Slavery in Brazil
- LAST REVIEWED: 16 March 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 11 January 2018
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0278
- LAST REVIEWED: 16 March 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 11 January 2018
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0278
Introduction
The defining feature of Brazilian history is the large-scale presence of slavery for nearly 350 years, from the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the mid-16th century until abolition in 1888. During this period, close to five million enslaved Africans arrived in Brazil, comprising almost 45 percent of the total number of Africans brought to the Americas as slaves. Slavery has had a profound and lasting influence on Brazilian society, which perhaps explains why generations of historians of Brazil have been so prolific on this subject. Indeed, the study of slavery has been one of the most productive and creative fields of Brazilian and Atlantic historiography, covering an abundance of topics, including escapes, revolts, and the formation of Maroon communities; religion and brotherhoods; living and working conditions; participation in wars; family; the slave trade; law and justice; manumission; material culture; health and disease; the enslavement of indigenous peoples; plantations, domestic economy, and mining; the demography of enslaved people; color and race issues; urban slavery; borders and international relations; daily life of Africans and their descendants; abolitionism and abolition; freed people, citizenship, and post-abolition; and memory, patrimony, and public history. There is also a rich historiography of comparative studies. These themes have been approached from multiple perspectives, including political, economic, and cultural, and as both macro- and microhistory. The result is a dense and sophisticated historiography that continues to develop theoretically and methodologically, and that occupies a central place in the broader literature on the history of Brazil. This bibliographical guide, which includes general works, bibliographies, indexes, primary sources, and historiographical essays, enumerates a range of themes and aims to introduce readers to the breadth of this important topic. It includes recent studies as well as classics that have defined the field, and while most of the works are available in English, the list also includes the most important titles in Portuguese, as these are fundamental texts for those who want to study the subject in any depth. While the bibliography seeks to cover the entire period of slavery in Brazil, most studies are about the 19th century, which reveals a slight imbalance in the literature, primarily because of available sources. Similarly, the list seeks to account for the greatest possible regional variety, but there is an imbalance here as well, since so many studies on slavery focus on the southeastern region (Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Minas) and Bahia.
General Overviews and Reference Works
The foundational text about slavery in Brazil, The Masters and the Slaves, was written by Gilberto Freyre in 1933, and published in English in the 1940s; it is cited here as Freyre 1986. A seminal work of Brazilian social thought, it has influenced generations of scholars. Even though a number of important studies were subsequently published (see Historiography), Degler 1986 and Mattoso 1986 are particular noteworthy. Degler provides the first massive historical comparison of Brazil and the United States, highlighting the differences between them, while Mattoso offers the first overview from the perspective of the enslaved persons. For an initial introduction to the field, Klein and Luna 2010 surveys African slavery in Brazil from its origins through abolition, focusing particularly on the economy and society. Andrews 2004 and Bergad 2007 emphasize the later years, from the 18th century on, and they both situate Brazil within a broader context: Andrews within Afro-Latin America, and Bergad within the plantation-based slave societies of Cuba and the United States. Finally, Schwartz 1985 is a classic in the field, analyzing the rise and fall of slavery and the plantation system in the state of Bahia. Focused on this one region, Schwartz’s study is based on extraordinary archival research and addresses the many topics that are vital to the field.
Andrews, George Reid. Afro-Latin America, 1800–2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Excellent work on the history of the African diaspora in Latin America since the late 18th century, placing Brazil within the context of its neighbors. Chapters 1 through 4 focus particularly on slavery and abolition.
Bergad, Laird W. The Comparative Histories of Slavery in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Very good comparative work on society and the economy of the three most important slave societies in the Americas—Brazil, the United States, and Cuba—focusing especially on the 18th and 19th centuries.
Degler, Carl. Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986.
Originally published in 1971, this is the first social history that compares slavery and race relations in Brazil and the United States. It is also important for the ways Degler looks at demography, economy, and cultural aspects of slavery while highlighting the differences between the two countries.
