TO BE A LIBERATED AFRICAN IN BRAZIL: LABOUR AND CITIZENSHIP IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY by Beatriz Gallotti Mamigonian A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfilment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2002 Beatriz Gallotti Mamigonian, 2002 I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. I authorize the University of Waterloo to lend this thesis to other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. I further authorize the University of Waterloo to reproduce this thesis by photocopying or by other means, in total or in part, at the request of other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. ii The University of Waterloo requires the signatures of all persons using or photocopying this thesis. Please sign below, and give address and date. iii Abstract Almost thirty years after the publication of Robert Conrad’s landmark article “Neither Slave Nor Free: the emancipados of Brazil,” this study of the liberated Africans in Brazil revisits and examines in greater detail the realities of life on the frontier between slavery and freedom in the light of the new scholarship on slavery and abolition in the Americas, Brazilian socio-economic history, and British imperial policy. It focuses on the experience of the 11,000 Africans who were technically emancipated between 1821 and 1856 because of being brought illegally into Brazil after the prohibition of the slave trade, and it assesses the extent to which they were actually able to enjoy freedom. Like other groups of liberated Africans in territories around the Atlantic, the Brazilian africanos livres fell into a special legal category and experienced special labour arrangements. They were put in the custody of the Brazilian government to work as “servants or free labourers” for 14 years, but some were kept for 30 years before being able to enjoy full freedom. The chapters follow the liberated Africans’ distinct trajectory and the phases of their personal lives. They explore the circumstances of their nominal emancipation on arrival, the principles of their guardianship and distribution for service, their labour experience, the alternative freedom proposed by the British government, and their struggle for their final emancipation in the 1850s and 1860s. British Foreign Office correspondence and Brazilian Ministry of Justice records of the liberated Africans’ daily lives reveal the conflicts over the meanings attributed to their “freedom.” While the British government expected the liberated Africans to be engaged as free wage labourers and to enjoy civil citizenship, the Brazilian government kept them as involuntary labourers with no real autonomy. The reasons for the limitations imposed on the liberated Africans’ freedom can be found in the place reserved for virtually all Africans within Brazilian society because of the continuation of the Brazilian slave trade despite its formal prohibition, and in the effect that the presence of liberated Africans had on the Africans who continued to be kept in illegal slavery. In the larger view, this study provides a new interpretation of the impact of British abolitionist policy on Brazilian slavery and addresses the limits of freedom in the century which saw the destruction of the Atlantic slave systems but not the rise of free wage labour and full citizenship for people of African descent living in the Americas. iv Acknowledgments The present work would have been impossible without financial support from CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, an agency of the Brazilian Ministry of Education) from 1993 to 1997; from my father, Armen Mamigonian, during the research years; and from the University of Waterloo over the past months. Supervision and intellectual support have come, first and foremost, from Prof. Michael Craton, who first suggested the theme of the British influence on the abolition of the slave trade to Brazil, then over the years discussed every step of my project, trusted my ability to bring it to completion and influenced me through his own engagement as a social historian of slavery and abolition. Prof. David Murray also supported my choices and guided me through the steps of the doctoral program, providing ever-useful comments and suggestions about my work, even when I was thousands of miles away. Prof. Fernando Novais lent unconditional support over the years and challenged my findings with rigorous readings at various stages. Equally, Prof. James Walker has provided guidance, inspiration, and insightful comments on my writings since I was in the M.A. program. Finally, I also benefitted from the involvement of Prof. Manolo Florentino, who continually challenged my ideas with new questions, provided me with material, offered valuable comments, and helped with methodological issues. He has acted as a bridge between two academic worlds. Over these years, I have been the recipient of the generosity of so many historians I have met, some of whom have become close friends, that all these encounters alone have made the project