¹ Cruz Santos, Beatriz Catâo, O Corpo de Deus na América (Sâo Paulo: Annablume, 2005), pp. 71, 113.Google Scholar The idea of a framework used in this study is found in Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger (London: Routledge and Kegal Paul, 1978), p. 63.Google Scholar It can be used to form an opinion about the many actions of the cámara, which publicly announced the feast, nominated the retinue, named those who would hold the poles for the canopy, and determined the cleaning of the streets and the route of the procession, etc.

² Boxer, Charles H., O império marítimo português, 1415–1825 (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2002), p. 289;Google Scholar Bicalho, Maria Fernanda, A cidade e o império (Rio de Janeiro: Civilizaçâo Brasileira, 2003).Google Scholar

³ Most of the analyses about the representation of the artisan crafts and skilled trades (oficios mecânicos) are about Bahia, where this occurred between 1641 and 1713. Ochi Flexor, Maria Helena, Oficiais mecânicos na cidade de Salvador (Salvador, 1974), pp. 9–13;Google Scholar Boxer, Charles, Portuguese Society in the Tropics (Madison and Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965), pp. 76–77;Google Scholar Schwartz, Stuart, “Ceremonies of Public Authority in a Colonial Capital. The King’s Processions and the Hierarchies of Power in the Seventeenth Century Salvador,” Anais de História de Além-mar, 5 (2004), p. 25.Google Scholar

The authors point out that during the time of the representation, the vereadores try to restrict the participation of the craftsmen and discuss the reasons for their political exclusion in 1713. For more information about the artisan crafts and skilled trade in Rio de Janeiro: Fazenda, Vieira, “Antiqualhas e Memórias , do Rio de Janeiro,” Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, tomo 86, v. 140 (1919), p. 133.Google Scholar

⁴ Santos, , O Corpo de Deus na América, pp. 110–154.Google Scholar In order to have access to contemporary historical processes in Spanish America, see the following works: Dean, Carolyn, Inka Bodies and the Body of Christ (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 46–62;Google Scholar Cahill, David, “Popular Religion and Appropriation: the Example of Corpus Christi in Eighteenth-Century Cuzco,” Latin American Research Review, 31:2 (1996), pp. 67–110;Google Scholar Gruzinski, Serge, “La Fête-Dieu à Mexico au temps da la Nouvelle-Espagne,” Le Corps de Dieu en Fêtes, ed. Molinié, Antoinette (Paris: Lés Éditions du Cerf, 1996), pp. 137–157.Google Scholar In Dean’s analysis on Corpus Christi in Cuzco, the feast introduced by the colonial authorities incorporates native practices as forms of representing Christian triumph. This does not exclude an ambiguous attitude toward them. Despite the attraction exercised, for example, by the indigenous dances, debates and extirpative practices have been present since the sixteenth century. However, after the rebellion of 1780–1781 by Túpac Amaru, pagan practices that evoke the royal Incan past become a social threat.

⁵ Dos Santos, Georgina Silva, Ofício e Sangue (Lisbon: Colibri, 2005), p. 77.Google Scholar

⁶ Balandier, Georges, O poder em cena (Brasília: Universidade de Brasília, 1982), p. 18.Google Scholar

⁷ The House of 24 was a means to represent the skilled trades based on the system of corporations. The leaders of the merchants and artisans annually elected 12 or 24 representatives from among the members of their corporation, in the case of the câmaras of Lisbon and Porto. Four of these would become the masters’ procurators (craftsmen officials), with the right to participate in council sessions. See: Fazenda, Vieira, “Antiqualhas”; Boxer, Portuguese Society in the Tropics, pp. 7–8;Google Scholar Bicalho, Maria Fernanda, “O que significava ser cidadão nos tempos coloniais?” Ensino de História, ed. Abreu, Martha and Sohiet, Rachel (Rio de Janeiro: Casa da Palavra, 2003), p. 143.Google Scholar

⁸ Santos, , O Corpo de Deus na América; Bicalho, , “O que significava ser cidadão nos tempos coloniais?” p. 143.Google Scholar

⁹ Boxer, , Portuguese Society in the Tropics, p. 147; Bicalho, , “O que significava ser cidadão nos tempos coloniais?”Google Scholar

¹⁰ Fragoso, Joâo, Gouvêa, Maria de Fátima, and Bicalho, Maria Fernanda, “Bases da Materialidade e da Governabilidade no Império: urna leitura do Brasil Colonial,” Penélope, 23 (2000), p. 18.Google Scholar

¹¹ Judging from the documentation compiled by Flexor, the craftsmen tried to intervene and defend specific interests since 1646, going up against the councilmen. However, the accusations of inciting two uprisings in the city against colonial authorities in 1710 and 1711 made their mark, because this was commented on much later in correspondence of the councilmen and led to a royal order in 1813. Letters from the Senate and His Majesty, 1742–1822, L°182, APMS, fls.58, v–61 apud. Flexor, , Oficiais mecânicos, p. 60.Google Scholar

¹² Boxer, , Portuguese Society in the Tropics, p. 76; Schwartz, , “Ceremonies of Public Authority in a Colonial Capital,” p. 12.Google Scholar

¹³ “Regimentó de Compromisso da Irmandade de São Jorge da irmandade dos Ferreiros desta Cidade do Rio de Janeiro,” 1790, Arquivo do Distrito Federal, Janeiro, Rio de, 4, 1897, pp. 131–140.Google Scholar It is possible to access parts of this compromisso through the documentation handled by the Projeto Resgate. The CD image does not permit a reading of the series of documents. I used the transcribed and published document. However, when the document presents incoherències, I resort to the CD copy and indicate this in a note. “Compromisso (acrescentamento) da Irmandade do Glorioso Mártir São Jorge no Rio de Janeiro,” 1791, Projeto Resgate, Compromissos, Cód. 1952 CD-25.

¹⁴ About a lawsuit filed in 1773 and recurring absences in the procession: Santos, , O Corpo de Deus na América, pp. 85–91, 137;Google Scholar Ott, Carlos, Formaçâo e evoluçâo étnica da cidade de Salvador, vol. 1 (Salvador: Tipografia Manú, 1955), pp. 32–33;Google Scholar Schwartz, “Ceremonies of Public Authority in a Colonial Capital.”

¹⁵ Baptiste Debret, Jean, Viagem pitoresca e histórica ao Brasil, tomo III (Belo Horizonte: Itatiaia; São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, 1989), pp. 42–44.Google Scholar For details on the ritual, but in a slightly different perspective: Santos, , O Corpo de Deus na América, pp. 149–154.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Schwartz, , “Ceremonies of Public Authority in a Colonial Capital,” p. 13.Google Scholar In order to consult analyses on feasts, shifting from the idea that the feast is “an almost holy place for tradition and permanence”: Pereira Cunha, Maria Clementina, ed., Carnavais e outras festas (Campinas, SP: Editora da Unicamp, Cecult, 2002), pp. 11–26.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Fazenda, Vieira, “Antiqualhas,” p. 204.Google Scholar Nireu Cavalcanti dates the brotherhood starting with the church in 1753: Cavalcanti, Nireu, O Rio de Janeiro setecentista (Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar Editor, 2004), pp. 425–426.Google Scholar

¹⁸ “Compromisso da Irmandade do Glorioso São Jorge no Rio de Janeiro,” 1757, in Projeto Resgate, Compromissos, Cód. 1949, CD–25.

¹⁹ Santos, Oficio e Sangue.

²⁰ Schwartz, Stuart, Segredos Internos (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1995), p. 209.Google Scholar

²¹ Schwartz, , Segredos Internos, p. 210.Google Scholar I make reference to the concepts of Brazil-Colony and race. The former was frequently found in Brazilian historiography in the 1970s and 1980s, and emphasis was placed on relations between the colony and the metropolis [Luciano Figueiredo, “Os sentidos da colo-nizaçào na América portuguesa,” Educação no Brasil, ed. Ana Maria Magaldi, Claudia Alves, and José Gondra (Bragança Paulista: FAPESP/EDUSF, 2003)]. The latter is of greater importance for the discussion I now bring up because the idea of race was not the basis for legitimizing modern slavery. It was a social construction of the nineteenth century, and on the American continent, closely tied to the contradictions between the civil and political rights inherent to citizenship established by the new liberal states and the long abolition process. Maria Mattos, Hebe, Escravidão e cidadania no Brasil monárquico (Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2000), p. 20.Google Scholar

