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Notarized And Baptismal Manumissions in the Parish Of SÃO José Do Rio Das Mortes, Minas Gerais (C. 1750-1850)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2015

Douglas Cole Libby  and
Afonso De Alencastro Graça Filho
Douglas Cole Libby
Affiliation:
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Afonso De Alencastro Graça Filho
Affiliation:
Federal Universidade de Sāo Joāo Del Rei, Minas Gerais, Brazil
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Extract

As regards the slave societies of the Americas, it is hard to imagine a more palpable example of social mobility than manumissions. The fact that exslaves were able to carve out a space for themselves within the larger slave societies attests to their resilience—a resilience that must have played a role in obtaining freedom in the first place—and demonstrates that a considerable measure of social and racial flux existed in at least some of those societies. Manumission and miscegenation, independendy or in association with one another, decisively contributed to the sometimes explosive growth of colored and mestizo populations, which came to characterize large parts of Latin America. Few better examples exist than Brazil, where it was not at all uncommon for ex-slaves to become slaveholders in their own right.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , October 2009 , pp. 211 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2009

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References

1. The capelas were Passa Tempo, Oliveira, Claudio, Desterro, Lage, Japão, São João Baptista, Pilar do Padre Gaspar, and Penha da Franca do Bichinho.

2. See, for example Joaquim da Rocha, José, Geografia Histórica da Capitanía de Minas Gérais (Belo Horizonte: Centro de Estudos Históricos e Culturais/Fundaçào Joào Pinheiro, 1995 [1781]);Google Scholar Alencastro Graça Fillio, Afonso de, A Princesa do Oeste: Elite Mercantil e Economia de Subsistencia em Sâo Joào del Rei, 1832–1888 (Sào Paulo: Annablume, 2002);Google Scholar Prado Junior, Caio, Formaçào do Brasil Contemporáneo (Colonia) (Sào Paulo: Brasiliensc, 1976);Google Scholar Guimaràes & Liana Reis, Carlos Magno, “Agricultura e Escravidào em Minas Gérais (1700/1750),” Revista do Departamento de Historia 2 (junho 1986), pp. 7–36;Google Scholar Maria Augusta do Amarai Campos, “A Marcha da Civİlİzaçâo: as Vilas Oitocentistas de Sào Joào del Rei e Sào José do Rio das Mortes” (Dissertaçâo de Mestrado: Universidade Federal de Minas Gérais, 1998).

3. Instituto Histórico e Geogràfico de Tiradentes, Rol dos Confessados desta Ereguezia de S. Antonio da Villa de S. Joze, Comarca do Rio das Mortes, deste prezente anno de 1795. Manuscript.

4. There are lists for the vila and eight of the cápelas included in the Rol. The ninth cápela, Nossa Senhora da Penha da Franca do Bichinho, was not considered a district by provincial authorities, but was included in the count of the vila.

5. The original manuscript lists are part of the holdings of the Arquivo Público Mineiro. Here we use the data base: Arquivo Público Mineiro, Seçâo Provincial. Listas nominativas da década de 1830, organizadas em banco de dados pelo Núcleo de Pesquisa em Historia Económica e Demográfica do Centro de Desenvolvimento e Planejamento Regional/Universidade Federal de Minas Gérais.

6. See Douglas Cole Libby & Afonso de Alencastro Graça Filho, “Reconstruindo a liberdade: alforrias e forros na freguesia de Sâo José do Rio das Mortes, 1750–1850,” Varia Historia 30 (juiho 2003), pp. 112–151.

7. Hebe Maria Mattos de Castro, Das cores do silencio: os significados da liberdade no Sudeste escravista—Brasil século XIX (Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo Nacional, 1995).

8. For an overview see Libby, Douglas Cole, “O tráfico negreiro e populaçoes escravas das Minas Gérais, c. 1720–c. 1850,” Proceedings of the XXVI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association. Decentering Latin American Studies (March 15–18, 2006).Google Scholar

9. See, among others, de Queirós Mattoso, Kátia M., “A propósito de cartas de alforria—Bahia, 1779-1850,” Anais de Historia (Assis) (1972), pp. 23–52;Google Scholar de Queirós Mattoso, Kátia M., “A carta de alforria como fonte complementar para o estudo da rentabilidade da mâo-de-obra escrava urbana (1819-1888),” in Carlos Manuel Peláez & Mircea Buescu, coords., A moderna historia económica (Rio de Janeiro: APEC, 1976), pp. 149–168;Google Scholar Schwartz, Stuart Β., “The Manumission of Slaves in Colonial Brazil: Bahia 1684–1745,” Hispanic American Historical Review 4:54 (November 1974), pp. 603–635;Google Scholar Kiernan, James P., “Baptism and Manumission in Brazil: Paraty, 1789-1822,” Social Science History 3:1 (Fall 1978), pp. 56–71;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Karash, Mary, “The Forms of Manumission in Rio de Janeiro, 1807-1831,” Anais, VIII Reunido Anual. Sociedade Brasileira de Pesquisa Histórica (1989), pp. 39–41;Google Scholar Figueiredo, Luciano, O avesso da memoria: cotidiano e trabalho da mulher em Minas Gérais no Século XVIII (Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio/Brasília: EDUNB, 1993);Google Scholar Gonçalves, Andréa Lisley, “Cartas de liberdade: registros de alforria em Mariana no século XVIII,” Anais do VII Seminàrio sobre a Economia Minería (1995), pp. 197–218.Google Scholar de Pinto Goés, José Roberto, “Padròes de alforrias no Rio de Janeiro,” İn Joào Fragoso, Manolo Florentino, Antonio Carlos Jucá & Adriana Campos, orgs., Nas rotas do Imperio: eixos mercantis, tráfico e relaçöes sociais no mundo portugués (Vitoria: EDUFES, 2006), pp. 517–568.Google Scholar

10. For a detailed discussion of the terminology of racial/ethnic designation or origin used in Minas at the turn of the eighteenth century see Libby, Douglas & Frank, Zephyr, “Exploring Parish Registers in Colonial Minas Gérais, Brazil: Ethnicity in Sâo José do Rio das Mortes, 1780-1810,” Colonial Latin American Historical Review 14:3 (Summer 2005), pp. 213–244.Google Scholar In any case, our findings for Minas are entirely distinct from interpretations relative to the captaincy and city of Rio de Janeiro during the colonial period. Cf. Matiza de Carvalho Soares, Devotos da cor: identidade étnica, religiosidade e escraviddo no Rio de Janeiro, século XVIII (9Ào de Janeiro: Civilizaçâo Brasileira, 2000); Sheila de Castro Faria, A Colònia em movimento: fortuna e familia no cotidiano colonia (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1998); Castro Faria, Sheila de, “Damas mercadoras: as prêtas minasno Rio de Janeiro, século XVIII-1850,” in Mariza de Carvalho Soares, ed., Rotas atlánticas da diaspora africana: da Baia do Benim ao Rio de Janeiro (Niterói: Editora da Universidade Federai Fluminense, 2007), pp. 101–134;Google Scholar Hebe Maria Mattos, “A escravidao moderna nos quadros do Impèrio Portugués: o Antigo Regime em perspective atlàntica,” in Joào Fragoso, Maria Fernanda Bicalho & Maria de Fatima Govêa, eds., O Antigo Regime nos trópicos: a dinàmica imperial portuguesa, séculos XVI-XVIII (Rio de Janeiro: Civilizaçâo Brasileira, 2001), pp. 141–162. For an extremely cogent discussion of the issues raised İn this on-going debate, see Guedes, Roberto, “De ex-escravo a elite escravista: a trajetória de ascensâo social do pardo alferes Joaquim Barbosa Neves (Porto Feliz, Sâo Paulo, século XIX),” in Joào Luís Ribeiro Fragoso, Carla Maria Carvalho de Almeida & Antonio Carlos Jucá de Sam-paio, orgs., Conquistadores e negociantes: historias de elites no Antigo Regime nos trópicos. América lusa, séculos XVI a XVIII (Rio de Janeiro: Civilizaçâo Brasileira, 2007), pp. 337–376.Google Scholar

11. Museu Regional de Sào Joào d’El Rei [hereafter, MRSJ]. Livres de Notas 1753–1754; Livro de Noms do 2° Oficio 1773–1775; Livro de Notas 1791–1794; Livro de Notas 1806–1809; Livro de Notas 1830–1831, Livro de Notas 18341849, Avulsos 1770–1781. Manuscript.

12. Centro de Documentaçào do Arcebispado de Sâo Joào del Rei, Arquivo Paroquial de Santo Antonio de Sâo José do Rio das Mortes [hereafter APSASJRM]. Livres 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 22, 24. Arquivo Paroquial de Nossa Senhora da Glòria de Passa Tempo [hereafter APNSGPT], Livro 1A. Manuscript.

