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Transition Toward Slavery: Changing Legal Practice Regarding Indians in Seventeenth-Century São Paulo*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Muriel Nazzari
Muriel Nazzari*
Affiliation:
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana
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Extract

A seventeenth-century inhabitant of São Paulo once remarked that Indians were “the most profitable property in this land.” Legally, however, Indians were not property at all, for the crown explicitly prohibited their enslavement. During most of the seventeenth century, the settlers of São Paulo complied with the letter of the law and did not officially give their Indian servants any monetary value, and though they often sold them, the sales were known to be illegal and were not usually recorded in public documents, such as the documents used for this study, inventários, settlements of estates. By the end of the century, however, local judges were openly allowing the monetary appraisal of Indians and their subsequent sale was duly recorded in inventários and other court processes.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , October 1992 , pp. 131 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1992

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Footnotes

*

I wish to thank Stuart Schwartz, Mario Pastore, Silvia Arrom, Kate Myers, and an anonymous referee of The Americas for their helpful suggestions on previous drafts of this essay. All remaining weaknesses are my own.

References

1 Alonso Paes, 1673, vol. 18, p. 302 of Publicação Official do Arquivo do Estado Paulo, de São Inventários e Testamentos: Papéis que pertenceram ao 1 Cartono de Orfãos da Capital, 44 vols. (S. Paulo, 1922–77)Google Scholar (hereafter referred to as IT). See also Machado, Alcântara Vida e Morte do Bandeirante (Belo Horizonte: Ed. Itatiaia; São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo, 1980), p. 40.Google Scholar His book, originally published in 1929, is based on the study of the published wills and inventories in IT. This essay mainly relies on the same documentary source.

2 Alcântara Machado (see note 1 above) identifies the trend toward the greater enslavement of Indians, but lays it to the malice of the white man (p. 169). His chapter “Indios e tapanhunos” provides a good description of the condition of Indian servants in seventeenth-century São Paulo. Another analysis of the characteristics of the seventeenth-century São Paulo work force is Bruno, Ernani Silva “O que revelam of inventários sobre escravos e gente de serviço,” in Revista do arquivo municipal, (São Paulo, 1976),Google Scholar No. 188.

3 John Monteiro demonstrates that there was a shortage of labor due to the increased difficulty of bringing new Indians from farther and farther away, and that there therefore was probably a greater number of sales. See Monteiro, John “São Paulo in the Seventeenth Century: Economy and Society.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1985.Google Scholar

4 See Marx, Karl Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations (New York: International Publishers, 1977), pp. 27–29.Google Scholar

5 In this I join those authors who believe market forces or the growth of capitalism were instrumental in the adoption of slavery in the Western hemisphere. See, as the main proponent, Williams, Eric Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill, 1944).Google Scholar

6 For the founding of São Paulo see Hemming, John Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978) pp. 41–43 Google Scholar; Morse, Richard From Community to Metropolis: A Biography of São Paulo (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1958)Google Scholar; de Deus, Frei Gaspar Da Madre Memorias para a História da Capitania de São Vicente, hoje chamada de São Paulo (S. Paulo: Livraria Martins Editôra, n.d., 1st ed. Lisbon, 1797)Google Scholar; Taunay, Affonso d’E São Paulo nos Primeiros Annos (1554–1601) (Tours: Impr. de E. Arrault, 1920)Google Scholar, and História da Cidade de São Paulo (S. Paulo: Edições Melhoramentos, 1953); d’Oliveira, J.J. Machado Quadro Histórico da Província de São Paulo (São Paulo, 1897)Google Scholar; Sampaio, Teodoro “A fundação da cidade de S. Paulo” in Sampaio, Teodoro (ed.), São Paulo no Século XIX e outros ciclos históricos (Petrópolis: Editora Vozes Ltda., 1978).Google Scholar

There were four aldeias established near São Paulo under the direction and administration of the Jesuits. See Leite, Serafim História da Companhia de Jesus no Brasil (R. de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, 1945), 6, 228–29.Google Scholar