²² Cavalcanti, , O Rio de Janeiro setecentista, pp. 253–258.Google Scholar According to the author, the demographic studies would only begin to adopt a more improved methodology and to produce more discriminating data after 1820. The statistical data I reproduce in the text related to 1760 and 1779–90 are extracted from contemporary documents, whereas the data from 1808 refers to the conjectural calculation made by Cavalcanti from diverse documents. The nomenclature used for the make-up of the city’s population is the same as presented by an extract of the population of the captaincy of Rio de Janeiro, sent by viceroy Count of Resende to the Secretary of State D. Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho in 1797.

²³ Alden, Dauril, Royal Government in Colonial Brazil (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968), p. 50.Google Scholar Direita Street was located in the center of the colonial city. For a historical reconstitution of its layout and homes in 1810: Cavalcanti, , O Rio de Janeiro setecentista, pp. 379–404.Google Scholar Over time, the street underwent urban and name changes. At present, 1° de Março Avenue is one of the main streets in Rio de Janeiro’s commercial and financial center.

²⁴ Bicalho, , A cidade e o impèrio, pp. 259–298.Google Scholar In this chapter, the author associates the fear of foreign invasions with maintaining internal order, using an analysis of documentation produced by metropolitan and colonial authorities about Rio de Janeiro in the eighteenth century.

²⁵ “Compromisso da Irmandade do Glorioso São Jorge no Rio de Janeiro,” 1757.

²⁶ Adolfo Hansen, João, “A categoria ‘representação’ nas festas coloniais dos séculos XVII e XVIII,” Festa: Cultura e Sociabilidade na América portuguesa, vol. 2, ed. Jancsó, István and Kantor, Íris (São Paulo: Hucitec/Edusp/Fapesp/ Imprensa Oficial, 2001), pp. 735–736.Google Scholar

²⁷ “Compromisso da Irmandade do Glorioso Sâo Jorge no Rio de Janeiro,” 1757.

²⁸ Maria Mattos, Hebe, Escravidão e cidadania, pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

²⁹ For a detailed analysis on the purity of blood myth in Portugal and Brazil, which gives priority to new Christians: Tucci Carneiro, Maria Luiza, Preconcetto racial em Portugal e no Brasil Colônia (São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2005), p. 13.Google Scholar

³⁰ BN, Manuscripts 7,4,4, Ofícios Mecânicos: General list of all the judges of the different skilled trades that existed in the city until the beginning of 1792.

³¹ Constituições primeiras do arcebispado da Bahia (São Paulo, Tipografia 2 de dezembro, 1853); Scarano, Julita, Devoção e escravidão (São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1978), p. 53;Google Scholar Carvalho Soares, Mariza de, Devotos da Cor (Rio de Janeiro, Civilização Brasileira, 2001), pp. 144, 175;Google Scholar as an example, the compromisso of the brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosáry and Saint Benedict of the black men, church of Our Lady of the Rosáry, Rio de Janeiro, 1759, AHU, cód. 1950.

³² Manuel Hespanha, António and Barreto Xavier, Angela, “A representação da sociedade e do poder,” História de Portugal, ed. Manuel Hespanha, António (Lisbon: Estampa, 1993), pp. 121–144.Google Scholar

³³ The quinto was a 20% tax levied on extracted gold. Boxer, , O império marítimo português, 1415–1825, p. 170.Google Scholar

³⁴ I thank Maria Fernanda Bicalho for this document: AHU, RJ, Avulsos, Cx.76, doc.55, Letter of December 26, 1763. The office of intendant-general [for gold] was created in 1750 and its regulations date back to that year and the subsequent one. It was provided by the king and should be occupied by a learned person. He had several functions linked to controlling the collection of the quinto, the operation of the foundries and communicating information and documents between the intendencies of the district and the Overseas Council. There were two intendents-general: one in Rio de Janeiro, another in Salvador. Salgado, Graça, ed., Fiscais e Meirinhos, 2nd ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1985), p. 373.Google Scholar

³⁵ Santos, , Oficio e Sangue, pp. 118, 178–179Google Scholar. About the familiares of the Portuguese Inquisition in colonial Brazil and their social composition, where merchants stood out: Buono Calainho, Daniela, Agentes da fé (Bauru: São Paulo: EDUSC, 2006).Google Scholar

³⁶ “Compromisso da Irmandade do Glorioso São Jorge no Rio de Janeiro,” 1757. There are different opinions, such as the one manifested by the Procurator of the Treasury, who argues about the injustice contained in the exclusion of those “not of such good blood” and the maintenance of annual collections.

