The book "Casa Grande and Senzala", by sociologist Gilberto Freyre, was released in 1933.
In this work, Freyre discusses the formation of Brazilian society based on themes such as food, architecture, habits, sexuality, clothing, etc.
The book is divided into five chapters where three peoples that constituted Brazil are analyzed: the indigenous, the Portuguese and the black.
One of the objectives of the book is to respond to the racist theses that prevailed in the 20s and 30s in the world. At this time, many held that there were superior and inferior human races; and the crossing between them would result in a degenerate and incapable people. Therefore, miscegenation is negative according to these theories.
Gilberto Freyre argues that miscegenation does not cause any “degeneration”. On the contrary, the result of miscegenation is positive, as the case of the Brazilian people proves.
Brazilian society x American society
Freyre wants to prove that Brazilian society is superior, in the racial aspect, to the American one.
In the United States, slavery generated two populations, one black and the other white, legally separated. In Brazil, this did not happen due to the flexibility of Catholic Portuguese in relation to blacks and indigenous peoples.
We must remember that Freyre was educated in American colleges in Recife, attended university in the United States and lived there for ten years. The sociologist was horrified by the legal separation between blacks and whites that prevailed in this country and reflected this surprise in the pages of his work.
Main ideas of Casa-Grande and Senzala
The three pillars of Portuguese colonization for Freyre are miscegenation, large estates and slavery.
Miscegenation
For Gilberto Freyre, Brazilian society was the result of cultural miscegenation between Portuguese, indigenous and black people.
The Portuguese settler who arrived in the new territory did not reject indigenous or black women, contrary to what happened in Anglo-Saxon America. Freyre attributes this difference to the interracial relationships of the Portuguese, used to trade with the peoples of North Africa, unlike the English, who had no contact with these populations.
Freyre, however, does not comment that these relationships placed the woman in a more inferior position, as the children generated from this union were not considered legitimate.
Slavery
One of Gilberto Freyre's most controversial theses was to justify the slavery of the indigenous and, above all, the black as “necessary” for the colonial undertaking.
In the Brazilian case, however, it seems unfair to us to accuse the Portuguese of having tarnished, with an institution that today so disgusts us, his grandiose work (sic) of tropical colonization. The environment and circumstances would demand the slave… For some publicists it was a huge mistake (to enslave the black). But no one has told us until today that another method of meeting the needs of the work could have been adopted by the Portuguese colonizer in Brazil... Let us be honest to recognize that only the large landowner and slave colonization would have been able to resist the enormous obstacles that arose to the civilization of Brazil by European."
Slavery strengthened the patriarchal society where the white man – the owner of the Casa-Grande – was the landowners, slaves, even their relatives, in the sense that he ruled their lives. In this way, a society is created that is always dependent on a powerful lord and incapable of governing itself.
latifundium
The latifundium was the large property established by the Portuguese in order to occupy and exploit the land.
For Freyre, the option for the large property was a matter of a habit rooted in Portuguese culture and not the result of a plan to explore the new American lands.
The Portuguese who here, somewhat in the manner of the Templars in Portugal, became great landowners, on the one hand followed the example of the crusaders, especially the friars - capitalists and owners of large estates, often the goods, cattle and men of the land recovered from the infidels or taken from the Mozarabes, constituting their sole capital of installation. (...).
In contrast to the English colonization in the Thirteen Colonies, based on small property, the latifundium in Brazil reinforced patriarchal power.
On the other hand, as the land had an owner, this prevented the emergence of any entrepreneurial initiative, perpetuating the patriarchal and slavery model for a long time in Brazil.
Reviews of Casa-Grande and Senzala
To write his book, Gilberto Freyre uses a language closer to literature than to academic ones. This provoked numerous criticisms of his study, as many considered that it would lack scientific rigor.
Freyre resorts to generalization without specifying which indigenous tribes existed in the territory or without distinguishing the ethnic groups from those brought from Africa. From a researcher's point of view, this is incorrect, as each indigenous tribe reacted to colonization in a particular way.
Also, the enslaved blacks coming from Africa were not a homogeneous mass, nor were they submissive, as described by the sociologist from Pernambuco.
Economist Bresser Pereira summarizes the qualities and lacks of Gilberto Freyre's work:
In short, a great book. A book that powerfully helped define the Brazilian national identity. A conservative but courageous book. A book radically opposed to racism, but legitimizing slavery. A book that gives us an extraordinary view of what it set out to do – social and sexual life in the Colony and the Empire – but a mistaken view of the economy of that period.
We have more texts on this subject for you:
- racism in Brazil
- Racism
- Miscegenation
- Formation of the Brazilian people: history and miscegenation
Watch a video about the colonial period:
