The Politics of Ambiguity: Conditional Manumission, Labor Contracts, and Slave Emancipation in Brazil (1850s–1888)

Abstract

Although it seems that slaves in Brazil in the nineteenth century had a better chance of achieving freedom than their counterparts in other slave societies in the Americas, studies also show that a significant proportion of manumissions there were granted conditionally. Freedom might be dependent on a master's death, on a master's daughter marriage, on continued service for a number of years, etc. The article thus focuses on controversies regarding conditional manumission to explore the legal and social ambiguities between slavery and freedom that prevailed in nineteenth-century Brazilian society. Conditional manumission appeared sometimes as a form of labor contract, thought of as a situation in which a person could be nominally free and at the same time subject to forms of compulsory labor. In the final crisis of abolition, in 1887-1888, with slaves leaving the plantations in massive numbers, masters often granted conditional manumission as an attempt to guarantee the compulsory labor of their bonded people for more years.

La libertad conquistada: Consideraciones sobre manumisión, gratitud y coerción en Charcas colonial (siglos XVI-XVIII)

“…20 Así, cuando en 1587 Pedro Álvarez concede carta de libertad a su 16 Letícia Gregório (en Secreto & Freire, 2018: 129-155) refiere que en el caribe francés del siglo XIX el trámite de la carta de libertad ante las autoridades coloniales era tan costoso que muchos amos daban solo la "aforria legal" que sumía a los manumitidos en situaciones de libertad muy precaria y ambigua. Véase también: Chalhoub, 2015;Scott & Hébrard (2012 esclava la negra Juana, sabemos que estaba pagándole: "600 pesos de plata ensayada". 21 Del mismo modo, detrás de la retórica de concesión de libertad por los buenos servicios que en más de 50 años le entregó la esclava Lucía a su ama, la vecina doña Catalina Zurbarán, queda inscrito que aquel día de 1586 le estaba dando 300 pesos a cambio.…”

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

“…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.…”

“…Yet, across Latin America, many jurists did not concur with their Iberian counterparts, and defended custom as a key source of law on grounds that it was more locally fitting than positive law. Local elites felt that they could better control the reins of power through it (Chalhoub, 2011(Chalhoub, , 2015de la Fuente, 2007;Grinberg, 1994;Premo, 2014). In the end, governments did gradually produce more positive law regulating the enslaver-enslaved relation (Guzmán-Brito, 2011;Grinberg, 2019Grinberg, [2002).…”

O castigo senhorial e a abolição da pena de açoites no Brasil: Justiça, imprensa e política no século XIX

“…Os meios pelos quais os escravos tomavam conhecimento de tais informações iam desde a conversa com companheiros de senzala, passava pela fala de advogados e curadores em tribunais e delegacias e chegava ainda nas divulgações presentes na imprensa da época (a exemplo do juiz de Parnaíba que fez questão de divulgar sua defesa e interpretação da lei no jornal de Recife). 33 Assim, ao que parece, mesmo nos casos em que os escravos Ricardo F. Pirola O castigo senhorial e a abolição da pena de açoites no Brasil: Justiça, imprensa e política no século XIX rev. hist.…”