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Persistence and Decline: Slave Labour and Sugar Production in the Bahian Recôncavo, 1850–1888*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

B. J. Barickman
B. J. Barickman
Affiliation:
History at the University of Arizona.
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Abstract

Focusing on the last decades before abolition (1888), this study examines slave labour and sugar production in the Bahian Recôncavo in Northeastern Brazil, one of the oldest slaveholding regions in the Americas. It demonstrates the marked contrast between the Recôncavo and the other main sugar-producing areas of Northeastern Brazil. In Bahia, the years 1850–88 did not witness an increase in sugar exports; on the contrary, exports stagnated and then, with abolition, suffered a nearly complete collapse. Furthermore, sugar planters in the Recôncavo, unlike other Northeastern planters, relied overwhelmingly on slave labour until the very eve of abolition. The study suggests that the explanation for the contrast between the Recôncavo and other Northeastern sugar regions lies in alternatives to sugar production for a significant segment of the planter class and in alternatives to work on sugar plantations for a substantial part of the poor free population in the Recôncavo.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , October 1996 , pp. 581 - 633
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 Inventory of the Barão de Viana (187;), Arquivo Püblico do Estado da Bahia (Salvador, Bahia), Seçária, Inventários e Testamentos. Attached to this inventory, apparently by mistake, is the partilha (formal division of property) of the estate of Francisco Vicente Viana, a close relative of the Barão de Viana (whose given name was also Francisco Vicente Viana and who had a son with the same name). The document does not, however, include the inventory and official appraisals that correspond to the partilha. Dona Luísa also received the cash value of four slaves who had bought their freedom after her husband's death. For exchange rates, see Leff, N. H., Underdevelopment and Development in Brazil, 2 vols. (London, 1982), vol. 2, p. 246.Google Scholar

In subsequent notes, the following abbreviations are used: APEB, Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia (Salvador, Bahia); SH, Seção Histórica; SJ, Seção Judiciária; IT, Inventários e Testamentos; ARC, Arquivo Regional da Cachoeira (Cachoeira, Bahia); inv(s)., inventory(ies); BN-s/m, Biblioteca Nacional (Rio de Janeiro), Seção de Manuscritos; Pres., President of the province of Bahia; Câm., Câmara; GB, Great Britain; FO, Foreign Office; DCR, Diplomatic and Consular Reports. In citing the published addresses and reports (Fallas and Relatorios) delivered by the presidents and vice-presidents of Bahia to the provincial legislative assembly, I have provided only a short title (either Falla or Relatorio) followed, in parentheses, by the year of the address or report and the surname of the relevant president or vice-president. I have cited reports by British consuls stationed in Bahia that were published in the Accounts and Papers (abbreviated as A&P) of the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers as follows: A&P (year), volume number, and page number.

2 On the issue of compensation, see Silva, E., ‘O grande impasse: A indenização’, in Lacombe, A. J.,Silva, E., and de Assis Bztbosa, F.(eds.),Rui Barbosa e a queima dos arquivos (Rio de Janeiro, 1988), pp. 41–6.Google Scholar More generally on the political history of abolition in Brazil, see, e.g., Conrad, R., The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 1890–1888 (Berkeley, 1972)Google Scholar and de Carvalho, J. M., Teatro de sombras: A politico imperial (São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, 1988), chap. 2.Google Scholar

3 Inv. of the Barão de Iguape (1888), APEB, SJ, IT. In 1853, the Engenho da Cruz had a resident population of 128 slaves. Inv. of Tomé Pereira d'Araüjo (1853), ARC, IT. For plantations in the Recâncavo, sources from the mid-1890s indicate an average output of 90–135 arrobas (1,327–1,991 kg) of sugar a year per resident slave. See Barickman, B. J., ‘The Slave Economy of Nineteenth-Century Bahia: Export Agriculture and Local Market in the Recâncavo, 1780–1860’, unpubl. PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1991, pp. 394—8.Google Scholar Thus, annual production at the Engenho da Cruz in the 1850s may be estimated at 170.0–254.8 tons of sugar. Given that the Engenho da Cruz was situated in the parish of Santiago do Iguape, which, from the late eighteenth century onward, was consistently described as one of the most fertile areas for sugar-cane in Bahia, I have assumed in the text a total output of 240 tons. On Iguape, see ibid., pp. 282, 324. Also note that, because the harvest and planting seasons overlapped in Bahia, the wages paid during the 1888–9 harvest included wages paid for planting and other types of work.

4 The contract, a printed copy of which can be found in APEB, SH, 4596, was valid for three harvests after the opening of the factory, which took place, after several delays, in August 1886 for the 1886–7 harvest. Calmon, Francisco Marques de Góes, Vida econâmico-financeira da Bahia: Elementos para a história de 1808–1889 (1925), 2nd edn. (Salvador, 1979), p. 105Google Scholar;. On central sugar factories in Bahia, also see Pang, E.-S., O Engenho Central do Bom Jardim na economia baiana: Alguns aspectos de sua historia, 1875;–1891 (Rio de Janeiro, 1979).Google Scholar

5 See Barcelos, L. C., Cunha, O. M. Gomes da and Araújo, T. C. Nascimento, Escravidão e relaçães raciais: Cadastro da produção intelectual (19970–1990) (Rio de Janeiro, 1991), esp. p. 20 and pp. 21–234Google Scholar for references to much of the literature on slavery, abolition, and related issues.

6 Major studies dealing with slavery in nineteenth-century Bahia published since 1980 include: Carneiro da Cunha, M., Negros, estrangeiros: Os escravos libertos e sua volta à África (São Paulo, 1985)Google Scholar; Reis, J. J., Rebelião escrava no Brasil: A histdria do levante dos malês (1835) (São Paulo, 1986)Google Scholar; Cârtes de Oliveira, M. I., O liberto: O seu mundo e os outros, Salvador, 1790/1890 (São Paulo, 1988)Google Scholar; de Souza Andrade, M. J., A mão-de-obra escrava em Salvador, 1811–1860 (São Paulo, 1988)Google Scholar; Kraay, H., ‘“As Terrifying as Unexpected“: The Bahian Sabinada, 1837–1838’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 72, no. 4 (1992), pp. 501–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Nishida, M., ‘Manumission and Ethnicity in Urban Slavery: Salvador, Brazil, 1808–1888’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 73, no. 3 (1993), pp. 361–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; all of which concentrate on slavery in the city of Salvador. Likewise, the sections on slavery in de Queirós Mattoso, K. M., Bahia, século XIX: Uma provincia no Império (Rio de Janeiro, 1992)Google Scholar deal almost exclusively with Salvador. The only recent full-length study of abolition in Bahia is Graden, D. T., ‘ From Slavery to Freedom in Bahia, Brazil, 1791–1900’, unpubl. PhD diss., University of Connecticut, 1991.Google Scholar Mainly concerned with the abolitionist campaign and with resistance to slavery, Graden's important study does not analyse in any detail the use of slave labour in Bahian agriculture in the second half of the nineteenth century or the shift from slave to free labour in the province's sugar industry. More enlightening in this regard is Scott's, R. comparative essay ‘Defining the Boundaries of Freedom in the World of Cane: Cuba, Brazil, and Louisiana After Emancipation’, American Historical Review, vol. 99, no. 1 (1994), pp. 91–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also see Galloway, J. H., ‘The Last Years of Slavery on the Sugar Plantations of Northeastern Brazil’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 61, no. 4 (1971), pp. 586–605CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Slenes, R. W., ‘The Demography and Economics of Brazilian Slavery: 1850–1888’, unpubl. PhD diss., Stanford University, 1975, chaps. Ill—IV and pp. 367–8.Google Scholar

7 On the Recâncavo in the colonial period and in the early nineteenth century, see Schwartz, S. B., Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society, 1990—1835(Cambridge, 1985)Google Scholar; and Barickman, , ‘The Slave Economy’. On Bahia's slave population in 1872–3,Google Scholar see below.