Freyre, Gilberto. The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization. 2d ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
First published in 1933, Freyre’s masterpiece is one of the founding books of Brazilian social thought. The book remains a classic, and is a must-read for anyone interested in Brazilian history as a whole. As the first to focus on the patriarchal plantation complex, Freyre was praised as much as criticized, especially for portraying a slave society where paternalist relations were the norm.
Klein, Herbert S., and Francisco Vidal Luna. Slavery in Brazil. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
A broad overview of the economic and social history of slavery in Brazil, with a very good bibliography. Perfect for beginners in the field.
Mattoso, Kátia M. de Queirós. To Be a Slave in Brazil, 1550–1888. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1986.
First published in 1979, Mattoso’s was the first synthesis on the social history of Brazilian slavery based on documents such as manumission letters and wills. Even though some of her conclusions are being taken into question by recent studies, her analysis remains important.
Schwartz, Stuart B. Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia 1550–1835. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
This encyclopedic overview of Brazilian slavery is a major social history that covers nearly three centuries. Focusing on Bahia, Schwartz analyzes the rise of the plantation society and addresses specific themes such as manumission and resistance. Since its publication, Schwartz’s book has had a major influence on a generation of historians of slavery in the Americas. Indispensable for graduate students working in this field.
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- Abolition of Slavery
- Abolitionism and Africa
- Africa and the Atlantic World
- African American Religions
- African Religion and Culture
- African Retailers and Small Artisans in the Atlantic World
- Age of Atlantic Revolutions, The
- Alexander von Humboldt and Transatlantic Studies
- America, Pre-Contact
- American Revolution, The
- Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Popery
- Argentina
- Army, British
- Arsenals
- Art and Artists
- Atlantic Biographies
- Atlantic Creoles
- Atlantic History and Hemispheric History
- Atlantic Migration
- Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Atlantic Trade and the British Economy
- Atlantic Trade and the European Economy
- Bacon's Rebellion
- Baltic Sea
- Baptists
- Barbados in the Atlantic World
- Barbary States
- Benguela
- Berbice in the Atlantic World
- Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Bolívar, Simón
- Borderlands
- Brazil
- Brazil and Africa
- Britain and Empire, 1685-1730
- British Atlantic Architectures
- British Atlantic World
- Buenos Aires in the Atlantic World
- Cabato, Giovanni (John Cabot)
- Cannibalism
- Capitalism
- Captain John Smith
- Captivity
- Captivity in Africa
- Captivity in North America
- Caribbean, The
- Cartier, Jacques
- Castas
- Catholicism
- Cattle in the Atlantic World
- Central American Independence
- Central Europe and the Atlantic World
- Charleston
- Chartered Companies, British and Dutch
- Cherokee
- Childhood
- Chinese Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World
- Chocolate
- Church and Slavery
- Cities and Urbanization in Portuguese America
- Citizenship in the Atlantic World
- Class and Social Structure
- Climate
- Clothing
- Coastal/Coastwide Trade
- Cod in the Atlantic World
- Coffee
- Colonial Governance in Spanish America
- Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World
- Colonialism and Postcolonialism
- Colonization, Ideologies of
- Colonization of English America
- Communications in the Atlantic World
- Comparative Indigenous History of the Americas
- Confraternities
- Constitutions
- Continental America
- Cook, Captain James
- Cotton
- Credit and Debt
- Creek Indians in the Atlantic World, The
- Creolization
- Criminal Transportation in the Atlantic World
- Crowds in the Atlantic World
- Cuba
- Currency
- Death in the Atlantic World
- Demography of the Atlantic World
- Diaspora, Jewish
- Diaspora, The Acadian
- Disease in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Production and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Slave Trades in the Americas
- Dreams and Dreaming
- Dutch Atlantic World
- Dutch Brazil
- Dutch Caribbean and Guianas, The
- Early Modern France
- Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Economy of British America, The
- Edwards, Jonathan
- Elites
- Emancipation
- Emotions
- Empire and State Formation
- Enlightenment, The
- Environment and the Natural World
- Ethnicity
- Europe and Africa
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Northern
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Western
- European, Javanese and African and Indentured Servitude in...
