeiro met to come up with practical solutions to the crisis, Guilherme Capanema, one of the leading members of the institute, who did not attend the meeting with the other scientists due to illness, wrote several articles dismissing his colleagues’ reports, on the grounds that the misery that the poor peasant farmers endured was, in fact, their own fault. If only the peasants would stop believing in superstition and be more rational, they would not be faced with these problems. In fact in one article he argued that the droughts were good, but the Cearense simply lacked the knowledge of “how to alter the situation”. 50 Unfortunately the structural reforms that the polytechnic Institute suggested were never enforced and would not happen in this period. The states’ (national and regional) sympathies lay with free market forces and organized labor that produced agriculture for international export. The majority of these drought victims from the interior of Ceará were subsistent farmers who did not produce cash crops for export. This required regimented workers who would be paid very little to do this hard work. It was not in the interest of the Sertanjeros to be modern laborers like 48

I have borrowed many ideas about elite concepts of the Sertanjeros from Gerald Michael Greenfield’s article “The Great Drought and Elite Discourse in Imperial Brazil” The Hispanic American Historical Review,1992 ,379. 49 50

Ibid. ,381. Alves, Seca, 199-203.

165 those who built the Baturite railroad. 51 The Sertanjeros were, in many cases, working for them selves, or on someone else’s land. Their work was not as regimented, and they had more autonomy than the Baturite railroad workers had or what many elites had envisioned for workers. 52 The national and local elites were educated in the ideals of free trade, which we will explore further, in the next chapter on the elite abolitionists. The response of the elites to drought is proof of their indifference to the Sertanjeros. 53 The droughts were nothing new and moreover, there were solutions put on the table but they were not implemented. As Joaquim Alves points out in his book Historia das Secas: “Of the suggestions presented not one was planned and executed.” 54 This pattern of benign neglect would continue way into the twentieth century all through the republic period. There remained the opinion that using resources for helping the backlanders was a waste of money and time.

Reading Race in the Great Drought

The question of how race can be read still remains. Race is implicit in the fact that the majority of the men and women leaving the Sertão for help were people of Indian and African ancestry.

51

Many did grow cotton but the elites did not see that as sufficient for a modern economy. See Canidos, Trem da Seca. 52

Ibid., Candido shows that the workers that built the railroad had to be coerced to work because the Cearense were more interested in returning to the Sertão. 53

Capnema points out that just about two droughts occurred in every generation. Alves, Seca, 203.

54

Ibid.

166 From the title of Araripe’s 1867 text, A History of the Province of Ceara: From the Primitive Times to 1850, we can ascertain his perception of the indigenous population. In this history, Araripe is clearly influenced by scientific racism. There is ambivalence here and there are contradictions as there are in Eulydes De Cunha’s writings, but like many Brazilians of his he day he took the ideas of scientific racism seriously. For instance he writes, “The facts indicate that the Caucasian race can assimilates all the races. Enough so that as the Caucasian race develops her immense energy and vast intelligent over the other three races, in the opinions of the scholars, the other races will decrease and disappear from the face of the earth slowly and gradually”. 55 The idea of whitening the race was a concept that was already in vogue in Brazil by 1867, and shows that provinces like Ceará were familiar with such theories. 56 Many of the intellectuals like Tristão Alencar Araripe, had been exposed to ideas about eugenics and scientific racism. Many had studied at the famed Recife Law School and others in Rio de Janeiro. Araripe had studied law in São Paulo and was part of the first class in the Recife Law School. In these schools the European intellectuals of the day were lionized and their work was treated seriously. In later years there were literary societies and several literary and academic journals in Ceará that were disseminating these ideas to the elites of Brazil. Elites were all educated in the same schools, and were affected by scientific racism that was norm of the day. Moreover, in the nineteenth century, there were very few educational options in Brazil, making it less likely for the elite classes being able

55

Tristão de Alencar, A History of the Province of Ceara: From the Primitive Times to 1850 (Fortaleza: Democrito Rocha, 2002), 59. 56

Ibid.,59.

167 intellectually to escape the noose of Eurocentric thought. There were intellectuals that did, for sure but it was rare. 57 Therefore it is not wrong to think that there was an elite mind-set that was developed in the same schools by reading the same books. 58 It is what the French annales school would identify as mentailitie. 59 Therefore men like Tristão Alencar Araripe were grappling with a profoundly Eurocentric education from which they were trying to map out their own identity as Brazilians. For Araripe, the indigenous influence on his region was a major preoccupation. In his history he repeatedly attempts to minimize the indigenous influence: “The indigenous population is today insignificant in the province, and has almost totally disappeared. Leaving the woods and mixing with the white and black races, today the aborigines already do not make a noticeable number” 60 Later in his book he justifies the taking of their land: “The land is the domain of a race less favored with moral capacity and intellect. They should not impede the development of another race more capable of defeating nature.” 61

57

The Afro-Brazilian, Manuel Querino, who lived during the empire and republic is an example of an intellectual who rejected Eurocentric supremacy and argued for a more balanced multi-cultural understanding of Brazil. See his work, Costumes Africano no Brazil (Rio de Janeiro: Civilizcão Brasileira, 1938). 58

This idea of an elite mindset is not my idea. Many scholars agree with my assessment. Principally I borrow from Gerald Michael Greenfield’s article on the Great Drought but he also developed this from other scholars who show how elites were educated in the same places, and were developing their eurocentric ideas from the same books and schools. See José Murilo de Carvalho "Political Elites and State Building: The Case of Nineteenth Century Brazil,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1982, 396397. 59

Patrick H. Hutton, “The History of Mentalities: The New Map of Cultural History” History and Theory, 1981, 237-259. 60

Ibid., 154.

61

Ibid.

168 The intellectual elite derived their ideas about the reitirantes largely from the language of positivism. The positivist movement held strong currency in Brazil, particularly the works of the British writer, Herbert Spencer, and the French writer, August Comte. On the Brazilian flag is the saying, “order and progress.” 62 This phrase is classical positivisms. The idea that there was a specific path to civilization and progress preoccupied the elite who were nation building in Brazil. Other influences were Charles Darwin, and the French writer, Artur Gobineau, all of whom were studied by the elite. The concept of superior and inferior races was entrenched in the work of all of these European writers. The question was how Brazilians could construct a nation that was non-European and still be modern and civilized. Questions of the links between race environment modernity and progress were central. A key text that was quintessential in grappling with these questions was by Euclides da Cunha who wrote the book Os Sertões in 1902, some eighteen-years after abolition in Ceará. He is pertinent to this discussion because his book encapsulates the fears and anxiety of generations of Brazilian elites. He brilliantly conceptualized the language of the European intellectuals of the nineteenth century who supported and believed in scientific racism, in his description of Canudos, a movement of Sertanjeros who threatened the hegemony of the Old Republic (1889-1930) by daring to be autonomous, free of the state. He described the people from the sertões as atavistic based on their race. There was no hope for these back-landers in his view. Their Indian and African blood doomed them.

62

The modern Brazilian flag did not become the official flag until 1889; however the ideas of the republic had their origins in the nineteenth century.

169 There are many examples of such language in de Cunha’s chapter, “The Men.” 63 For instance, he begins this chapter by pointing out that in his estimation “ the genesis of a mestiços race of Brazil is a problem that will for a long time challenge the best spirits of Brazil. 64 When he says mestiços race, he is speaking of people of mixed European, African, and/or Indian ancestry. Cunha saw this “race mixing” as unfortunate because these biologically inferior people were undermining any opportunity for Brazil to be a truly modern nation. He had a grudging admiration for the Sertanjeros because he saw them as brave and tough people who survived in the often-inhospitable northeast. Cunha had a romantic view of them. He admired their toughness and strength. While he particularly looked favorably on the indigenous influence on the back-landers, he had an unfavorable view of the African influence. However, in the end he supported the government’s destruction of the community of Canudo, his book was a best seller of the day and articulated the fears and anxieties of the elite. Cunha’s work eloquently used contemporary theories of eugenics and racial hierarchies. These ideas had been around since the mid-nineteenth century. The Cearense elites of the day knew and understood them. In fact, scientific racism was a product of the European enlightenment and its concern with progress and civilization. 65 As Cunha argues in Os Sertões, nature and race were inevitably linked, which left the Sertanjeros without any hope. In many ways, Cunha’s book is dour and pessimistic, because with

63

Euclyde da Cunha, Os Sertões (Campanha de Canudos) (Rio de Janeiro: Lambert and C. Editores, 1902), 65-221. 64 65

Ibid. , 65.

See Thomas Skidmore, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993)

170 Brazil’s natural terrain and her biological make up, she could never expect to rise to the standards of Europe. The only possible hope Cunha saw was in European immigration This book remains one of the preeminent documents that coherently expresses the elites’ fear of poor backward peasants uniting and threatening their hegemony. It contains liberal views on order and progress but discusses the possible consequences of a rural, racially ambiguous class left to their own devices, the class that prayed to saints for water, which Capanema, the dissenting engineer from Rio de Janeiro, considered to be irrational. 66 This may explain the benign neglect of the elites who could not help these people even in the short term. There were no intellectuals in Brazil and specifically, in Ceará who refused to aid the victims on the grounds that they were of Black and Indian descent. Still, race was linked to class; and seems to be linked to the independent subsistence farmers, who were not engaged in the profitable international export economy, and were poor and uneducated. Race, class, and rusticity are a powerful combination and present a picture of a worker who was not appropriate to the Brazilian economy of the late nineteenth century. These subjects did not represent progress and order. Cunha’s work is a wonderful synthesis of an ideology that has thrived since the mid- nineteenth century.

Constructing the Identity of Ceará with the Novel

One of the best ways of getting at the views of the mid-nineteenth century intellectual elites of Ceará is to read their fiction. Even when they appear to be embracing

66

Cunniff , “Great Drought,"95.

171 or admiring the Sertanjeros, they represent them as backward or lazy. In the midnineteenth century there was a literature that romanticized the indigenous population, but could not quite see the Indian culture as a source of progress. For instance, Franklin Tavora, who believed that fiction could be a way of telling history, represented the Indians in his novel, Os Indios do Jaguribe as indolent, lazy and fundamentally backward. In the first chapter of his book he presents many of the themes that were being debated in the mid and late nineteenth century, particularly the emergence of an economic divide between the civilized south and the primitive north. He explains this division by looking back at the Northeast during the colonial period. He argues that the initial conquest by the Portuguese was justified but was somehow abandoned for “archaric feudalism” and “hybrid noblemen,” a reference to their troublesome racial background. As does Cunha in Os Sertões, he makes the link between the natural habitat and the willingness of the people of the Sertão to be hopelessly but contentedly backwards. His descriptions of the Indians are again of the noble savage, people who are unable to grasp modernity and progress. Indian resistance, both culturally and physically, to the Portuguese and their descendants, is interpreted as barbaric and backwards. 67 José Alencar, a relative of Tristão de Alencar Araripe, explored this idea of hybridity more fully in his 1865 work, Iracema. He argued that the natural terrain and animals, in addition to the strong indigenous influence, had strongly shaped the people of

67

The English traveler Daniel Kidder notes the same thing in his travels of 1839 of the Sertão of 1839 when he says” Multitudes of Indians inhabit Ceará, in a state of semi-barbarism. As a general rule they are idle and vicious, living chiefly upon indigenous fruits or those which are cultivated with scarcely any trouble-but seeking occasional plunder” This quote is of note because it represents the extreme Eurocentric worldview, of the time. Kidder also makes negative cultural judgments about the indigenous population. But more importantly, his statement shows there were still indigenous cultures in the sertão in 1839 and those cultures would remain there in the culture of the Caboclo, a hybrid of European and Indian. This emerging hybridity was a source of great anxiety. Daniel Kidder, Sketches of Brazil V.2, 1845 224.