8 See, e.g., Galloway, ‘The Last Years’ (p. 587 for passage quoted in the text); Eisenberg, P. L., The Sugar Industry in Pernambuco: Modernisation Without Change, 1840–1910 (Berkeley, 1974)Google Scholar; Reis, J., ‘From Banguê to Usina: Social Aspects of Growth and Modernization in the Sugar Industry of Pernambuco, Brazil, 1850–1920’, in Duncan, K. and Rutledge, I. (eds.), Land and Labour in Latin America (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 369–96Google Scholar; idem, ‘ A bolition and the Economics of Slaveholding in North East Brazil’, Boletín de Estudios Latino-Americanosy del Caribe, no. 17 (1974), pp. 3–20Google Scholar; Levine, R. M., A velha usina: Pernambuco na federação brasileira, 1889–1937, trans. de Sá Barbosa, R. (Rio de Janeiro, 1980), pp. 58–69Google Scholar; Correia de Andrade, M., ‘Transição do trabalho escravo para o trabalho livre no Nordeste açucareiro, 1850–88’, Estudos econâmicos, vol. 17, no. 1 (1983), pp. 71–83Google Scholar; Cabral de Melo, E., O Norte agrário e o Império (Rio de Janeiro, 1984), pp. 21–8Google Scholar; Huggins, M. K., From Slavery to Vagrancy in Brazil: Crime and Social Control in the Third World (New Brunswick, N.J., 1985), esp. chap. 2 and pp. 115–6Google Scholar; Cabral, P. E. Toledo, ‘ Tempo de morada-A constituição do mercado de trabalho semiassalariado na lavoura canavieira pernambucana’, in Sampaio, Y. (ed.), Nordeste rural: A transição para o capitalismo (Recife, 1987), pp. 17–56Google Scholar; Palacios, Guillermo, ‘Campesinato e escravidão: Uma proposta de periodização para a história dos cultivadores pobres livres no Nordeste oriental do Brasil, c. 1700–1875;’, Dados, vol. 30, no. 3 (1987), pp. 345–53Google Scholar; Fragoso, J. L., ‘A economia brasileira no século XIX: Mais do que uma plantation escravista-exportadora’, in Linhares, M. Y., História geral do Brasil, 3rd edn. (Rio de Janeiro, 1990), pp. 152–60Google Scholar; Scott, , ‘Defining the Boundaries’, pp. 91–8Google Scholar; and Furtado, C., Formação econâmica do Brasil, 18th edn. (São Paulo, 1982), pp. 138–9.Google Scholar As should be clear from the references cited here, a number of scholars have examined the shift from slave to free labour on sugar plantations in the Mata of Pernambuco; their arguments have become established within the historiography. Of course, future research on specific townships or plantations in Pernambuco may qualify or alter those arguments. But, because this article focuses specifically on the Bahian Recâncavo, it does not attempt to challenge current established interpretations of the transition from slavery to free labour in the Pernambucan sugar industry; instead, it takes those interpretations as one of its points of departure. Also, see note 58 below.

9 Eisenberg, , The Sugar Industry, p. 225 (referring to the shift to free labour on Pernambucan sugar plantations).Google Scholar

10 Here, using a larger body of evidence, I attempt to combine and build on two separate hypotheses briefly outlined by Galloway, ‘The Last Years’, p. 604; and by Scott, ’Defining the Boundaries’, p. 97.

11 Many of the works on Pernambuco, cited in note 8 above, assign importance to patterns of landholding and the relative availability of land and labour. Also see, e.g., de Souza Martins, J., O cativeiro da terra, 2nd edn. (São Paulo, 1981)Google Scholar; Reis, E. J. and Reis, E. P., ‘ As elites agrárias e a abolição da escravidão no Brasil’, Dados, vol. 31, no. 3 (1988), pp. 309—41Google Scholar; Naro, N., ‘Customary Rightholders and Legal Claimants to Land in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1870–1890’, The Americas, vol. 48, no. 4 (1992), pp. 485–517CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘ Revision and Persistence: Recent Historiography on the Transition from Slave to Free Labour in Rural Brazil’, Slavery and Abolition, vol. 13, no. 2 (1992), p. 75Google Scholar; and, for comparative purposes, Mintz, S., ‘Slavery and the Rise of Peasantries’, Historical Reflections, no. 6 (1979), pp. 213–42Google Scholar; Klein, H. S. and Engerman, S. L., ‘The Transition from Slave to Free Labor: Notes on a Comparative Model’’, in Fraginals, M. Moreno, Pons, F. Moya, and Engerman, S. L. (eds.), Between Slavery and Free Labor: The Spanish-Speaking Caribbean in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore, 1985), pp. 255–69, esp. pp. 257–8.Google Scholar Discussions of slave labour and the transition to free labour in plantation agriculture that stress patterns of landholding and the relative availability of land and labour draw directly or indirectly on arguments first put forth by Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, England and America…, 2 vols. (London, 1833)Google Scholar and A View of the Art of Colonisation…, introd. James Collier (1849; reprint edn., Oxford, 1914)Google Scholar; and by Merivale, Herman, Lectures on Colonisation and Colonies… (1861; reprint edn., London, 1928).Google Scholar

12 N. Naro, ‘Revision and Persistence’, p. 68. Also see Scott, ‘Defining the Boundaries’, pp. 93–8, esp. p. 96; Machado, M. H., O plano e o pânico: Os movimentos sociais na década da abolição (Rio de Janeiro, 1994), p. 18Google Scholar; Silva, J. L. Werneck da, ‘A Lei Áurea revisitada’, Negros brasileiros, special supplement to Ciência Hoje, vol. 8, no. 48 (1988), pp. 10–13Google Scholar; and Dean, W., ‘The Brazilian economy, 1870–1930’, in Bethell, Leslie (ed.), The Cambridge History of Latin America (Cambridge, 1984–), vol. v, p. 704.Google Scholar

13 On this matter, see Scott, ‘Defining the Boundaries’, p. 96.

14 Arruda, J. J. de A., O Brasil no comércio colonial(São Paulo, 1980), pp. 360–1, 375–6Google Scholar (for exports of white and muscovado sugar); Barickman, ‘The Slave Economy’, pp. 85–112; Eisenberg, , The Sugar Industry, pp. 15–17, 241–5.Google Scholar Note that, in the years 1796–1807, Rio de Janeiro briefly surpassed Pernambuco as an exporter of sugar.

