¹ Jucás, Crime, 3:14, 43, 1874, Arquivo Público do Estado do Ceará (hereafter, APEC).

² See, for example, Koster, Henry, Travels in Brazil, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1817), 1: p. 230;Google Scholar Gardner, George, Travels in the Interior of Brazil (New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1970 Google Scholar; reprint, London: Reeves Brothers, 1846), pp. 161–162 (page references are to reprint edition); Ceará, Falla (Araujo Freitas Henriques—Assembléia Provincial, 1870), p. 7; “Relatorio da Secretaria da Policia do Ceará,” in Ceará, Falla (D’Oliveira Dias—Assembléia Legislativa, 1883), p. 2. For popular poets’ comments on honorable men, see, for example, “ Moralidade em facecias,” in Mota, Leonardo, Violeiros do Norte: Poesia e linguagem do sertão nordestino (São Paulo: Companhia Graphica Editora, 1925), p. 125;Google Scholar “Cantiga de Vilela,” “Azulão,” “Luis Dantas Quesado,” and “O Anselmo,” in Mota, Leonardo, Cantadores: Poesia e linguagem do sertão cearense, 3d ed. (1st ed., 1921; Fortaleza: Impresa Universitária do Ceará, 1960), pp. 51–52, 92, 114, 164.Google Scholar

³ Folkloric studies on banditry in the Northeast emphasize the sertanejo code of honor as part of the culture of the backlands. See, for example, Barroso, Gustavo, Heróes e bandidos (os cangaceiros do Nordeste) (Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Francisco Alves, 1917);Google Scholar Nonato, Raimundo, Jesuíno Brilhante, o cangaceiro romântico (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Pongetti, 1970).Google Scholar See also, de Queiroz, Maria Isaura Pereira, Os cangaceiros (São Paulo: Duas Cidades, 1977).Google Scholar For scholarly interpretations of the code of honor as cultural heritage in the Northeast and elsewhere in rural Brazil, see for example Queiroz, , O messianismo no Brasil e no mundo (São Paulo: Dominus Editora, 1965)Google Scholar; Levine, Robert, Vale of Tears: Revisiting the Canudos Massacre in Northeastern Brazil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992),Google Scholar esp. chap. 2; Reesink, E. B., The Peasant in the Sertão: A Short Exploration of His Past and Present (Leiden: Institute of Cultural and Social Studies, 1981), pp. 46–49;Google Scholar de Mello e Souza, Antonio Candido, Os parceiros do Rio Bonito, 2d ed. (São Paulo: Livraria Duas Ciadedes, 1971).Google Scholar On bellicosity, geography and culture in the sertão, see da Cunha, Euclides, Os sertões, 5th ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Record, 2002).Google Scholar