172 the Sertão. His novel is replete with the division between the beach littoral and the hinterland. The littoral is the place of the Portiguar Indians and their Portuguese allies and the Sertão is the domain of the Tabajara Indians, who are savage and dangerous. In the novel, Iracema, the female protagonist, gives birth to a new race, the caboclo. At her death she leaves her son Moacir to Martim, the male protagonist, who is white and Portuguese. In many ways the character Martim is based on Martim Soares Moreno, one of the first settlers of Ceará, who was known to have an Indian lover and to have adopted many Indian ways. In Alcenar’s novel, the European colonizer is an agent of civilization though he acknowledges the agency of the indigenous population. They are in part responsible for what is uniquely Cearense or Brazilian. Alencar understands that Iracema, an Indian, is part of the Brazilian nation but she is a woman so she cannot be the ultimate leader. She must die and Martim the Euro-descendant, is the hope of Brazil and the only one who can truly represent the modern nation. 68 There is a history of ambivalence toward the non-Europeans among the elite of Ceará and the elite of Brazil, generally. Their romantic view of the Indian stressed the freedom and liberty Iracema possessed, but this freedom was undisciplined and backward. Therefore, in the imagination of the majority of the elite, these caboclos were doomed. The language of the nineteenth century elite expressed the Sertão as not only backward because of the environment but also because of the inhabitants’ race. The Sertanjero was reviled because the sertão was a place where the Indian culture and presence were still dominant and where the indigenous population was thought to have a

68

This interpretation of the novel is, in part influenced by the literary critic, Ria Lemaire, “Re-Reading "Iracema": The Problem of the Representation of Women in the Construction of a National Brazilian Identity”Luso-Brazilian Review, 1989, 59-73.

173 strong hold on the society. But interestingly, the Cearense intellectuals did not identify the people of the sertão as black. There are few references to the blackness of the sertão. If we look at the census records in Appendix I, which were discussed in the first chapter, it is apparent that the population of Ceará and by extension the sertão, was overwhelmingly of African descent. But in the novels, and even in Brazilian travel journals like Gustavo Barroso’s, Terra de Sol there is a lack of black representation. 69 Fascinating is the fact that British travelers like Henry Koster in Travels in Brazil, notes blacks and Indians in the sertão. 70 We know that black people and their descendants were prominent in the sertão because of census data. English travelers document it,. We can trace this silence. Afro-descendants in the sertão who were neither slave nor African but were born in Ceará and, as Koster has pointed out, were not proud to be seen as black. 71 The description in the introduction of Joaquim Nabuco’s outraged reaction to a person who was writing Machado de Asis obituary and who described him as mulatto, is evidence that there was a tendency in Brazilian culture to treat blackness as a problem, particularly in the nineteenth century. The racial element was a significant factor in the negative response to the reitirantes, who indeed were children of the sertão. As Cunha articulates in Os Sertões, these people were seen by the elites as degenerates, a problem which could be linked to their inferior racial identity.

Conclusion 69

Gustavo Barroso argues that negros played a small role in the development of Ceará but this is incorrect. In fact if you read closely he acknowledged that there is a history of people of African ancestry there but he claimed there were no “pure” blacks. Terra do Sol: Natureza e Costumes do Norte (Fortaleza: Edições Demócrito Rocha, 2003),136. Barroso first published Terra do Sol in 1912.

70

Koster, Travels in Brazil, 234.

71

Ibid.,176.

174 The Great Drought played a role in the destruction of slavery. The economic crisis of the drought undermined slavery because slaves became a luxury that many could not afford to maintain. Also, since the economy was never truly dependant on slavery, there was less resistance ending slavery and the focus shifted to using free labor. The liberal urban elite who truly believed in ending slavery, faced less opposition in the north than they did in the south, in part due to the drought. In Ceará, free labor was readily available and having a slave was considerably more expensive. Even in the early nineteenth century, when slaves were relatively cheap, they never dominated the work force as in other regions. In a time of crisis they were even more of a luxury and this was especially true during the Great Drought. Slaves were sold for below-market value and were of no practical use. 72 This environmental disaster also helped showcase the basic disregard and contempt that the national and local urban elites had for the subaltern classes who were not only poor but were people of African and indigenous descent. As I have shown, however, this contempt was not universal. We can gather from their reaction to the drought that the vast majority of the elite were indifferent to the subaltern classes and saw them as inferior, and part of their indifference was because they were non-European and hopelessly destined to failure. At best they were useful as laborers, but they had to be disciplined and controlled. One wonders what would have happened if the recommendations of André Rebouças had been followed. Unfortunately his voice was largely ignored and the Great Drought retirantes endured an extended migration from the rural Northeast to the urban areas in Ceara and outward to other states. The majority of the ruling class was unable to imagine

72

Girão, A Abolicão no Ceará, 63.

175 the destitute migrants as citizens with rights and privileges in the nation and not as marginal people. They insisted on seeing the poor, particularly those with African and indigenous ancestry, as problems, as people who could not be assimilated into the nation. The Povo were ignored and worse, were treated as a menace to the nation. In the next chapter I will discuss the abolition movement in Ceará and continue to explore the theme of freedom, because the majority of the elite who were setting policy there were, ironically, also abolitionists.

Chapter 5 THE MEANING OF FREEDOM AND THE FIGHT FROM ABOVE AGAINST SLAVERY IN CEARÁ Ceará provides a unique perspective on the abolition movement in Brazil, because it was the first province to end slavery, Four years earlier than in the rest of Brazil. This chapter will focus on the major actors in the abolition movement and the preeminent antislave societies by examining what they thought about the meaning of freedom. This chapter is most concerned with what freedom meant to the mostly white male elite who were vocal in the fight against slavery in Ceará. This chapter also continues a discussion about the elite conceptions of race. I am particularly concerned with how abolitionists saw people of African and non-European ancestry incorporated in the nation. What were their views about incorporating the former slaves into the nation, particularly in the context of Ceará?

Background of the National Abolition Movement Before examining the abolitionist movement in Ceará, it is important to discuss the movement in Brazil in more general terms. The movement in Ceará did not occur in isolation. The abolitionists of Ceará were deeply connected to the national movement, and local actions played a pivotal role nationally as a pioneer of emancipation. Ceará provided hope and inspiration to abolitionists in the rest of Brazil, Nevertheless, the abolitionist of Ceará though they were in many ways the same as far as education and economic class. Most of the abolitionists were from the middle or more wealthy classes. Many were educated in the Law School of Recife, the medical school in Rio de Janeiro, a few schools in São Paulo, or in technical schools. An overwhelming number of

176

177 abolitionists were highly educated and were well aware of international politics and thought. Some like Andre Rebouças had traveled to the United States, and had studied in Europe. Some like the mulatto abolitionist José Patrocinío were Francophiles, enamored with French politics. The chief strategist of the abolition movement in Brazil was Joaquim Nabuco. He had been a diplomat to the United States and had traveled the world. Their international experience and literacy made abolitionists particularly sensitive to the philosophical perspectives throughout the western world. A large majority of them were liberals who were guided by the progressive principals of the enlightenment and progress. Not only were they driven by the philosophies emerging from France, and to a lesser extent England, 1 they were engaged by all the intellectual thinking of the day, which including Darwinism, positivism, and other strands of intellectual thought. Many of the intellectuals who wrote about the Great Drought were also abolitionists. For example, Tristão Alencar Araripe was an abolitionist and Andre Rebouças was a national spokesperson against slavery. Rodolpho Teophilo was also an abolitionist. In fact most of the major intellectuals of this period were abolitionists. José Patrocinio wrote several news stories about the Great Drought and was a critic of the suffering and misery and appalled by the lack of help for the retirantes. He was also appalled about slavery and was one of the fiercest advocates for ending it in Ceará. 2 He visited the region twice, a critic against slavery after his initial visit to report about the droughts

1

Thomas Skidmore, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993). 2

For discussion of Patrocinio’s reaction to the drought see: Cicnato A Ferreira Neto, Tragedia Dos Mil Dias: A Seca De 1877-1879 No Ceará. (Fortaleza: Premius Editora , 2006),251-253.

178 They believed that slavery was impeding the progress of the nation. In their estimation, no civilized nation had slavery. Joaquim Nabuco was probably the most important intellectual protesting Brazilian slavery. Nabuco was a Northeasterner from Pernambuco, whose family had made their money from the toil and suffering of slave labor on their sugar plantations. Nevertheless, he grew up to become one of the fiercest fighters against slavery. 3 Although Nabuco may have been the most articulate of his generation, he was in many ways typical in his thinking. His hopes and dreams as well as his anxieties were common to the abolitionists of his day. For them slavery was not only morally wrong but it retarding Brazil. As Nabuco notes, the abolitionists were not driven by religious zeal:

In other countries the propaganda of emancipation was religious, preached from the pulpit, fervently supported by the various churches and religious communities. Among us the abolitionist movement unfortunately owes nothing to the state church. On the contrary, the ownership of men and women by the convents and by the entire secular clergy completely demoralized the religious feelings of masters and slaves. The slaves saw nothing in the priest but a man who could buy them, while the masters saw in him the last person who would think to accuse them. Our clergy’s desertion of the role which the Gospel assigned to it was as shameful as it could possibly have been….No priest ever tried to stop a slave auction; none ever denounced the religious regimen of the slave quarters. The Catholic Church, despite its immense power in a country still greatly fanaticized by it, never raised its voice in Brazil in favor of emancipation 4 Many historians of abolition have noted that, unlike in the United States where many abolitionists, like the Quakers were driven by religious zeal and believed slavery to be a

3

It is important to note that Nabuco’s father was also against slavery and helped formed many of his son’s thoughts. For discussions of Nabuco see Carolina Nabuco ; translated and edited by Ronald Hilton in collaboration with Lee B. Valentine, Frances E. Coughlin, Joaquin M. Duarte, Jr. The Life of Joaquim Nabuco (Stanford: Stanford University Press,1950). 4 Joaquim Nabuco, translated and edited by Robert Conrad. Abolitionism: The Brazilian Antislavery Struggle (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977), 18-19.

179 sin, Brazilians were driven by moral outrage what united all was the notion that Brazil needed to be modernized and slavery represented a backwards organization of labor. 5 Moreover, most white abolitionists believed themselves to be living in a multi-racial society where there was racial equality. Nabuco believed Brazil was basically a racial democracy. In his eyes slaves may have occupied black bodies but it did not necessarily mean Brazilians were racist. In his ranks were many mulattos, such as Andre Rebouças, Jose Patrocino, Luiz Gama and, others who were part of the mainstream society. People of color often dealt with their identity in contradictory ways. For instance, though Machado do Asis, Brazil’s most important man of letters, was clearly a man of color, as discussed earlier, Nabuco seems to object to the characterization of de Assis as a mulatto. If Nabuco did not harbor anxiety about blackness, why did he insist on the fiction of Asis being white? The answer is that Nabuco believed and acknowledged that Brazil was a multi-racial society and that slavery was wrong, but he thought that race was a malleable concept, and that through proper education and training people of non-European heritage could also be “civilized.” Nabuco believed in the idea of racial democracy in Brazil: Speaking collectively, slavery never poisoned the mind of the slave toward the master-fortunately for us-nor did it arouse between the two races that two-way loathing which naturally exists between the two races outside. Slavery. was never bitter, and the man of color found every avenue open before him. The debates in the last legislature and the liberal way the Senate agreed to the political eligibility of the freedmen (that is, the extinction of the last vestige of inequality carried over from slavery) prove that in Brazil color is not, as in the United States, a social prejudice with such built-in obstinacy that little can be {done for the purpose victimized by it, even by character, talent and merit.} This fortunate harmony in which the different elements of our nationality live is for us a benefit of the greatest importance. 6 5

See Celia M. Azevedo, Abolitionism in the United States and Brazil: A Comparative Perspective (New York : Garland Pub., 1995).

6

Nabuco, Abolitionist, 21.

180 Mulattos and some blacks, like the writer and politician Manuel Querino, had reached prominence during the Imperial period. 7 However, the response to the Great Drought made clear that Brazilian elites harbored enormous anxiety and shame about race. 8 Yet in a contradictory way Nabuco believed in Brazil as a racial democracy and acknowledged the contributions of people of African ancestry in Brazil. In the first place, the part of the national population which is descended from the slaves is at least as large as the part descended exclusively from the masters; this means that the black race gave us a people. In the second place, everything which has existed until today in the vast territory called Brazil was constructed or cultivated by that race; this means that it was the blacks who built our country. For three hundred years the African has been the main instrument of occupation and preservation of our territory by the European, and during that long age their descendants mixed with our people. Where the black has not yet appeared, the country looks like that seen by the first European explorers. All of man’s struggle with nature, the conquest of the soil for habitation and agriculture, roads and buildings, sugar plantations, and coffee groves, the house of the master and the huts of the slaves, churches and schools, custom houses and post offices, rail roads and telegraph lines, academies and hospitals-everything, absolutely everything that exists in our land as a result of human toil, as well as the use of labor and the accumulation of wealth, is none other than a gratuitous donation from the race that toils to the race that forces it to toil.9 Nabuco did not seek to create an apartheid system like the one that he encountered first hand in the southern United States, or even an informal one, which existed in the north. This was not really possible in the era of the Brazilian empire, because Brazil was more than two-thirds non-white. But what is interesting about Nabuco is that he was not only against slavery, but acknowledged Brazil’s African heritage he proclaimed the debt

7

For discussions about Manuel Querino see Jaime Sodré, Manuel Querino: Um Herói da Raça e Classe (Salvador: Brazil, 2001).