15 The main sources of information on sugar exports from Bahia used in this study are: for 1780–1860, Barickman, ‘The Slave Economy’, pp. 547–49; for 1861–81, Bahia, Secretaria do Planejamento, Tecnologia e Ciência (SEPLANTEC), Fundação de Pesquisas - CPE [Centro de Planejamento e Pesquisas],A inserção da Bahia na evolução nacional Ia. etapa: 1890–1889: A Bahia no século XIX, 5 vols. (Salvador, 1978), vol. 2, p. 2Google Scholar; and vol. 4, p. 101; for 1882–8, A&P (1884), vol. 35, p. 1620; ibid. (1884–5), vol.35, p. 1656; and GB, FO, Report for …1885–89 on… Bahia, DCR, no. 793 (London, 1890), p. 2; and, for 1889–1930, Jancso, I., ‘As exportações da Bahia durante a República Velha (1889–1930): Consideraç÷es preliminares’, in Mauro, F. (ed.), L'Histoire Quantitative au Brésilde 1S00 à 1900 (Paris, 1973), p. 356.Google Scholar Figures for exports (1836–1910) and production (1801–1910) in Pernambuco can be found in Eisenberg, The Sugar Industry, pp. 15–17. Also note that, in the nineteenth century, Bahian authorities used fiscal years (e.g., 1875–6) in recording exports. Here, however, for the sake of simplicity and to facilitate comparisons with Eisenberg's figures for Pernambuco, I have ‘converted’ fiscal years into calendar years, citing, e.g., 1875–6 as 1876.

16 On the interprovincial slave trade and the long-term decline in the slave population after 1850, see Slenes, ‘The Demography’, parts II—III. On the demography of slaves on Bahian sugar plantations in the colonial period and in the early nineteenth century, see Schwartz, , Sugar Plantations, chap. 13Google Scholar; and Barickman, ‘ The Slave Economy’, chap. 6. On conditions in the world market for Brazilian sugar in the second half of the nineteenth century, see, e.g., Eisenberg, , The Sugar Industry, chap. 2.Google Scholar

17 Peres, Gaspar and Peres, Apollonio, A industria assucareira em Pernambuco (1915; facsimile edn., Recife, 1991), pp. 109–10Google Scholar, 114 (for annual production in Pernambuco, 1884–94); GB, FO, Report for…Pernambuco, DCR, no. 1547 (London, 1895), p. 39 (for annual exports from Alagoas, 1884–1894). Also see Galloway, ‘The Last Years’, p. 603.

18 In ‘The Last Years’ (p. 603), Galloway, citing the British consular reports published in the House of Commons Accounts and Papers, presents a graph of sugar ‘ production’ (i.e., exports in the case of Bahia) for three Northeastern provinces showing a surge in exports of sugar from Bahia in 1884 that surpassed the 1853 peak. His source here would seem to be the 1884 report by the British consul in Salvador, which indicates 74,600 tons as the volume of sugar shipped from that port ‘for the year 1884’. The consul explained that he was referring to the calendar year and not to the fiscal year from 1 July 1883 to 30 June 1884, which the provincial authorities used in compiling official trade statistics. (See note 15 above.) For the fiscal year 1883–4, the consul's report places exports at 50,372 tons. See A&P (1884–5), vol. 35, PP. 641–2, 1656. In any event, even if the figure of 74,600 tons is valid, it would represent a one-year surge that in no way altered the long-term trend of stagnation and decline in the Bahian sugar trade.

19 GB, FO, Report for …1885–89 on…Bahia, p. 2; Jancsó, ‘As exportações’, p. 356 (for exports in 1889). The consul's report and a few other sources provide higher figures for the volume of sugar exported in 1889. But, as the consul pointed out (pp. 2, 4), those figures include sugar from the province of Sergipe, located just north of Bahia, which regularly shipped most of its sugar exports through the port of Salvador.

20 See, e.g., GB, FO, Report for…1899 on…Bahia, DCR, no. 2470 (London, 1900); idem, Report for…1903 on…Bahia, DCR, no. 3256 (London, 1904). Between 1897 and 1910, sugar accounted for only 3.4 per cent of total export earnings in Bahia. Calculated from Jancso, ‘As exportações’, p. 348 (who was unable to locate information on the value of sugar exports between 1888 and 1896). Even in the early 1920s, during the surge in international sugar prices after World War I, exports never surpassed 40,000 tons. Ibid., p. 356

21 Eisenberg, , The Sugar Industry, pp. 15, 38Google Scholar; Singer, P., Desenvolvimento econâmico e evolução urbana (análise da evolução econâmica de São Paulo, Blumenau, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizpnte e Recife), 2nd edn. (São Paulo, 1977), pp. 312–3Google Scholar; Neto, L. Guimarães, Introdução à formação econâmica do Nordeste (Recife, 1989), pp. 58–9Google Scholar; Vergolino, J. R., ‘A economia de Pernambuco no períodode 1850–1900: Uma interpretação’, Clio (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco), Série História do Nordeste, vol. I, no. 14 (1993), pp. 104—116Google Scholar; Grangier, Alexandre, A canna de assucar na Bahia (Inquerito sobre a cultura da canna e a industria assucareira no Estado da Bahia…) (Rio de Janeiro, 1926)Google Scholar, table for the ‘Produção das usinas…’, no page. Although apparently much more successful than Bahian producers, Pernambucan planters did face difficulties in placing their sugar in Brazil's Southeastern markets; and shipments of Pernambucan sugar to other parts of Brazil only partly compensated for the loss of overseas markets. See Gnaccarini, J. C., ‘A economia do açúcar: Processo de trabalho e processo de acumulação’, in Holanda, Sérgio Buarque de and Fausto, Boris (eds.), História geral da civilização brasileira, II vols. (São Paulo, 1960–84), tomo III, vol. I, pp. 329–44Google Scholar; and Eisenberg, , The Sugar Industry, pp. 25–9.Google Scholar

22 The documentation on the moléstia is extensive. See, e.g., ‘ Representação dos agricultores da Vila de Nazaré… sobre a moléstia…’ [1866?], BN-s/m, II-33, 28, 69; Bahia, Relatorio (1868, Nascentes de Azambuja), p. 32; idem, Relatorio (1870, São Lourenço), p. 52; and A&P (1874), vol. 33, p. 684. On the disease in Pernambuco, see Eisenberg, , The Sugar Industry, p. 33. The lag of a decade may well have given Pernambucan planters an advantage in dealing with the moléstia.Google Scholar

23 ‘Relação dos Engenhos existentes na Provincia da Bahia cujos assucares das duas ultimas saffras tern sido depositados nos Trapiches Alfandegados’ (1869), BN-s/m, II-33, 32, 3. Here, relying on an 1873 survey of sugar plantations in Bahia, published in ‘ Trabalho da Commissão [da Bahia]’, in Informações sobre o Estado da Lavoura (Rio de Janeiro, 1874) (hereafter cited as Estado da Lavoura, [Bahia]), table B, no page, I have assumed 635 as the number of operating engenhos in the Recôncavo. For the location of the engenhos listed in the ‘Relaçāo’, I have used the ‘Matrícula dos Engenhos da Capitania da Bahia…’ [1807–1874], APEB, SH, 642. Engenhos listed in the ‘Relação’ are identified by name and by the number assigned to them in the ‘Matrícula’. On the expansion of sugar production in the southern Recôncavo, see Barickman, ‘ The Slave Economy’, pp. 99–111.

24 Calmon, Góes, Vida econômico-financeira, p. 72.Google Scholar For a chronology of drought years in nineteenth-century Bahia, see de Queirós Mattoso, K. M., Bahia: A cidade do Salvador e sen mercado no século XIX (São Paulo, 1978), p. 343.Google Scholar

25 See the extensive documentation on the drought in APEB, SH, 1608. In Salvador, the price of one alqueire (36.27 litres) of cassava flour more than doubled between 1888 and 1889; the 1889 price was 12; per cent higher than the average for 1880—8. Calculated from de Queirós Mattoso, K. M., ‘Au Nouveau Monde: Une Province d'un Nouvel Empire: Bahia au XIXe siècle’, unpubl. thèse de doctorat d'état, Université de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), 1986, Annexes, pp. 445–61.Google Scholar

26 See, e.g., Barão de Moniz Aragão to the Pres., 10 July 1888, and Câm. de São Francisco do Conde to the Pres., 25 May 1889, both in APEB, SH, 1436; Bahia, , Relatorio (1889, Machado Portella), p. 157Google Scholar; Idem, Secretaria de Agricultura, Viação, Indústria e Obras Públicas, Relatorio apresentado …ao governador do Estado da Bahia… [Bahia, 1901], p. 160Google Scholar; Alfred, Marc, Le Bre'sil: Excursion à trovers ses 20 provinces, 2 vols. (Paris, 1890), vol. 1, pp. 311–12Google Scholar; Vianna, Francisco Vicente, Memoria sobre 0 Estado da Bahia (Bahia, 1893), p. 464Google Scholar; Almeida, Miguel Calmon du Pin e, O assucar e O alcoolna Bahia (Rio de Janeiro, 1903), p. 3Google Scholar; Calmon, Góes, Vida economico-financeira, p. 103Google Scholar; Abreu, S. Fróes, Alguns aspectos da Bahia (Rio de Janeiro, 1926), p. 68.Google Scholar

27 Jansco, , ‘As exportaçôes’, p. 337.Google Scholar

28 Cooper, D. B., ‘The New “Black Death”: Cholera in Brazil, 1855–1856’, in Kiple, K. F. (ed.), The African Exchange: Toward a Biological History of Black People (Durham, N.C., 1987), pp. 242–3. In 1855–6 (i.e., during and immediately after the epidemic), 28 (16%) of the 172 slaves at the Engenhos Nazaré and São Miguel in Santo Amaro died. Inv. of the Visconde and Viscondessa de Pirajá (1855), APEB, SJ, IT.Google Scholar

29 Bahia, , Falla (1852, Goruçalves Martins), p. 53Google Scholar; Slenes, , ‘The Demograhy’, pp. 602–3 and pp. 648–54Google Scholar (for indirect evidence of an intra-regional slave trade within the Northeast, in which Bahia would have been net importer of slaves). Also see note 38 below.

30 Brazil, Diretoria Geral de Estatística, Recenseamento dapopulação do Brazil…no dia i° de agosto de 1872, 21 vols. in 22 (Rio de Janeiro, 1873–1976);Google Scholaridem, Relatorio e trabalhos estatisticos apresentados ao… Ministro…do Imperio…em 30 de abril de 1875 (Rio de Janeiro, 1875), ‘Provincia da Bahia. Quadro estatistico do numero dos escravos…”, no page; idem, Ministério dos Negócios da Agricultura, Comércio e Obras Públicas, Relatorio apresentado à Assembléa Geral Legislativa na terceira sessão da vigesima legislatura pelo Ministro… da Agricultura, Comercio e Obras Publicas… (Rio de Janeiro, 1888), p. 24. On these sources, see Slenes, ‘The Demography”, chap. II. All future references in the text to the census returns and the results of the two matrículas come from these sources.

31 Note that the decline in the slave population between 1872–3 and 1886–7 cannot be attributed solely to outmigration through the interprovincial slave trade. Other factors contributing to the decline included a negative rate of natural increase, manumissions, and the impact of the Free Womb Law of 1871 (which freed children of slave women born after 28 September 1871) and of the Sexegenarian Law of 1886 (which freed slaves over the age of 6; and gave conditional freedom to those between the ages of 60 and 64). Further research is required to determine the relative weight these factors carried in the decline of the Bahia's slave population between 1872–3 and 1886–7. But see Slenes, ‘The Demography’, esp. chaps. Ill–VIII and X.

32 In classifying townships, I have assumed that townships that do not appear in an 1873 survey of engenhos in Bahia did not regularly produce sugar for export. For the survey, see Estado da lavoura, [Bahia], table B, no page. Many such townships no doubt did produce some sugar, but that sugar would have chiefly supplied local, rather than overseas, markets.

33 Slenes, , ‘The Demography’, pp. 51–118 (p.;6 for quotation). On the figures cited in the text, see notes b and c in Table 1.Google Scholar

34 The municipal councils of both São Francisco do Conde and Cachoeira complained to the provincial government that the census had undercounted the slave population in their townships. Câm. de São Francisco do Conde to the Pres., 26 May 1876, APEB, SH, 1475; Câm. de Cachoeira to the Pres., 3 Nov. 1875, APEB, SH, 1272. Also see A&P (1876), vol. 34, p. 757.

35 Part of the explanation may lie in an undercounting of female slaves in the 1872 census. For the slave population of the Recôncavo as a whole, the sex ratio (i.e., the number of males per 100 females) derived from the census is 116.8, while the matrícula yields a ratio of only 104.3. This makes sense given that, historically, censuses have often undercounted women and that, in the matricula, slaveowners had greater incentives to make sure that all their slaves, including females, were counted. On this point, see Slenes, , ‘The Demography’, pp. 58–9. But again the municipal-level data complicate matters; for three townships (Maragogipe, Jaguaripe, and Itaparica), the matrícula returns indicate a lower sex ratio than the census.Google Scholar

36 An 1816–17 survey of slaveholders registered in 22,229 slaves in São Francisco do Conde and Santo Amaro and another 11,521 slaves in Jaguaripe (including what was then the parish of Nazaré) and Maragogipe. Schwartz, , Sugar Plantations, pp. 440–1.Google Scholar Schwartz (ibid.) quite plausibly estimates that another 55,000 slaves lived in the city of Salvador and in the township of Cachoeira in 1816–17. That estimate, when added to the results of the survey, points to a slave population of roughly 89,000 for the Recôncavo.