13. The designation used either when the father was incognito or the parents unmarried. This was the Church’s way of leaving the door open for future marriages which would legitimate natural children.

14. These both refer to the fruit of adulterous relations.

15. This refers to children fathered by members of the clergy.

16. In such cases the registers identified the individual who had taken in the infant.

17. In the parish of Sào José, manumissions appear to have represented under 1.5 percent of all slave baptisms. That is in quite sharp contrast to findings for the colonial capital of Minas from 1712 to 1810, where manumissions represented some 5.6 percent of slave baptisms. See Libby, Douglas Cole & Botelho, Tarcisio Rodrigues, ‘Filhos de Deus: batismos de crianças legítimas e naturais na Paróquia de Nossa Senhora do Pilar de Ouro Preto,’ Varia Historia 31 (janeiro 2004), pp. 69–96.Google Scholar

18. Despite the importance of these registers, no formal instructions existed as to how manumissions at the baptismal font should be recorded. See Monteiro da Vide, D. Sebastiâo, Constituiçöes, primeiras do arcebispado da Bahia (Brasilia: Senado Federal/Conselho Editorial, 2007).Google Scholar

19. In the notarial sources, we came across a single case in which individual notarized manumission papers were based on a baptismal manumission. Specifically, in October of 1753 the crioula forra Isabel requested the notarization of a transcript of her 1733 baptismal register in which she had received her freedom. MRSJ. Livro de Notas 1754–1754, folha 50. Manuscript.

20. APSASJRM. Livro 14, folha 152 verso. Manuscript.

21. APSASJRM. Livro 0, follia 404. Manuscript.

22. APSASJRM. Livro 9, folha 547. Manuscript.

23. APSASJRM. Livro 7, folha 454. Manuscript.

24. Our field research includes the systematic transcription of all available Sào José parish registers from the mid-eighteenth century through to roughly 1900. During the eighteenth century the years for which no baptismal manumissions appeared were 1756, 1765, 1793, and 1794, while during the first half of the nineteenth the corresponding years were 1808, 1812, 1820, 1840, 1842, 1843, 1844, 1846, 1847, 1848, 1849, and 1850. It should be noted that, as of the 1830s, Sào José was subjected to dismemberment owing to the creation of the new parishes of Oliveira and Passa Tempo, which include the cápelas of Cláudio, Japào, and Sào Joào Baptista. We were able to complete our data base with registers from Passa Tempo (and the cápela of Sâo Joào Baptista) dating from 1832 to 1849, but the present-day bishopric of Oliveira has thus far refused access to its registers.

25. Part of the explanation for the decline in the number of infant manumissions would have been the carving out of new parishes and the consequent subtraction of a substantial proportion of the overall population. However, we have completed the transcription of the last two volumes of nineteenth-century Sào José baptismal records (APSASJRM Livras 16 and 17. Manuscript), which turned up a mere nine manumissions from 1851 to 1862. No further manumissions appear in the records. With the promulgation of the Free Womb Law in 1871, the freeing of infants at the baptismal font was, of course, rendered unnecessary. Nevertheless, these additional findings lend a good measure of weight to the argument that baptismal manumissions were definitely on the wane from approximately 1840 on.

26. Eduardo França Paiva examines testaments and inventarios post mortem in his Escravos e libertos nets Minas Gérais do século XVIII: estrategias de resistencia através dos testamentos (Sâo Paulo: Annablume, 1995) and Escravidâo e universo cultural na Colonia: Minas Gérais, 1716–1789 (Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 2001).

27. Judicial proceeding have been researched by Sidney Chaloub, Visees da liberdade: urna historia das últimas décadas da escravidâo na Corte (Sâo Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1990); Tarcisio Rodrigues Botelho, “As alforrias em Minas Gérais no século XIX,” Varia Historia 23 (julho 2000), pp. 61–76; Duarte Lacerda, Antonio Henrique, Ospadroes de alforrias em um municipio cafeeiro em expansào: Juiz de Fora, Zona da Mata de Minas Gérais, 1844–1888 (Sào Paulo: FAPEB, 2006).Google Scholar These studies all tend to concentrate on the final decades of slavery in Brazil. Research on earlier periods İs called for.