8

Skidmore, Black into White. He argues that the Brazilian elite adopted an ideology that he calls whitening which “allowed its believers to entertain seemingly contradictory ideas-to condemn American treatment of the Negro (segregation and suppression) while at the same time justifying the submergence of the Brazilian non-white”, 131.

9

Nabuco, Abolitionist, 20.

181 that Brazil owed its population of African descents. Still he harbored enormous anxiety about Brazil’s population because he was an advocate for European immigration, not only on the grounds that labor was needed but that Europeans represented a more advanced racial group. Moreover he believed Brazil was backward and underdeveloped because of the institution of slavery. Therefore although he acknowledged the contributions of blacks, their right as citizens, and had friends and colleagues who were black, he was ambivalent about a vision of Brazils future of the nation as an African nation. Nabuco did not praise Brazil’s African past in the way that Gilberto Freyre would some fifty years later, or celebrate it. Nabuco urged and ending to slavery, but he has no interest in African culture. 10 His generation was not comfortable with its African heritage and certainly had not come to terms with it. This was the case even for abolitionists like José Patrocinio, Andre Rebouças, and other prominent mulattos, who were horrified by African culture and would never champion an Afro-Brazilian culture. 11 The abolitionists in Ceará shared this national sentiment towards slavery and race. Overwhelmingly they also were most interested in progress and thought slavery was retarding it. This was something upon which all the abolitionist could agree. However, as discussed in chapter three, conceptions of race and freedom among the elites of the 1870s were not radical when compared to earlier generations of abolitionist radicals like Raimundo Gomes or Cosme. The elites of the abolition movement had more in common with the elites

10

Freyre promoted Afro-Brazilian culture by organizing conferences to study Brazil’s African past, Nabuco would not have thought African culture legitimate in building the nation. 11

The eurocentric tendencies of most of the mulatto elites is discussed in Thomas Skidmore’s article “Racial Ideas and Social Policy in Brazil, 1870-1940 in the book edited by Richard Graham, The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870-1940 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994) 8-9. For a more extensive discussion of this subject see David T. Haberly, Three Sad Races: Racial Identity and National consciousness in Brazilian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

182 discussed in chapter four who were prone to believe in scientific racism and the idea of superior and inferior races. The point is even the more radical abolitionists were accepted these ideas about race. Although they were against slavery and thought of Brazil as a multi-racial society, there was enormous anxiety that because of these very characteristics, Brazil was at a disadvantageous in constructing a progressive nation. However as I have noted, people like Andre Rebouças thought the way toward progress was through education and land reform and others such as Nabuco looked to the immigration of Europeans to develop the nation and to end slavery. Nevertheless, many elites had championed ending slavery long before, including the emperor, Dom Pedro who was a conservative abolitionist. Dom Pedro had freed many of his personal slaves since 1840 and was the key actor in the 1871 Free Womb Act that freed the children of slaves. However Dom Pedro wanted slavery to end without radical reforms. He realized that if he moved radically, particularly if he ended slavery without compensating the planter class that could cause social unrest and possibly civil war. Nevertheless Dom Pedro found slavery unacceptable and tolerated the radical abolitionists as long as they respected the law. 12 Therefore there was a national movement to end slavery before and concurrent with the movement in Ceará. Moreover the rationale and mentality of Cearenses was by in large the same. What was different in Ceará was the socio-economic situation.

12

By the 1850s Dom Pedro was speaking against slavery. See Robert Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 1850-1888 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 71-76.

183 The Abolition Movement in Ceará In Brazil, with the end of the legal slave trade within Africa in 1850, with the free birth act in 1871, and with the basic antagonism of the emperor toward slavery, it was just a matter of time before it was abolished. 13 In Ceará there were additional reasons for the ending slavery. For one, it was never of major importance to the region. Secondly, the major droughts that helped expedite its decline. Finally, because slavery was never particularly important to the region, there was no planter class fighting against abolition as there was in places like São Paulo. The abolitionist movement in Ceará did not gain true currency until the drought of 1877-1879. 14 Slavery lost much of its legitimacy during the Great Drought. Their owners saw slaves as useless and burdensome. During this period the popular classes also had experienced humiliation that even many slaves did not face. Most important, however, the elites did not really need slaves for their economy to function profitably. Aggredos and other plebeians who worked the land were usually free. There were a few intensive sugar plantations that produced rapadura and cachaça, for local consumption but they were not part of a major export economy. Hence the economy worked quite well without slavery, notwithstanding the problem of the droughts. Nevertheless, there were abolitionists in Ceará before this, particularly after 1850 when the British applied international pressure to end the slave trade, and in 1865, when the United States ended slavery. After this, the pressure to end slavery intensified exponentially and intellectuals were heavily influenced by world events. Abolition also 13

Ibid.

14

I will discuss this further in my conclusion.

184 gained momentum from the war with Paraguay (1864-1870). Black slaves from all over Brazil were conscripted into the army and as a result, more slaves were manumitted in Ceará than in any other period until the abolition movement. Not only were these slaves freed but, like black soldiers in the African diaspora they were radicalized. They would no longer accept second-class citizenship. 15 Politicians began to dismiss slavery and actually proposed banning it. The best example this is Felix De Souza, whom Eduardo Campo calls the forgotten abolitionist. De Souza was a lawyer educated at the University of Pernambuco, a training ground for abolitionists. He served as a journalist, Professor of Geography at the Liceu Cearense, and became a local congressman in Ceará. From a session in congress in 1865 we learn of his disdain for slavery. On August 21 he introduced a bill to impose a tax on owners of all slaves over 12 and under 60 years of age that were sold out the state. 16 In the same session he declared that he was introducing this bill because of his distaste for slavery. He argued that slavery was evil because it was backward, barbaric and unchristian, and that all of the most modern countries, like the United States, no longer permitted slavery. 17 In the end, he was not successful but we can learn from this how the Cearense abolitionists

15

For a discussion about black slaves as soldiers see Peter M. Voelz, Slave and Soldier: the Military Impact of Blacks in the Colonial Americas (New York :Garland, 1993).

16

Revista do Instituto do Ceará,1984, 133-142.

Revista do Instituto do Ceará 1984, 135-136 “Sr. Presidente, essa instituição execranda, anticivilizadora, e até mesmo anticristã, deve acabar: e não seremos nós que a devamos ter por mais tempo, mormente sendo ela hoje reprovada por quase todo mundo civilizado. Os Unido Estado, esse colosso americano, que ombreia com as primeiras potencies do mundo, ainda ontem tinham também escravos; reconhecendo porém esee grande, injusto e monsttuso erro, não trepidou em arcar com a horrivel guerra civil, pela salutary idéia da emancipação dos escravos, acabando, com um só golpe, de elevar todos a condição de homens livres, dando-ihes direitos de cidadãos americanos dos Estados Unidos. Nós, cearenses, dotados de gênio tão liberal quanto os americanos dos Estados Unidos, não podemos também deixar de concorrer fortemente para acabar com esse direito imoral e detestável. 17

185 were arguing against slavery. Felix De Souza was in line with most national abolitionists in Brazil. Their major concerns were with the ideals of liberalism, “progress” and the idea of a modern state. However Souza was a lone voice because the government dismissed his call for abolition.. They argued that slavery such hierarchies were the natural order of the world. It is fascinating in the debate is that Souza’s main argument against slavery was that the United States and the rest of the civilized world did not have it. Moreover, he argued that slavery was anti-Christian and uncivilized. 18 He says In response to a deputy, he said: Mr. President the institution of slavery is anti-civilization and is also anti-Christian, it must be stopped: we do not have much more time, we have been shown the way by almost the whole civilized world. The colossal United States, that shoulders the first power of the world, still had slaves almost yesterday. However, they recognized that slavery was a major injustice, and they did not have fear fighting it with a horrible civil war, for the idea of emancipation of slaves, finishing with a coup that help elevate all Americans to their rights as free citizens. We Cearense doted our good nature unlike the Americans who were not able resist the strong competition to end the immoral and detestable horror of slavery. 19

The most important abolition organization to emerge from Ceará was the Sociedade Cearense Libertadora. It was founded in December of 1880, as an offspring of another organization called Perseveranca e Porvir, which was founded on the eighth anniversary of the Law of the Free Womb, September 28th 1879. Perseveranca e Porvir was an organization dedicated to promoting commerce in Ceará, and initially worked as a

18

See Eduardo Campo edited document “Felix de Souza, O Antiescravista Esquecido” in Revista do Instituto do Ceará, 1984, 135-136. 19

Ibid.

186 philanthropic organization that

bought the freedom of many slaves from their slave

masters. . 20 The Main members of this organization were: José Correia do Amaral: President of Perservanca, His parents were Portuguese. He was a successful businessman and a partner in a firm that produced iron Jose Teodorico de Castro: Vice president of Perservanca. He was the oldest at 36. He was born in Aracati. He a successful merchant and an officer in the military. His family owned one of the largest import houses in Ceará. Joaquim José de Oliveira Filho, Treasurer of Perservanca. He was born in Lisboa and at the age of nineteen was one of the first to establish a bookstore in the Praca do Ferreira. 21 Antonio Dias Martins Junior was a journalist and poet. He wrote for a variety of journals and was the leading journalist for Libertador. He was a well-known poet who fought hard for the cause against slavery. Antonio Cruz Saldanha, . He and his brother Francisco were successful merchants in Fortaleza. Saldanha was a militant republican and liberal. 22 José Barros da Silva, He was a speculator and businessman. In 1882 he moved to Pará Manuel Albano Filho, He was the youngest, at 21. He was a merchant and trader who helped found an import business called Albano and Irmão. He died at the age of 29 Alfredo Salgado, The longest living of the abolitionists was Alfredo Salgado. At the age of 14 he left to study business in England. He spoke English, German, and French. He was the Secretary for Perseveranca, and worked for an English importing firm until he started his own firm. 20

The following list is taken from Girão, A Abolição, 90.

21

Ibid.

22

In modern U.S. language the words liberal and republican are often used differently than they were originally intended. In this instance I am referring to a political ideology that broke from the ideals of a monarchy and embraced the idea of a government that, theoretically, represented in some form, the interests of the people as opposed to a monarchy with divine rights. In this sense both major modern political parties in the U.S., the Democrats and Republicans, are liberal and embrace the ideas of a republic.

187

Raimundo Maciel was the owner of a warehouse that dealt principally with coffee. One of his sons, Godofredo Maciel would go on to become the mayor of Fortaleza and a governor from the territory of Acre Luis Xavier da Silva e Castro: He was a schoolteacher and a notary public. The men were all members of Perseveranca E Porvir. Antonio Bezzera points out, in his book O Ceará e os Cearenses, that the Perseveranca E Porvir was mainly organized mainly to promote the business interests of merchants in Ceará. 23 Hence, it is no surprise that the majority of the members were merchants. Nevertheless, they were dedicated to ending slavery and were republicans who dreamed of a “modernized Brazil”. The members of Perseveranca E Porvir helped finance and organize the Cearense Libertadora ,an organization whose sole purpose was to end slavery. 24 It was founded in December of 1880, almost a year after Perseveranca E Porvir. The leadership of this organization consisted of: President, João Cordeiro, Vice President, Jose Correia do Amaral, 1st Seceratary Dr. Frederico Borges, 2nd Secretary, Antonio Bezerra de Meneses, and Lawyers, Dr. Manuel A da S.T. Portugal and Captain Justino Francisco Xavier, Treasurer, Captain João Crisostomo da Silva Jatai, Proxies;

23

E’ preciso confessar que a idéia partiu de uma associação comercial, da Perseverança e Porvir e do consocio Antonio da Cruz Saldanha.” Antonio Bezerra. O Ceará e os Cearenses (Fortaleza: Editor Assis Bezerra, 1906),43. 24

João Cordeiro describes it best in his autobiographical sketch in the Revista do Instituto do Ceará 1945 ,276 “Em dezembro de 1880 J.C. foi convidado por alguns sócios da “Sociedade Perseverança e Porvir” para fundarem uma sociedade que se ocupasse da propaganda e da abolição dos escravisados. J.C. acceitou o convite com grande enthusiasmo e com os rapazes da “ Perseverança e Porvir” convocou para o palacete da assemblea legislative da Provincia uma reunião dos abolicionistas para a fundacão de uma sociedade que instalou-se com o nome de Cearense Libertadora.

