Slave Mothers and Freed Children: Emancipation and Female Space in Debates on the ‘Free Womb’ Law, Rio de Janeiro, 1871

Abreu, Martha

doi:10.1017/s0022216x00023890

Cited by 27 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…An important body of scholarship on gender and emancipation in Brazil has focused on the ways in which "slave mothers" manipulated gendered discourses that emphasized the link between enslaved women and reproduction in order to strive for manumission for themselves and their children during the late nineteenth century (Cowling, 2014;Abreu, 1996;Graham, 1991;Kittelson, 2005). In this essay, I shift attention to the discourses on slavery that emerged since 1831 and that, in fact, created and naturalized a category of "slave mothers".…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Slave Mothers”, Partus Sequitur Ventrem, and the Naturalization of Slave Reproduction in Nineteenth-Century Brazil

Santos¹

2016

Tempo

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Through an examination of slaveholders' discourses on the need to find ways to replenish the slave labor force after the 1831 legal suppression of the African trade, this article demonstrates the centrality of female slave reproduction to the most significant debates on slavery and emancipation during the nineteenth century. Through tropes and metaphors that appealed to nature, this slaveholding discourse emphasized reproduction and mothering labor as the "natural" function of enslaved women -a function that would also serve to pacify rebellious male slaves. This work also demonstrates that, within a context of intensified symbolic value of enslaved women' s reproduction, slaveholders and jurists emphasized the validity of the legal device partus sequitur ventrem in order to communicate a notion of the legality of slavery, precisely at the time of increasing delegitimation of the institution, both within and outside Brazil.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Slave Mothers”, Partus Sequitur Ventrem, and the Naturalization of Slave Reproduction in Nineteenth-Century Brazil

Santos¹

2016

Tempo

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“…A pesquisadora aponta que esse esforço pelo reconhecimento público da maternidade e da família escrava, estava entrelaçado ao contexto de valorização das representações burguesas da maternidade correntes à época. Martha Abreu (1996), chamou atenção para a análise dos debates legislativos em torno da Lei do Ventre Livre (1871), nos quais a maternidade escrava tornava-se plataforma para argumentos contrários e favoráveis à proposta.…”

Section: O Território Da Infância Em Ponciá Vicênciounclassified

Pelos fios da memória: infância e ancestralidade em "Ponciá Vicêncio"

Santos

2019

Anu. Lit.

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A escritora mineira Conceição Evaristo traz como marca a produção literária nascida da experiência de vida do sujeito negro na sociedade brasileira, o que abala a estruturas e padrões literários hegemônicos. Neste artigo, discute-se a temática da infância na obra de Conceição Evaristo, Ponciá Vicêncio, que também pode ser lida como uma quebra de padrões ao oferecer protagonismo à criança. Como veremos, neste romance, a infância das personagens, transita historicamente entre passado e presente, descrevendo as diferentes formas de aprendizagem, brincadeiras, fantasias, violência e opressão, em consonância com a herança identitária das personagens, que adultas repensam o olhar e o sentir da criança. Numa sociedade que prioriza o olhar do adulto experiente, a criança pequena e negra, adquire centralidade e pode narrar seus percursos, a partir da sua condição social, racial e também de gênero. Como se observará, uma crítica social ao passado escravista perpassa todo o livro. O romance é constituído a partir de uma estrutura sinuosa, uma vez que sua leitura depende das lembranças da personagem principal, que ingressa em diversos labirintos até encontrar uma saída para seu sofrimento e inanição, diante da situação de desigualdade social e racial vivenciada por ela e por sua família. Neste sentido, Evaristo nos apresenta a possibilidade de pensar a infância de maneira plural, pois nos convida a repensarmos na concepção do que é o universo infantil para além da inocência, do paraíso perdido, dos brinquedos coloridos, e dos bancos escolares normatizadores.

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“…Historians have explored discourses of femininity in abolitionist campaigns in 1880s Brazil; the gender identity of Princess Isabel, a high-profile female figure in the abolitionist pantheon; the influence of ideas about slave motherhood on 1870s legal and parliamentary discussions of Brazil's 1871 'free womb law'; and the relationship between transition and notions of domesticity. 7 Based on rich municipal records whose full potential historians have yet to exploit, this article seeks to weave some of the threads in the gender history of Brazilian abolition into a broader tapestry, linking shifting elite and non-elite notions of gender to the agency of women of colour within the abolition process.…”

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confidence: 99%

Debating Womanhood, Defining Freedom: The Abolition of Slavery in 1880s Rio de Janeiro

Cowling

2010

Gender & History

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This article demonstrates how both the agency of women of colour and a particular set of ideas about femininity and maternity played an important part in shaping the ending of slavery in the city of Rio de Janeiro. It does so through the prism of untapped municipal documentation, exploring initiatives taken by the city council both to abolish slavery by emancipating mainly women and to shape the city's first generation of fully free working families by founding schools and charitable institutions. In enacting these measures, councillors found themselves debating not only the meanings of freedom, but the meanings of ex‐slave womanhood. Their discussions reflected both the long‐term development of ‘free womb logic’ in Brazilian slavery and emancipation, and tendencies by the 1880s abolitionist movement to make emotive, ‘feminised’ appeals for elite women to sympathise with enslaved mothers. The article explores how women of colour used elite discourses about freedom, maternity and womanhood in order to achieve freedom, but also contested and reshaped them as they sought to bring their own lived meanings to freedom.

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Slave Mothers and Freed Children: Emancipation and Female Space in Debates on the ‘Free Womb’ Law, Rio de Janeiro, 1871

Cited by 27 publications

References 1 publication

“Slave Mothers”, Partus Sequitur Ventrem, and the Naturalization of Slave Reproduction in Nineteenth-Century Brazil

“Slave Mothers”, Partus Sequitur Ventrem, and the Naturalization of Slave Reproduction in Nineteenth-Century Brazil

Pelos fios da memória: infância e ancestralidade em "Ponciá Vicêncio"

Debating Womanhood, Defining Freedom: The Abolition of Slavery in 1880s Rio de Janeiro

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