Home Page

Pesquisa em
Escravidao

Bibliografia

Artigos - Roberto Pompeu de Toledo

Castro Alves

Escravidão na África do Sul

Projeto de Pesquisa

Aqui está um resumo do projeto em que estou trabalhando atualmente. Se você tem qualquer observação ou contribuição a fazer, por favor, escreva! Seus comentários são muito importantes.

alver_son@yahoo.com

HOPE OF FREEDOM

A Comparative Study of the Slavery, Slave and Freedom in Cape Town (South Africa) and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), 1806 - 1838

This study will compare the ideas and possibilities of freedom for slaves in Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) within the context brought by the British policy to these cities between 1806 and 1838.

1. Outlines of Research topic

The cities of Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro preserve close relations concerning slavery in the first half of the nineteenth century. Although slavery in the Cape ended in 1838 and in Brazil it last until the end of the century, the two cities present important similarities and differences in slavery in the proposed dates. One has to notice that slavery in the Cape Colony and Brazil are not synchronic, but we can still find the great possibilities of comparison in the two societies. Richard Graham, writing about comparative studies says that the realities of a continuously changing in two different societies, make a comparative study not to be made as between two photographs but as between two movies. The aim in this work is to put Cape town in the centre of this comparison. One temptation in to do comparative studies lies in the peril of only write a separate history of the two different societies without a real comparison. It is not our intention here to do a parallel narrative of the slavery situation in the Cape and in Brazil. Instead we want to highlight the slavery context in the Cape with the facts in Brazil and see how two historical and contextual different societies dealt with the same subject. The beginning of the nineteenth century brought to Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro a total change in the life of this two cities. These changes affected directly the life of the slaves. The British power cames to Cape Town to start its second occupation of the Cape. The city, then, start to experience a new administration in its government. The City of Rio de Janeiro also start to experience this kind of change when the Portuguese royal corte, with fear of the Napoleon war in Europe, shifted from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro in 1807. It made the city of Rio de Janeiro the new Capital of the Portuguese Empire. The royal Portuguese family went to Brazil under the protection of the British power. Since then, Portugal lost its power in Brazil and England become the real rulers of the Brazilian policy. This situation would increase when Brazil asked England to help the newly independent country (1822) to get international recognition. The situation in the two cities' brought to slaves new ideas and possibilities about freedom of slavery. Britain started the international campaign for the end of the slave trade, which was a first step towards an end of the slave system in few years. Nevertheless, the idea and possibilities of freedom of slaves were connected not only with the end of the slave trade. The end of the trade was one of these possibilities . This fact affected the life of the slaves in the way that freedom could become more difficult to purchase. We will deal with the possibilities of freedom in the end, or the threat of, of the slave trade. These possibilities were the processes of manumission, the runaway of slaves, the life's situation of the free blacks and so on. This whole topic may come of a climax with the total abolition of slavery.

2. Reasons to Choosing topic and Relevance

This study, presents two principal concerns about why this topic was chose. The studies of slavery in South Africa have been small, compared with the studies in other former slave societies (e.g. United States, Brazil, Cuba or the West Indies). Watson pointed out that this "peripherical roles of slavery until recently in South Africa's historical consciousness may result in part from the fact that those enslaved were not Bantu speaking black Africans, whose descendants form the main object of South Africa's race oppression today." During the last few years, historians in South Africa have turned more to the richness of the studies of slavery. It has been helpful in an understanding of some social relations in the colony and in modern South Africa. The second reason is that no comparative studies in slavery have been done between South Africa and Brazil. Comparative studies on Cape slavery were done more often with the slave system in the Southern United States. Also in Brazil most of the comparative studies in slavery were done with the American South. The present research will try to restore the relationship between South-South. One can still easily ask why Brazil was chose instead of another society in the South or even the South East? The answer for this can be found also in two ways. First because Brazil is an important society in the study of slavery. Nigel Worden stated that "Brazil should be at the forefront of any study of colonial slavery". Despite of what Worden stated, there is not any work comparing slavery in the Cape Colony and the colonial Brazil. The only works about the topic are found in Worden's article on Social Dynamics (see footnote 3). In this article, he makes an analysis of the literature in English on slavery in Brazil and the importance of more related studies between the Cape and Brazil. Another source that presents a kind of comparison is Andrew Bank‘s MA thesis, "Slavery in Cape Town 1806-1834 (University of Cape Town, 1991). Bank's thesis, however, is not a comparative study of slavery in the Cape and Brazil. Bank did some comparison using mainly Mary Karasch's book "Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1850 (Princeton: University Press, 1987), but his work stills remain as a history of the slavery in Cape Town. Unfortunately, very little have been done about slavery in East Indies which make difficult a comparative history with that region. The second reason to do a comparison with Brazil is a personal reason. I am Brazilian and I have interest in the study of slavery in Brazil. Connected with this cames the fact that my family has close connection with slavery once my ancestors came to Brazil as slaves long time ago. Here I would like to put the words of Nigel Worden: "It is important also to note that significant work within Brazil is being undertaken by Afro-Brazilian writers... As yet, there have been very few black historians of South African slavery.

3. Broad Problems and Issues to Be Investigated

This research aims to answer three major problems, or questions: 1) In what respects the possibilities of freedom in the system of slavery in Cape Town (Cape Colony) were alike with the slave system in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) during the period of 1806 to 1838? 2) In which ways these two slave systems differ? 3) How freedom, which could come in different ways, affected the life of the slaves in both societies? These three questions will guide the research in other concern in the comparison of the two slave societies proposed: a) What was the definition of a slave in both societies? (Person or/and chattel?) b) How the end of the slave trade affected the possibilities of the slave's freedom? c) What was the process of manumission in both societies? d) What was the space of free blacks in the society? e) Which ones and how institutions worked to offer freedom to slaves? (religious institutions? abolitionist movements? Families?) f) How the slave was situated in the context of other types of labour (indigenous workers, wage labourers, small-scale peasants, overseers)?

4. Research Methodology and Methods

Close, critical textual analysis of primary and secondary sources. The primary sources to be consulted will be mainly these concerning to the laws and manumission of slaves in both societies. Besides the facts that there are many primary sources available in the National Library of Brazil, National Archive of Brazil and Public Archives of the city of Rio de Janeiro, I will work mainly with the primary sources in the Cape Colony Archives, Cape Town. There is also material available in the Public Record Office, London concerning slavery in the Cape of Good Hope. The idea is to give a main focus to the slavery in Cape Town and highlight this with the Brazilian experience. However I will also consult the primary sources in Brazil, but there I will remain more in the secondary sources. The readings of the available literature on slavery and the historical context around the period are also very important. I will look for the historical context of both cities and how slavery situated in this. My idea is not to see slavery as an isolated fact inside the society but make myself to understand the broad picture of the period.

5. Provisional Chapter Outline

I. Introduction 1.1 The Problem stated 1.2 Definition of Concepts 1.3 Motivation 1.4 Methodology 1.5 Sources 1.6 Historiography II. The Cape and Rio de Janeiro: two cities of the South 2.1 A historical context 2.2 Slavery and Slaves III. The End of the Slave Trade and Its Impact 3.1 A Time of Transition under the British Control 3.2 Slave Trade in Perspective 3.3 Prize Negroes and Illegal Traffic IV. Where is Freedom?: The Possibilities of Freedom 4.1 Manumission Process 4.2 Religion and Freedom 4.3 Abolitionist Movements V. Slave no More: the place of the free blacks in society VI. Freedom for All: the abolition VII. Conclusion