³⁷ BN, Manuscripts 7,4,4, Oficios Mecânicos.

³⁸ Francisco Calazans Falcon makes reference to legal measures, such as the end of the Rois de Fintas in 1768; the end of the distinction between new and old Christians in the Alvará of 1771, which maintained the decision in secret; and the order by D. João V executed by Sebastião José de Carvalho Melo, as his representative before His Royal Majesty of Britain, to form a bibliographical collection about the Hebrew Nation. It is interesting to note that the Marquis of Pombal, after promulgation of the Carta de Lei of 1773, reveals hesitation with the already adopted measure, a feeling that must have been shared with others in a society marked by racial prejudice. Calazans Falcon, Francisco, A época pombalina (São Paulo: Ática, 1982), pp. 400–402.Google Scholar

³⁹ “Compromisso (acrescentamento) da Irmandade do Glorioso Mártir São Jorge no Rio de Janeiro,” 1791. A cooper was someone who repaired vats, pipes, and barrels; the tinsmith made tin vessels; and the saddler, saddles for animals.

⁴⁰ According to Vieira Fazenda, the brotherhood bought an altar and grave sites in the church of Our Lady of Parto on April 9,1742, and despite receiving a land donation in São Domingos in 1753 to build its own chapel, Saint George was only moved in 1800. Vieira Fazenda, “Antigualhas,” p. 204. The church of Our Lady of Parto is at the same location on the current Assembléia Street, and the brotherhood of Saint George is in the church of Saint George and Saint Gonçalo Garcia on Alfândega Steet.

⁴¹ Santa Maria, Frei Agostinho, Santuário Mariano e História das Imogens milagrosas de Nossa Senhora. Bispado do Rio de Janeiro e’todas as ilhas (Lisbon: Oficina de Antonio Pedrozo Galram, 1722), pp. 20–21.Google Scholar

⁴² Mott, Luiz, Rosa Egipcíaca (Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, 1993), pp. 279–280.Google Scholar Vieira Fazenda had already mentioned these data, with some differences. He supplied data that permit supposing that the Chapel of Parto dates back before 1649, but, when he tells the story about the retreat, he does not mention the participation of the former slave in its development.

⁴³ “Compromisso da Irmandade do Glorioso São Jorge no Rio de Janeiro,” 1757.

⁴⁴ “Compromisso da Irmandade do Glorioso São Jorge no Rio de Janeiro,” 1757.

⁴⁵ Silveira, Renato da, Escravidão e invenção da liberdade (São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1988), p. 169.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Silveira, , Escravidão e invenção, p. 168.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ “Compromisso da Irmandade do Glorioso São Jorge no Rio de Janeiro,” 1757.

⁴⁸ “Compromisso da Irmandade do Glorioso São Jorge no Rio de Janeiro,” 1757.

⁴⁹ The first regulation of trades linked to the colonial period dates from the reign of D. João III (1521–1557), submitting its exercise to the municipal câmaras through qualification exams given by trade judges, as well as the inspection by tax judges of the prices defined by the books of posturas (municipal ordinances). Vainfas, Ronaldo, ed., Dicionário do Brasil colonial, 1500 –1808 (Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2000), p. 434.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ “Compromisso da Irmandade do Glorioso São Jorge no Rio de Janeiro,” 1757.

⁵¹ de Holanda, Sérgio Buarque, ed., História Geral da Civilização Brasileira. A época colonial, vol. 2, tomo 1 (São Paulo: Difel, 1985), p. 295.Google Scholar

⁵² “Regimento de Compromisso da irmandade de São Jorge da irmandade dos Ferreiros desta Cidade do Rio de Janeiro,” 1790.

