Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures, maps, and tables
- Preface
- Abbreviations and special terms
- Weights and measures
- Dedication
- Part I Formations, 1500–1600
- Part II The Bahian engenhos and their world
- Part III Sugar society
- 9 A colonial slave society
- 10 The planters: masters of men and cane
- 11 The cane farmers
- 12 Wage workers in a slave economy
- 13 The Bahian slave population
- 14 The slave family and the limitations of slavery
- Part IV Reorientation and persistence, 1750–1835
- Appendixes
- Notes
- Glossary
- Sources and selected bibliography
- Sources of figures
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES IN PRINT
10 - The planters: masters of men and cane
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures, maps, and tables
- Preface
- Abbreviations and special terms
- Weights and measures
- Dedication
- Part I Formations, 1500–1600
- Part II The Bahian engenhos and their world
- Part III Sugar society
- 9 A colonial slave society
- 10 The planters: masters of men and cane
- 11 The cane farmers
- 12 Wage workers in a slave economy
- 13 The Bahian slave population
- 14 The slave family and the limitations of slavery
- Part IV Reorientation and persistence, 1750–1835
- Appendixes
- Notes
- Glossary
- Sources and selected bibliography
- Sources of figures
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES IN PRINT
Summary
An engenho is hell and all the masters of them are damned.
Andrés de Gouvea (1627)No group in Brazilian history has more of a patina of legendary grandeur than the senhores de engenho of the Northeast. Despite the fact that by the nineteenth century it was proverbial to say, senhor de engenho, morto de fome, cheio de empenho (“sugar planter, dying of hunger, loaded with debt”), the planters remained at the pinnacle of the social hierarchy, projecting an image of nobility, wealth, and power. This image was based on their continued control of land and slaves and on the traditional role of local potentate that many had assumed. The senhores de engenho, however, are not simply a social type easily transposed from one epoch to another but are also a class formed over time, developing historically and manifesting different characteristics at different dates. Moreover, there was considerable variation within their ranks, so that although many aspired to reach the apex of the social pyramid, only a small proportion attained this goal. The planters set the social standards of the colony and came closest to approximating metropolitan models. Thus, by examining their composition and behavior, we can establish the norm against which others in society, were measured.
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- Information
- Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian SocietyBahia, 1550–1835, pp. 264 - 294Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1986