28. Russell-Wood, A.J.R., Slavery & Freedom in Colonial Brazil (Oxford: Oneworld, 2002)Google Scholar [Originally The Black Man in Slavery and Freedom in Colonial Brazil, 1982]; Kátia, M. de Q. Mattoso, Ser escravo no Brasil (Sào Paulo: Brasiliense, 1988);Google Scholar Bellini, Ligia, “Por amor e por interesse,” in Joào José Reis, org., Escravidâo & invençào da liberdade. (Sào Paulo: Brasiliense, 1988), pp. 71–86;Google Scholar M. de Q., Kátia Mattoso, Herbert Klein & Stanley Engerman, “Notas sobre as tendencias e padroes de preços de alforria na Bahia, 1819–1888,” in Reis, Escravidâo & invençâo, pp. 60–70.Google Scholar The urban focus of certain other studies has tended to corroborate this notion: Mary Karasch, Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986); Chaloub, Visöes; Paiva, Escravos e libertos and Escravidâo e universo cul-tural; Dantas, Mariana L. R, Black Townsmen: Urban Slavery and Freedom in the Eighteenth-Century Americas (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29. Schwartz, Stuart B., Escravos, roceiros e rebeldes (Bauru: EDUSC, 2001), p. 178.Google Scholar

30. MRSJ, Livro de notas 1753–1754, folha 70. Manuscript.

31. MRSJ, Avulsos 1770–1781, caixa 1, fola 110. Manuscript.

32. The chapel of Nossa Senhora do Rosàrio, built and maintained by a largely black lay brotherhood, was the site of a fair number of baptisms involving manumissions. A smaller amount of baptismal manumissions also took place at Nossa Senhora das Mercês, a chapel more identified with the town’s pardo population.

33. The much smaller group of freedmen found in the 1831 nominal lists was somewhat less concentrated in the vila than in 1795. By the 1830s, however, the town center had begun a secular decline, despite the notable prosperity of its rural districts.

34. Paiva, Cf., Escravos e libertos and Escravidâo e universo cultural; Kathleen Hİggins, ‘Licentious Liberty’ in a Brazilian Gold-Mining Region: Slavery, Gender, and Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Sabara, Minas Gérais (Uni-versity Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999);Google Scholar Mello e Souza, Laura de, “Coartaçào: problemática e episodios referentes a Minas Gérais no século XVIII,” in Normas e conflitos: aspectos da historia de Minas Gérais no século XVIII (Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 1999), pp. 151–174;Google Scholar Libby, Douglas Cole & Paiva, Clotilde Andrade, “Manumission Practices in a Late Eighteenth-Century Brazilian Slave Parish: Sào José d'El Rey in 1795,” Slavery & Abolition 21:1 (April 2000), pp. 96–127;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Botelho, “As alforrias;” Libby 8c Graça Filho, “Reconstruíndo a liberdade;” Lacerda, Os padroes de alforrias; Dantas, Black Townsmen; Andrea Lisly Goncalves, “Práticas de alforrias na Américas: dois estudos de caso em perpectiva comparada,” in Eduardo França Paiva & Isnara Pereira Ivo, orgs., Escravidâo, mestiçagem e historias comparada (Sào Paulo: Annablume/Belo Horizonte: PPGH-UEMG/Vitória da Conquista: Edunesb, 2008), pp. 59–75; Carlos Leonardo Kelmer Mathias, “O braço armado do senhor: recursos e orientaçöes valorativas nas relaçöes sociais escravistas em Minas Gérais na primeira metade do século XVIII” in Paiva 8c Ivo, Escravidâo, mestiçagem, pp. 89–106.

35. Higgins, ‘Licentious Liberty,’ p. 148. The author examined 1,133 manumission papers.

36. Libby & Graça Filho, “Reconstruindo a liberdade,” pp. 123–126; Botelho, “As alforrias,” p. 66; Lacerda, Os padroes de alforrias, pp. 93–96. Lacerda’s study shows that male manumissions predominated in Juiz de Fora during the 1880s, that is to say, in the context of growing abolitionist pressures.

37. According to the author’s findings (Paiva, Escravidâo e universo cultural, p. 112), in the Comarca do Rio das Velhas from 1720 to 1784, the sex ratio of the manumitted population stood at 93. The corresponding figure for the Comarca do Rio das Mortes in the 1716–1789 period was 99.

38. Paiva, Escravos e libertos and Escravidâo e universo cultural; Maria Beatriz Nizza da Silva, Historia da familia no Brasil colonial (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1998).