⁴ Scholarship on honor among elites in Spanish America includes, among many others, the works by Martínez-Alier, Verena, Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth-Century Cuba: A Study of Racial Attitudes and Sexual Values in a Slave Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Socolow, Susan, “Acceptable Partners: Marriage Choice in Colonial Argentina, 1778–1810,” in Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America, ed. Lavrin, Asunción (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), pp. 209–251;Google Scholar Seed, Patricia, To Love, Honor and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts over Marriage Choice, 1574-1821 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988);Google Scholar Twinam, Ann, Public Lives, Private Secrets: Gender, Honor, Sexuality and Illegitimacy in Colonial Spanish America (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999).Google Scholar For Brazil see, for example, Metcalf, Alida, “Fathers and Sons: The Politics of Inheritance in a Colonial Brazilian Township,” HAHR 66:3 (1986), pp. 455–484;Google Scholar Nazzari, Muriel, Disappearance of the Dowry: Women, Families and Social Change in São Paulo, Brazil (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991)Google Scholar and “An Urgent Need to Conceal,” in The Faces of Honor: Sex, Same and Violence in Colonial Latin America, ed. Johnson, Lyman and Lipsett-Rivera, Sonya (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998), pp. 103–126;Google Scholar de Almeida Figuereido, Luciano Raposo, Barrocas famílias: Vida familiar em Minas Gerais (São Paulo: Hucitec, 1997);Google Scholar Algranti, Leila Mezan, Honradas e devotas (Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio, 1993).Google Scholar Studies focusing specifically on masculine honor among the poor include Johnson, Lyman, “Dangerous Words, Provocative Gestures, and Violent Acts” in The Faces of Honor, pp. 127–151;Google Scholar Boyer, Richard, “Honor among Plebeians: Mala Sangre and Social Reputation,” in The Faces of Honor, pp.152–178;Google Scholar Chasteen, John Charles, “Violence for Show: Knife Dueling on a Nineteenth-Century Cattle Frontier,” in The Problem of Order in Changing Societies, ed. Johnson, Lyman (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990), pp. 47–64,Google Scholar Stern, Steve, The Secret History of Gender: Women, Men and Power in Late Colonial Mexico (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995);Google Scholar see also Picatto, Pablo, City of Suspects: Crime in Mexico City, 1900-1931 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001) chap. 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ See, for example, Alonso, Ana, Thread of Blood: Colonialism, Revolution, and Gender on Mexico’s Northern Frontier (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995);Google Scholar Chambers, Sarah, From Subjects to Citizens: Honor, Gender and Politics in Arequipa, Peru, 1780-1854 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1999);Google Scholar Caulfield, Sueann, Chambers, Sarah and Putnam, Lara, eds., Honor, Status and Law in Modern Latin America (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Beattie, Peter, The Tribute of Blood: Army, Honor, Race, and Nation in Brazil, 1864-1945 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Meznar, Joan, “The Ranks of the Poor: Military Service and Social Differentiation in Northeast Brazil, 1835–1875,” HAHR 72:3 (1992), pp. 335–351.Google Scholar

⁶ The most recent scholarship examines honor constructs among the poor in Latin America within a framework that includes attention to issues of class and gendered political cultures at the local level. These studies have demonstrated that class and occupation helped define the meanings of masculine competence in various contexts and that notions of male honor included performance of the role of bread winners and not only of violent guardians of reputation. See, for example, Klubock, Thomas Miller, Contested Communities: Class, Gender, and Politics in Chile’s El Teniente Copper Mine, 1904–1951 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Gotkowitz, Laura, “Trading Insults: Honor, Violence, and the Gendered Culture of Commerce in Cochabamba, Bolivia,” HAHR 83:1 (February 2003), pp. 83–118 Google Scholar; Putnam, Lara, The Company They Kept: Migrants and the Politics of Gender in Caribbean Costa Rica, 1870–1960 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Tinsman, Heidi, Partners in Conflict: The Politics of Gender, Sexuality and Labor in the Chilean Agrarian Reform, 1950–1973 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Garfield, Seth, “Tapping Masculinity: Labor Recruitment to the Brazilian Amazon during World War II,” HAHR 86:2 (2006), pp. 275–308.Google Scholar

⁷ Pitt-Rivers, Julian, The Fate of Shechem or the Politics of Sex: Essays in the Anthropology of the Mediterranean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977);Google Scholar Periastiany, J. G., ed., Honor and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966).Google Scholar

⁸ Pitt-Rivers, , The Fate of Shechem, pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

⁹ Schneider, Jane, “Of Vigilance and Virgins: Honor, Shame and Access to Resources in Mediterranean Societies,” Ethnology 10:1 (January 1971), pp. 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰ Roseberry, William called for an approach that takes material context seriously in analyses of culture when he discussed culture as both “socially constituted” (a product of present and past experience and “socially constitutive” (part of the meaningful context in which activity takes place) in his Anthropologies and Histories (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989), p. 42.Google Scholar

¹¹ Cearense, which is used throughout this essay, refers to a resident of Ceará. As an adjective, the term means having to do with or relative to Ceará.