188 José Caetano da Costa, João Carlos da Silva Jatai, João Batista Perdigão de Oliveira Eugenio Marcal. 25 João Cordeiro was one of the major strategists of the abolition campaign in Ceará. He says in his autobiographical sketch that he was invited to join the Sociedade Cearense Libertadora as a member and was subsequently elected president of the organization. 26 Before he joined, he co-published another journal called Mossoroense that was dedicated to promoting the idea of Brazil as a republic. . He worked in several import houses and traveled to New York, with the intentioned of living there, but apparently became homesick and returned to Fortaleza to continue working for his former boss. Later he formed his own export house, specializing in cotton. After accomplishing his goal to end slavery he became a senator for the new republic and formed a friendship with Floriano Peixoto. Other important members of Sociedade Libertadora Cearense were Frederico Augusto and Manuel Ambrósio da Silveira Torres Portugal. Both were graduates of the famed University of Recife School of Law. Both wrote extensively about liberalism and were profoundly influenced by positivism.. Manuel Ambrósio spent most of his career as a Professor of Portuguese. He also became a deputy in the congress Borges worked as a government bureaucrat after receiving his law degree in Ceará. He was fired from his government job in 1881, because of his anti-slavery activism.. He used his skills as a lawyer and writer to help end slavery. The most important intellectual and one of the best prose writers of Libertadora was António Bezzerra de Meneses, one of the few to

25 26

Júlio César da Fonseca in “Em Torno da Abolição,”Revista do Instituto do Ceará,1924, 357-358. Revista do Instituto do Ceará, 1945, 270.

189 document the happenings of the abolition movement. He wrote several books, including Algumas Origems do Ceará, Notas de Viagem ao Norte da Provincia, and the book that best describes abolitionism in Ceará, O Ceara e Os Cearense. He also helped found several literary and academic organizations like the Institute of Ceará and The Institute of History, Geography, and Geology. There were other members such as João Carlos da Silva Jatai who did not have a liberal profession, He was a carpenter but gained a reputation fighting against slavery and during the monarchy served in the equivalent of congress. The members of the organization were merchants, businessmen, academics, journalist, lawyers and doctors. Moreover their class and professions were representative of the abolitionist movement in the rest of Brazil. . The abolitionists tended to congregate in urban areas even if they were not born in the urban centers, and tended to be neither poor nor very rich, but rather middle class. What the leading abolitionists all seemed to have in common was education. They were literate and well aware of what was happening in the world around them. Many had traveled to Europe and the United States or studied in institutions like the University of Law in Recife, and as a result were versed in Western European ideas about slavery. Brazil by 1880 was almost the last country in the Western hemisphere to sponsor slavery, with the exception of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Countries like England, France, and even the United States looked down on slavery. For the abolitionists, the driving factor was the sense that it was backward and archaic, both culturally and economically. The impulse that these abolitionists had was to modernize the nation. Slavery represented a source of shame, and the majority of the professional classes in Ceará shared this sentiment. The abolitionists were well acquainted with Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the movement to end slavery in the United States, the Industrial

190 Revolution in England, the French revolution and the French concept of Liberty Fraternity and Equality. These topics were all discussed in their newspaper. 27 The major organ that SCL used to end slavery was a weekly journal called Libertador. This journal helped to spread the ideas of the movement and published weekly attacks against slavery. Inside one issue was listed called “cannibals” The article went

the names of slave traders,

on: “in the century of light in a country of

civilization it seems impossible but we still have cannibals, unfortunately very close to us…. Buyers and Sellers of Human Flesh” It then listed the address of the slave owners: Alexandre Pires Seabra, Estrella Street Antonio Ferreira Guterres, Ribeirão Street Alipio Solano da Fonseca, Poco Street João Gonçalves Nina, Egypt Street João Emiliano Valle do Carvalho 28th of July Street” 28

The newspaper also highlighted laws that had not been enforced. In one article it lamented the 1831 law that prohibited the slave trade, to which the Brazilian government had turned a blind eye too. According to the article, over 326,318 slaves were trafficked illegally. The article pointed out that slaves who were brought to Brazil after 1831 were free. 29 The paper was an advocate for existing laws against slavery, like the Free Womb act of 1871. The paper served as a support for slaves who were able to take advantage of the clause in article 86 2040 that allowed slaves to fight for their freedom in court. 30 27

Libertador, January 15, 1881.

28

Ibid, July 29, 1881.

29

Ibid, Feburary 7, 1881

30

For more information about the Free Womb Act see appendix III.

191 There was one instance where a slave and her two children were given their freedom in the city Sobral in 1878 but the woman who had inherited them wanted to keep the family as slaves arguing a technicality in the law 31 The newspaper publicized this story to shame her. The newspaper also featured poetry and turgid essays based in the liberal ideology of economic and cultural progress. The journal’s poet in residence was Antonio Martin.. His poetry often invoked ideas of brotherhood and fraternity among all men. One poem went like this: “Bravo! The blue wave/Kissing the land of light/Murmurs, tender, elevated/The precept of Jesus/Men are brothers/Equal seats as citizens. 32 His poetry was against racism and for a society that was against slavery and against inequality among men. The Cearense Libertadoras were classic liberals influenced by the political philosophy of the French and to some extent North American writers.. One can see this in the platform that they adopted in 1882. In this document the Libertadora champion twelve points that included the education of all classes, the freedom of the press, the promotion of free trade and commerce, the modernization of agriculture sector, the elimination of hierarchy of government, the protection of art and science, a decentralized government, and, of course, the end of slavery.. 33 Their twelve- point program is worth analyzing because between that and their newspaper we can learn a lot about the organization.

31

Ibid, July 29, 1881.

32

Roberto Attila do Amarel Vierira, Um Heroi Sem Pedestal A Abolicão e a Republica no Ceará (Fortaleza: Imprensa Oficial do Ceará, 1956) 107.

33

Libertador, Fortaleza, November 2, 1882.

192 Chart 5.1 Program of the Libertador 1.

The complete Liberation of slaves in five years. Without fear we will aggressively fight for this goal against enormous obstacles 2. The truth in the discourse of the press, not including the government platforms or popular comedians 3. Loyalty to the purity of our customs, respect, probity, to ourselves 4. The repression of crime by the: rich and poor, the noblemen and Plebeians, the literate and the illiterate and everybody in authority 5. The prosperity and enrichment of our farms by modern methods of farming. We also condemn anachronistic practices that make agricultures backwards 6. The development of rich pastures for improving the stocks of animals: adopting the processes of Zoologists and Veterinarians 7. The diffusion of the press for publication and the protection of journals of art and science 8. The propagation of public instruction for all classes, without extravagant buildings but a number of capable professors to educate all workers 9. The decrease of public workers for the suppression of opening and increase in salaries to the few workers that truly carry out the difficult work of the state 10. The decentralization of all branches of public service. The autonomy of municipalities and the extinction of subservience to the powers that be. 11. The defense of the unprotected, when their rights are violated, and the elevation of the people so they are able to see their ability and power. 12. The support of legitimate interests of commerce, honest labor practices and the protection of all for one and one for all

In many ways the twelve-point plan resembled the Rights of Man and the American constitution. They supported freedom of speech, they had a distrust of government and wanted the popular classes to be heard, but they were also concerned with modernizing the nation and encouraging the merchant class, which is no surprise since the majority of the men were merchants or their families were merchants. Their interests were not original, or a break with liberal orthodoxy. The United States, England, and France were already practicing these ideas. Moreover, most of the Libertadora were Republicans, and unlike some other abolitionist, were not allied

193 with the king. The Libertadora were not socialists or truly radical as far as the division of resources was concerned. The ideas of socialism and Marxism, that were being discussed in Western Europe in the late nineteenth century were not being discussed in Brazil. Brazilians wanted to reduce the size of government not enlarge it. They advocated for universal education but had no ideas or specific plans for how mass education would work. In the Libertadora there was no profound discussion about creating a larger bourgeoisie. Moreover they did not go even as far as Andre Rebouças and advocate any type of land reform. Presumably salaried work as had built the railroad in Baturite, were the most the workers could expect after slavery. The Libertadora’s main objective was to end slavery but had no plan to improve slaves’ economic plight. The majority of slaves was illiterate and held no property. There was no mention of what would happen to them . Nor was the question of mentioned because Brazilians like Joaquim Nabuco believed Brazil was already racially tolerant and other abolitionist were not really concerned with the rights of the black population and did not care what happened to blacks after slavery. There was a prevailing idea among the elite that the gift of “free labor” was a sufficient prize for the slave. Indeed for most ex-slaves who were freed during the period of slavery, which was the majority of the Afro-Brazilian population, freedom did not significantly change their socio-economic condition although a sizable minority, through their own agency and enormous talent, did manage to arrive at middling positions in the empire. 34 The majority of free people of

34

José Napoleão and José Francisco Nascimento were examples of blacks and mulattos who had reached midlevel positions in the empire. Other lighter skinned mulattos like Justino Serpa were able to reach the very top of the social pyramid. Although it is was no secret of his origin as a mestiço. Brazilians in everyday life would identify him as white.

194 African ancestry lived at the bottom of society and there was no economic plan to integrate or elevate this community. Race, Racism and the Meaning of Freedom among the Cearense Abolitionists The abolitionists in Ceará were remarkably silent about race and racism. Their major preoccupation was ending slavery. They constantly referred to slaves as their brothers and fellow citizens, and spoke about the cruelty of slavery and acknowledge it as an evil and immoral act . 35 Antonio Martin’s poems highlighted their supposed brotherhood with slaves and the rhetoric that all men were equal. However the ideas of superior and inferior races were very much in vogue in elite circles. It was commonly believed in this era, that blackness was equal to inferiority. Yet among the Liberadoras there was silence on this issue. One article directly support the inclusion of former slaves in the future of Brazil. 36 Arguing against the popularly held view of black inferiority, this article posits a future in which slaves will enjoy equal rights and blacks will attend universities, serve as congressman, senators, and priests, and become full participants in the Christian faith. 37 In many ways this article represents the abolitionist perspective on race and racism in

35

The Libertador were full of references that stressed the equality of men and of fraternal brotherhood. For instance the newspaper quoted expressions such as “Ama a teu como a ti mesmo” from the Bible. Libertador Fortaleza February 7, 1881.Also this sentiment was often expressed in the poems of Antonio Martin. See Bezerra. O Ceará, 53. 36

Libertador, Fortaleza January 15, 1881. A baixo a escravidão: Esta mais que provado que trabalho livre é que enão aquelle que augmenta a fortuna publica, amontada á custa lagrimas e do sangue dos desgracados.Acreditamos que nestes cinco annos, quando muito, a nobre e heroica provincia do Ceará Consequencias da emancipação: Quando muitos philantropos da Europa não podião acreditar na possibilidade de conseguir, que em poucos annos a raca africana fizesse a evolucão da semi-barbaria da escravidão para o maximo estado de civilização, no goso de todos os direitos de cidadão de uma Republica perfeitamente democrática, vemos que esse prodigio está realisado: ha negros nas Universidades, nas Academias, nos Collegios e nas Escholas; ha negros deputados e senadores; ha negros padres e em todos os ramos da religião Christian. 37

Ibid.