37 In constructing the sample, I examined all post–mortem inventories dated between 1850 and 1888 from the townships of São Francisco do Conde and Santo Amaro and from the parish of Santiago do Iguape that were available in 1986–8 for consultation in the collections of probate records (Inventários e Testamentos), housed in the Segção Judiciária of the Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia and in the Arquivo Regional da Cachoeira. These collections yielded a sample of 37 planter inventories. In the probate records for Salvador at the Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia, I was further able to locate a few inventories for planters who owned engenhos in Santo Amaro, São Francisco do Conde, or Iguape, but who at the time of their death resided in Salvador. At the same archive, I also located another six inventories of sugar planters with estates in the parishes of Muritiba, Outeiro Redondo, and Cruz das Almas in the township of Cachoeira. Work with the inventories from Salvador and Cachoeira allowed me to increase the size of final sample to 47 inventories. Also note that the sample includes only engenhos that, at the time the inventories were carried out, had operating mills. It thus excludes engenhos de fogo morto (i.e., those that, for whatever reason, had ceased milling cane and producing sugar). It would no doubt be revealing to compare operating engenhos with engenhos de fogo morto. But, in the holdings at Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia and the Arquivo Regional da Cachoeira, I located only one inventory for an estate clearly identified as an engenho de fogo morto.

38 The relatively high proportion of male slaves found in inventories from the 1870s and 1880s suggests that Bahian planters were able to acquire slaves through an intraregional and intra-provincial slave trade and that, after 1850–1, they did not make major efforts to reverse the decline in the slave population by attaching, through pronatalist policies, greater importance to the reproductive capacity of female slaves. These matters, however, require further research. Also note that B. W. Higman's study of Jamaican sugar plantations indicates that, by itself, the increasing proportion of females within the slave work force would not necessarily have resulted in a decline in labour productivity. Higman, B. W., Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807–1834 (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 215–24.Google Scholar

39 Schwartz, , Sugar Plantations, p. 446.Google Scholar Note that the survey of slaveholders on which the 1816–17 average is based did not include the parish of Santiago do Iguape, which, in the early nineteenth century, contained some of the largest engenhos in the Recôncavo. On Iguape, see Barickman, , ‘The Slave Economy’, pp. 281–3, 321–8, 400, 408.Google Scholar

40 Also note that, in the period 1850–88, the use of slave labour in the cane-growing districts was not confined to engenhos. No doubt many non–planter farmers in those districts who had employed slaves in the first half of the century lost their slaves after 1850. Nevertheless, of 58 post-mortem inventories for farmers in São Francisco do Conde and Iguape conducted between 18 jo and 1888, 57 of the farmers owned slaves at the time of their death; the 5 7 owned a total of 530 slaves. This sample of 58 is based on all inventories from São Francisco do Conde (except those for the island parish of Madre de Deus) and Iguape, available for consultation in 1986–8 at the Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia and the Arquivo Regional da Cachoeira. But note that, by their very nature, post-mortem inventories are a source biased in favour of farmers who owned either land or slaves or both and that non-planter farmers in the cane-growing districts were generally tenant farmers. Also see note 73 below.

42 Schwartz, , Sugar Plantations, pp. 151, 313–337Google Scholar; Barickman, , ‘The Slave Economy’, pp. 359–62.Google Scholar

43 M[anoel] Pinto da Rocha to the Pres., 28 Sept. 1871, APEB, SH, 4594; Bahia, , Falla (1872, Freitas Henriques), p. 139Google Scholar; idem, Falla (1871, São Lourenço),Google ScholarDocumentos annexos: ‘Relatorio do Imperial Instituto Bahiano de Agricultura’, p. 22 (of the ‘Relatorio’) (hereafter cited as ‘Relatorio do Imperial Instituto’).Google Scholar

44 Inv. of José Bittencourt Sá e Aragão (1865), APEB, SJ, IT.

45 Inv. of Antônio Gervásio Cardoso (1871), APEB, SJ, IT.

46 Inv. of the Barão de Alagoinhas (1883), ARC, IT. Also see table 3 above. Similarly, further research is required to determine whether free labour was more common on cane farms, where slaveholdings were typically smaller than on engenhos and where the decline in the size of the slave labour force may have been more severe.

47 Inv. of José Maria de Gouveia Portugal (1875), APEB, SJ, IT; ‘Relatorio do Imperial Instituto’, p. 22.Google Scholar

48 Schwartz, , Sugar Plantations, p. 313.Google Scholar The remaining 15.8 per cent of wage and salary payments went to the two vaqueiros and the engenho's nurse.

49 After December 1877, José Maria's son came of age and assumed responsibility, under the supervision of the probate authorities, for the estate until his younger sister married. The accounts he submitted, which end in July 1878 and which are also attached to the inventory, do not record any wage payments for free labourers employed in field work at São Gonçalo.

50 Inv. of Francisco Ferteita Viana Bandeira (1882), APEB, SJ, IT. When the appraisals were carried out for this inventory, five of the 193 slaves purchased their freedom; another seven were missing and listed as runaways. Bandeira's Engenho Vitoria should not be confused with the better-known engenho of the same name, located in Iguape and already mentioned in this article. Besides the examples mentioned in the text, I also examined the accounts of seven other engenhos: Santo Antônio das Varas in suburban Salvador and Bom Gosto and Pimentel in São Francisco do Conde (for 1849–50); Santo Estêvão in São Francisco do Conde (for 1853–7); Nazaré and São Miguel in Santo Amaro (for 1854–6); and da Ponta in Iguape (for 1860–5). The accounts indicate that all seven engenhos relied overwhelmingly on slave labour for field work. Invs. of the Barao de Maragogipe (1850), of Maria de Assunção Freire de Carvalho (1848), of the Visconde and Viscondessa de Pirajá (1855), all in APEB, SJ, IT; and of Matilde Flora da Camara Bittencourt e Chaby (1864), ARC, IT. Note that Miguel de Teive e Argolo, the owner of Santo Estê;váo, had the accounts for his engenho attached to Carvalho's inventory to help settle a dispute among her heirs. I did not, however, work with the accounts for the Engenho Cravacu attached to the inv. of Joaquim Alves da Cruz Rios (1863), APEB, SJ, IT. When this document was restored, the sheaves containing the accounts were shuffled and placed out of order. But, given that Cravacu had a resident population of 180 slaves at the time, it seems unlikely that the estate employed much free labour.

51 Eisenberg, , The Sugar Industry, p. 146Google Scholar; Carvalho, M. J. M., ‘O “tráfico de escravatura branca” para Pernambuco no ocaso do tráfico de escravos’, Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasikiro, vol. 149, no. 358 (1988), p. 24 n. 6Google Scholar; Campos de Carvalho, Z., Rosto e máscara do senhor de engenho de Pernambuco (1822–1888) (Recife, 1988), p. 30.Google Scholar Also see M., Santana de Almeida, da G., Nordeste açucareiro (1840–1875): Desafios num processo do vira-ser capitalista: Sergipe no século XIX (Aracaju, 1993), pp. 187–8.Google Scholar

52 ‘Uma estatistica’, Di´rio de Pernambuco, 15 Dec. 1857,Google Scholar reprinted in de Mello, J. Gonsalves (ed.), O Di´rio de Pernambuco e a história social do Nordeste (1840–1889), 2 vols. (Recife, 1975), pp. 607–9Google Scholar; Table 2 above. Note that Eisenberg, (The Sugar Industry, p. 147)Google Scholar cites 70 as the average number of slaves per engenho in Jaboatão in 1857. That average, however, includes not only slaves owned by planters, but also those owned by cane farmers.

53 Eltis, D., Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Oxford, 1987), pp. 243–4 and pp. 195, 373 n. 38.Google Scholar For Pernambuco alone, Marcus Carvalho (‘O “tráfico de escravatura branca”’, p. 33) has estimated total slave imports in the 1840s at 15,600 – a figure that amounts to only 24 per cent of Eltis's estimate of 66,600 for Bahia between 1841 and 1850. The best general study of the Bahian slave trade remains Verger, P., Fluxo e refluxo do tráfico de escravos entre O Golfo de Benim e a Bahia de Todos os Santos dos séculos XVII a XIXy trans. Gadzanis, Tasso (São Paulo, 1987).Google Scholar

54 See the works cited in note 8 above.

55 Specifically, on this point, see Eisenberg, , The Sugar Industry, pp. 122–3, 224–5.Google Scholar

56 For the expression ‘tenant at will’, see MacGregor, John, Commercial Statistics: A Digest of the Productive Resources, Commercial Legislation,... of All Nations, 2nd edn., 5 vols. (London, 1850), vol. 4, pp. 412–13,Google Scholar quoting a description of moradores by M. A. d Mornay, a French engineer who lived in Pernambuco in the 1840s. On similar groups in the Recôncavo in the early nineteenth century, see Barickman, , ‘The Slave Economy’, pp. 329–52.Google Scholar

57 On the ‘Great Drought’, see Cunniff, R. L., ‘The Great Drought: Northeast Brazil, 1877–1880’, unpubl. PhD diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1970Google Scholar; and Greenfield, G. M., ‘The Great Drought and Elite Discourse in Imperial Brazil’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 72, no. 3 (1992), pp. 375–400CrossRefGoogle Scholar; both of which focus on Northeastern provinces other than Bahia. Comparable studies of the drought in Bahia are lacking. Although the ‘Great Drought’ is usually described as affecting all of Northeast Brazil and although Mattoso (Bahia: A Cidade, p. 343) lists 1877–80 as drought years, it is not at all clear that the drought was as severe in Bahia as elsewhere. The 1878 report by the British consul in Salvador suggests that most areas of Bahia escaped the drought. Likewise, the Bahian historian Francisco Marques de Góes Calmon (born in 1874) regarded the drought of 1857–61, not 1877–80, as the worst in nineteenth-century Bahia; in fact, his economic history of Bahia does not even mention the 1877–80 drought. In Bahia, the drought's impact seems to have been mainly felt through the steep increase in the price of cassava flour caused by shipments of flour to drought-stricken provinces further north. A&P (1878–9), vol. 29, p. 27;; Calmon, Góes, Vida econômico-financeira, p. 72, 93–4Google Scholar; de Aguiar, [M.] Pinto, Abastecimento: Crises, motins e intervenção (Rio de Janeiro, 1985), pp. 57–60.Google Scholar I have been unable to locate dendrochronological information that might allow for a comparative analysis of the drought's severity in Bahia and elsewhere in the Northeast (see also footnote 24).

58 Of all the authors who have investigated the transition to free labour in Pernambuco, Eisenberg is perhaps the most explicit in stressing the narrow range of alternatives to work in the sugar industry; he writes: ‘The free worker did not find alternative employments in the northeast, as did ex-slaves in Caribbean plantation colonies after abolition.’ The Sugar Industry, p. 232.Google Scholar But he also described the supply of free labour available to sugar planters in Pernambuco as ‘superabundant’ and suggests that, for that very reason, part of the poor free population did escape permanent employment in the sugar industry, ibid. Most of the sources cited in note 8 above concur with Eisenberg on these points. See, e.g., Cabral, , ‘Tempo de morada’, esp. 45–50.Google Scholar

59 See note 10 above.

60 For information on exports of tobacco, coffee, and cocoa after 1850, see Barickman, , ‘The Slave Economy’, pp. 542, 545Google Scholar; Bahia,…, A inserção, vol. 4, p. 101; GB, FO, Report for… 1885–89 on… Bahia, p. 3; and Jancso, , ‘As exportações’, pp. 350–5Google Scholar;. Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, sugar generally accounted for over 50 per cent of the total value of Bahian exports. But, by 1871–80, sugar's share had fallen to 29.4 per cent, while tobacco and coffee's combined share had risen to 47.7 per cent of the province's export earnings. Tobacco by itself accounted for 32.7 per cent of those earnings. Barickman, , ‘The Slave Economy’, pp. 53–5Google Scholar; Araújo, U. Castro and de Sá Barreto, V. Sampaio, ‘A Bahia econômica e social’ in Bahia,..., A inserção, vol. 1, p. 52.Google Scholar

61 Estado da lavoura, [Bahia], table B, no page, and p. 55; A&P (1875), vol. 36, p. 1394; invs. of José Maria de Gouveia Portugal (1875) and of the Barão de Viana (1875), both in APEB, SJ, IT. (See note 1 above.) The figures for steam-powered mills in the text refer to engenhos located in the bayshore parishes of suburban Salvador and of São Francisco do Conde and Santo Amaro as well as in the parishes of São Sebastião de Passé, Rio Fundo, and Bom Jardim in the same two townships, and in the parishes of Iguape and Rosário in Cachoeira (which are aggregated in the 1873 survey). On soil quality, climate, and other conditions for the production of specific crops, see Haskins, E. C., ‘An Agricultural Geography of the Recôncavo of Bahia’, unpubl. PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 1956,Google Scholar esp. chaps. II and V; and Bahia, Secretaria de Planejamento, Tecnologia e Ciência (SEPLANTEC), Conselho de Desenvolvimento do Recôncavo (CONDER), Estudos b´sicos para 0 projecto agropecu´rio do Recôncavo, 8 vols. ([Salvador], 1975) tomo 1, vol. 1, esp. p p. 467–507.Google Scholar