⁵³ “Compromisso da Irmandade do Glorioso São Jorge no Rio de Janeiro,” 1757.

⁵⁴ “Compromisso da Irmandade do Glorioso São Jorge no Rio de Janeiro,” 1757.

⁵⁵ “Compromisso da Irmandade do Glorioso São Jorge no Rio de Janeiro,” 1757. My italics. I changed the abbreviations of the paragraph to facilitate reader understanding.

⁵⁶ Padroado Real in Portuguese and Patronato (or Patronazgo) in Spanish. The former “can be vaguely defined as a combination of rights, privileges and duties, granted by the papacy to the Portuguese Crown as a patron of Catholic missions and ecclesiastical institutions in Africa, Asia and Brazil. These rights and duties are from a series of papal bulls and briefs.” Boxer, , A Igreja e a Expansão ibérica, 1440–1470 (Lisbon: edições 70, 1981), pp. 99–100.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ “Compromisso da Irmandade do Glorioso São Jorge no Rio de Janeiro,” 1757.

⁵⁸ Kiddy, Elizabeth W., Blacks of the Rosary (State College, PA: Penn State Press, 2005), pp. 107–109.Google ScholarPubMed

⁵⁹ Hoonaert, Eduardo, História da Igreja no Brasil (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1977), p. 386.Google Scholar The hypothesis is formulated by this author but taken to its ultimate consequences by Kiddy, who analyzes the conflicts between chaplains and parish priests as one of the themes that point to a movement of subordination of lay organizations by the Crown and Church. Kiddy, , Blacks of the Rosary, pp. 107–109.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ “Compromisso da Irmandade do Glorioso São Jorge no Rio de Janeiro,” 1757.

⁶¹ “Regimento do Compromisso da Irmandade de São Jorge dos ferreiros da cidade do Rio de Janeiro,” 1790, p. 134.

⁶² For a detailed analysis of the symbolic and ritualistic aspects of the cavalcade of Saint George, see Santos, , O Corpo de Deus na América, pp. 147–154.Google Scholar

⁶³ Santos, , O Corpo de Deus na América, pp. 90–91.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Schwartz, , “Ceremonies of Public Authority in a Colonial Capital,” p. 26.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Rubin, Miri, “La Fête Dieu. Naissance et dévélopement d’une célébration médiévale,” Le Corps de Dieu en Fêtes, ed. Molinié, Antoinette (Paris: Lés Éditions du Cerf, 1996);Google Scholar Gruzinki, Serge, “La Fête-Dieu à Mexico au temps de la Nouvelle-Espagne,” Le Corps de Dieu en Fêtes, ed. Santos, Molinié, O Corpo de Deus na América; Silveira, Escravidão e invenção.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Rubin, , “La Fête Dieu,” p. 44.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Dean, Inka Bodies.

⁶⁸ Sweet, James, Recreating Africa (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), pp. 116–117, 205–206.Google Scholar Sweet organizes the debate about the beliefs and practices in the African-Portuguese world between 1441 and 1770, considering those approaches that suggest “creolization” to face the hardships of slavery, as well as those that point to the survival of cultural and religious values in the African Diaspora as insufficient. From the works by Thornton, John [“On the trail of Voodoo: African Christianity in Africa and the Americas,” The Americas, 55 (1988), pp. 261–278;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800 (Cambridge: UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998)], Sweet recognizes the transfer of cultural and religious values by the “Africans,” a category in formation, whose culture emerges in America. Simply put, the saints become the object of devotion because they resemble the ancestral spirits of Central African cosmology and are forged according to the needs of Africans and their descendants. There are evidences in eighteenth-century Rio de Janeiro of the presence of Africans and their descendents in trade stores that belonged to the Brotherhood of Saint George: (BN) Manuscritos 7,4,4 Artes mecânicas; Relação Geral de todos os juízes dos diferentes ofícios mecânicos existentes nesta cidade, até o principío do presente ano de 1792; (AGCRJ) Cód. 45-4-46 Latoeiros. Autos do Juiz e escrivão deste ofício contra Francisco Vale Vianna (1783).