3 - Agrarian Empires, Plantation Communities, and Slave Families in a Nineteenth-Century Brazilian Coffee Zone

Summary

This chapter discusses the existence and reproduction of enslaved families during Brazil’s second slavery through a case study of the Guaribú fazenda (plantation), located in the Vassouras region of Rio de Janeiro’s Paraíba Valley, which was at the time the world’s most productive coffee region. Guaribú’s history allows us to advance three arguments. First, we demonstrate the ways in which the concepts of “agrarian empires,” “plantation communities,” and “slave neighborhoods” can help us to understand both familial relationships and those that developed between slaves and masters. Second, we show that slave families living on large plantations had better chances than those who lived on smaller estates of remaining together across generations in stable family formations. And finally, we argue that this familial stability enabled Brazil’s “mature slavery,” during which positive birth rates ensured the preservation of enslaved labor even after the end of the Atlantic slave trade in 1850.