THE slavery in Brazil started around the decade of 1530, when the Portuguese established the bases for the colonization from Portuguese America, to meet, more specifically, the demand of the Portuguese for labor for work in the fields. This process took place, firstly, with the enslavement of the indigenous people, and, throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, this was replaced by the enslavement of Africans, brought through the slave trade.
Slavery in Brazil, but not only here, proved to be a institutionperverse and cruel, and its consequences are still being felt today, more than 130 years after the Golden Law abolished this practice in the country. The violence and discrimination that blacks currently suffer are a direct reflection of a country that was built through the normalization of prejudice and violence to this group. However, it is always important to remember that, in addition to the Africans, the indigenous people were also enslaved, by the millions, by the Portuguese, and that their enslavement also perpetuated prejudice and violence against they.
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how did it start
Slavery in Brazil has as its starting point the 1530s, a period in which the Portuguese began the colonization process. Until then, their actions had been based on the exploitation of brazilwood, and the work of the indigenous peoples was carried out through barter. Thus, interested Indians felled the trees, took them to the coast and were then paid with objects offered by the Portuguese.
In 1534, however, Portugal implemented the system of hereditary captainciesand the development of gadgets of sugar production. This was a more complex activity and required a large number of workers. As the Portuguese considered manual labor an inferior activity, the solution found was to enslave the only labor available at that time: the indigenous.
Indigenous Enslavement
The indigenous were the main labor force of the Portuguese until the middle of the XVII century, when, in fact, African slaves began to become the majority of this type of worker in Brazil. THE enslavement of the indigenous, despite being cheaper, was, in the Portuguese view, troubled and problematic.
Historian Stuart Schwartz states that the indigenous people were reluctant to carry out continuous work in the fields because, in their view, it was a “women's work”|1|, in addition to the fact that the indigenous culture did not have the concept of continuous work. Another factor that made the enslavement of indigenous peoples complicated for many was the conflicts between colonizers and Jesuits. This happened because the Jesuits were against the enslavement of the indigenous people, as they saw them as a group to be catechized.
Thus, settlers who enslaved indigenous people could suffer legal problems due to the actions of the Jesuits. The pressure carried out by the latter, so that the enslavement of the indigenous peoples was stopped, led the Portuguese Crown to decree the prohibition of this enslavement. Despite the law, the enslavement of indigenous people continued, especially in places where there were not a large number of African slaves, such as São Paulo, Paraná and Maranhão. If you want to know more about the conflicts between Jesuits and settlers, access the text: Jesuits x Bandeirantes.
The enslavement of indigenous peoples also encountered obstacles due to the high mortality rate of this group as a result of the Portuguese presence in America. This high mortality was due to biological issues, wars waged between groups indigenous and Portuguese-motivated, as well as wars against enslavement itself and who the enslaved etc.
The indigenous people were known by the Portuguese as “earth blacks”, and the price of the indigenous slave, in relation to the African one, was, on average, three times smaller. In the 1570s, an indigenous slave cost around seven milreis, while an African slave had a general cost of 20 milreis.|2|
Finally, it is important to mention that, despite the arrival of African slaves in Brazil, around the 1550s, the indigenous people continued to be the main labor force in the sugar economy installed here until the middle of the century XVII. In the 1590s, for example, about 2/3 of slaves in Brazil were indigenous.|3| It was the prosperity of the sugar economy that made some places, like Bahia and Pernambuco, possess a large number of African slaves.
Access too: Find out how the lives of ex-slaves turned out after the approval of the Golden Law
enslavement of Africans
Through the slave trade, 4.8 million Africans were sent to Brazil as slaves.
The first Africans began to arrive in Brazil around the 1550s, initially through the trafficoverseas, also known as traffic slaver. The Portuguese, since the 15th century, had factories on the African coast, maintained relations with peoples Africans and carried out the purchase of these individuals to enslave them, for example, in Madeira Island.
With the development of colonization in Brazil, the continuous need for manual workers made this trade open to settlers installed here. The reasons for the practice of the slave trade were the already mentioned continuous need of the colony for slave workers and the high profits that this activity yielded for those involved.