195 Ceará: that racism did not exist in Brazil. There were no articles in Libertadora about free blacks encountering racism. The members of the Sociedade Cearensese Libertadora were all considered white. The only men of color were the mastic, Martinho Rodrigues de Sousa and the mulatto Francisco José does Nascimento (Dragão do Mar). José Napoleão who was a free black, having bought his freedom, was also invited to join the SCL but supposedly turned down the invitation . The circumstances of his refusal and lack of interest in joining an antislave group have never been adequately explained. 38 It seems strange that he would be against joining the group when he himself had fought against slavery and had bought freedom for himself and various members of his family, but the existing documentation is silent on this matter. 39 There are no known writings by Napleão. Members of the Libertadora wrote all we know about him. If the abolitionists of the Libertadora harbored anxiety about race, they did not express it. On the contrary their mantra was one of solidarity and equality for all. Still, a closer reading of Libertadora reveals some implicit apprehension about race. In the article mentioned above, the author argues that slaves would one day become a part of society. He goes on to say that Brazil does not have the same problem as the United States does because there are only about 200,000 slaves in five or six states. Presumably he is talking about the northeast, and is implying that in other provinces slaves make up such a small

38

In an article fifty years later, Isac Amarel acknowledges the importance of Napoleão in O Nordeste, Fortaleza, Ceará (1934), 1. 39

See Edson Carneiro’s ground breaking anthology which details a lot of the history of the Afro-Brazilian community as well as presenting an outline of his life Antologia Do Negro Brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro: Brasil, 1967), 70.

196 percentage of the population that their numbers are insignificant. 40 Is the author suggesting that if there were a larger number of slaves in Brazil it would be impossible to “modernize” the society? Does he see Haiti as a hopeless society because over 90% of its populace is black? Why should the racial make up of the country affect its ability to “progress” whether in Brazil or in the United States? Slaves were mostly illiterate, but so was most of the population of Brazil during the empire. Many of the immigrants who came to Brazil in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century were not highly literate, either. 41 The Brazilian elites were at war with themselves about their identity and who they wanted to be as a people. Many white abolitionists were ambivalent towards blacks. They argued for the end of slavery but did not have full confidence in the Afro-Brazilians’ ability to be full citizens. Many abolitionists argued that slavery was dangerous to whites. One Brazilian writer wrote that slavery was bad because it caused whites to be lazy and unproductive, and retarded the nation technologically. 42 This writer had no concern for the slaves. This ambivalence can be found in a statement by the white abolitionist and statesman José Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva, who said, “if Negroes are men like us, and do not constitute a separate species of irrational animals…..what a picture of sorrow and

40

Libertador, Fortaleza, January 15, 1881. “problema aqui é infinitamente mais fácil do que nos Estado Unidos: Os escravos empregados na lavoura propriamente dita não excederão muito a 200,000; e acham-se só em cinco ou seis provincias. Nas outras as escravos são em numero tão insignificante que em quasi nada influira a emancipação.” 41

George Reid Andrews, Blacks and Whites in São Paulo Brazil, 1888-1988. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991). 42

David T. Haberly, “Abolitionism in Brazil: Anti-Slavery and Anti-Slave,” Luso Brazilian Review, 197273, 32.

197 misery do they not exhibit to the feeling and Christian mind.” 43 Even Joaquim Nabuco, Brazil’s leading abolitionist, was passionate against slavery but ambivalent about race. Nabuco acknowledged the contributions of the African descendent population in Brazil, and he spoke of equality for all people. However, he was a chief proponent of European immigration, not only because he believed that immigrants would provide cheap labor, but also because European immigrants were white. Moreover he was adamant about restricting non-European immigration, which is evidence of his preoccupation with Brazil not being white enough 44 Elites across the political spectrum worried about Brazil racial make-up. This issue is absent from the writings of the Libertador. The Libertadora seemed to be sincere about its contempt for slavery, and the journal did not equivocate on the question. Its goal was to end slavery. However, the problem of race and racism was much more complicated. The abolitionists of Ceará were not isolated from the rest of the mainstream intellectuals in Brazil or the rest of the western world. They were well versed in the literature of Thomas Buckle, and Arthur Gobineau, who did not believe that “non-white” people were equal to Europeans. Race was a common topic in the literary clubs of the day. To their credit, most of the abolitionists seemed to be fighting this mentality. There were no discussions of eugenics in their journal. They emphasized the brotherhood and fraternity of men. The Libertadora were not racist, they were Eurocentric, classic Liberals. Like most intellectuals of this era they looked to Europe for guidance in nation building, and to a lesser degree to the United States, a nation which, at the time, was

43

Ibid.

44

Skidmore, Black into White, 21.

198 politically retreating from its own avowed ideas of fraternity and equality enshrined in the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. 45 However, although abolitionists were exposed to the same literature, one should be careful about lumping the abolitionists of Ceará in with those of the south, because there were differences based mostly on different regional economic circumstances. For example, Antonio Bezerra was not impressed with Italian immigration. He argued that Italian immigrants were responsible for bringing crime and anarchy to São Paulo. He contrasted them with the Cearense who had migrated to the Amazon and had proven to be good workers and a benefit to the economy. 46 This point is critical to understanding race and identity because scholars usually emphasize that abolitionists and intellectuals were enthralled with Italian immigration. They perceived it as a way to solve the labor crisis that would follow the end of slavery and as a way to whiten the nation. 47 Bezerra, however, realized that the Cearenses were a source of labor. The various droughts had created enormous outward migration and the Cearense had been good laborers in places like Amazonia. Therefore it was completely unnecessary to spend state monies subsiding Italian immigration, or providing them land

45

Even the United States a country that was imbued with liberal principles of democracy never turned to the logic of enlightenment. They dismantled the civil rights of African-Americans by constructing the idea of separate but equal, thereby upholding the law of the 14th and 15th amendments, but in practice maintaining the oppression and second class citizenship of blacks. To be fair, there were liberal progressives in the United States who also believed in the equality of blacks, but this group was a minority, who could not sway the majority. It was this white liberal elite who, after abolition, helped promote literacy among former slaves and were responsible for building segregated black colleges, a phenomenon that never existed in Brazil. For studies on reconstruction see W.E. B. Dubois. Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880 (New York: Russell and Russell, 1964). Unfortunately reconstruction was what Rayford Logan called a betrayal because the promises of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendment were all broken. 46 47

Bezerra, Ceará, 42. Andrews, Blacks and Whites, 52 and Skidmore, Black into White, 135-136.

199 and other resources to the detriment of the native population. 48 Perhaps the state could have provided resources to improve the life of the Sertanjero, particularly during the drought, or provided land in the frontier areas, as was done for some German immigrants. But the Brazilian government all too often perceived the laborers from the northeast to be lazy and backward. European laborers would save the nation. For the northeastern intellectuals the end of slavery was in part a metaphor for the end of what they saw as a backward and nonfunctioning state. Although they were products of the scientific racism endemic in Europe and the United States, they seemed to be wrestling with how to interpret and deal with it particularly when they lived in a region that was overwhelmingly of African and Indian descent. They did not advocate European immigration schemes nor discuss them in their journal Libertadora. The majority of the members of the SCL had had strong ties to republicanism well before the abolition movement in Ceará was fully developed. The leading abolitionist, João Cordeiro, documented this in his autobiographical sketch . 49 Antonio Bezzerra was also a Republican. Moreover one can infer their proclivity toward republicanism and liberalism from their manifesto. It emphasized a smaller government, citizens obtaining government jobs through merit, and a free market for merchants, all liberal ideas associated with a republican form of government. SCL leaders believed in universal citizenship, and were against hierarchies based on royalty or race. They completely embraced bourgeoisie values. Still, there was tension about how to create a multi-racial

48 49

Ibid.

João Cordeiro, “Apontamentos Biográficos de João Cordeiro escrito por ele próprio” in Revista do Instituto do Ceará. 1945, 270- 292. He is said to have stood up and screamed “freedom for all” at the founding meeting of the SCL.

200 society if the majority of the elites in their society had doubts about the population of African and indigenous descendents. Brazilian society and in many ways the western world was not able to extricate itself from the psychological trap of scientific racism. Though they all interpreted it differently the dialogue was still about the idea of superior and inferior races. The difference is that writings in the Libertador seem to lack the pessimism of others regarding the heir nation’s racial composition. They focused on issues that concerned freeing slaves and repeated over and over the call for of brotherhood and fraternity, despite having no adequate plan to ensure that all men could live in fraternity and brotherhood after slavery. Their focus was on the present and not the future. Integration was not debated at length. They believed the act of freeing the slave was radical enough.

Liberalism, Freedom and the Meaning of Freedom in Ceará Although the Libertador were thoroughly bourgeoisie in its political positions, there were those who were alarmed at what they perceived as radicalism among the group. These men sought to rearticulate their concept of the abolition movement. The Centro Abolicionistas, also were referred to as the Legalist, represented this group. The Legalist was also against slavery and advocated for its end, but were appalled at the methods the Libertadora was using. An article that was later published in the Revista Instituto Do Ceará, written by one of the founding members of Centro, Julio Cesar Da Fonseca Filho, calls the Libertadora troublemakers who, as a group, were inciting revolution. The Centro

201 wanted to end slavery in a legal and orderly fashion. 50 The Libertador responded with a column that argued that the Centro did nothing to help the cause they supposedly represented. 51 The Centro Abolicionistas was founded in 1882 and its members included Dr. Guilherme Studart (Barão de Studart), Julio César da Fonseca Filho, João Lopes Ferreira Filho, and Antonio Miranda. Many other members signed on to support the organization. 52 The Centro were more or less of the same socio-economic class as the Libertadora but represented different political philosophies. They were conservative and wanted change to happen as it was already, slowly. In the end they were afraid of anarchy, and the actions of the Libertadora scared them. During a protest against slavery, Libertadora members advocated violating the law if necessary to end slavery. 53 Also, as I will discuss below, the SCL was organizing the popular classes. The Centro accepted that slavery was a lost cause and that abolition was the future in Brazil. It was just a matter of time. However, the Centro wanted this transition to happen in an orderly way within the confines of the law. They felt disobeying the law was wrong and 50

Revista Do Instituto Do Ceará V.38. O Centro queria a liberdade do escravo pela ordem jurdica, pelo regimen de paz, pelos meios suasorios, pela persuasão affective e effective, pela palvra evangélica, pelo equilibrio das forcas existents e do porvir com os interesses creados e dominantes. A Libertadora, ao contrario, a queria pelos meios revolucionários, sem escolher armas na panoplia dos elementos tumultuarios, desconhecendo tudo e todos. Era um clarão rubro querendo ser a aurora-annunciadora do sol. 356. He goes on to say “A Libertadora era uma especie de soviet ou melhor uma carbonaria a portugueza uma contrafaccão da maconaria” See also Libertador December 20th, 1882.

51

See Libertador December 20, 1882.

52

Guilherme Studart Datas E Factos: Historia Do Ceará (Fortaleza: Typographia Studart, 1896), 308-311.

53

It should be noted that that though the Libertadora were willing to engage in civil protest for their cause and even spill blood this does not mean they aimed to start a revolution, but only that they were more willing to defy the authorities than O Centro. See Raimundo Girão, Abolição for an analysis of the two groups Also see Bezerra O Ceará He quotes Cordeiro as saying “Meus amigos, exijo de cada um de nós um juramento sõbre este punhal, para matar e morrer, se fõr preciso, em bem da abolição dos escravos,”44.

202 aligning with the popular classes was beneath them. In reality, their methods were aligned with the position of the emperor. By 1871, the national government had revealed its position. With laws like the Free Womb act it was clear that the slave population would die out in another generation, because their children were free, and (as discussed in chapter two,) other means for achieving freedom had been instituted . Therefore, O Centro was in no way radical; in fact they were conservative. Even the planter class of Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio, and São Paulo who had the most to lose, stopped defending slavery in its final days. 54 They were already looking to Europe and specifically Italy to solve their impending labor crisis. They realized that their interests could actually be served with a cheap labor force of European immigrants. The Centro, like the Libertador bought many slaves their freedom. This was another difference between the Libertador and O Centro. The Libertador was formed because its leaders felt an urgency to end slavery. Libertador’s parent group, Perservanca e Porvir, had also bought slaves freedom as their principal way to end slavery, but realized that this approach would not result in its immediate end. They formed Sociedade Cearense Libertador to end slavery within five years of its inception. The leaders of Centro supported free labor but only a docile and controlled labor force like the one built the railroad in Baturite during the drought. Studart was quite impressed by the construction of the railroad, and wrote about it at length in his edited documents Data e Factos. For O Centro, ending slavery was part of modernizing the nation, but the treatment of the slaves was not of foremost concern. They gave lip service to the evils of slavery, but took no dramatic actions against it. The Centro

54

See Skidmore, Black into White.

203 saw no need for the militancy of the Libertador, and in fact thought such behavior was dangerous, and that it could cause instability, as in the case of the Jangadeiro strike. No More Slaves in the Port of Ceará Both the fame and the infamy of the Libertador derived from their ability to effectively close the ports of Ceará to the slave trade. The Jangedeiros refused to take slaves on their Jangados, so there were no way the slaves could be brought to shore. The former slave José Napoleão led the first strike, Later that year another was led by the famed abolitionist, Francisco José Nascimento, or Dragão do Mar. The Jangadeiros were fishermen. The strike was the idea of Pedro Artur, a merchant who worked with Jose Amarel in a business capacity. Pedro Artur, an abolitionist and supporter of the Libertador, suggested that they could organize the strike with Napoleão, who was dock captain of the Jangdeiros and had enormous influence over them. Napleão was born a slave, but as a seaman, he was able not only to buy his freedom, but the freedom of his entire family, demonstrating that he was not a poor man. Since what we know of Napleão is told through the records of the Libertadora and its members, it is not clear how much he really was the mastermind behind the whole strike. Artur is given credit by some, but there is no reason to dis-believe that it was Napleão who was the mastermind and Artur the messenger. What we do know is that after the first strike Napleão disappeared from the scene and appointed his number two man, a Jose Francisco Nascimento, to take his place. The Libertadora and fisherman joined forces and organized a very successful campaign to stop slaves from entering the ports of Ceará. Their first strike began on the 27 of January, 1881 and lasted three days. 55 The Libertador and

55

Libertador, February 7, 1881.

204 dockworker organized over 1500 citizens to protest the entry of slaves into the port. 56 This was quite an amazing feat, showing enormous skill by the leadership of both the Libertador and the dockworkers. 57 They were able to organize people from all classes and ethnic groups, to unite for a social cause. The documents do not explain how the Libertador were able to organize the citizens of Ceará, but it was successful. 58 The Jangadeiros and the large crowds prevented the slaves from disembarking in Fortaleza. The ships later tried to dock in Aracati, another port city in Ceará, but also found resistance there. In August of that year the same slave ship, Espirito Santo, attempted once more to dock in Fortaleza. Again it was unsuccessful because of resistance by the Jangdeiros and massive crowds. According to documentation, over 5000 people gathered to protest slavery. 59 In 1934, in an interview during the festivities commemorating the ending of slavery, one of the abolitionists, Isaac Amarel, acknowledged that the strike and its success would not have been possible if it was not for José Napoleão. He and Dragão do Mar were instrumental in organizing the whole event. Napoleão and Dragão both had government positions as port Dockers. They had ties to the popular classes and the elites. Whenever shipments of any cargo came to Fortaleza it was Napleão and Dragão do Mar who oversaw the Jangdeiros. They were not educated elites but they were important, and commanded a lot of respect because of their control of the port. Working on the docks was not easy. It required enormous strength and courage to sail in the seas

56

Ibid.

57

Ibid.

58

The numbers from the strike are documented in the Libertador and also see Antonio Bezerra. O Ceará 43-72. 59

Ibid.

205 of Fortaleza, which were rough and sometimes violent unlike those off Salvador, Bahia. Ships often could not dock there. They had to be picked up by Jangadas. As a result people who did this job day in and day out had to be skillful and courageous. Because of the strikes after 1881 no more slaves were allowed by the Jangdeiros to dock in either Fortaleza or Aracati.. The combination of the Sociedade Libertadora Cearense and the Jangdeiros had effectively stopped the trafficking of slavery.. The Libertador were able to organize huge public rallies in which large groups of elites participated. By 1881 the vast majority of the government was on the side of the Liberatdor. Earlier in the month, before the second strike in August, two laws in Ceará were passed to help them stop the slave trade. Law number 1937 imposed a tax on those purchasing or owning slaves 60 . Also the police turned a blind eye to enforcing laws that protected slave traffickers from the protests of the dockworkers. The national government grew alarmed and after the first strike removed the president of the province, who had been sympathetic to what the national government saw as a disregard for the law. The national government also fired police officers that they felt were sympathetic with the strike and would not enforce the law against the strikers. 61 In essence the public mood in all classes had moved against slavery. There was moral outrage among the popular classes and the elite as well. Moreover there was no sector of the elite that was economically dependent on slavery. Nevertheless there were factions among them that did attempt to gain control of what they feared was radicalism 60 61

Girão, A Abolição no Ceará 138. Bezerra, O Ceará.

206 and potential chaos, particularly O Centro. They believed it was necessary to have a separate abolitionist society that would bring an end to slavery but without social unrest. O Centro was unsuccessful because by 1882 the movement against slavery was active in Ceará, and the populace was no longer willing to wait. There was no turning back. This strike, and subsequently the new legislation that followed it, started the process of abolishing slavery in Ceará, and in many ways the nation. After the strike, the abolitionists continued to pressure the government through print, speeches, public manifestations, and by buying slaves.

The End of Slavery in Ceara The strikes in the ports of Fortaleza and Canoa Quebrada in of 1881 galvanized the activists against slavery and during the next three years it became clear that slavery would be abolished in Ceara. The various abolitionist organizations would continued to cripple slavery by attacking it in public rallies and grand ceremonies, in which the central theme was of freeing of slaves. Sociedade Cearense Libertadora freed thirty-five on March 25th 1881 at the party of liberation. 62 In 1882 O Centro held a liberation party where fifty-four slaves were freed. During this era abolition organizations were created in other municipalities in Ceará, like Manuagape and Baturite. On May 20 1882 another abolition organization was formed, called Clube dos Libertos. Several abolitionists from Ceará were selected as government deputies and introduced resolutions to end slavery in 62

The best examples of these `freeing the slaves’ ceremonies were the 35 that were freed by Sociedade Cearense Libertadora on March 25th 1881 in the party of liberation. See Bezerra. O Ceará 45-54. According to Bezerra this was one of the largest numbers of slaves being freed by an abolition society. “Libertador 35 escravos de uma só vez era um commettimento de sacrifício que só a Libertador Cearense tinha realizado! De todas as sociedades abolicionistas do império, nehuma fizera tanto em provincias mais ricas. A propia córte estava abaixo do Ceará.

207 Brazil Among them were Justiniano de Serpa and Julio César da Foneseca Filho, who were members of O Centro. In Ceará, large sectors of the population from every social class were in opposition to slavery. By 1881, the movement had the support of many government officials, even the president of the province himself. In fact, although many government officials in Ceará were against slavery, it was not the government official’s priority to end slavery with out pressure of an organization like Libertador. They put pressure on other elites and created an atmosphere where change was possible. As a result the Libertadora was responsible for helping to mobilize factions of the elites to join the popular classes. The government responded positively to the militancy of the Libertador because the majority of them believed it were good for the nation and the province and hurt only a small number of individuals rather than entire segments of the elite population. Throughout 1883 and early 1884, municipality-by-municipality slavery slowly ended. in Ceará. Barão de Studart documented the process: Chart 5.2 The Dates of Emancipation in the Cities of Ceará 1883-1884 63

63

January 1

Acarape

February 2

Pacatuba e S. Francisco (Itapaje)

March 4

Canoa (Aracoiaba)

March 25

Baturité e Ico

April 25

São João do Principe (Tauá)

May 20

Maranguape e Messejana

May 23

Aquiras

May 24

Fortaleza

Guilherme Studart, Datas E Factos Para A Historia Do Ceará (Fortaleza: Studart, 1896), 307-314.

208 June 3

Soure (Caucaia)

July 2

Pedra Branca

September 27

Pereiro

September 29

Vicosa

October 4

Caninde

October 11

São Pedro de Ibiapina e São Benedito

October 22

Varzea Alegre

December 8

Pentecoste

December 27

São Mateus (Jucás)

December 31

Jaguaribe Mirim, Brejo Seco (Araripe) e Trairi

January 2

Santa Quitéria. União (Jaguaruana), Aracati and Sobral

January 8

Lavras e Cachoeira (solonópole)

January 18

Acarau e Russas

March 20

All 58 municipalities of Ceará with the exception of Missão Velha

March 25

Missão Velha

As the above chart highlights, slavery did not end with one sweep of a pen by the president of the province. It ended town by town. In each town there was a mixture of the advocacy and moral authority of the Libertador and other local advocates for abolition. Their strategy was to make owning slaves a complete liability morally and economically. The government contributed by allowing the police to ignore the strikes and the slaves who were kidnapped to prevent their being sold. 64 Also the provincial administration imposed huge taxes on the buying and selling of slaves and by March 25, 1884 had enacted a tax on owners in the remaining fifty-eight towns in Ceará that had refused to 64

New York Times, Dec.26, 1883. The New York Times wrote several articles detailing the end of slavery in Ceará. The Western powers were all watching: the Americans, the British, and French press all documented the event.

209 end slavery. This ensured their capitulation since; the tax was higher than any slave was worth. It appears that in Ceará slavery lasted as long as it did because of a lack of coordination. There had been other proposals, as discussed earlier. For instance, the local legislator Felix De Souza of the same educational background as the Libertadors, had wanted to end slavery since he had debated the issue in the legislature in 1865. His colleagues had soundly rebuffed him at that time. The proposals of Felix De Souza seemed radical at the time, as evidenced by the reaction of the other legislators. Although slavery had ended in the United States and most of Spanish America, it was still normal in Brazil. What was interesting about the SCL leaders was that they did not set their goals too high. It may be that because they did not advocate for people of African descent beyond emancipation they were able to gain support across classes and political spectrums. They had the overwhelming support of the popular classes. By working with Dragão do Mar and José Napoleão they were able to get thousands of people to participate in and support the strikes. These strikes had to be organized by the Liberatdor in conjunction with people like Dragão do Mar and José Napleào who commanded the respect of the important Jangdeiros and popular classes who were of the same racial background as the slaves. By 1872 the majority of slaves were pardo as were the majority of the free populace. No doubt a bond had been forged between them by the Great Drought, when the popular classes were often treated as badly as slaves. 65 Exceptional men like José Napleão could have owned slaves but neither he nor Dragão do Mar did so. Moreover from their participation in the strike it appears most jangdeiros were against slavery. More than likely many people of African ancestry realized on some 65

As I discussed in chapter four, during the drought many slave owners made announcements in the newspaper stating that slaves had run away with the other reirantes. The vast majority of slaves were never heard from again. No doubt these slaves had the comradeship of other retirantes.

210 level that as long as others of African ancestry were enslaved, they too were stigmatized by their relationship to a group that was considered sub-human. Freeing the slaves helped them free themselves of this stigma. In the end fighting slavery was fighting for freedom for the popular classes. I will discuss this idea further in my conclusion. Ingeniously, the Libertador was able to rearticulate the meaning of freedom. In past generations slavery had been important in Ceará not so much as a labor force, but rather as away of marking the social order. The Libertador made emancipation the ultimate goal as if by simply changing the law without changing the fundamental economic conditions of slaves and ex-slaves, they had delivered freedom. But as we have seen, ending slavery in itself did not bring social justice or freedom of choice to people of African ancestry. The abolitionist project in Ceará was a great success and abolitionists from the rest of Brazil looked at Ceará as a prime example of progress and the end of a tyrannical way of subjugating people, because slavery really did end there before the rest of the nation. 66 It must be asked, on the other hand, what the significance was of freeing fewer than 32,000 people in a population of more than 721,000, in a society where slaves were never a primary economic factor. The economy of Ceará did not falter because of the end of slavery. Many abolitionists did sincerely hate the slavocrat society of Brazil and there is evidence that many of them believed that the Brazilian slave was a fellow citizen and a brother, as the poetry of Antonio Martin suggested. Yet the abolitionists of Ceará, like abolitionists nationally, were still ambivalent about the question of racial equality; the manifesto of the citizens of Ceará called for emancipation but this manifesto was lip

66

Billy Chandler shows that although slavery was ended in Ceará, there were regions where that did not happen.

211 service. The elites of Ceará did not educate the masses or even deem them worthy of the opportunity to vote. A laissez-faire system of oligarchic capitalism emerged as the means to progress and the ex-slave was not included in this system. 67 It is interesting that no legal apartheid or other system for perpetuating the second-class citizenry of blacks and mixed-bloods was put in place, as happened in the United States after the civil war. White elites in Ceará and in Brazil ensured their political and economic hegemony by denying the majority of the poor the right to vote, during both the empire and the old republic . 68 The majority of ex-slaves owned no land and, although the Sociedade Cearanese Libertador advocated for education in its manifesto, the majority of people of African ancestry rarely had access to schooling. 69 During the Old Republic there was little change in the educational system for the majority of the population. 70 After slavery the abolitionists’ work for black people was done and their needs were by and large, abandoned. The end of slavery did not necessarily mean equality or even equal rights for the descendents of slaves.