¹² For an in-depth discussion of the pressures affecting the lives and strategies of survival of sertanejos during the late nineteenth century, see Santos, Martha Sofia, “‘Sertões Temerosos’ (Menacing Backlands): Honor, Gender, and Violence in a Changing World. Ceará, Brazil, 1845–1889,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Arizona, 2004), chaps. 3, 4, and 5.Google Scholar

¹³ There are no published studies, based on archival research, that reveal patterns of landholding in the backlands of Northeast Brazil during the nineteenth century. Some studies have acknowledged the presence of small farmers in the backlands, although they have not established the relationship between this capacity to farm small plots and patterns of land tenure. These works include de Andrade, Manoel Correia, The Land and People of Northeast Brazil, trans. Johnson, Dennis V. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1980);Google Scholar Barman, Roderick, “The Brazilian Peasantry Reexamined: The Implications of the Quebra-Quilo Revolt, 1874–1875,” HAHR 57:3 (1977), pp. 401–24;Google Scholar Meznar, Joan, “Deference and Dependence: The World of Small Farmers in a Northeastern Brazilian Community, 1850–1900” (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1986);Google Scholar Chandler, Billy Jaynes, The Feitosas and the Sertão dos Inhamuns: The History of a Family and Community in Northeast Brazil, 1700–1930 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1972);Google Scholar Greenfield, Gerald Michael, The Realities of Images: Imperial Brazil and the Great Drought (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2001)Google Scholar; Leite, Ana Cristina, O algodão no Ceará: estrutura fundiária e capital comercial, 1850–1880 (Fortaleza: Secretaria da Cultura e Desporto do Estado do Ceará, 1994).Google Scholar Despite these works, an enduring trend in the historiography of the Northeast describes the region as unchanging, and poor sertanejos as completely dominated by large landholders. See, for example, Menezes, Djacir, O outro Nordeste: Formação social do Nordeste (Rio de Janeiro: Livraria José Olympio Editora, 1937)Google Scholar; Araújo, Maria do Carmo R., “O poder local no Ceará,” in História do Ceará, org. Simone de Souza (Fortaleza: Fundação Demócrito Rocha, 1995), pp. 109–20Google Scholar; de Mattos, Hamilton Monteiro, Crise agrária e luta de classes (Brasília: Horizonte Editora, 1980);Google Scholar de Castro Neves, Frederico, A multidão e a história: Saques e outras ações de massas no Ceará (Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumará, 2000);Google Scholar Barreira, César, Trilhas e atalhos do poder: Conflictos sociais no sertão (Rio de Janeiro: Rio Fundo Editora, 1992).Google Scholar For a recent critique of this interpretation, see Domingos, Manuel, “The Powerful in the Outback of the Brazilian Northeast,” Latin American Perspectives 31:2 (March 2004), pp. 94–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ The surviving land registries housed at the APEC are in an advanced state of deterioration, which creates many difficulties in working with them. There are almost no complete registries and sizeable sections of each registry are destroyed. These facts forced me to work with those that were in better state, particularly those from Russas and Ipu. These municipalities, in turn, lacked large collections of post-mortem inventories. Thus, I verified the information from the land registries with that presented in post-mortem inventories from Jucás, a township that possessed a greater number of complete and readable post-mortem inventories for the period under study.

¹⁵ To identify men who appear in criminal cases in class terms, I have relied on an analysis of their stated occupation, surname (absence or presence of distinctive surnames associated with locally influential families), and degree of literacy. It is true that illiteracy was widespread in the sertão, even among some members of the elite. Nevertheless, I have observed in court cases and other documents that even when illiterate, or partially illiterate, wealthier sertanejos more often than not represented themselves as literate. Thus, in this study, illiteracy, along with occupation, and surname serve as proxies for poverty.

¹⁶ Guabiraba, Célia, Ceará: A crise permanente do modelo exportador (Fortaleza: Instituto da Memória do Povo Cearense, 1989), pp. 13–41 Google Scholar; de Sousa Brasil, Thomaz Pompeu, Ensaio estatistico da provincia do Ceará, 2 vols. (Fortaleza: Typographia de B. de Mattos, 1863), vol. 1, pp. 296–359,Google Scholar and “Desenvolvimento e estado das industrias,” in Falla … do Presidente … Joaquim Da Costa Barradas … à Assembléia Provincial do Ceará (Fortaleza: Typographia Economica, 1886), pp. 36–57; Girão, Raimundo, História econômica do Ceará (Fortaleza: Editora Instituto do Ceará, 1970), pp. 218–19;Google Scholar Cunniff, Roger, “The Great Drought: Northeast Brazil, 1877-1880” (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1970), pp. 81, 103.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Cavalcante, José Albuquerque, Chorographia da provincia do Ceará (Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, 1888), p. 145.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Brasil, Sousa, Ensaio estatistico, vol. 1, p. 380.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Sesmarias were land grants of one to three leagues in extent, or between 16.7 and 50.1 square miles, that the Portuguese crown awarded as incentives to wealthy and influential colonists.

²⁰ Sampaio, Yony, “Formação territorial do Nordeste,” paper presented at the International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Guadalajara, April 1997, pp. 6–9.Google Scholar

²¹ Sampaio, , “Formação,” pp. 4–5 Google Scholar; de Aquino, Aécio Villar, Aspectos históricos e sociais da pecuária na caatinga paraibana (Mossoró: Escola Superior de Agricultura de Mossoró, 1987), pp. 50, 62–63.Google Scholar See also Bandeira, Luiz Alberto Moniz, O feudo: A Casa da Torre de Garcia d’Ávila (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2000).Google Scholar

²² Portuguese inheritance laws allowed primogeniture only in a few cases. Otherwise, they established a system of partible or equal inheritance. These laws remained valid in Brazil, with minor modifications, until 1917. See Lewin, Linda, Surprise Heirs, 2 vols. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003).Google Scholar

²³ During the period between 1822 and 1850, when the Brazilian Parliament failed to implement any land legislation, “effective occupation” or squatters’ possession rights continued to be used as recourse to legislate occupation of public lands. This legal recourse was authorized in the Ordenações Filipinas, a Portuguese code of laws passed in 1603. On “effective occupation” and the ineffectiveness of the Land Law of 1850, see for example, Junior, Manoel Diegues, População e propriedade da terra no Brasil, (Washington, D.C.: Secretaria Geral, Organização dos Estados Americanos, 1959), pp. 22–23 Google Scholar; Dean, Warren, “Latifundia and Land Policy in Nineteenth-Century Brazil,” HAHR 51:4 (November 1971), pp. 606–625 Google Scholar; Naro, Nancy Priscilla Smith, “Customary Rightholders and Legal Claimants to Land in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1870-1890,” The Americas 48:4 (April 1992), pp. 485–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the extent of public land occupation in Ceará, see Ofício 32, 21 December 1861, ofício 34, 30 December 1861, Ofícios do Governo da Província do Ceará ao Ministério da Agricultura, 1861-1872, ala 19, est. 404, liv. 144, APEC.

²⁴ Jucás, Inv., 2, 87: 1-25, 1830-1845; Arrol., 1, 39: 1-10, 1826-1856, APEC; see also Alemão, Francisco Freire, “Papéis da Expedição ao Ceará,” Anais da Biblioteca Nacional 81 (1961), p. 246.Google Scholar

²⁵ Registro de Terras (hereafter RT), Freguesia de Nossa Senhora do Rosário da Vila de São Bernardo de Russas, 1855, liv. 28, APEC.

²⁶ One braça is equivalent to 2.2 meters. One league measures approximately 6,600 meters. Also note that the 133 entries mentioned here represent the legible fraction of the portion of the Russas’ land registry that was available for consultation at the APEC during my research trip of 2001–02.

²⁷ See, for example, RT, São Gonçalo da Serra dos Cocos, Comarca do Ipu, in RT, Freguesia da Sen-hora de Santa Ana da Telha, liv. 35; RT, Freguesia de Santa Quitéria, Liv. 33; Jucás, DT, 2,69-A: 5,1850;. Jucás, DT, 2, 69-A: 17, 1869; Jucás, DT, 2, 69-A: 19, 1864, APEC; see also, Sampaio, “Formação,” p. 6; Cunniff, “The Great Drought,” pp.16-18.

²⁸ While land size is relative and dependent on other conditions, I have relied on Linda Lewin’s consideration of rural properties of less than 101 hectares in the caatinga-agreste of Paraíba in the 1920s as small and mid-size, and on Catharine LeGrand’s assessment of farms of up to 100 hectares as small in the Colombian coffee frontier during the nineteenth century. See Lewin, Linda, Politics and Parentela in Paraíba: A Case Study of Family-Based Oligarchy in Brazil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 72–73;Google Scholar and LeGrand, Catharine, Frontier Expansion and Peasant Protest in Colombia, 1830–1936 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986), p. 222.Google Scholar To determine the relative size of holdings used for cattle, I have relied on Carlos Mayo’s study of land tenure patterns in the Buenos Aires pampas during the late colonial period. In it, Mayo demonstrates that establishments of a half league or less were considered small and mid-size for cattle-producing regions, since they could only reproduce less than ninety head of cattle a year. According to Andrade, ten hectares of land are necessary to support one head of cattle in the sertão. Hence, the estates measuring half a league of frontage in Russas could support 108 head of cattle if they were half a league wide, and 217 head, if they were one league wide. See Mayo, Carlos, Estancia y sociedad en la Pampa (Buenos Aires: Biblios, 1995), pp. 37–46;Google Scholar Andrade, , The Land and People, p. 158.Google Scholar

²⁹ RT, São Gonçalo da Serra dos Cocos, APEC.

³⁰ These calculations are based on a sample of fifty post-mortem inventories for the period between 1830 and 1859.

³¹ Abraça of grazing land averaged at Rs $666 (US $ 0.33), whereas manioc land could cost between Rs 2$000 (US $ 1.00) and Rs 5$000 (US $ 2.50) per braça. The average price of a pregnant cow at the same time was about Rs. 15$000 (US $ 7.50). See Sousa Brasil, Ensaio estatístico, 1: pp. 378, 394 and Jucás, Inv„ 2, 87: 1–25, 1830–1845; Arrol., 1, 39: 1–10, 1826–1856, APEC.

³² da Silva Paulet, Antonio José, “Descripção geografica abreviada da Capitania do Ceará,” R1HGB 60 (1897), p. 79;Google Scholar Gardner, , Travels, p. 234;Google Scholar Cunniff, , “The Great Drought,” p. 21. “A questão alimenticia II,” Cearense, 11 December 1857, p. 2; “A questão alimeticia III,” Cearense, 15 December 1857, p. 2.Google Scholar

³³ Brasil, Sousa, “Desenvolvimento,” p. 33;Google Scholar Theophilo, Rodolpho, Historia da secca do Ceará (Fortaleza: Typographia do Libertador, 1883), p. 26.Google Scholar For an analysis, based on post-mortem inventories, of the strategies of survival among smallholders in Jucás, see Santos, , “Sertões Temerosos,” pp. 84–87.Google Scholar

³⁴ For data on the small-scale slaveholding capacity of small farmers, see Santos, , “Sertões Temerosos,” pp. 132–139.Google Scholar

³⁵ Theophilo, , Historia da secca, p. 27.Google Scholar

³⁶ Leite, , O algodão no Ceará, p. 66.Google Scholar

³⁷ See, for example, Theophilo, , Historia da secca, p. 27;Google Scholar Alemão, Freire, “Papéis,” pp. 200, 211, 245, 247–48, 339;Google Scholar Brasil, Sousa, “Desenvolvimento,” p. 42.Google Scholar

³⁸ Santos, João Brígido, Anais da Câmara dos Deputados 14 (1879), p. 538,Google Scholar quoted in Pinheiro, Francisco José, “A organização do mercado de trabalho no Ceará” (M.A. thesis, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, 1990), p. 59.Google Scholar

³⁹ See, for example, Meznar, , “The Ranks of the Poor,” pp. 335–351;Google Scholar “Deference and Dependence,” and “Orphans and the Transition from Slave to Free Labor in Northeast Brazil: The Case of Campina Grande, 1850–1888,” Journal of Social History 27:3 (Spring 1994), pp. 499–515; Andrade, The Land and People; Leite, O algodão no Ceará; Levine, Vale of Tears, among others.

⁴⁰ On the erosion of patronage ties, see, for example, Souza, Amaury de, “The Cangaço and the Politics of Violence in Northeast Brazil,” in Protest and Resistance in Angola and Brazil, ed. Chilcote, Ronald (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), pp. 109–131;Google Scholar Cunniff, , “The Great Drought,” pp. 127, 130, 153;Google Scholar Pessar, Patricia, From Fanatics to Folk: Brazilian Millenarianism and Popular Culture (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), chap. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴¹ On the agricultural and other tasks that women and children performed in sertanejo households, see Santos, , “Sertões Temerosos,” pp. 132–135.Google Scholar

⁴² Scattered evidence indicates that when women were married or in other forms of stable, but non-formalized unions, men made economic decisions or represented women in business matters. See for example RT, São Gonçalo da Serra dos Cocos, entry 988; Jucás, Crime, 6, 17: 28, 1880, APEC. On the community property regime among husbands and wives, see Lewin, Linda, Surprise Heirs I (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), pp. 29–32.Google Scholar

⁴³ Twenty-eight criminal cases from Jucás and Tamboril detail fights and other forms of violence between men in order to defend masculine honor in parties, card games, and other arenas of male social interaction.

⁴⁴ Tamboril, Crime, 4, 7: 23, 1870; see also Tamboril, Crime, 6, 9: 11, 1875; Tamboril, Crime 5, 8: 14, 1873; Tamboril, Crime, 4, 15: 26, 1865, APEC.

⁴⁵ Tamboril, Crime, 4, 7: 25, 1870, APEC.

⁴⁶ See Dean, , “Latifundia,” pp. 606-25;Google Scholar Sampaio, , “Formação,” p. 6.Google Scholar See also, Jucás, DT, 2.69-A, 1834-1938, Procs. 3 to 21; Jucás, Cíveis, 1-A, 2: 30, 1874; Tamboril, Cíveis, 1, 1: 35, 1864, APEC.

⁴⁷ RT, São Gonçalo da Serra dos Cocos, APEC. On jointly-held lands in the sertão of Bahia, see Garcez, Angelina Rolim, Fundos de pasto: Um projeto de vida sertanejo (Bahia: Instituto de Terras da Bahia, 1987), pp. 21–37.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Dean, , “Latifundia,” pp. 606–25;Google Scholar Mattos, Hebe Maria, Das cores do silencio: Os significados da liberdade no Sudeste escravista. Brasil, século XIX, 2d ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1998), pp. 81–86;Google Scholar Naro, , “Customary Rightholders,” pp. 485–517.Google Scholar Examples of imprecise limits in land documents are RT, São Gonçalo da Serra dos Cocos, entries 439, 450, 492, 494, 818, 879 among others, APEC.

⁴⁹ See, for example, Jucás, Cíveis, 1A, 2: 9, 1866; Crime, 1, 12: 4, 1865; Jucás, Crime, 1, 12: 35, 1864; Jucás, Crime, 2, 13: 14, 1870; Tamboril, Crime, 5, 8: 3, 1873; Tamboril, Crime, 6, 9: 11, 1875, APEC.

⁵⁰ See, for example, Tamboril, Cíveis, 1, 1:9, 1865; Jucás, Cíveis, 1-A, 2: 19, 1869, APEC.

⁵¹ See, for example, Jucás, Crime, 1,12: 11,1864; Jucás, Crime, 1,12: 27,1865; Jucás, Crime, 2.13: 9, 1871; Jucás, Crime, 5.16: 17, 1877; Tamboril, Crime, 7, 10: 19, 1876; Jucás, Crime, 1, 12: 4, 1865; Jucás, Crime, 1,12: 35, 1864; Jucás, Crime 2, 13: 14, 1870; Jucás, Crime, 2, 13: 15, 1870; Jucás, Crime, 3, 14: 6, 1866; Tamboril, Crime, 2, 5: 19, 1864; Tamboril, Crime, 2, 5: 19b, 1864, APEC.

⁵² For an in-depth discussion of these problems, see Santos, , “Sertões Temerosos,” pp. 265–275;Google Scholar on patronage and dispensation of justice in Imperial Brazil, see Flory, Thomas, Judge and Jury in Imperial Brazil, 1808-1871 (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1981), chap. 9;Google Scholar and Graham, Richard, Patronage and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Brazil (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), pp. 22–24.Google Scholar

⁵³ Tamboril, Crime, 6. 9: 11, 1875; Tamboril, Crime, 5, 8: 14, 1873; Tamboril, Crime 4, 15: 26, 1875, APEC.

⁵⁴ Jucás, Crime, 1, 12: 27, 1863. See also, Tamboril, Crime, 5, 8: 14; Tamboril, Crime 4, 7: 19, 1871; Jucás, Crime, 1, 12: 27, 1863, APEC.

⁵⁵ See, for example, Tamboril, Crime, 1,4: 16, 1843, APEC. On practices that required trust in the handling of cattle, see Julio, Silvio, Terra e povo do Ceará (Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Carvalho Editora, 1936), p. 173;Google Scholar Barroso, Gustavo, Terra de sol (natureza e costumes do Norte) (Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Francisco Alves, 1930), p. 201 Google Scholar; Tamboril, Crime, 2, 5: 12, 1862; Tamboril, Crime 3, 6: 8, 1865, APEC.

⁵⁶ Jucás, Crime, 2, 13: 2, 1867; see also Jucás, Crime. 1, 12: 11, 1853; Jucás, Crime, 2,13: 9, 1869; Tamboril, Crime, 4, 7: 8, 1870, APEC.

⁵⁷ Me dizem que eu não trabaio,/Que eu não sustento o meu brio.. /Assim mesmo preguiçoso,/Sustento muié e fio!/ No ano que eu não trabaio J Planto dez quarta de mio,/

Quando acaba inda hai quem diga,/ Que o nego veio é vadio,/ Mas eu sou é trem de ferro:/ Só corro atrás dos meus trio … “Azulão,” in Mota, Cantadores, p. 93.

⁵⁸ For a discussion of the gendered pacts of obligation in sertanejo households and of the importance of the masculine roles of providers and defenders of family patrimony for backlanders see Santos, , “Sertões Temerosos,” pp. 139–156;Google Scholar Vieira, A. Otaviano Jr., Entre paredes e bacamartes: História daf família no sertão (1780-1850) (Fortaleza: Edições Demócrito Rocha; Hucitec, 2004), pp. 249–298;Google Scholar Garfield, , “Tapping Masculinity,” p. 288.Google Scholar For conceptualizations of men’s work as the fulfillment of their obligations as providers in peasant households in Spanish America, see Stern, The Secret History, chap. 4; Tinsman, Partners in Conflict, chap. 2. See also, Chambers, From Subjects to Citizens, chap. 3.

⁵⁹ I am thankful to Peter Beattie for pointing me toward the connection between Nonato’s assertions that he was not a “loafer,” masculinity, and the discourse on vagrancy.

⁶⁰ Paulet, , “Descripção,” p. 63;Google Scholar Foreign travelers and other observers of the sertanejos’ “vagrancy” include Avé-Lallemant, Robert, Viagem pelo norte do Brasil no ano de 1859, trans. de Lima Castro, Eduardo, 2 vols. (Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, 1961), vol. 1, p. 341;Google Scholar Gardner, , Travels, p. 190;Google Scholar Burton, Richard, Explorations of the Highlands of Brazil, 2 vols. (New York: Greenwood Press Publishers, 1969;Google Scholar reprint, London: Tinsley Brothers, 1869), vol. 2, p. 399 (page references are to reprint edition); Koster, , Travels, vol. 2, p. 91;Google Scholar Bezerra, Antonio, Notas de viagem (Fortaleza: Imprensa Universitária, 1965 [1884]), p. 153.Google Scholar

⁶¹ See, for example, Ceará, , Relatorio (Gonçalves da Silva—Assembléia Provincial 1867), p. 10;Google Scholar “Relatorio do Chefe da Policia,” in Ceará, Relatorio (Barão de Taquary—Assembléia Provincial, 1871 ), p. 4; “Secretaria da policia do Ceará,” in Ceará, Fala (Araujo Torreão—Assembléia Provincial 1887), pp. 4-5.