39. Libby, & Graça Filho, , “Reconstruindo a liberdade,” pp. 135–147.Google Scholar

40. Mattoso, Ser escravo; Cami/lia Cow/ing, “Negociando a liberdade: mulheres de cor e a transiçâo para o traballio livre em Cuba e no Brasil, 1870–1888,” in Douglas Cole Libby & Júnia Ferreira Furtado, orgs., Traballio livre, traballio escravo: Brasil e Europa, séculos XVIII e XIX (Sào Paulo: Annablume, 2006), pp. 153–175.

41. Cowling, “Negociando a liberdade,” p. 172.

42. See the classifications in Curtin, Philip D., The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969);Google Scholar Thorton, John, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1680 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Karasch, Slave Life, pp. 371–383;Google Scholar and Paiva Escravidâo e universo cultural, p. 71.

43. This breakdown by African origin for the second half of the eighteenth century almost certainly reflects an earlier transition—say from the 1730s and 1740s—which saw a marked preponderance of slave imports coming from West Africa give way to considerably larger proportions originating in Central West Africa. See Rezende, Rodrigo Castro, “As nossas Áfricas: populaçao escrava e identidades africanas nas Minas Sete cen tis tas,” (Dissertaçâo de Mestrado, Universi-dadc Federal de Minas Gérais, 2006).Google Scholar

44. APSASJRM, Livro 9, folha 522 verso. Manuscript.

45. APSASJRM, Livro 9, folha 355. Manuscript.

46. It is curious to note that in Minas Gérais and, indeed, in Portuguese America as a whole, terms such as quadroon (quadrào) or octoroon (oitavào) were rarely, if ever, employed as racial designations.

47. APSASJRM, Livro 8, folha 127 and Livro 10, folha 201. Manuscript.

48. MRSJ. Avulsos 1770–1781, caixa 1, folha 16. Manuscript.

49. MRSJ. Avulsos 1770–1781, caixa 1, folha 128. Manuscript.

50. MRSJ. Avulsos 1770–1781, caixa 1, folha 112. Manuscript.

51. Franco de Carvalho and his wife are listed in the 1795 Roi de S. Joze along with their 78 slaves.

52. APSASJRM. Livro 8, folha 309. Manuscript.

53. Nazzari, Muriel, Disappearance of the Dowry: Women, Families, and Social Change in Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1600–1900 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 15–27.Google Scholar

54. APSASJRM. Livro 7, folha 319. Manuscript.

55. Scholars have long noted that throughout Portuguese America, freedmen and freedwomen frequently became slave owners themselves. That was especially true in the freewheeling atmosphere of eighteenth-century Minas Gérais. Cf. Russell-Wood, Slavery & Freedom; Iraci del Nero da Costa, “Algumas características dos proprietários de escravos de Vila Rica,” Estudos Económicos 11: 3 (setembro/dezembro 1981), pp. 151–157; Higgins, ‘Licentious Liberty;’ Libby & Paiva, “Manumission Practices;” Dantas, Black Townsmen.

56. Mattos de Castro, Das cores do silencio; also Libby & Graça Filho, “Reconstruindo a liberdade.”

57. Most of the Sào José baptismal registers included a simple observation usually worded, “the said baptized received his/her manumission” or “manumitted at the font.” All manumissions accompanied by this sort of observation are considered to have been implicidy gratuitous. Registers in which the term alforriado(a) merely followed alongside the name of the infant, but which included no specific observation pertaining to the act of manumission, are considered to represent unspecified types of manumission. Manumission papers were less likely not to include remarks that served to classify the type of act being carried out and, indeed, half of the unspecified category refers to damaged documents, which could not be fully deciphered. A caveat is in order here, however. Lack of information as to the price of a given manumission or relative to the condition attached to such an act may reflect omission on the part of the cleric responsible for registering the baptism or of the notary official charged with recording the transaction. In other words, it is entirely pos-sible that manumission payments and eventual conditions attached to acts of liberation are understated in the documentation examined here.

58. MRSJ. Avulsos 1770–1781, caixa 1, folha 119. Manuscript.

59. MRSJ. Livro de Notas 1753–1754, folha 37. Manuscript.

60. Libby, & Graça Filho, , “Reconstruindo a liberdade,” pp. 145–146.Google Scholar

61. APSASJRM. Livro 7, folha 242; Livro 9, folha 404; Livro 10, folha 229; Livro 24, folha 24 verso; Rol dos Con-fessados. Manuscript.