worthwhile. I want to thank Sidney Chalhoub, Maria Inês Cortês Oliveira, Jaime Rodrigues, Keila Grinberg, Roderick Barman, Monica Schuler, Hendrik Kraay, Dale Graden, Elciene Azevedo, Regina Xavier, Cláudia Fuller, Alberto da Costa e Silva, Mariza Soares, Eduardo Spiller Pena, Carlos Eugênio Líbano Soares, Luís da Costa Pinto, and Janice Gonçalves for providing me with references to primary material, for sharing their notes on liberated Africans, and for reading parts of my work and providing their useful and sincere comments, generally accompanied by more references. Carlos Engemann helped me with the research on the post-mortem inventories at the National Archives in Rio. Alinnie Silvestre Moreira completed the collection of legislation and references to their publication. v The archivists and librarians at all the institutions where I worked deserve special tribute for maintaining and facilitating access to archival and bibliographic material in their collections. Special thanks go to Sátiro Nunes (Arquivo Nacional), Lúcia Monte Alto Silva (Arquivo Histórico do Itamaraty), Rosa Maria Vasconcellos (Arquivo Histórico, Senado Federal), Júlio Caesar Ramos (Subsecretaria de Anais, Senado Federal), Emerson (Arquivo do Estado de São Paulo), Regina (Arquivo do Judiciário de São Paulo), and Márcia Souza (Centro de Memória da UNICAMP), and to the staff of the Dana Porter Library. Elisabeth and Mário Vieira de Mello were my hosts in Rio de Janeiro and made my research trips ever more enjoyable. Peter Bessa made air travel more accessible on more than one occasion, and the Bessa family in the US generously acted as a family away from home. At home, hospitality and support also came from Clóris and José Bessa, and from Vera and Luís Fernando Gallotti. At the University of Waterloo, faculty members and graduate students in the History Department were always very supportive. Special thanks go to Irene Majer, for taking care of just about everything related to our academic life, and to graduate student friends Stephanie Bangarth, Karolyn Smardz, Mary MacDonald, Colin McFarquhar, and Jeff Pardue for the experience we shared. Barb Trotter revised the whole text, making it more fluid and saving readers from rather baroque constructions borrowed from Portuguese. The community of Brazilian students in Waterloo has provided me with a sense of belonging and neighbourhood that can hardly be expressed. I feel part of a brotherhood. I owe to the brothers and sisters I met at different stages of my life here in Waterloo the deepest gratitude for all the support they lent me and for the friendship we shared both in festive and difficult moments. Special thanks go to Daniela Araújo, Carlson Cabral, and Karin Guiguer for their help and hospitality. I will not be able to describe just how important they have been for me, and how, in many direct and indirect ways they are also responsible for the completion of this work, but I also have to acknowledge and thank for their love and their friendship Walter Plitt Quintin; Karen Racine; Adriano Duarte; Anna Ledbetter; Marcelo Bessa; my brother and sister, José Rafael and Ana; and my parents, Maria Helena and Armen. Because I hope that the history of past generations will vi inspire involvement in the struggle for full citizenship in Brazil, this work is dedicated to my daughter, Luíza. vii Table of Contents Introduction – The meanings of freedom in the nineteenth-century Atlantic world, 1 Chapter 1 – Emancipation upon arrival: legal freedom for recaptive Africans, 10 1. British abolitionism and the liberated Africans 2. The abolition of the Brazilian slave trade and its human consequences 3. The capture and emancipation of the Africans rescued from the illegal slave trade Chapter 2 – Distribution for service: freedpersons under guardianship, 48 1. Guardianship and compulsory service: the special status of the liberated Africans 2. Assimilation through compulsory service: Indians and blacks in the formation of the Brazilian nation 3. The administration of the liberated Africans: the laws and their interpretation Chapter 3 – Liberated Africans at work: free involuntary labourers, 80 1. Slavery and free labour in Brazil in the nineteenth century 2. Serving private hirers: protection and obedience 3. Serving the state: confinement and socialisation 4. Of subjugation and involuntary labour: liberated Africans and the imperial government's labour policy Chapter 4 – Other meanings of freedom: the British Foreign Office and the liberated Africans in Brazil, 134 1. British abolitionism, free labour, citizenship and the liberated Africans 2. The Colonial Office, the colonial administrations and the liberated Africans in British dominions 3. The Foreign Office and the liberated Africans in Brazil 4. Apprenticeship, indenture and the meanings of free labour in the age of abolition 5. The Foreign Office, slaves, liberated Africans and the abolition of the Brazilian slave trade 6. British abolitionism and the liberated African question in the 1850s and 1860s Chapter 5 – Final emancipation: the limits to autonomy, 195 1.