62 Garcia, A. R., Jr., O sul: Caminho do roçado: Estratégias de reprodução camponesa e transformação social (São Paulo and Brasilia, 1989), pp. 25, 60–67 (PP- 60, 62 for quotations).Google Scholar

63 See the relevant sources cited in note 61.

64 E.g., an 1846 survey found an average of only 21 slaves o n 12 engenhos in the parish of Aldeia in Nazaré. Delegado (Nazaré) to the Pres., 5 July 1846, and encl., APEB, SH, 6182. For the spread of sugar-cane and the number of engenhos, see Barickman, , ‘The Slave Economy’, pp. 106–111.Google Scholar

65 Estado da lavoura, [Bahia], table B, n o page. Also see t he 1846 survey of engenhos in Aldeia cited in note 64 above, which does not list a single steam-powered mill. On cane farmers in colonial and early nineteenth century Bahia, see Schwartz, , Sugar Plantations, chap. 11Google Scholar; Barickman, , ‘The Slave Economy’, pp. 322–44.Google Scholar

66 Schwartz, , Sugar Plantations, pp. 85–6Google Scholar; Barickman, , ‘The Slave Economy’, pp. 62–84.Google Scholar

67 See, e.g, Câm. de Nazaré t o the Pres., 13 Dec. 1855, and idem, Resposta ao circular sobre a produção, 1856, both in APEB, SH, 1367; idem to the Pres., 31 Oct. 1887, BN-s/m, II-3 5, 33, 16; Estado da lavoura, [Bahia], pp. 52, 55Google Scholar; Directors of the Estrada de Ferro Tram-road de Nazare to the Pres., 12 Oct. 1876, APEB, SH, 4977; H. Mathéo to the Directors of the Estrada de Ferro Tram-road de Nazaré, 20 Jan. 188;, APEB, SH, 4976; Câm. de Cachoeira to the Pres., 15 Sept. 1887, BN-s/m, II-33, 33, 36; Aguiar, Durval Vieira de, Descrições prdticas da Provincia da Bahia… (1888; reprint edn., Rio, de Janeiro and Brasília, , 1979), pp. 238, 240–244Google Scholar; Vianna, , Memoria, p. 284, 286, 423, 453, 458, 507, 552.Google Scholar Also see the shipments of sugar, tobacco, coffee, and cassava flour shown in the freight records of the Estrada de Ferro Tram-Road de Nazaré for 1877–88 (with interruptions) in APEB, 4976, 4977,4978, and 4979. On the cigar and cigarette industry (also mentioned in some of the sources cited above), see note 77 below. On ‘Maragogipe’ coffee, see, e.g., Ferreira, Manoel Jesuino, Provincia da Bahia: Apontamentos (Rio de Janeiro, 1875), p. 82Google Scholar; van Delden Laërne, C. F., Brazil and Java: Report on Coffee-Culture in America, Asia, and Africa... (London and The Hague, 1885), pp. 322–3Google Scholar; and Ukers, W. H., All About Coffee (New York, 1922), pp. 140, 345, 367.Google Scholar

68 A&P (1874), vol. 33, p. 684; Barickman, , ‘The Slave Economy’, pp. 106–111Google Scholar; ‘Relatorio do Imperial Instituto’, p. 15Google Scholar; Eisenberg, , The Sugar Industry, p. 192.Google Scholar On lavradores de cana in Bahia before 1850, see note 65 above.

69 Estado da lavoura, [Bahia], p. 55Google Scholar; invs. of Manoel Caetano de Oliveira Passos (1873) and of Maria Luísa de Palma (1862), both in APEB, SJ, IT. Also see the invs. of Francisco Pinheiro de Souza (1862) and of Manoel Higino de Jesus (1868), both in APEB, SJ, IT; and H. Mathéo to the Directors of the Estrada de Ferro Tram-road de Nazaré, 20 Jan. 1885, APEB, SH, 4976.

70 Inv. of Hilaria Maria de Jesus (1857), APEB, SJ, IT. See Barickman, , ‘The Slave Economy’, pp. 451–5Google Scholar (for the method used to estimate the marketable surplus of flour); and, on Salvador's market, ibid., chap. 2; and Mattoso, Bahia: A cidade.

71 Commercial production of export and food crops by small farmers assumes that such farmers had access to land. No study to date has explored patterns of land tenure or possible shifts in landholding and access to land in the Reconcavo in the late nineteenth century. Even less is known about landholding in other areas of Bahia. But see Barickman, ‘The Slave Economy’, chap. 4 on patterns of landholding in the Reconcavo at mid-century (including the presence of small and middling landowners), on the existence of forested land in the region, and on the frontier within Bahia beyond the Reconcavo. Also see extensive woodlands shown in Theodoro Fernandes Sampaio's map of the Recôncavo: Carta do Reconcavo da Bahia (1899; reprint edn., Salvador, 1928).

72 F[rancisco] A[dolfo] de Vamhagen, O tabaco na Bahia... (Caracas, 1863),Google Scholar reprinted in Burlamaque, Leopoldo Cesar, Manual da cultura, colheita e preparação do tabaco (Rio de Janeiro, 1865), pp. 98, 101–102Google Scholar; Manoel Pinto da Rocha to the Pres., 26 Dec. 1857, APEB, SH, 4631; A & P (1877), vol. 35, p. 1185; Estado da lavoura, [Bahia], pp. 52–3Google Scholar; ‘Relatorio do Imperial Instituto’, p. 15Google Scholar; Bahia, , Falla (1872, Freitas Henriques), p. 139Google Scholar; Vianna, , Memoria, p. 282Google Scholar; Barickman, ‘The Slave Economy’, pp. 500–7Google Scholar (on agricultural practices). Also see Scott, , ‘Defining the Boundaries’, p. 97.Google Scholar For tobacco's reputation in the twentieth century as a ‘poor man's crop’, see, e.g., Francisco Borges de Barros, Esboço chorographico da Bahia (Bahia, 1917), p. 78Google Scholar; and Egler, W. A., ‘Aspectos gerais da cultura do fumo na regiao do Recôncavo da Bahia’, Boletim Geográfico, vol. 10, no. 111 (1952), p. 681.Google Scholar

73 See, e.g., Melo, , O Norte agrário, p. 23Google Scholar; and Mattoso, , Bahia: Uma província, p. 463.Google Scholar On the presence of slave labour on tobacco farms in the second half of the nineteenth century, see Barickman, , ‘The Slave Economy’, p. 419.Google Scholar

74 Estadoda tavoura, p.55Google Scholar; A&P (1884), vol. 35, p. 1599; ibid., (1884–5), vol. 35, p. 1642; Vianna, , Memoria, p. 284.Google Scholar On coffee's flexibility and on its compatibility with the cultivation of food crops, see Roseberry, W., Introduction in Roseberry, W., Gudmondsen, L., and Kutschbach, M. Samper (eds.), Coffee, Society, and Power in Latin America (Baltimore, 1995), pp. 5–10Google Scholar; and Stolcke, V., ‘The Labors of Coffee in Latin America: The Hidden Charm of Family Labor and Self-Provisioning’,Google Scholar in ibid., pp. 65–93, esp. pp. 81–5.