67

For general discussions of the economic system after the republic see the collection edited by Michael Conniff and Frank McCann, Modern Brazil Elites and Masses in Historical Perspective (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989). 68

As G.J Bruce points out in his travelogue Brazil and the Brazilians (London: Methuen, 1915), 93, that only Brazilian males who were literate were able to vote. This excluded the vast majority of the ex-slave population from voting. 69 70

This was particularly true in Ceará, where illiteracy remains a problem to this day.

For a general discussion on education see T. Lynn Smith, Brazil: People and Institutions (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972), 484-509. On page 487 he shows that during the empire among over 10,000,000 people, less than 10,000 were receiving a secondary education, and of course none of the 1,7000,00 slaves were getting an education. During the Old Republic there was rhetoric about educating the masses. The federal government introduced a decree that made primary education free but the responsibility was the states’ and as a result very little investment was made.

212 On the fiftieth anniversary of Emancipation in Ceara, a local from Fortaleza, Nordeste published a series of articles documenting the accomplishments of Dragão do Mar and another abolitionists. In the entire special edition, there is only one small article about an ex-slave who was now a poor beggar. There is no explanation of why the slave was in such a predicament and what could be done to help him. In fact, the tone of the article suggests that he should some somehow be grateful for being free from chattel slavery. 71 The article made his predicament seem normal. There was no outrage and not one question about his life after slavery or why he was begging for a living. Moreover this article was the only one that even mentioned what happened to the 32,000 slaves. Even for a fiftieth anniversary when there were, presumably, ex-slaves still alive, the one article was almost an afterthought and there was no attempt to document what happened to them. The collection focuses on the white abolitionists, including members of O Centro, who were not even as militant as the Libertadors. While Dragão do Mar gets an article, nothing was written about José Napoleão except a passing reference to him by Isac Amarel, one of the few abolitionist still alive. In this article acknowledges how important Napoleão was in organizing the first protest by the Jangdeiros. The article also acknowledges that Napoleão was not as well known within the movement as Dragão do Mar, but there is no explanation of why he is not as famous, particularly when his actions were so important to ending slavery. The one Afro-descendent who is lionized in the record is Dragão do Mar, who, despite his humble beginnings rose to prominence while his colleague did not. What is more, in the popular imagination he emerges as a

71

O Nordeste, Fortaleza, Ceará, 1934.

213 sanitized hero of abolition. It is noteworthy that his struggles against enlisting people of color into the military are not mentioned in this tribute. The Nordeste edition nicely sums up the tone of the movement. Abolition was the focus of the elites. The fact that the majority of ex-slaves were still in the lower class did not concern them. Most important was ending a backward labor system that brought international censure and shame to the country. The end of slavery was not only celebrated in Ceará and Brazil, but in the world, as evidenced by the coverage in the New York Times and other international newspapers. Abolition brought prestige and “civilization” to the nation. This was enough for the elites. There was never any real will among them to improve the life of ex-slaves or the popular classes. Of course there were exceptions who seemed to believe in the integration of people of African and indigenous ancestry, like Andre Rebouçãs and others that were noted in chapter four. Still, even these reformers thought in Eurocentric terms, and did not value the cultures of Africa and of Indigenous groups. As the ex-slave beggar illustrates, his socio-economic circumstances were not the focus. It was enough that he was “free.” However, one must ask: free to be a beggar?

CONCLUSION In Kim Butler’s Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won, she skillfully examines the meaning of freedom in post-slavery Brazil. 1 She examines Bahia and Salvador and demonstrates that Afro-Brazilians proved to have enormous agency and the ability to form a community based on a black identity São Paulo and an Afro-community in Bahia. These communities struggled for the political and cultural rights denied them by the dominant society. This type of advocacy seemed to be lacking in post-slavery Ceará. This is striking since slavery did not bring equality to people of Afro-descent. Those in Ceará were no better position than people of Afro-descent in other areas of Brazil. This lack of communal identity can be explained in two ways. First, unlike São Paulo, there was no major migration to Ceará. Rather there was an overall decline in the population due to an unstable economy cause by droughts. Blacks and pardos were excluded from the economy because of racist attitudes and d economic competition from European immigrants. In Bahia and Salvador, blacks united in various protest organizations based along ethnic lines. 2 Butler shows how the northeast was different. There was very little overt political advocacy by the middle class and advocacy in the Afro-Brazilian community was based more on culture. Afro-Bahians were successfully able to develop strategies to push many cultural experiences from the margins to the center. Naturally, this was possible because people of African descendant were not only the majority of 1

Kim Butler, Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition São Paulo and Salvador (News Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998). 2

Butler points this out but George Reid Andrews’s book Blacks and Whites in São Paulo Brazil, 18881988. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991) argues this as well, and Sam Adamo discusses the tensions between the blacks and the mainly white European immigrants and how they were preferred by the mainly white Brazilian elite. See Sam Adamo “Race and Povo” in Michael Conniff and Frank D. Mccann, eds. Modern Brazil: Elites and Masses in Historical Perspective. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.

214

215 Bahia’s population but Bahians had been continually exposed to African culture since the beginning of the slave trade, there. This exchange of ideas and people continued long after slavery ended. In Ceará, although the majority is of Afro-descent, there is no memory of Africa as neither there is in Bahia nor has there ever been a history of political mobilization based on race. During the nineteenth century there was active resistance by slaves and continual efforts to fight for freedom. This effort was somewhat different from what the abolitionists may have had in mind. Slaves in all regions of the New World were fighting for their freedom in more radical terms than the Brazilian abolitionists could imagine, because elsewhere, slaves and marginal people of color were fighting not only for freedom but in some cases for equal rights. As discussed in chapter two, slaves usually did not fight for equal rights but usually engaged in infra-politics. In other words, they found ways to make an oppressive life somewhat more bearable. Slaves engaged in buying their freedom, running away or inventing cultural practices, such as samba to humanize their life. However, beyond infra-politics, slaves and free people of African ancestry embraced explicit themes of enlightenment and fought against slavery and for a more egalitarian society in which all men would be considered equal. This fight for freedom in Ceará never took on overt Negritude (black consciousness), and I believe this is a lesson that the movimento negro and other organizations should assimilate in their advocacy for freedom. Because Afrodescendents were not fighting with a necessarily Negritude agenda does not mean there was no struggle for freedom. This struggle was constantly fought on the grounds of human rights for all and based on the hybrid culture that already existed in Brazil.

216 However, few historians have taken seriously the idea of infra-politics, that is, the day-to-day strategies of survival among people of the popular classes. These signal a very different politics than that of the elite classes. I have outlined some of these differences here, with regard to the abolition of slavery in Ceará. I looked at this movement from two perspectives. First, from the perspective of the slaves I examined their everyday forms of résistance and struggle. Slaves in Ceará used many of the same techniques and strategies as those in the rest of Brazil. The difference between Ceará and many other regions was that slaves in Ceará made up only a small percentage of the population, were native born, and had retained little of African culture. As a result their revolts were never inspired by Afro-based culture, and by the late eighteenth century there were very few Afro-inspired in the record. Slaves resisted slavery by working through the system of manumission or running away into multi-racial quilombo societies. These were places where the local powers, owners of Sesmeiros, or peasant farmers, might allow them to live in their midst, as long as they provided free labor as tenant farmers. It is fascinating that despite the low retention of African culture, people of African ancestry often maintained Afro-culture in the form of black fraternities, as they did in other parts of Brazil. Acts of perceived African culture were seen as subversive and were not tolerated. After emancipation, there were rare cases of former slaves forming their own communities, and maintaining a type of negritude. Then I looked beyond the day-to-day and analyzed the struggle against slavery and racism by two representatives of the subaltern classes. I also investigated why Cosme, a leader of a quilombo and a warrior for abolition, was criminalized while years later another man of African ancestry was celebrated as a hero

217 for fighting the same fight. I noted in Cosme’s time, slavery was seen as legitimate and was supported and defended by the Brazilian monarchy. But by the time of Dragão do Mar, slavery had lost its legitimacy in the western world. Moreover, the national government turned a blind eye to the abolition movements, particularly if they did not pose a threat to elite interests. The second perspective in this study, was that of the elites and how they looked at race and dealt with ending slavery in Ceará. Chapter four shows that in the late 1870s when Ceará was at the dawn of a huge abolition movement, there was a terrible drought in Ceará and the northeast. Most local and national elites reacted with disdain and indifference toward the popular classes, and part of that contempt was racially based. Many of the political and intellectual elites who were activists, that voiced opinions during the drought, would later be major activists in the abolition movement. Chapter five looks at what motivated the elites to participate in the abolition movement. I show that there were two factions within the abolition movement. Those in O Centro were not really interested in the slaves’ as much as in maintaining order in society and realized that slavery was no longer economically viable. They supported the national government’s approach of bringing an end to slavery gradually, and disapproved of their more radical adversaries who saw slavery in Brazil as an affront to democracy. This group supported immediate emancipation and promoted changes that would have benefited the popular classes. However, even the Libertador should not be construed as radical. Nowhere did it advocate the reforms that fellow abolitionists like Rebouças proposed, such as land reform for all the popular classes.

218 The Libertadors did favor education for all. Moreover, though the Brazilian government provided education for the masses in the constitution of 1891, this never happened. Also the rank and file of Libertadora were all white men with the exception of Dragão do Mar. All were literate and some were highly educated, many were successful businessmen, and all were politically connected. Therefore, though the Libertadora were more radical than O Centro, it never went beyond achieving the end of slavery in a region where slaves were never of enormous importance to the economic order. The abolition movement had the effect of ensuring that a radical movement, where the popular classes took power for themselves, never happened. The elites of Ceará were savvy enough to realize that slavery was beyond the framework of civilized society and by using the rhetoric of equality and fraternity could end it without any real socio-economic reform except in their rhetoric. The majority of Brazilians citizens who are disproportionately of African ancestry, still cannot vote or participate politically in Brazilian society. A racially based political movement was impossible in Ceará, because of the lack of racial consciousness on the part of the popular classes, even though people of African ancestry remained at the bottom of the system. When Dragão do Mar recognized that white people were not being drafted into the military, he indeed recognized the racial dimension of oppression in Brazil. Nevertheless, as the strike of post-slavery Brazil shows, people in Ceará have always fought against very real racial oppression even if it has lacked “normal racial” discourse. Scholars need to examine the “hidden transcripts,” whether they are against slavery or against other forms of racial prejudice. There were real differences between the elites and the popular classes in their concept of freedom

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227

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Appendix I. CENSUS DATA The information below is from the censuses of 1804, 1808, 1813, and 1872. The information shows that without any doubt, in all regions of Ceará the majority were nonwhites. Also if one studies the 1808 census one sees that the word mulatto is used. In early nineteenth century Brazil, this particularly denotes people of African ancestry, and provides further evidence that the words pardo and mulatto were interchangeable in the period. Both words were used to describe people of African and white ancestry. The majority of the population is in all three groups. The “pure blacks” have always been a minority in the region and slaves also have been a minority in the population, but the majority of the population is partially of African ancestry. Also if one looks closely you can see that “pure blacks” made up a huge minority in places like Sobral, Aracati, Fortaleza, and Aquiraz up to 34% in these regions in 1808. Moreover already in 1808 the majority of these “pure blacks” were already free, further emphasizing that people of African ancestry, “pure” and “mixed,” constituted a majority of the free population since colonial times, in Brazil. Also interesting is that in 1808, Indian villages had a large minority of white, mulatto, and black people, showing that quite early on there was an absence of segregation even in places that were deemed exclusive. In the end, the census reveals a very hybrid region that included a population that was of partial African heritage.

