Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-wpx69 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-19T13:15:54.067Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Violence, Sex, and the Family

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2012

Walter Hawthorne
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
Get access

Summary

In 1799, a white woman living in Maranhão named Maria de Bairros complained in divorce proceedings that her husband, Antonio de Bairros, “regularly raped and violated his female slaves and those of others.” She also claimed that for “years he has lived publicly and scandalously with a concubine who is his slave and is called Jeronima.” Maria made mention, as well, of another slave with whom Antonio had had a sexual relationship – Barbara. Called before a priest, Antonio confessed to the sins of which his wife had spoken. However, in the heat of the divorce proceedings, he turned the tables on Maria, recounting how jealousy had driven her to commit a horrendous act. Antonio said that Maria became so enraged at his escapades, and particularly those with his favorite black concubine, that she took an iron poker and heated it in fire before “burning the private parts of his slave named Barbara, martyring her and leaving her in a miserable state.” A short while later and “to escape justice, it was necessary to sell the slave out of the district.” Neither Antonio nor Maria would have to pay an earthly penalty beyond a small fine for the torture and subsequent sale of Barbara.

This heart-wrenching account is recorded alongside notes about other episodes in the lives of slave women and men in Church books of divorce and denunciation found in Maranhão’s state archive. Most of the slaves mentioned in those books were from the Upper Guinea region of Africa or were the crioulo (Afro-Brazilian) descendants of Upper Guineans. Taken together, entries in Church records show that people of color were incredibly constrained by complex gendered and racial hierarchies in Maranhão. In this racist and patriarchal society, the state rarely intervened in matters concerning white masters and their slaves. White power over people of color, and especially slaves, was immense. It was so in Maranhão’s frontier period – which stretched from the early seventeenth through the mid-eighteenth centuries, when Indian slaves were the captaincy’s principal workers and economic production was very limited. And it was so in Maranhão’s plantation period – which began after the mid-eighteenth century, when Portuguese policy makers encouraged the importation of large numbers of African slave laborers, and rice and cotton exports rose dramatically.

Type
Chapter
Information
From Africa to Brazil
Culture, Identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600–1830
, pp. 173 - 207
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

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

References

Graham, Sandra LauderdaleCaetana Says No: Women’s Stories from a Brazilian Slave SocietyNew YorkCambridge University Press 2002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gayozo, Raymond Jozé de SouzaCompêndio histórico-político dos princípios da lavoura do MaranhãoParisP. N. Rougeron, Impressor 1818Google Scholar
Eduardo, Octavio da CostaThe Negro in Northern BrazilNew YorkJ. J. Augustin Publishers 1948Google Scholar
Assunção, Matthias RöhrigPopular Culture and Regional Society in Nineteenth-Century Maranhão, BrazilBulletin of Latin American Research 14 1995 273CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Gwendolyn MidloSlavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the LinksChapel HillThe University of North Carolina Press 2005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barry, BoubacarSenegambia and the Atlantic Slave TradeNew YorkCambridge University Press 1998Google Scholar
Schwartz, Stuart B.Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550–1835New YorkCambridge University Press 1985Google Scholar
Mota, Antonia da SilvaCripto maranhenses e seu legadoSão PauloEditora Siciliano 2001Google Scholar
Sweet, James H.Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441–1770Chapel HillThe University of North Carolina Press 2003Google Scholar
Reis, João JoséSlave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in BahiaBrakel, ArthurBaltimoreThe Johns Hopkins University Press 1993Google Scholar
Mott, LuizA Inquisição no MaranhãoEDUFMASão Luís 1995Google Scholar
Freyre, GilbertoThe Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian CivilizationPutnam, SamuelBerkeleyThe University of California Press 1986Google Scholar
Degler, Carl N.Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United StatesNew YorkMacmillan 1971Google Scholar
Nash, GaryRed, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early AmericaEnglewood Cliffs, NJPearson Prentice Hall 1992Google Scholar
Jordan, Winthrop D.White over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550–1812Chapel HillThe University of North Carolina Press 1968Google Scholar
Eccles, W. J.Encyclopedia of the North American ColoniesCooke, Jacob ErnestNew YorkC. Scribner’s Sons 1993Google Scholar
Berlin, IraMasters without Slaves: The Free Negro in the Antebellum SouthNew YorkPantheon 1974Google Scholar
Spear, Jennifer M.Colonial Intimacies: Legislating Sex in French LouisianaThe William and Mary Quarterly 60 2003 79CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McClintock, AnnImperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial ConquestNew YorkRoutledge 1995Google Scholar
Stoler, Anne LauraTense and Tender Ties: The Politics of Comparison in North American History and (Post) Colonial StudiesThe Journal of American History 88 2001 829CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holt, KatherineMarriage Choices in a Plantation Society: Bahia, BrazilInternational Review of Social History 50 2005 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Twinam, AnnPublic Lives, Private Secrets: Gender, Honor, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy in Colonial Spanish AmericaPalo Alto, CAStanford University Press 1999Google Scholar
Johnson, Lyman L.Lipsett-Rivera, SonyaThe Faces of Honor: Sex, Shame and Violence in Colonial Latin AmericaAlbuquerqueUniversity of New Mexico Press 1998
Morgan, Jennifer L.Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World SlaveryPhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 2004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoornaert, EduardoHistória da igreja na AmazôniaPretrósVozes 1992Google Scholar
Prazeres, Francisco de N. S. DosPoranduba maranhense ou relação histórica da província do MaranhãoRevista trimensal do Instituto do Histórico e Geographico Brazileiro 54 1891 140Google Scholar
Magalhaens, D. J. G. deOpusculos historicos e litterariosRio de JaneiroLivraria de B. L. Garnier 1865Google Scholar
Lago, Antonio Bernardino Pereira doEstatistica historica-geografica da provincia do MaranhãoLisbonAcademia Real das Sciencias 1822Google Scholar
Mendes, Oliveira, Luiz Antonio deMemorias economicas da Academia Real das Sciencias de LisboaLisbonAcademia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa 1812Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×