Acts of grace': Portuguese monarchs and their subjects of African descent in eighteenth-century Brazil

Journal of Latin American Studies

Volumn 32, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 307-332

  Russell Wood, A J R ^a  

^a JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY; POLITICAL HISTORY; SLAVE; SOCIAL HISTORY;

BRAZIL;

EID: 0034074157     PISSN: 0022216X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022216X00005757     Document Type: Article

References (46)

1. '...a conclüzäo de varios negocios que finalmente decidio, so Ihe restava o mais importante objecto como fiel e humilde vassalo, que he o de ter a fortuna de beijar a Mao de V. R. Alt para que ficasse conhecendo aquele por quem tem de obrigacäo dar a ultima gota de sangue, e para que ficasse de todo gravado na sua aima, esta mesma obrigacäo, se lembra de pedir a V. Alt. R hum Patente de Capitäo no Regimento de Milicias de Henrique Dias, visto que o suplicante tem meios de poder sustentar o dito posto. E para merecer de Vossa Alteza Real esta Graça, toma o indulto de Ihe ter beijado a sua Regia e Poderosa Mâo, honra esta que naquele Regimento talvez que fique ele sendo singular". Secretary of State to governor of Bahia, Dom Fernando José de Portugal, 11 May 1799 (APB, Ordens régias, vol. 89, fols. 177r-8r).
2. Secretary of State to Dom Francisco José de Portugal, 30 October 1798 (APB, Ordens réglas, vol. 86, vols. z6ir-2r).
3. I have used the word 'subject' to reflect usage, current by the early eighteenth century, of the Portuguese 'subdito'. The term 'vassalo' which, in the fifteenth century had been a title applied only to the son, grandson or great-grandson of a noble, was to become synonymous with 'subdito'. See Rafaël Bluteau, Vocabiilarioportugueç e latino 8 vols. (Coimbra, 1712-1721), under 'subdito' and 'vassallo'. The term 'vassalo' appears in the title of Pe. Bartolomeu Guerreiro, Jornada dos vassales da Coroa de Portugal para se rccupcrar a Cidade do Salvador da Bâta de Todos os Santas (Lisbon, 625). I am indebted to Francisco Bethencourt for drawing this to my attention.
4. For an introduction to the judiciary in Portuguese America, see Stuart B. Schwartz, Sovereignty ar.d Society in Colonial Brazil. The High Court tfBahia and its Judges, 1609-1711 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1973); for a local perspective, see A. J. R. Russell-Wood, 'Local Government in Portuguese America: A Study in Cultural Divergence', Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 16 (1974), especially pp. 190-2 and 199-223. For jurisdiction over, and mechanism for, appeals, see Codigo Philippino ou Ordenaçôes e Leu do Reino dc Portugal recopiladas par mandado J'e/-Rey D. Philippe i. i. Primeiro Livra das Ordinaçôes (Rio de Janeiro, 1870), especially tituhs 6; 9 No. 14; 10 Nos. 5, 6, 9, io, 12; 14 No. 7; 26 No. 8; 62 No. 25; 76 No. i. The only instance in the Ordenaçôes where petitions to the king are solicited concerns cases ruled on byjHt\es
5. ordinârios without further recourses: 'Porém as partes, que se sentirem agravadas dos casos acima ditos, despachados em Câmara, de que se nào pode apelar, nem agravar, poderâo fazer simples petiçâo a Nos, e Nos proveremos como nos bem parecer', titulo 65, f. 28. Juridical and social dimensions of afdes da liberdadc during the Empire have been studied by Lenine Nequete, 0 escravo na jurisprudência brasileira: magistratura e ideologic! no Segtmdo RcinaJo (Porto Alegre, 1988), Sidney Chalhoub, Visât s da liberdade: lima bistôria das ultimas décadas da tscravidäo na Corte (Säo Paulo, 1990), and Keila Grinberg, Liberata: a lei da ambiguidade (Rio de Janeiro, 1994).
6. In France, petitions by slaves prompted by the Edict of 1716 and the 1738 Declaration were heard in the admiralty courts. Appellants might be held under the king's protection while their cases were subjttdice. In the plea of the slave Jean Boucaux, Louis XV intervened in 1739 to secure his freedom from prison. That royal intervention might overthrow court rulings was illustrated by the 1756 royal order for the arrest and return to Saint Domingue of four women. There had been a prior instance of direct royal intervention by Henry III (1574-89). See Sue Peabody, '"There are no Slaves in France": Law, Culture, and Society in Early Modern France, 1765-1789,' unpubl. PhD. diss., University of Iowa, 1993, pp. 43-82, 113-114.
7. Patricia Ann Aufderheide, 'Order and Violence: Social Deviance and Social Control in Brazil, 1780-1840,' unpubl. PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 1976; Schwanz, Sovereignty and Society, pp. 248-9.
8. Such abuses and collusion in Ouro Preto came to a head in 1732, leading to royal intervention in 1733. King to om/idor gerat of Ouro Prêto, 29 May 1733 (APMCMOP, vol. 7, vols. ij3r-4r). See also Schwartz, Sovereignty and Society, pp. 174-6, 182, 326-37.
9. Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives. Pardon Tales and their Tellers in SixteenthCentury France (Stanford, 1987).
10. King to ouvidor of Scrro do Frio, 17 September 1733 (APMSG, vol. 18, doc. 52 and accompanying docs).
11. A. J. R. Russell-Wood, 'A Cause Célèbre of Colonial Brazil: Antonio Fernandes" Personal Struggle for Justice', Revisfa da Sociidade Brasi/eira de Pesquisa Histo'rica, vol. 4 (1987-88), pp. i-8; reprinted in Russell-Wood, Society and Government in Colonial Brazil, ijoo-iSzz (Aldershot and Brookfield VT, 1992).
12. Queen to Rodrigo da Costa, October 1704; Luis César de Meneses to king, n December 1705 (APB, Ordens régias, vol. 7, docs. 288, 289). On the 'sexual hierarchy of power', see Patricia Aufderheide, 'True Confessions: the Inquisition and Social Attitudes in Brazil at the Turn of the XVII Century', Luso-Brailian Rei'ieiv, vol. 10, no. 2 (Winter 1973), esp. pp. 237-40; also Francisco Vidai Luna and Iraci del Nero da Costa, A vida cotidiana emjulgamento : det'assas em Minas Gérais (Série histôria ecônomica, no. 5. Sâo Paulo: Faculdadede economiaeadministraçâo, 1980); Lufs R. B. Mott, Sexo proibido: virgens, gays e escravos nas garras la inquisiçào (Campinas, 1988).
13. '... se livrar da occaziâo do peccado a que a violentava o do. seu Senhor.' Queen to Cesar de Meneses, May 1705 (APB, Ordens régias, vol. 7, doc. 299).
14. Gubernatorial dcspacho of 20 February 1720 (APMSG, vol. 14, fol. 66v).
15. The law of 6 June 1755 confirmed all previous laws concerning freedom of Indians in Para and Maranhao 'excepto somente os oriundos de prêtas escravas' (APB, Ordens régias, vol. 60, fols. 476481 v). For slave marriages and civil and canon law and marriages in which one partner was a slave and the other a native American, see Maria Beatriz Nizza da Suva, Sistema de casamento no Rrasil colonial (Sâo Paulo, 1984), pp. 139-148.
16. '...e porq' a supple e os dittos seus fos por serem huns pobres Indios carecem mto do auxilio de VExa para poderem gozar de sua liberdade, e sahirem do cativro em q' se achào por tanto pede a VExa q' attendendo a violencia q" Ihes fas o suppdo em os ter no seu cativeiro sendo libertos seja servido fazerlhes de esmolla de haver a suppte, e os dos seus dous fos por livres de escravidào e cativeiro do suppdo'...'. Despacbo of 5 January 1723 (APMSG, vol. 21, fos. 3iv-2r).
17. "...q' seu Snor o privava de fazer vida com sua mulher sendo India e forra'. Despacho of 15 November 1719 (APMSG, vol. 14, fol. 54r).
18. Muriel Nazzari, 'Transition Toward Slavery: Changing Legal Practice Regarding Indians in Seventeenth Century Sâo Paulo', Tie America;, vol. 49, no. 2 (1992), pp. 131-5 5 ; Nazzari, Disappearance of the Dowry. Women, families and Social Change in Sào Paulo, Brazil (1600-1900) (Stanford, 1991), pp. 7-10, 24, 27, 50-193; Alida C. Metcalf, Family and Frontier in Colonial Brazil. Santana de Parnaiba, ij8o-iS22 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1992), pp. 47-5 5, 66-9, 72~3- See also Mathias C. Kiemen, O. F. M., The Indian Policy of Portugal in the Amazon Region, 1614-169} (Washington DC, 1954).
19. On manumissions, see Katia M. de Queirös Mattoso, 'A propôsho de cartas da alforria na Bahia, 1779-1850', Altais de historic, vol. 4. (1972), pp. 23-52; Stuart B. Sch\vart2, 'The Manumission of Slaves in Colonial Brazil: Bahia, 1684-1745 ' Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 54, no. 4 (1974), pp. 603-35; James Patrick Kiernan, 'The Manumission of Slaves in Paraty, Brazil, 1789-1822', unpubl. PhD diss., New York University, 1976; A. J. R. Russell-Wood, Tee Black Man in Slavery and Freedom in Colonial Brazil (London, 1982), pp. 27-49; Kathleen J. Higgins, 'Gender and the Manumission of Slaves in Colonial Brazil: The Prospects for Freedom in Sahara, Minas Gerais, 1710-1809', Slavery and Abolition, vol. 18, no. 2 (1997), pp. 1-29.
20. '...foi havido por forro e livre da Escravidam da herança jacente de Manuel Gomes Lisboa... Porqto me reprezcntou perlende passar a essa cidade da Bahia, e receya selhe faça nella alguma violencia; pedindome seja servido mandar conserval-lo na sua liberdade cumprindose a dita sentença. ' King to viceroy, 26 November 1746; acknowledgment of 27 April 1747 (APB, Ordens régias, vol. 44, docs. 10, loa).
21. '...nestas Minas se tiraniza as liberdades...'; dtspacho of 6 July 1765 (APMSG, vol. 59, fols. I43V-4I-); for a similar case, see APMSG, vol. 59, fol. lygv.
22. King to Vimieiro, 4 February 1719 (APB, Ordens régias, vol. 14, doc. i).
23. Secretary of State to Francisco da Cunha Meneses, 21 July 1802 (APB, Ordens régias, vol. 95, fols. ij8r-i6or); for an earlier example, see APMSG, vol. 14, fol. ijr.
24. King to Galveas, 19 August 1738 (APB, Ordens régias, vol. 34, doc. 137).
25. 'De nenhua maneira pode ter lugar... que V. Magestade, Monarcha tam pio e Catholico como sempre forào os Reys de Portugal, prohiba as prestaçôes de liberdade e que a cada hu dos miseraveis cativos a quem a fortuna ou a desgraça, justa ou injustamente, nasceo no jugo da escravidâo, se nâo possa remir ou livrar délia, comprando-a a seo senhor quando elle lha queira vender, porque é, sobre contrario, répugnante ao Direyto natural e as leys divinas e civis, do amor e caridade do proximo...', Arcos to crown, io August 1756 (APB, Ordens régias, vol. 54, fols. ~]t-gv; published in Memorias historiens e politicas da Provincia da Bahia do Coronel Ignacio Accioli de Cerqiicira e Silva; Annotador Dr. Bra% do Amoral. Vol. z (Bahia, 1925), pp. 428-9.
26. Prince regent to governor of Bahia, 6 March 1800; reply of 22 April 1801 (APB, Ordens régias, vol. 91, fols. 33jr-6v). The original petition by Joaquim José dos Prazeres is undated.
27. That there were grounds for this concern was illustrated by the case of Euzebio who cited precedents for favourable royal intervention in 1690, 1701 and 1801 to support his own appeal (APB, Ordens régias, vol. 95, fols. I59r-i6or).
28. César de Meneses to king; Bahia, n and 28 December 1705 (APB, Ordens régias, vol. 7, does. 289, 300). Cf. a letter received by the French Secretary of State in 1747 from a black woman which was demonstrated to be 'false and slanderous', Peabody, 'There are no Slaves in France', p. 89.