228

229 Chart 1. 1 Census Information of Ceará in 1804 Whites

Free Blacks and Pardos

Black and Pardos Slaves

Total Population of Each Vila

2.679

2.145

702

5.526

Aracati

2.339

1.490

1.102

4.931

Sao Bernardo

3.753

2.769

943

7.465

Ico

3.822

3.522

1.507

8.851

Crato

6.797

12.793

1.091

20.681

Sao Joao do Principe

5.361

3.231

1.856

10.448

Vicosa Real

___

____

___

1.336

Vila Nova D El Rey

___

___

___

7.021

Granja

1.047

1.656

799

3.502

Sobral

2.781

4.193

2.978

9.952

Campo Maior

1.757

2.986

1.270

6.013

Aquiraz

Chart 2. 2 Captaincy of Ceará’s Population (1808) Vilas

Whites %

Indians %

Blacks %

Mulattos %

Fortaleza

3.726 39%

174

2%

1.079 11%

4.645

48% 9.624

Aquiraz

3.788 40%

538

5%

2.939 31%

2.262

24% 9.527

Aracati

2.371 45%

79

1%

1.829 34%

1.054

20% 5.333

Sao Bernardo (Russas)

5.287 49%

43

0.5%

2.939 21%

3.181

30% 10.767

Ico

7.018 40%

220

1%

3.217 18%

7.243

41% 17.698

1

Instituto Revista do Ceará, 292.

2

Silva, O Declinio da Escravidão, 84.

Total

230 Crato

3.694 31%

178

2%

3.485 30%

4.378

37% 11.735

Campo Maior 1.868 29%

120

2%

1.715 26%

2.812

43% 6.515

Sao Joao do Principe

3.535 49%

117

2%

1.372 18%

2.536

34% 7.560

Sobral

3.636 25%

397

2%

2.007

14 %

8.589

59% 14.624

Granja

1.883 38%

79

2%

1.172

24%

1.790

36% 4.924

381

5%

1.362

18%

2.866

37% 7.623

Vila Nova del 3.014 40% Rei Vilas De Indios

___

___

___

___

Arronches

75

5%

867

61%

123

9%

350

25%

1.415

Mecejana

51

3%

1.185

76%

84

5%

250

16%

1.570

Soure

33

4%

546

71%

55

7%

133

18%

767

Monte Mor o Novo

805

29%

126

5%

155

6%

1.659

60%

2.745

Vila Vicosa Real

1.437 18%

4.666

59%

248

3

1.586

20

7.934

Povoacao De Indios

___

___

Monte Mor o Velho

-

Almofala

___

___

___

___

-

266

86%

29

9

16

5

311

313

31%

202

20%

148

15

348

34

1.011

Sao Pedro de Ibiapina

923

22%

2.199 53%

149

4

899

22

4.170

Total

43.457 (34%) 12.383 (10%) 23.444 (19%) 46.594 (37%) 125.878

Chart 3 3 The Population of Captaincy of Ceará 1813 Free Population

3

Xxx

Whites

Indians

Blacks

Pardos

Total

Men

20.358

4.526

5.602

29.100

59.586

women

21.301

4.670

7.595

38.385

71.951

Ibid., 87.

231 Total Free population

41.659

9.196

13.197

67.485

131.537

Percentage

32%

7%

10%

51%

100%

Men

___

___

5.302

3.025

8.327

women

___

___

5.570

3.311

8.881

Total Slaves population

___

___

10.872

6.336

17.208

Percentage of slave population

____

___

63%

37%

100%

Total of free and slave population

41.659

9.156

24.069

73.821

148.745

6%

16%

50%

100%

Slaves

Percentage of 28% free and slave population Chart 4. 4

Population of the Province of Ceará by Parish (1872) Parish

4

Population

Total / Percent

Free / Slave

of slaves

Acarau

12.464/359

12.823/ 3%

Acarape

11.725/140

11.865/1%

amarracão

3.387/61

11.865/1%

Aquiraz

13.150/482

13.632/4%

Aracati

16.647/971

17.645/6%

See the Archive Instituto do Ceará. Studart Collection V.1.

232 Aracati-Acu

5.095/356

5.451/7%

Arneiroz

5.419/487

5.906/8%

Assaré

15.415/406

15.821/3%

Barbalha

12.360/415

12.775/3%

Baturité

26.388/744

27132/3%

Boa Viagem

9.442/438

9.880/4%

Bom Jesus do

5.208/181

5.389/3%

Brejo Seco

9.399/321

9.720/3%

Caxoeira

6.295/726

7.021/10%

Caninde

11.844/437

12.281/4%

Cascavel

22.003/836

22.839/4%

Crato

17.743/728

18.471/4%

Cococy

2.753/389

3.142/12%

Flores

2.499/206

2.705/8%

Fortaleza

20.189/1.183

21.372/6%

Granja

13.850/783

14.633/5%

Icó

13.807/785

14.592/5%

Imperatriz

21.827/838

22.865/4%

Quixelo

233 Ipu

23.972/697

24.669/3%

Boa Vista

6.503/440

6.943/6%

Jardim

13.890/253

14.143/2%

Lavras

15.865/413

16.278/3%

Limoeiro

12.478/919

13.397/7%

Maranguape

15.626/645

16.271/4%

Maria Pereira

16.992/589

17.581/3%

Marrecos

3.341/229

3.570/6%

Mecejana

7.720/225

7.445/3%

Milagres

13.180/567

13.747/4%

Missão Velha

19.323/300

19.623/2%

Pacatuba

6.801/266

7.067/4%

Paracuru

7.805/142

7.947/2%

Palma

7.557/515

8.072/6%

Pentecostes

7.597/186

7.781/2%

Pereiro

11.846/504

12.350/4%

Quixada

8.629/603

9.232/7%

Quixeramobim

15.202/1.323

16.525/8%

234 Riacho do Sangue

4.797/449

5.246/9%

Saboeiro

5.125/496

5.621/9%

Serra de São Pedro

10.017/55

10.072/0.5

Sobral

27.567/2.091

29.658/7%

Soure

13.115/526

13.641/4%

São Bernardo de

14.041/1.299

15.340/8%

São Francisco

11.902/407

12.309/3

São João do Principe

8.866/838

9.704/9%

São Matheus

15.078/449

15.527/3%

Santana

12.346/1.028

13.374/8%

Santa Quitéria

10.297/928

11.225/8%

Tamboril

11.029/697

11.726/6%

Telha

12.714/432

13.146/3%

União

7.239/404

7.643/5%

Varzea Alegre

13.538/384

13.922/3%

Viçosa

19.341/342

19.683/2%

Total

689.773/31.913

721.686/4%

Russas

235 Chart 5. 5 Population of the Province of Ceará by Sex and Ethnicity (1872)

5

Gender

Free

Slaves

Total

Percentage

Men

350.906

14.941

365.847

51%

Women

338.867

16.972

355.839

49%

Total

689.773

31.913

721.686

___

Ethnicity

___

____

___

___

White

268.836

___

268.836

37%

Pardos

339.166

18.254

357.420

50%

Black

28.934

13.659

42.593

6%

Caboclos

52.837

___

52.837

7%

Total

689.773

31.913

721.686

___

Instituto do Ceará. Revista do Instituto do Ceará (Fortaleza: Instituto do Ceará, 1911), 52.

236 Appendix II 6 PRICE FLUCTUATIONS IN CEARENESE EXPORTS This chart shows the price flucation of one of Ceará’s most important exports. This chart demonstrates how, during drought years, production decreased. For instance, there was a significant decrease in production in 1846. Also notice the decrease during the years 1877-1880 because of a drought.

Years (For the Port of Fortaleza)

Ks Value

Cotton Production

1845-6

124.757

30:981$000

1846-7

46.378

12:632$000

1847-8

249.603

73:207$300

1848-9

511.322

131:397$120

1849-50

368.207

110:316$800

1850-1

717.293

110:316$810

1851-2

630.337

201:728$700

1852-3

991.628

340:991$150

1853-4

746.915

300:071$050

1854-5

703.303

237:875$640

1855-6

954.062

357:163$200

1856-7

904.334

369:468$000

1857-8

1.128.168

519:573$280

1858-9

1.091.375

524:658$605

1859-60

1.139.354

596:318$340

1860-1

863.479

419:810$372

1861-2

745.828

470:479$800

1862-3

646.050

659:234$960

6

Raimundo Girão,Historia Do Ceará: Historia Do Ceará: Historia Economia Do Ceará (Fortaleza: Instituto Do Ceará, 1947), 218-219.

237 1863-4

888.290

1.415:096$280

1864-5

1.403.261

1.415:096$280

1865-6

2.002.114

1.176:325$900

1866-7

2.380.838

2.256:927$000

1867-8

4.332.412

2.249:267$000

1868-9

4.686.300

3.684:815$000

1869-70

5.219.147

4.911:190$000

1870-1

7.253.893

4.033:040$000

1871-2

8.324.258

4.503:356$000

1872-3

4.970.064

3.070:278$000

1873-4

4.878.044

2.608:364$000

1874-5

5.738.000

2.599:072$000

1875-6

3.505.580

1.456:223$865

1876-7

3.082.420

1.163:313$600

1877-8

1.314.574

444.485$280

1878-9

628.948

283:214$000

1879-80

683.879

354:695$000

1880-1

2.071.625

945:553$000

1881-2

5.270.269

2.262:849$460

1882-3

4.345.702

1.911:289$998

1883-4

4.433.771

1.830:552$200

1884-5

3.072.195

1.300:005$700

238 Appendix III PERTINENT ASPECTS OF THE RIO BRANCO LAW The Rio Branco Law is usually thought of as a law that allowed the children of slaves their freedom, but this law allowed slaves to save money and purchase themselves within in a legal context. Slaves for many years had already been doing this but this law allowed slaves to use the courts to gain more freedom. Article IV details this aspect of the law. The law was passed September 28th 1871. After this date slaves had a legal way to resist slavery, and many slaves took full advantage. Article IV The slave is permitted to form a savings fund from what may come to him through gifts, legacies, and, inheritances, and from what, by consent of his owner, he may obtain by his labour and economy. The Government will see to the regulations as to the placing and security of said savings. 1. By death of the slave half of his savings shall belong to his surviving widow, if there be such, and the other half shall be transmitted to his heirs in conformity with civil law. In default of heirs the savings shall be abjudged to the emancipation fund of which Article III treats. 2 The slave who, through his savings, may obtain means to pay his value has a right to freedom. If the indemnification not be fixed by agreement it shall be settled by arbitration. In judicial sales or inventories the price of manumission shall be that of the valuation. 3 It is further permitted the slave, in furtherance of his liberty to contract with a third party the hire of his future services, for a term not exceeding 7 years, by obtaining the consent of his master, and approval of the Judge of the Orphans’ Court. 4. The slave that belongs to joint proprietors, and is freed by one of them, shall have a right to his freedom by indemnifying the other owners with the share of the amount which belongs to them. The indemnification may be paid by services rendered for a term not exceeding 7 years in conformity with the preceding paragraph 5.The Manumissions, with the clause of services during a certain time, shall not become annulled by want of fulfillment, by means of labour in the public establishments, or by contracting for his services with private persons 6. Manumissions, whether gratuitous or by means of onus, shall be exempted from all duties, emoluments, or expenses. 7. In any case of alienation or transfer of slaves, the separation of husband and wife, and children under penalty of annulment. 7 8. If the division of property among heirs or partners does not permit the union of a family, and none of them prefers remaining with the family by replacing the amount of the share belonging to the other interested parties, the said family shall be sold and the proceeds shall be divided among the heirs. 9. The ordination, Book 4th, title 63, in the part which revokes freedom, on account the of ingratitude, is set aside.

7

Robert Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery,307.

239 Appendix IV REGISTRY OF FREEDMEN IN FORTALEZA 1861-1880 8 Years

Total

Men

Women

1861

Without Under Paid Conditions Conditions 14 5 10

29

6

23

1862

12

13

6

31

11

20

1863

17

2

7

26

9

17

1864

13

5

18

36

15

21

1865

8

5

10

23

11

12

1866

8

3

5

16

7

9

1867

11

6

135

152

139

13

1868

19

5

68

92

63

29

1869

19

7

30

39

15

24

1870

21

8

30

59

18

41

1871

12

4

12

28

9

19

1872

9

4

12

28

9

19

1873

27

12

11

50

20

30

1874

4

-

6

10

1

9

1875

1

-

5

6

-

6

1876

2

1

1

4

2

2

1877

11

-

10

21

9

12

1878

23

8

15

46

15

31

8

See Pedro Alberto de Oliveira Silva. O Declínio da Escravidão no Ceará (Universidade Federal De Pernambuco Máster diss.,1988), 173.

240 1879

23

1

8

32

8

24

1880

27

2

6

35

10

25

Total

281

91

391

763

377

386