Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman Antiquity and Modern Brazil
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Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman Antiquity and Modern Brazil Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman Antiquity and Modern Brazil Edited by Stephen Hodkinson and Dick Geary Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman Antiquity and Modern Brazil, Edited by Stephen Hodkinson and Dick Geary This book first published 2012 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2012 by Stephen Hodkinson and Dick Geary and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-3736-9, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-3736-1 In memory of the late Professor Thomas Wiedemann, Founder of the International Centre for the History of Slavery, University of Nottingham TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures............................................................................................. ix Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Slaves and Religions: Historiographies, Ancient and Modern Stephen Hodkinson and Dick Geary (University of Nottingham) Part I. General Perspectives Chapter One............................................................................................... 34 In the Eyes of the Beholders or in the Minds of the Believers? Historicizing “Religion” and Enslavement Joseph C. Miller (University of Virginia) Chapter Two.............................................................................................. 67 The Ritual Activity of Roman Slaves J.A. North (University College, London) Part II. Participation and Inclusion Chapter Three............................................................................................ 96 Slaves and Role Reversal in Ancient Greek Cults Rachel Zelnick-Abramovitz (Tel Aviv University) Chapter Four............................................................................................ 133 Slaves Included? Sexual Regulations and Slave Participation in Two Ancient Religious Groups Karin Neutel (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 149 The Journey Home: A Freed Mulatto Priest, Cipriano Pires Sardinha, and his Religious Mission to Dahomey Júnia Ferreira Furtado (Universidade Federal Minais Gerais) viii Table of Contents Part III. Status and Identities Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 174 Manumission, Social Rebirth, and Healing Gods in Ancient Greece Deborah Kamen (University of Washington) Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 195 The Apollo of Slaves and Freedmen Bassir Amiri (Université de Franche-Comté) Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 206 Infant Slave Baptisms, Legitimacy, Parental Origins, Godparenthood and Naming Practices in the Parish of São José Do Rio Das Mortes, Brazil (1750-1850) Douglas Cole Libby (Universidade Federal Minais Gerais) Part IV. Agency and Resistance Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 244 “What will happen to me if I leave?” Ancient Greek Oracles, Slaves and Slave Owners Esther Eidinow (University of Nottingham) Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 279 Magic, Religion, and the Roman Slave: Resistance, Control and Community Niall McKeown (University of Birmingham) Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 309 “The Rights of Man” or “Afro-American Call to Holy War”: Religion, Ideology and Slave Revolt in Brazil, 1750-1880 Dick Geary (University of Nottingham) Contributors............................................................................................. 335 Index........................................................................................................ 338 LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 5-1. Persons convicted of crimes of concubinage in the episcopal inquisitions in Tejuco (1750 and 1753) Fig. 7-1. Freedman and Slave Inscriptions in honour of Apollo Fig. 8-1. Rates of Slave Legitimacy (selected regions and periods) Fig. 8-2. Legitimacy among Slave Infants, Parish of São José, 1751- 1850 Fig. 8-3. Single Slave Mothers according to Origin, Parish of São José, 1751-1840 Fig. 8-4. Slave Couples appearing in Baptismal Registers, according to the origin of spouses, Parish of São José, 1751-1830 Fig. 8-5. Godparents by legal condition (%), parish of São José, 1751- 1850 Fig. 8-6. Owners, Presumed Owners, Relatives of Owners, and Presumed Relatives of Owners Serving as Godparents of Baptized Infant Slaves, Parish of São José 1751-1850 Fig. 8-7. Selected Matching Names appearing in Infant Slave Baptismal Registers, Parish of São José, 1751-1850 Fig. 8-8. Categories of Individual after whom Slave Infants were named, Parish of São José, 1751-1850 INTRODUCTION SLAVES AND RELIGIONS : HISTORIOGRAPHIES , ANCIENT AND MODERN STEPHEN HODKINSON AND DICK GEARY The essays in this volume are selected papers from the conference ‘Slaves, Cults and Religions’, organised by the Institute for the Study of Slavery (ISOS) at the University of Nottingham in September 2008. The Introduction to ISOS’ previous conference publication on Slavery, Citizenship and the State noted an increasing awareness among historians of all periods that “slaves cannot simply be regarded as the objects, as merely the passive victims, of the institution of slavery. Rather, against all the odds, slaves succeeded in developing a wide repertoire of survival strategies and displayed great ingenuity in preserving, restoring or creating families, social networks and cultures.” 1 That publication examined slave agency and cultural strategies in terms of their recourse to legal systems. This volume explores similar issues through their religious roles and ritual activities. This emphasis is reflected in the title “ Slaves (rather than Slavery ) and Religions”, emphasising the religious lives and actions of slaves themselves. Involvement in religion has been a ubiquitous part of the lives of slaves throughout the history of slaving. As Joseph Miller argues in his wide-ranging paper in Chapter One, slaves’ participation in religious activities has frequently been a key response to their violent separation from the human communities that had structured their lives when free. Through engagement in divine worship—whether creating their own religious practices, sharing in the worshipping practices of the free population, or even simply assisting in the ritual activities of their masters’ households—slaves could potentially generate important elements of community, social relationships and shared humanity within their lives. 1 Geary and Vlassopoulos, eds., Slavery, Citizenship and the State , 295. 2 Introduction A distinctive feature of ISOS conferences is the participation of historians from around the world, especially from Europe and Latin America, examining slave histories across both the Ancient and the New Worlds. In recent years the Institute has hosted a Research Interchange, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, between British and Brazilian historians of slave and “free” labour in the 18th and 19th centuries. The present volume represents a development of that interchange, bringing into juxtaposition issues of slaves and religions in Graeco-Roman antiquity and modern Brazil. Such a juxtaposition is currently unusual in slavery studies. Although the potential fruitfulness of comparison between Roman and Brazilian slaveries has occasionally been suggested, 2 historians of antiquity have generally directed their comparisons towards slavery in North America, 3 whilst modernist comparative studies typically restrict themselves to the modern world.4 Yet there are certain evident similarities. In both Brazil and the Roman world (as also in many regions of ancient Greece) slaves performed a wide range of economic functions: rural and urban, manufacturing and agricultural, skilled and unskilled. Likewise, in each society the relative frequency of manumission gave rise to a certain degree of social mobility for some slaves. 5 To what extent did these similarities extend to the religious practices of Graeco-Roman and Brazilian slaves? Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman Antiquity: A Missing Historiography The volume’s juxtaposition of studies of Graeco-Roman antiquity and modern Brazil highlights at least one significant difference: namely, in the respective historiographies of the subject. In contrast to the considerable body of modern literature on slave religions in the New World, the role of religious activities in the lives of slaves in ancient Greece and Rome has suffered a surprising degree of neglect. This is not to ignore the existence of certain specialist studies, such as those produced by the two main 2 Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome , 39, 54, 70, 87-8, 94, and especially pp. 67- 8: “The correspondence [of early-19th-century Rio de Janeiro] with Rome is striking, despite the gulfs of time and distance.” 3 As, for example, in Volume 1