⁶² According to the 1872 census, most of the free population of Ceará was made up of people of color, as blacks, mulattos and caboclos (individuals of European and Indian ancestry) constituted 61.1 percent of that faction of the population. Brazil, Recenseamento da população do Império do Brazil … 1° de Agosto de 1872, 21 vols. (Rio de Janeiro: 1873–76), vol. 4, p. 176. On the elite discourse on “vagrancy” in the Northeast and elsewhere in Brazil see, for example, Greenfield, Gerald Michael, “The Great Drought and Elite Discourse in Imperial Brazil,” HAHR 72:3 (1992), pp. 375–400;Google Scholar de Carvalho Franco, Maria Sylvia, Homens livres na ordem escravocrata (São Paulo: Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros, 1969)Google Scholar; de Mello e Souza, Laura, Desclassificados do ouro: A pobreza mineira no século XVIII (Rio de Janeiro: Edições Graal, 1982)Google Scholar; Kowarick, Lúcio, Trabalho e vadiagem: A origem do trabalho livre no Brasil (São Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 1987).Google Scholar The new Brazilian scholarship that focuses on poor free populations in the Southeast and Bahia notes the relationship between their resistance to become wage laborers for large landowners and access to land. See, for example, Mattos, Das cores; Metcalf, Alida, Family and Frontier in Colonial Brazil: Santana de Parnaiba, 1580-1822 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992);Google Scholar de Castro Faria, Sheila, A Colônia em movimento: Fortuna e família no cotidiano colonial (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1998);Google Scholar Barickman, B. J., A Bahian Counterpoint: Sugar, Tobacco, Cassava, and Slavery in the Recôncavo, 1780–1860 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998).Google Scholar

⁶³ Scholars have noted that, during the decline of slavery, notions of racial status among the poor became destabilized, although ideologies of racial privilege did not end. In fact, according to Mattos, after the end of the transatlantic slave trade in 1850, free status and “race” by themselves were no longer enough to demonstrate superiority or racial privilege. Thus, other notions of status, such as honor, became increasingly significant. Mattos, , Das cores, pp. 32–35;Google Scholar see also, Beattie, Tribute of Blood.

⁶⁴ Peter Beattie has noted the importance of these values among the honorable poor in the context of the decline of slavery and military impressment in Tribute of Blood. On the significance of autonomy and mobility as values that oriented the lives of the free poor, and that, in their own view, differentiated them from slaves see Mattos, Das côres, pp. 45–46; and Faria, A Colônia. On masculine honor as predicated on and symbolic of independence among men of lower rank in Spanish America, see Chambers, , From Subjects to Citizens, pp. 167–168;Google Scholar and Klubock, , Contested Communities, pp. 127–130.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ On the usefulness of oral sources as tools to understanding categories of significance among illiterate and poor groups in Europe and elsewhere, see for example, Scribner, Bob, “Is a History of Popular Culture Possible?,” History of European Ideas 10:2 (1989), pp. 175–91;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Darnton, Robert, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York: Random House, 1985).Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Mota, , Cantadores, pp. 80, 93, 149;Google Scholar; Lewin, Linda, “Who Was ‘o Grande Romano’?,” Journal of Latin American Lore 19 (1996), pp. 129–179.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Conway-Long, Don, “Ethnographies and Masculinities,” in Theorizing Masculinities, eds. Brod, Harry and Kauffman, Michael (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 1994), pp. 61–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁸ See, for example, Jucás, Crime, 4, 15: 13, 1875; Tamboril, Crime, 4, 7: 18, 1870; Tamboril, Crime, 4, 7: 4, 1869, APEC.

⁶⁹ Jucás, Crime, 3, 14: 19, 1872, APEC. On the deployment of patriarchal notions of honor as a strategy through which sertanejos sought to challenge their superiors in a different context, see Garfield, “Tapping Masculinity,” pp. 305-307.

⁷⁰ Meznar, , “The Ranks of the Poor,” pp. 335–351;Google Scholar Kraay, Hendrik, Race, State, and Armed Forces in Independence-Era Brazil, Bahia, 1790s-1840s (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), chap. 7;Google Scholar Levine, Vale of Tears, chap. 2; Beattie, Tribute of Blood; on the importance of patronage in the political system in Brazil at the Imperial and local levels, see for example Graham, , Patronage and Politics; Flory, Judge and Jury; Judy Bieber, Power, Patronage and Political Violence: State Building on a Brazilian Frontier, 1822–1889 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999).Google Scholar

⁷¹ See, for example, Metcalf, , Family and Frontier, pp. 136–137 Google Scholar; Faria, , A Colônia, pp. 130–34;Google Scholar Barickman, , A Bahian Counterpoint, p. 119.Google Scholar