- Evangelicalism and Conversion
- Female Slave Owners
- Feminism
- First Contact and Early Colonization of Brazil
- Fiscality
- Fiscal-Military State
- Food
- Forts, Fortresses, and Fortifications
- France and Empire
- France and its Empire in the Indian Ocean
- France and the British Isles from 1640 to 1789
- Free People of Color
- Free Ports in the Atlantic World
- French Army and the Atlantic World, The
- French Atlantic World
- French Emancipation
- French Revolution, The
- Gardens
- Gender in Iberian America
- Gender in North America
- Gender in the Atlantic World
- Gender in the Caribbean
- George Montagu Dunk, Second Earl of Halifax
- Georgia in the Atlantic World
- Germans in the Atlantic World
- Giovanni da Verrazzano, Explorer
- Glasgow
- Glorious Revolution
- Godparents and Godparenting
- Great Awakening
- Green Atlantic: the Irish in the Atlantic World
- Guianas, The
- Haitian Revolution, The
- Hanoverian Britain
- Havana in the Atlantic World
- Hinterlands of the Atlantic World
- Histories and Historiographies of the Atlantic World
- Honor
- Huguenots
- Hunger and Food Shortages
- Iberian Atlantic World, 1600-1800
- Iberian Empires, 1600-1800
- Iberian Inquisitions
- Idea of Atlantic History, The
- Impact of the French Revolution on the Caribbean, The
- Indentured Servitude
- Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Indian
- India, The Atlantic Ocean and
- Indigenous Knowledge
- Indigo in the Atlantic World
- Insurance
- Internal Slave Migrations in the Americas
- Interracial Marriage in the Atlantic World
- Ireland and the Atlantic World
- Iroquois (Haudenosaunee)
- Islam and the Atlantic World
- Itinerant Traders, Peddlers, and Hawkers
- Jamaica in the Atlantic World
- Jefferson, Thomas
- Jesuits
- Jews and Blacks
- Labor Systems
- Land and Propert in the Atlantic World
- Language, State, and Empire
- Languages, Caribbean Creole
- Latin American Independence
- Law and Slavery
- Legal Culture
- Leisure in the British Atlantic World
- Letters and Letter Writing
- Lima
- Literature and Culture
- Literature of the British Caribbean
- Literature, Slavery and Colonization
- Liverpool in The Atlantic World 1500-1833
- Louverture, Toussaint
- Loyalism
- Lutherans
- Mahogany
- Manumission
- Maps in the Atlantic World
- Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Markets in the Atlantic World
- Maroons and Marronage
- Marriage and Family in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture of Slavery in the British Atlantic
- Medicine in the Atlantic World
- Mennonites
- Mental Disorder in the Atlantic World
- Mercantilism
- Merchants in the Atlantic World
- Merchants' Networks
- Mestizos
- Mexico
- Migrations and Diasporas
- Minas Gerais
- Miners
- Mining, Gold, and Silver
- Missionaries
- Missionaries, Native American
- Money and Banking in the Atlantic Economy
- Monroe, James
- Moravians
- Morris, Gouverneur
- Music and Music Making
- Napoléon Bonaparte and the Atlantic World
- Nation and Empire in Northern Atlantic History
- Nation, Nationhood, and Nationalism
- Native American Histories in North America
- Native American Networks
- Native American Religions
- Native Americans and Africans
- Native Americans and the American Revolution
- Native Americans and the Atlantic World
- Native Americans in Cities
- Native Americans in Europe
- Native North American Women
- Native Peoples of Brazil
- Natural History
- Networks for Migrations and Mobility
- Networks of Science and Scientists
- New England in the Atlantic World
- New France and Louisiana
- New York City
- News
- Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World
- Nineteenth-Century France
- North Africa and the Atlantic World
- Northern New Spain
- Novel in the Age of Revolution, The
- Oceanic History
- Oceans
- Pacific, The
- Paine, Thomas
- Papacy and the Atlantic World
- Paris
- People of African Descent in Early Modern Europe
- Peru
- Pets and Domesticated Animals in the Atlantic World
- Philadelphia
- Philanthropy
- Piracy
- Plantations in the Atlantic World
- Plants
- Political Participation in the Nineteenth Century Atlantic...
