Slavery In Brasil
Essay by 24 • October 16, 2010 • 779 Words (4 Pages) • 2,172 Views
Because certain forms of slavery had existed for centuries on the continent of Africa, Brazilian historians used to say that blacks imported from across the Atlantic were docile and ready to accept their new status as slaves. This assertion is based on the unwarranted assumption that was true of a limited area of Africa was typical of the continent as a whole.
All slavery in brazil was essentially the same depending on the task or the labor the slave had to preform. In many cases the slaves was there to perform labor that was deplorable to the nobility. The Peninsulares born on the Iberian peninsular or even Creoles born in the Americas. During the 1500-1800's there were shortages of women from the peninsular. Some of the Conquistadors got married to the elite women of the Inca or indigenous women and a different class was born mestizo. There were even some cases that the house slave bore children for the master. The master was the father of the patriarchal society where the man was dominant. In other cases of slavery it depended on the region or the kind of work the slave had to do. Whether the slave worked on a Fazenda small plantation around a mill or an Engenho a large mill with Senhor de engeno a leading member of society . They had to have skilled workers to work the mill mostly women occupied those positions. The sugar cane estates and fields were worked by manual labors . In the cities the workers had to be very skilled to work as artisans, shoe makers and repair men. There were slaves that worked to pay of their debt to landowners they were called Peons. There was a strong market in brazil for beef especially dried beef because there was no refrigeration system in those days. The cattle ranchers were called or known as Gougho.
Between the 15 century to the 18 century slavery was very much and economic institution. The Cost factor in those times was very expensive to buy slaves from Africa. This played an important role on the upkeep and how those slaves were treated. There were free blacks who owned slaves of their own. The slaves that were bought were already slaves from the African kingdom. The slaves in the Americas had no rights over themselves and their children had no social status. Slaves who worked on the Hacienda large farms had to produced surplus for regional market places. They overseen by the Haciendado a person who ran the farm. Slavery was not partial to only Africans and Indians but at a later time Asian and Europeans too. The Indians laboring cleaning the
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