7 See Schwartz, Stuart Sovereignty and Society in Colonial Brazil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), p. 129.Google Scholar

8 In 1581 the municipal councils of Santos and São Vicente reported to Jerônimo Leitão, the governor of the captaincy, that the towns were in danger of becoming depopulated because of the dearth of Indian slaves due to epidemics and illness. See Ferreira, Waldemar Martins História do Direito Brasileiro (São Paulo: Max Limonad, 1956), p. 10.Google Scholar

9 There is extensive literature regarding the bandeiras organized by paulistas to capture Indians. For example, see Hemming, John “Indians and the Frontier,” in Bethell, Leslie (ed.) Colonial Brazil (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Morse, M. The Bandeirantes: The Historical Role of the Brazilian Pathfinders (New York, 1965)Google Scholar; de Holanda, Sergio Buarque (ed.), História Geral da Civilização Brasileira (S. Paulo: Difel/Difusão Editorial S.A., 1981), I, 273–88Google Scholar; Taunay, Affonso de E. História Geral das Bandeiras Paulistas (S. Paulo: Typ. Ideal, H.L. Canton, 1951) 11 vols.Google Scholar; Carvalho Franco, F. de A. Bandeiras e Bandeirantes de São Paulo (S. Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1940).Google Scholar

10 Members of the Paulista elite considered themselves Portuguese, despite the fact that most were mestizo descendants of those first shipwrecked sailors who married the daughters of Indian chiefs. See de Almeida Paes Leme, Pedro Taques Nobiliarquia paulistana histórica e genealógica 3 vols. (São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo, 1980), vol. 1Google Scholar; da Silva Leme, Luis Gonzaga Genealogia paulistana 9 vols. (São Paulo: Duprat, 1903–5)Google Scholar; Ellis, Alfredo Jr. Os Primeiros Troncos Paulistas (São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1936).Google Scholar

11 A frequent use of seventeenth-century wills and inventories has been to trace the movements of the bandeirantes. The best known of these is Taunay, História Geral das Bandeiras.

12 For an example of such a youngster going on an expedition, see Borges, Fernão Dias e de Almeida, Izabel 1643, IT, vol. 14, p. 273.Google Scholar

13 See for instance, de Oliveira, Raphael 1648, IT, vol. 3.Google Scholar

14 In the 1630’s not only were the aldeias in São Paulo itself attacked by the settlers and Indians forcibly removed to serve the settlers but the administration of the villages was also given to lay persons, leading to their rapid depopulation (see Leite, , História da Companhia, 6, 238–43Google Scholar). After the publication of Pope Urbano VIH’s 1639 brief reestablishing the liberty of Indians, all the towns of the captaincy of São Paulo expelled the Jesuits (ibid. pp. 252-63). Also see Marchant, Alexander From Barter to Slavery: The Economic Relations of Portuguese and Indians in the Settlement of Brazil 1500–1580 (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1942).Google Scholar

15 Monteiro, , “São Paulo,” pp. 218–22.Google Scholar

16 de Holanda, Sergio Buarque “Movimentos da População em São Paulo no Século XVIII,” Revista de Estudos Brasileiros, 1 (1966), 83 Google Scholar. The native forces included the Indians that lived in the Jesuit villages and those subject to individual Paulistas.

17 Monteiro, “São Paulo,” p. 332 Google Scholar. Contemporary reports on São Paulo’s European population vary considerably. Father Antônio Vieira reported in 1648 that São Paulo had 700 moradores, heads of household. (See Taunay, , História da Cidade, p. 15.)Google Scholar

18 See Leme, Luzia 1656, IT, vol. 15 Google Scholar. Her estate was worth 1:329$550. (The monetary unit in colonial Brazil was the real, plural réis. One cruzado was 400 réis. One thousand réis [one milreis] was written 1$000. One thousand milreis was one conto, written 1:000$000.) Because of community property in the Portuguese marriage regime, a widow kept one half of the property she had previously owned jointly with her husband. (For the Portuguese marriage law decreeing community property, unless a pre-nuptial contract was drawn up, see de Almeida, Candido Mendes (ed.), Código philippino ou ordenações do Reino de Portugal, 14th ed. [Rio de Janeiro, 1870]Google Scholar [hereafter referred to as Ordenações], liv. 4, tit. 46, para. 1.) This meant that when Pedro Vaz de Barros was alive, he and Luzia were much wealthier, but still far from the Northeastern standard.

For a comparison between the Northeast and São Paulo, see Simonsen, Roberto História Económica do Brasil (São Paulo: Editora Nacional, 1978), pp. 214–22Google Scholar, esp. p. 217.

19 Taunay, , História da Cidade, p. 111 Google Scholar; Leite, , História da Companhia, 6, 265 Google Scholar. See also French, John “Riqueza, Poder e Mão de Obra numa Economia de Subsistència: São Paulo, 1596–1625,” Revista do Arquivo Municipal 195 (1982)Google Scholar; Monteiro, John “Celeiro do Brasil: Escravidão Indígena e a Agricultura Paulista no Século XVII,” in História (São Paulo), 7 (1988).Google Scholar

20 Schwartz, Stuart “Plantations and Peripheries,” in Bethell, Leslie (ed.), Colonial Brazil, p. 113.Google Scholar

21 See Nazzari, Muriel Disappearance of the Dowry: Women, Families, and Social Change in São Paulo, Brazil (1600–1900) (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991), p. 10 Google Scholar. The sample consists of all inventários (judicial processes of settlement of estates) where there were married daughters or their descendants as heirs between 1640 and 1651 in IT (48 estates).

22 Corroboration of commerce with other parts of Brazil is found, for example, in the inventário of João Barreto’s wife which included a long list of credits, some owed by people in Rio de Janeiro or Santos. (See Maria, Donna 1642, IT, vol. 28.Google Scholar) de Almeida, Antonio Pimentel’s, inventário (1653, IT, vol. 15)Google Scholar shows that he acted as a middleman, for he owed Camarina Goes 18$000 for the cotton cloth (200 varas) and tobacco (100 arrobas) he had sold on her account. Another middleman was Rabello, Alvaro whose inventário (1639, IT, vol. 12)Google Scholar includes a debt he owes to someone who gave him fazenda to sell when he went to Pemambuco. Branco, Manoel João (1643, IT, vol. 16)Google Scholar had 110 debtors who owed him 459$000, many for flour placed in Santos.

23 Monteiro, John “Vida e morte do índio: São Paulo colonial,“ in Pro Indio, Comissão (ed.), Indios no Estado de São Paulo: Resistência e transfiguração (São Paulo: Yankatú, 1984), p. 38 Google Scholar and “São Paulo,” pp. 114–9.

24 See Schwartz, Stuart B. “Indian Labor and New World Plantations: European Demands and Indian Responses in Northeastern Brazil,” in American Historical Review (1978), esp. pp. 72–3.Google Scholar

25 Monteiro, , “São Paulo,” p. 92.Google Scholar

26 Nazzari, , Disappearance of the Dowry, p. 13 Google Scholar. The sample is the same one as in note 19 above.

27 See Alden, Dauril “Black Robes versus White Settlers: The Struggle for ‘Freedom of the Indians’ in Colonial Brazil,” in Peckham, Howard and Gibson, Charles (eds.), Attitudes of Colonial Powers toward the American Indian (Salt Lake City, 1969), pp. 19–46 Google Scholar; Ferreira, , A História do Direito, pp. 88–100 Google Scholar; Schwartz, Stuart B. Sovereignty and Society in Colonial Brazil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), pp. 129–39Google Scholar; Hemming, , Red Gold, pp. 151–2Google Scholar.

28 See Schwartz, , Sovereignty, p. 134 Google Scholar. In São Paulo this law was cited unsuccessfully to prevent the fulfillment of a contract which required Custodio Gomes to bring an Indian back from a bandeira for Mathias Lopes. See Gomes, Custodio 1639. IT vol. 12, p. 248.Google Scholar

29 See Carneiro, Belchior 1607, IT, vol. 2, pp. 163–165 Google Scholar. Also Machado, Alcântara Vida e Morte, pp. 172–3Google Scholar.