- Polygamy and Bigamy
- Port Cities, British
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- Port Cities, French
- Port Cities, French American
- Port Cities, Iberian
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- Portugal and Brazile in the Age of Revolutions
- Portugal, Early Modern
- Portuguese Atlantic World
- Poverty in the Early Modern English Atlantic
- Pre-Columbian Transatlantic Voyages
- Pregnancy and Reproduction
- Print Culture in the British Atlantic
- Proprietary Colonies
- Protestantism
- Puritanism
- Quakers
- Quebec and the Atlantic World, 1760–1867
- Quilombos
- Race and Racism
- Race, The Idea of
- Reconstruction, Democracy, and United States Imperialism
- Red Atlantic
- Refugees, Saint-Domingue
- Religion
- Religion and Colonization
- Religion in the British Civil Wars
- Religious Border-Crossing
- Religious Networks
- Representations of Slavery
- Republicanism
- Rice in the Atlantic World
- Rio de Janeiro
- Rum
- Rumor
- Russia and North America
- Sailors
- Saint Domingue
- Saint-Louis, Senegal
- Salvador da Bahia
- Scandinavian Chartered Companies
- Science, History of
- Scotland and the Atlantic World
- Sea Creatures in the Atlantic World
- Second-Hand Trade
- Settlement and Region in British America, 1607-1763
- Seven Years' War, The
- Seville
- Sex and Sexuality in the Atlantic World
- Shakers
- Shakespeare and the Atlantic World
- Ships and Shipping
- Signares
- Silk
- Slave Codes
- Slave Names and Naming in the Anglophone Atlantic
- Slave Owners In The British Atlantic
- Slave Rebellions
- Slave Resistance in the Atlantic World
- Slave Trade and Natural Science, The
- Slave Trade, The Atlantic
- Slavery and Empire
- Slavery and Fear
- Slavery and Gender
- Slavery and the Family
- Slavery, Atlantic
- Slavery, Health, and Medicine
- Slavery in Africa
- Slavery in Brazil
- Slavery in British America
- Slavery in British and American Literature
- Slavery in Danish America
- Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies
- Slavery in New England
- Slavery in North America, The Growth and Decline of
- Slavery in the Cape Colony, South Africa
- Slavery in the French Atlantic World
- Slavery, Native American
- Slavery, Public Memory and Heritage of
- Slavery, The Origins of
- Slavery, Urban
- Smuggling
- São Paulo
- Sociability in the British Atlantic
- Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts...
- Soldiers
- South Atlantic
- South Atlantic Creole Archipelagos South Atlantic Creole A...
- South Carolina
- Sovereignty and the Law
- Spain, Early Modern
- Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900
- Spanish American Port Cities
- Spanish Colonization to 1650
- Subjecthood in the Atlantic World
- Sugar in the Atlantic World
- Technology, Inventing, and Patenting
- Textiles in the Atlantic World
- Texts, Printing, and the Book
- The American West
- The French Lesser Antilles
- The Fur Trade
- Theater
- Time(scapes) in the Atlantic World
- Tobacco
- Toleration in the Atlantic World
- Transatlantic Political Economy
- Tudor and Stuart Britain in the Wider World, 1485-1685
- Universities
- USA and Empire in the 19th Century
- Venezuela and the Atlantic World
- Violence
- Visual Art and Representation
- War and Trade
- War of 1812
- War of the Spanish Succession
- Warfare
- Warfare in Spanish America
- Warfare in 17th-Century North America
- Warfare, Medicine, and Disease in the Atlantic World
- Weavers
- West Indian Economic Decline
- Whitefield, George
- Whiteness in the Atlantic World
- Wine
- Witchcraft in the Atlantic World
- Women and the Law
- Women Prophets