Legal Reasoning in a Slave Society (Brazil, 1860–88)

Abstract

This article analyses arguments used in an 1866 Brazilian freedom suit to highlight a substantive legal perspective. Historians of Brazilian slavery law have given attention to the politics of freedom suits, largely disregarding the role of law in their origins, developments, and outcomes. By looking at legal arguments, we show how law and political views mutually framed each other. We focus on the impact of 19th century legal modernizations in the distinction and contradictions between the law of status and property law, the legal translations of freedom, and the uses of arguments based on codes, natural law, and pragmatic considerations about the judiciary's role in a slave society. This is a micro-history of a suit that, with the help of other 19th-century freedom suits and legal doctrine, allows us to move up and down different historical scales to understand law's centrality in the political perpetuation and demise of slavery in Brazil.

Schweigen über Differenz. Schwarze im kolonialen und postkolonialen Sicherheitsdiskurs Brasiliens

“…Die Freiheit von Schwarzen war nach wie vor prekär und konnte unter Umständen rückgängig gemacht werden. Zudem gab es viele Menschen, die sich in einer Grauzone zwischen Freiheit und Unfreiheit befanden, etwa wenn sie sich bereits zu einem bestimmten Anteil freigekauft oder bereits einige der vereinbarten Bedingungen für ihre Freilassung erfüllt hatten (Cantisano/Paes 2018;Chalhoub 2011). Dem Historiker Sidney Chalhoub zufolge ist die scharfe Unterscheidung zwischen Sklaven und Freien ein ideologisches Konstrukt, das es erlaubt, die Abschaffung der Sklaverei als Wendepunkt in der Geschichte Brasiliens zu feiern.…”

Manumission, custom, and the laws of slavery and freedom in Latin America

“…Or rather, were they more akin to free individuals? (Cantisano & Dias Paes, 2018; Chalhoub, 2011; Da Silva Júnior, 2020; de la Fuente, 2007; de la Fuente & Gross, 2020; Varella & Barcia, 2020). In Brazil, jurists explained that they failed to finalize a civil code because they could not come up with a standard legal definition for such individuals without causing severe social disruptions to a society where they had locally specific customary rights and obligations (Chalhoub, 2011; Grinberg, 2005).…”

“…Grinberg (1994; 2019) and Cantisano and Dias Paes (2018) have also alluded to the liberatory potential of custom, aspects of which could get lost as positive law was receiving more weight in the courtroom. The bar of entry into the justice system moved up throughout the nineteenth century.…”

“…Jurists and colonial administrators did not attempt to answer these 4 of 11 -CHIRA questions through a body of laws that could be applied across contexts. Judges instead had to rely on local custom (Cantisano & Dias Paes, 2018;Chalhoub, 2015;de la Fuente, 2007;Varella and Barcia, 2020). Former enslavers saw in such legally ambiguous statuses an opportunity to even re-enslave, all the while, enslaved people used such statuses to undermine slavery's moral capital incrementally by trying to expand their rights (Johnson, 2007;Mattos, 2013;Paiva, 1995aPaiva, , 1995bPremo, 2005Premo, , 2017.…”

“…Indeed, during the second half of the 19th century, the state passed legislation that simply formalized rights that the enslaved had elicited from enslavers by custom at the local level earlier: the right to not have their families separated (1869), the right to purchase one's freedom regardless of the enslaver's whishes (1871), and the prohibition on the use of the whip (1886). Grinberg (1994; and Cantisano and Dias Paes (2018) have also alluded to the liberatory potential of custom, aspects of which could get lost as positive law was receiving more weight in the courtroom. The bar of entry into the justice system moved up throughout the nineteenth century.…”