29. '...este Reo Ihe narou temeramente falço, desde o princi'pio athê o fim de seu requerimto...'. Viceroy to king, 7 August 1722 (APB, Ordens régias, vol. 17, doc. 25a). See also his letter of October 1723 (APB, Ordens régias, vol. 18, doc. 293). For opposition to manumission, see Russell-Wood, Black Man in Slavery and Freedom, pp. 44-47.
30. King to Luis Vahia Monteiro, governor of Rio de Janeiro, 6 September 1728 and 25 August 1729 in Publicafôes do Archiva Publico do Imperio, vol. 15 (Rio de Janeiro, 1915). Governadores do Rio de Janeiro. Correspondencia activa e passiva com a Corte. Lhro II, 17-1730, pp. 363-4.
31. Queen to Dom Fernando José de Portugal, 16 March 1797; Secretary of State to the governor, 4 June 1798 (APB, Ordens régias, vol. 84, fols. igSr-gr; vol. 85, fols. :o2r-6v).
32. Silvia Hunold Lara, Campos da violéncia. Escravos t sinhores na capilania do Rio de Janeiro, ijjo-tSoS (Sao Paulo, 1988).
33. For discussion of these appeals, see C. R. Boxer, Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, tjif-iiij (Oxford, 196}), pp. 117-118; Russell-Wood, Black Man in Slavery and Freedom, pp. 67-68, 90-94, 154-156.
34. On slave cultivation for their own needs, see Stuart B. Schwartz, ' Free Labor in a Slave Economy: The Lairadores de Cana of Colonial Bahia", in Dauril Alden (ed.), Colonial Roots of Modern Brazil (Berkeley and Los Angeles, London, 1973), p. 173; Luis dos Santos Vilhena, Recopilaçào de Noticias Soteropolitanas e Brasiliens. Braz do Amaral (ed). Vol. i (Salvador, 1922), pp. 187-9. Royal letters of 1606 and 1701 inter alia admonished owners to feed their slaves properly; the right to have time to raise food crops was a demand made by slaves, see Schwartz, ' Resistance and Accommodation in EighteenthCentury Brazil: The Slaves' View of Slavery', Hispanic American Historical Revient, vol. 57, no. i (1977), pp. 73, 78 and note 8. The count of Assumar (governor of Sào Paulo and Minas Gérais) cited slaves' ignorance of Christianity as partly attributable to miners forcing slaves to work on the owners' farms on Sundays and Holy Days (Assumar to king, 4 October 1719. APMSG, vol. 4, fol. 234v). On abuse, see Dom Pedro II to governor of Rio de Janeiro, 20 March 1688 (ANRJ, Codice 952, vol. 4, f. 168); king to governor-general in Salvador, 7 February 1698 and 17 January 1714; royal provisào of 5 November 1712 cited in C. R. Boxer, The Golden Age of Brazil, i6))-i7)o (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969), p. 9. For ecclesiastical admonitions to owners concerning slave marriages, see Constiiicöesprimeyras do arcebispado da Bahia, feitas e ordenadas pelo llustrissimo, e Reverendissimo Senior D. Sebastiäo Monteiro da Vide.... (Lisbon, 1719), Livro i, tit. 71, No. 303. Protection under the law for slave families was only legislated in Brazil in 1869.
35. '...primeira e principal maxima dos Senhores Reis de Portugal, a qual foy sempre tratarem os seus vassallos como Pais e nào Senhores'. Cited in Jaime Cortesào, Alexandre de Gasman e o iratado de Madrid, vol. i (i) (Rio de Janeiro, 1950), pp. 344-5. This echoed the Erasmian notion of the monarch as paterfamilias, Desiderius Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince. Translated and with an introduction by Lester K. Born (New York, 1936), pp. 169-171. See also Boxer, Golden Age of Brazil, p. 204 and note i.
36. 'Nào nos dâ callor a ouzadia e a ignorancia da Real Grandeza de Vossa Magestade, porque sabemos muyto bem que Vossa Magestade he sobre as leys...'. Senado da Câmara of Vila Rica to the king, 5 July 1741, asking for resolution of the councillors' dispute with the governor over appointment of an alcaide (APMCMOP, vol. 43, ff. 9jv-6r).