62. By way of comparison, Higgins ( ‘Licentious Liberty,3 p. 151) informs that “[i]n the years İ710–59, 65 percent of the men who were freed and 70 percent of the women who were freed did, in fact, pay for their letters of manumission.”

63. The native/African question is, of course, moot when dealing with infant baptismal manumissions.

64. Libby, & Paiva, , “Manumission Practices,” p. 113.Google Scholar

65. Azeredo, Paulo César & Lissovsky, Maurilio, orgs., Escravos brasileiros do século XIX na fotografìa de Cristiano Jr. (Sào Paulo: Corrupio, 1998).Google Scholar

66. Here again it should be recalled that the surviving documentation suggests not only that it was extremely rare for those liberated at the baptismal font to later obtain cartas de alforria, but that slaves freed in wills and testaments were also unlikely to bother to notarize their new condition as freedmen or frecdwomen.

67. MRSJ. Livro de Notas do 2o Oficio 1773–1775, folha 92. Manuscript. The assumption here is that the notarization took place soon after Micaela Pinto’s death.

68. MRSJ. Avulsos 1770–1881, caixa 1, folha 41. Manuscript.

69. MRSJ. Livro de Escrituras N° 1, folha 41. Manuscript.

70. MRSJ. Livro de Notas 1830–1832, folha 15.

71. APSASJRM. Livro 7, folha 277. Manuscript.

72. APSASJRM. Livro 14, folha 151. Manuscript.

73. Bergad, Laird W. Slavery and the Demographic and Economic History of Minas Gérais, Brazil, 1720–1888 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 262 According to the author, in 1754 the average price of an African female between 15 and 40 years of age was 106,000 milreis.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

74. MRSJ. Livro de notas 1753–1754, folha 64 (27/04/1754) Manuscript.

75. Bergad, Slavery, pp. 262–263.

76. MRSJ. Livro de Notas 1753–1754, folha 37 (01/1754), Manuscript.

77. Bergad, Slavery, p. 270.

78. MRSJ. Livro de Notas do 2o Oficio 1773–1775, folha 10. Manuscript. Notarization took place nearly seven years later İn 17 January 1774.

79. MRSJ. Livro de Notas 1834–1849, (10/06/1845), Manuscript. The register indicates the existence of a contract dating from 1834. Thus, it would appear that an agreement regarding manumission had been reached at the time of the boy's birth.

80. Bergad, Slavery, p. 273.

81. MRSJ. Livro de Notas 1791–1794, (05/05/1792), Manuscript.

82. Bergad, Slavery, p. 271.

83. MRSJ. Livro de Notas, (06/05/1792), Manuscript.

84. Paiva, Escravos e libertos, 1995; Lİbby, & Ftlho, Graça, “Manumission Practices,” pp 118–121; Paiva, Escravidâo e universo cultural.Google Scholar

85. A quarta de ouro equaled 32 oiatvas de ouro, both of which equaled 38,400 milreis. In one 1823 case the amount paid was 24,000 milreis (obviously well below market price). See APSASJRM. Livro 15, folhas 58 verso-59. Manuscript.

86. APSASJRM, Livro 16, folha 68 verso. Manuscript.

87. Schwartz, Stuart B., Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels: Reconsidering Brazilian Slavery (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), p. 142.Google Scholar For further reflection see Gudeman, Stephen & Schwartz, Stuart B., “Purgando o pecado original: compadrio e batismo de escravos na Bahia no século XVIII,” in Reis Escravidâo e invençâo da liberdade, pp. 33–59.Google Scholar

88. Among the slaves seven were Africans, 15 were either crioulos(as) or pardos(as), and three were not identified in terms of racial designation/origin. Among the manumitted godparents, six had been born in Africa, three were criou-los, and one a pardo. Five freeborn pardos and one freeborn crioulo served as godfathers.

89. APSASJRM. Livro 7, folha 37. Manuscript.

90. APSASJRM. Livro 7, folha 608. Manuscript.

91. Indeed, İn a further 29 cases, the repetition of family names among owners and godparents indicate that the latter may have been immediate relatives of the former.

92. APSASJRM. Livro 8, folha 247 verso. Manuscript.

93. APSASJRM. Livro 9 folhas 613 verso and 618 verso; Livro 10, fblhas 28 and 205. Manuscript.

94. APSASJRM. Livro 9, folha 359. Manuscript.

95. APSASJRM Livro 8, folhas 33, 92, and 258; Livro 10, folha 196. Manuscript.