30 See Documentos intéressantes para a história e costumes de São Paulo, 93 vols. (São Paulo: Arquivo do Estado de São Paulo, 1897–1980), III, 84–94, and Schwartz, , Sovereignty, pp. 137–8.Google Scholar

31 Fernandes, Gaspar 1600, IT vol. 1, p. 380 Google Scholar; Antunes, Domingas 1624, IT vol. 6, p. 258.Google Scholar

32 de Almeida, Francisco 1616, IT, vol. 5, p. 147.Google Scholar : “… peças do gentio carijos, tomiminos, e popiaes as quaes são forras somente com obrigação de me servirem pelo que declaro que na mesma forma que a mim erão obligados sirvam a minha mulher e filhos tendo-os sempre como forros e livres de venda.”

33 Monteiro, John “From Indian to Slave: Forced Native Labour and Colonial Society in São Paulo During the Seventeenth Century,” in Slavery and Abolition, 9:2 (September 1988), 114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 de Oliveira, Raphael 1648, IT, vol. 3, pp. 311–12.Google Scholar

35 Saraspes, Francisco 1614, IT, vol. 5, p. 35.Google Scholar

36 Dias, Luis 1641, IT, vol. 13.Google Scholar

37 Ferreira, , A História do Direito, pp. 96–7.Google Scholar

38 Preto, João 1637, IT, vol. 11, p. 168.Google Scholar

39 de Barros, Antonio Pedroso 1652, IT vol. 20, p. 5.Google Scholar

40 Preto, Manoel 1638, IT, vol. 11, p. 191.Google Scholar

41 Lobo, Henrique da Cunha 1672, IT, vol. 4, p. 199.Google Scholar

42 Lourenço, Francisco 1624, IT, vol. 6, p. 334.Google Scholar

43 For the obligation of cultivating a sesmaria, see de Lacerda Abreu, Daise Bizzocchi A terra e a lei: Estudo de comportamentos socio-econômicos em São Paulo nos séculos XVI e XVII (São Paulo: Ed. Roswitha Kempf, 1983),Google Scholar and Guimarães, Alberto Passos Quatro séculos de latifundio, 6th ed. (São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1989)Google Scholar, and Lima, Ruy Cime Pequeña história territorial do Brasil (Pôrto Alegre: Livraria Sulina, 1954)Google Scholar. For the obligation of consulting the crown before selling a sesmaria, see Sesmarias (1720–1736), vol. 3, grant of June 26, 1726.

44 Diniz, Cristovão 1650, IT, vol. 41.Google Scholar

45 For a legal description of morgado in Brazil, see Trípoli, César História do Direito Brasileiro (São Paulo: Revista dos Tribunães, 1936), I, 271–2Google Scholar.

46 See da Silva, Maria Beatriz Nizza “Herança no Brasil colonial: os bens vinculados,” in Revista de Ciências Históricas (Universidade Portucalense), 5 (1990), 300 Google Scholar and 309; also Samara, Eni de Mesquita “O dote na societade paulista do século XIX,” Anais do Museu Paulista, 30 (1980–81), 42–48.Google Scholar

47 In Brazil it was prohibited by the Imperial Law No. 57 of October 10, 1835.

48 For examples of insolvent estates with one hundred peças or more, see de Aguiar Girão, Christovão 1616, IT, vol. 9 Google Scholar, and Luiz, Maria 1644, IT, vol. 14 Google Scholar. Land was sometimes bought or sold in seventeenth-century São Paulo (see Colaço, Ursulo 1649, IT, vol. 39 Google Scholar; Dias Borge, Fernão e de Almeida, Isabel 1643, IT, vol. 14, pp. 274–6)Google Scholar, but usually only cultivated plots were given a monetary value. Land was usually received by way of grants, sesmarias, and most inventários did not explicitly divide such land among heirs. By the end of the century land increasingly appeared in inventories with an appraised value.

49 The settlement of an estate was not then what it was to become during the eighteenth century, a moment of reckoning, in which all creditors, both large and small, not only presented their claims, but also received payment.

50 Bicudo, Domingos 1637, IT, vol. 10, p. 456 Google Scholar: “… porquanto as dívidas são mas que a fazenda e sendo que a dita fazenda se vendesse ficaria a viuva impossibilitada de criar os orfãos seus filhos …”

51 de Torres, Paulo 1680, IT, vol. 19, p. 418.Google Scholar Widows and other guardians of orphans were expected to support them with the services of their Indian servants, without dipping into the orphans’ capital.

52 See da Costa, Thomé Fernandes 1648, IT vol. 38.Google Scholar

53 When a married woman or man died, the net community property was first divided in half, with the surviving spouse keeping his or her half. The other half was the estate of the deceased, and the law required that two-thirds be divided equally among the necessary heirs of the deceased, all his or her children (or grandchildren, per stirpes) or, in their absence, to the parents of the deceased. A married man or woman could only freely will one sixth of the community property, one third of his or her estate. See Ordenações), liv. 4, tit. 46, par. 1, and tit. 96.

54 Preto o moço, Manoel 1637, IT, vol. 11.Google Scholar

55 Pero de Magalhães Gandavo, writing in the sixteenth century, shows the value of the work of Indians for the Portuguese, “E a primeira cousa que pretendem adquirir, são escravos para nellas lhes fazerem suas fazendas e si huma pessoa chega na terra a alcançar dous pares, ou meia duzia delies (ainda que outra cousa nam tenha de seu) logo tem remedio para poder honradamente sustentar sua familia: porque hum lhe pesca e outro lhe caça, os outros lhe cultivão e grangem as suas roças e desta maneira nam fazem os homens despeza em mantimentos com seus escravos nem com suas pessoas.” (See Gandavo, , História da Província Santa Cruz (São Paulo: Itatiaia Limitada, 1980).Google Scholar

56 de Barros, Valentim 1648, IT, vol: 15, pp. 225–6.Google Scholar

57 de Araujo, Pedro 1638, IT, vol. 29, pp. 224 and 227.Google Scholar

58 de Oliveira, Raphael 1648, IT, vol. 3, p. 312.Google Scholar

59 Lourenço, Francisco 1624, IT, vol. 6, p. 326.Google Scholar

60 da Costa, Henrique 1616, IT, vol. 4, p. 109.Google Scholar

61 Papéis pertencentes ás demandas que houve sobre a fazenda do defunto Jeronymo Bueno, 1693–1696, IT, vol. 23, pp. 469–540.

62 da Silva, Antonio 1668, IT, vol. 10, p. 73 Google Scholar: “… as tres peças do gentio de Brasil para me serem entregues e protesto pelo serviço déllas que tambem se me ha de pagar a quatro vintens por dia por cada urna porque nunca me serviram nem me deram alimentos algums …”

63 Paes, Antonio e da Cunha, Anna 1675, IT, vol. 19, p. 142–179.Google Scholar

64 Ibid. p. 179.

65 See da Silva, Catharina 1693, IT, vol. 23.Google Scholar

66 de Siqueira, Matheus 1680, IT, vol. 19, pp. 475 and 493.Google Scholar

67 Paes, Antonio e da Cunha, Anna 1675, IT, vol. 19, p. 144.Google Scholar

68 de Brito, Margarida 1675, IT vol. 19 Google Scholar: “Avaliaçães” (p. 62) and “Alvidração” (p. 66).

69 Rodrigues, João Paes 1693–95, IT, vol. 23, p. 407.Google Scholar

70 Moreira, Salvador 1697, IT, vol. 24, p. 79.Google Scholar

71 Examples of solvent estates wherepeças were appraised: Leme, Luzia 1699, IT vol. 24 Google Scholar; Peres, José 1698, IT, vol. 24 Google Scholar; Rodrigues, João Paes 1693, IT, vol. 23 Google Scholar; Moreira, Gaspar de Godoy 1693, vol. 23 Google Scholar; da Silva, Camarina 1693, IT, vol. 23 Google Scholar; Nogueira, João 1689, IT, vol. 22 Google Scholar; Vidal, Anna 1680, IT, vol. 22.Google Scholar

72 do Brito, Margarida 1675, vol. 19, p. 64 Google Scholar: “por os herdeiros serem muitos e não caber urna cabeça a cada um para se partir o dinheiro da alvidração pelos herdeiros entregando as ditas peças a quem pagar os serviços déllas …”

73 de Carvalho, Miguel Leite 1685, IT, Vol 22.Google Scholar

74 Moreira, Gaspar de Godoy 1693, IT, vol. 23, pp. 311–359.Google Scholar

75 See Machado, Alcântara Vida e Morte, p. 171 Google Scholar; Alden, , “Black Robes,” pp. 34–6Google Scholar; Leite, , História da Companhia, 6, 328–30Google Scholar for the list of Paulista doubts, and pp. 330–41 for Father Vieira’s opinion.

76 See, Documentos Intéressantes, XIII, 56–7, a local bando passed in São Paulo in 1725.

77 Documentos Intéressantes, XXXII, 101–10. See p. 101–2: “… o que mais inquieta o meu juizo, e esta República são as continuas declaraçães de liberdades, que nelle pedem of Indios, e bastardos, que Se criáo em Cazas dos moradores e vivem na sua administração, que athé agora se lhe davam com a faculdade de viverem, aonde lhes parecesse. Porque deste modo de proceder se Segue o distituiremse os moradoes destas Capitanías de gente, com que possam fazer suas Lavouras e adiantarem suas grangearias, e na República se introduzirem ociozos e vagabundos, q. não tendo de que viver, tomão vida torpe e ocioza …”

78 See Taunay, , História da Cidade de São Paulo no Sécula XVIII (São Paulo: Arquivo Histórico, 1931–34), II, 172–4.Google Scholar

79 This precursor of priests who practice liberation theology is mentioned in Documentos Intéressantes, III, 112.

80 Alvará of May 8, 1758. Also see Prado, , The Colonial Background of Modern Brazil, Trns. Macedo, Suzette (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), p. 102.Google Scholar

81 Monteiro, , “São Paulo,” p. 98.Google Scholar

82 As quoted in Monteiro, “São Paulo,” pp. 136–7.

83 The Spanish crown had similar public finance needs. Mario Pastore argues that the Spanish crown all along had a stake in the encomienda, which is why the crown allowed it to subsist in the peripheral regions of the Spanish empire long after it was officially prohibited. In these regions, as in São Paulo, land was abundant. It was only when land became scarce that land rents could provide the crown with the revenues it had previously received from labor rents. See Pastore, , “Public Finances, Factor Proportions, and Property Rights: From Coerced to Free Labor in Latin America’s Periphery,” in Brewer, John and Staves, Susan (eds.), Early Modern Conceptions of Property (London: Rutledge, 1992).Google Scholar

84 1) In a 1761 inventário one of the married daughters says that her dowry, given many years before, included an African slave, that her mother had exchanged for a carijó (Indian) that she had received from her grandmother; Blanca de Almeida, 1761 Arquivo do Estado de São Paulo (hereafter AESP), Inventarios Não Pulicados (hereafter INP), No. ord. 539, c. 62. 2) When Maria de Araujo died in 1757, the dowry given some 25 years before to her eldest daughter included three carijós administrados, who were still struggling for independence, having chosen other masters to work for: Maria de Araujo, 1757, AESP, INP, No. ord. 535, c. 58. 3) Another inventário of 1750, mentions a dowry given to the eldest daughter 50 years before that included 9 indios administrados. The son-in-law complains because he and his wife had not received the much more valuable African slaves his sisters-in-law had received: João de Siqueira Caldeira e sua Mulher Camarina Rodrigues Cardoso, 1750, AESP, INP, No. ord. 523, c. 46.

85 See above footnote 63, for instance, the case of da Cunha, Anna 1675, IT, vol. 19.Google Scholar