37. J. H. Elliott, Spain and its World, 1)00-1700 (New Haven and London, 1989), p. 147. Teofilo F. Ruiz makes the point that recognition by kings that ' their responsibilities... were entrusted to them by God' was not incompatible with the absence of sacredness which they attached to their office and rejection of sacral kingship. For discussion of the demise of sacred monarchy, se his essay, 'Unsacred Monarchy: The Kings of Castile in the Late Middle Ages' in Sean Wilentz (ed.), Rites of Foyer. Symbolism, Ritual and Politics since the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1985), pp. 109-144.
38. C. R. Boxer, Tbt Portuguese Seaborne Empire, ijij-ifaf (London, 1969), pp. 188-9; 128-48.
39. Eduardo Brazâo, Domjoao V t a Santa Se. As relaçôes âïplomâticas de Portugal com o govêrno pontifico de 1706 a i?;o (Coimbra, 1937); Kelacoes external de Portugal, Keinado de D. Joäo V. 2 vols. (Porto, 1938); Subsidies para a bisiôria do Patriarcado de Lisboa, 1716-1740 (Porto, 1943); José de Castro, Portugal cm Koma, z vols. (Lisboa, 1938).
40. A. J. R. Russell-Wood, 'Portugal and the World in the Age of Dom Joäo V, in Jay A. Levenson (ed.), The Age of the Baroque in Portugal (Washington, New Haven and London, 1993), esp. pp. 24-7; see also Joaquim Ven'ssimo Serrào, Histöria de Portugal, Vol. 5. A. restauraçào e a monarquia absoluta, 1640-17jo, 2nd. rev. ed. (Lisbon, 1982), esp. pp. 87-123, 193-306.
41. The responsibility of monarchs to act in accordance with Christian precepts of morality and justice in their relations with persons of African descent in Brazil was not the subject of Portuguese treatises of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There is no Portuguese counterpart to Juan de Solôrzano's De Indiarum Jure (1629, 1659). See James Muldoon, The America! in the Spanish World Order. The justification for Conquest in the Seventeenth Century (Philadelphia, 1994), esp. pp. 143-164.
42. '... o proverbio que diz que o Brasil he Inferno dos negros, Purgatorio dos brancos, & Paraiso dos mulatos e mulatas.' André Joâo Antonil, S.J. (pseud. Giovanni Antonio Andreoni), Citltitra e opitlência do Brasil par suas drogas e minas, (first publ. 1711). French translation and critical commentary by Andrée Mansuy (Paris, 1968), livro i, cap. 9; Boxer, Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, p. 101.
43. One of the few works to discuss the court in post-restoration Portugal is Antonio Filipe Pimentel, Arquitecttira t podir. O real ediflcio de Mafra (Coirnbra, 1992), pp. 80-119. He refers (p. 95) to the 'fenömeno de extroversâo" stimulated by Dom Joào V and public outings by the royal couple and courtiers.
44. John H. Elliott, 'Philip IV of Spain' in A. G. Dickens (ed.), The Courts of Europe. Politics, Patronage 'and Rojaltj, 1400-i$oo (New York, 1977), pp. 169-189; see also Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, 'Auprès du roi, la'Cour', Annales, économies, sociétés, civilisations, vol. 38, no. i (1983), pp. 1-41; on thé importance of ceremony and etiquette and relationship between isolation of the monarch and creation of an aura of sacrality, see Norbert Elias, The Court Society. Trans. Edmund Jephcott (Oxford, 1983), esp. pp. 78-145. Pimentel suggests that the theatricality and staged quality of royal appearances exacerbated distinctions between actors and spectators leading to isolation of the monarch, 'enveloping him in a sacralizing halo of pomp and veneration,' which underlines the symbolic value of his presence". He notes that the king abandoned'the tradition of invisibility by throwing himself into the mass of courtiers but' tha't ceremonial isolated him from the people because of the staged quality of such events (Arqiiitccttira epoder, pp. 95-6).
45. Rui Bebiano, Dom Joào V, poder e espectdailo (Aveiro, 1987).
46. The framework of legal and theological debates justifying Spanish conquest and the theory and practice of empire have been the objects of sophisticated analysis and original interpretations in Muldoon, The America! in the Spanish World Order and Colin M. MacLachlan, Spain's Empire in the Neu.' World (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988). Neither supersedes J. H. Elliott, Imperial Spain, 1469-1716 (London, 1963) and The Old World and the New, 1492-16)0 (Cambridge, 1970).