The migration to the use of african slave it happened because, according to Stuart Schwartz, “only the African slave trade provided an international supply of large-scale and relatively stable workforce, which ended up making enslaved Africans the victims preferred".|4| Thus, through the slave trade and over more than 300 years, about 4.8 million Africans have landed in Brazil.|5|
The work of Africans, concentrated on the sugar economy, was extremely hard and based on violence. The working day could extend for up to 20 hours of daily work, and historians Lilia Schwarcz and Heloísa Starling state that the craft on the plantation was much more exhausting and dangerous than the one carried out in the fields.|6|
In mills, it was common for slaves to lose their hands or arms, and in furnaces and boilers, burns were common. In this last stage, the work was so heavy that the slaves used in it were generally the most rebellious. It was common for large plantations to have around 100 slaves, remembering that African slaves only became the majority in the mid-17th century.
At the end of the day, the slaves were gathered in the slave quarters and there they were monitored so that they would not flee (the indigenous people slept in huts and not in the slave quarters). they had a very poor food and insufficient, and part of its survival depended on the small plantation of subsistence that they had, but they only had Sunday to be able to take care of that plantation.
There were slaves who worked in the countryside, in homes and in cities. Those in the countryside were extremely poorly dressed, and many had no direct contact with their lord, only with the overseer. Domestic slaves had better clothes and direct contact with the master and his family. Urban slaves worked in different trades.
Violence was routine in the lives of slaves, and their violent treatment was intended to instill in them fear of their masters. This fear was aimed at keeping them resigned to their enslavement and preventing escapes and revolts. A very common punishment meted out to them was the “black breaker”, which taught them to always look down in the presence of their masters.
In addition, many slaves could be chained to prevent them from escaping, and wear an iron mask known as a tin mask, placed in them to prevent them from swallowing diamonds (in mining regions), getting drunk, or even committing suicide by ingesting land.
Rebel and fleeing slaves could also be Thechained to the trunk and whipped (some were to death). The violence that slaves suffered was countless, and historian Keila Grinberg lists the different forms of execution for which a slave could be condemned: by poisoning, by using iron tools, burned, by the gallows, in the pillory etc.|7|
Over the 300 years of slavery, African slaves carried out numerous resistance actions.
Slaves, in turn, did not accept enslavement and daily violence passively. The history of African enslavement in Brazil was marked by different forms of resistance which included the disobedience, at leaks individual and collective, the riots, a formationinquilombos etc. To learn more about the resistance of slaves, read the following text: Slave Resistance.
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end of slavery
Brazil ended up being the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, and this happened through the LawGolden, which was approved by the Senate and signed by the regent of Brazil, the Princess Isabel. The end of slavery in the country, however, was not an act of benevolence by the monarchy, but rather the result of pressure and engagement of the Brazilian population.
The abolitionist movement gained strength in society in the 1870s, with the end of the GParaguay war, but issues relating to abolition were already debated, albeit timidly, since the brazilian independence, although its starting point is the decree of the Eusébio de Queirós Law, which banned the slave trade in 1850.
As the abolitionist movement gained strength, various associations in defense of the cause began to emerge in the country, and their forms of struggle against slavery varied. Lawyers began to defend slaves against their masters in court, newspapers began to publish articles in defense of abolition, and common people began to shelter slaves who had fled..
You slaves also played an essential role in destabilizing slavery. in Brazil and resisted making mass escapes, organizing revolts against their masters (some of which led to the death of the slave masters), forming the quilombos (mainly around Rio de Janeiro and saints) etc.
The strength of popular pressure, through the abolitionist movement, and the constant slave revolts created the climate that forced the Empire to abolish slave labor on May 13, 1888, with the aforementioned Law Golden. The abolition of slave labor was received with party by the Brazilian population. Freed slaves, however, continued to suffer from prejudice and lack of opportunities.
Know more:abolitionist laws
|1| SCHWARTZ, Stuart B. Indigenous slavery and the beginning of African slavery. In.: SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz and GOMES, Flávio (eds.). Dictionary of slavery and freedom. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018, p. 216.
|2| Idem, p. 219.
|3| Idem, p. 218.
|4| Idem, p. 222.
|5| ALENCASTRO, Felipe. Africa, numbers of the Atlantic traffic. In.: SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz and GOMES, Flávio (eds.). Dictionary of slavery and freedom. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018, p. 60.
|6| SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz and STARLING, Heloísa Murgel. Brazil: A Biography. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2015, p. 93.
|7| GRINBERG, Keila. Physical punishment and legislation. In.: SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz and GOMES, Flávio (eds.). Dictionary of slavery and freedom. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018, p. 145.
by Daniel Neves
Graduated in History