76 Naeher, Julius, Land und Leute in der brasilianischen Proving Bahia (Leipzig, 1881), p. 204Google Scholar; Bahia, , Falla (1872, Freitas Henriques), p. 139Google Scholar; A&P, 1884–5, vol. 35. p. 1642; Barickman, , ‘The Slave Economy’, pp. 419–27, 450–66Google Scholar (on cassava-growers in late colonial and early nineteenth-century Bahia). Also see Scott, , ‘Defining the Boundaries’, p. 97Google Scholar; and the studies of commercial production of farinha by small farmers in the contemporary Recôncavo: Ramos, E. Lacerda, ‘Relações entre o crescimento industrial e o desenvolvimento agrícola da região fumageira da Mata Fina - industrialização da mandioca’, unpubl. master's thesis, Escola de Agronomia da Universidade Federal da Bahia (Cruz das Almas), 1972Google Scholar; Saint, W. S., Jr., ‘The Social Organization of Crop Production: Cassava, Tobacco and Citrus in Bahia, Brazil’, unpubl. PhD diss., Cornell University, 1977Google Scholar; and Maia, S. dos Reis, ‘Dependency and Survival of Sapeaçu Small Farmers - Bahia, Brazil’, unpubl. PhD diss., Boston University, 1985.Google Scholar

76 Bahia, , Falla (1872, Freitas Henriques), p. 139.Google Scholar Also see Manoel Pinto da Rocha to the Pres., 26 Dec. 1857, APEB, SH, 4631.

77 Meireles, ‘Esboço descriptivo’ (1866), BN, s/m, II-3, 3, 31; Câm. de Cachoeira to the Pres., 15 Sept. 1887, BN, s/m, II-33, 33, 36; Borba, S. Fraga Costa, ‘Industrializagao e exportação do fumo na Bahia, 1870–1930’, unpubl. master's thesis, Universidade Federal da Bahia, 1975, pp. 35–54Google Scholar; Bahia, , Valla (1851, Gonçalves Martins), p. 54Google Scholar (on cigar-rolling as a domestic craft industry); A lavoura da Bahia: Opusculo agrario-politico por um veterano da independencia e da lavoura (Bahia, 1874), pp. 13–14Google Scholar; Sampaio, J. L. Pamponet et al. ., ‘Algodão e têxtil na Bahia’, in Bahia,…, A inserção, vol. 2, pp. 200–35.Google Scholar Also see Scott, ‘Defining the Boundaries’, p. 97. Note that, before 1888, tobaccoprocessing workshops also used slave labour. See, e.g., the inv. of Joaquim Martins de Oliveira (1880), APEB, SJ, IT.

78 The development of cocoa production in coastal districts in southern Bahia has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. But see Mahony, M. A., ‘The World Cacao Made: Society, Politics, and History in Southern Bahia, Brazil, 1820–1919’. unpubl. PhD diss., Yale University, 1996Google Scholar; and Wright, A. L., ‘Market, Land and Class: Southern Bahia, Brazil, 1890–1940’, unpubl. PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1976.Google Scholar Similarly, the literature on Rio de Janeiro has long stressed the impact of migrants (including former slaves) from Bahia on the city's culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See, e.g., Moura, R., Tia data e a Pequena África no Rio de Janeiro, 2nd ed. (Rio de Janeiro, 1995), esp. pp. 19–44Google Scholar; Silva, E., Prince of the People: The Life and Times of a Brazilian Free Man of Colour, trans. Ashford, Moyra (London, 1993), pp. 48–50, 60–3.Google Scholar But, again, little is known about the extent or timing of migration from Bahia to Rio.

79 Brazil, Ministério da Agricultura, Indústria e Comércio, Diretoria do Serviço de Inspeç,ão e Agricolas, Fomento, Aspectos da economia rural brasileira (Rio de Janeiro, 1922), p. 473Google Scholar; Abilio Moncorvo da Silva Pinto, These inaugural apresentada a Escola Agricola da Bahia [‘A rotina permanente e a falta de bragos na agricultura brasileira’] (Bahia, 1898), pp. 54–7Google Scholar; Abreu, , Alguns aspectos, p. 68Google Scholar; Adrião, Caminha Filho, A cana de acucar na Bahia... (Bahia, 1944), pp. 33–6Google Scholar; GB, FO, Report for... 1912 on... Bahia, DCR, no. 2696 (London, 1901), p. 8; idem, Report for... 1912 on... Bahia, DCR, no. 5 076 (London, 1913), p. 3. Also see Scott, , ‘Defining the Boundaries’, pp. 95–6 n. 82, who points out that, ‘of course, what former slaveholders perceived as “expensive” labor may not have involved very high wages’.Google Scholar

80 See, e.g., juiz de direito interino (Cachoeira) to the Pres., 7 June 1879, and end., APEB, SH, 2282. I am grateful to Judith Allen for pointing out this document to me.

81 Barão de Moniz Aragão to the Pres., 10 July 1888 (emphasis in the original), and Câm. de São Francisco do Conde to the Pres., 25 May 1889, both in APEB, SH, 1436; José Carlos de Carvalho, Relatório, 20 Oct. 1889, copy sent to the Pres., APEB, SH, 4597. The desire to obtain land to work on their own was common among former slaves not only in Brazil, but also in other areas of the Americas. See, e.g., A. M. Lugão Rios, ‘“Minha mae era escrava, eu não!”: Negros e camponeses no Sudeste brasileiro, co. 1890-c. 1950’, unpubl. paper presented at the 19th International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington, D.C., 1995; and I. Berlin and P. D. Morgan, Introduction in Berlin, I. and Morgan, P. D. (eds.), ‘The Slaves’ Economy: Independent Production by Slaves in the Americas’, special issue of Slavery and Abolition, vol. 12, no. 1 (1991), p. 23.Google Scholar Also see Scott, , ‘Defining the Boundaries’, p. 92.Google Scholar

82 See Carvalho de Mello, P., ‘Aspectos econômicos da organização do trabalho da economia cafeeira do Rio de Janeiro, 1850–1888’, Revista brasileirade Economia, vol. 32, no. 1 (1978), pp. 19–67Google Scholar; Slenes, R. W., ‘Grandeza ou decadencia? O mercado de escravos e a economia cafeeira da provi'ncia do Rio de Janeiro, 1850–1888’, in Costa, I. del Nero da (ed.), Brasil: História econômica e demogrdfica (São Paulo, 1986), pp. 103–55Google Scholar; and idem, ‘The Demography’, chap. V. Both Slenes and Carvalho de Mello focus on coffee production in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, and most of their evidence on slave prices, the productivity of slave labour, etc. refers specifically to those provinces. But given that the abolition of slavery was a national issue, their findings are relevant here.

83 Miguel Calmon du Pin e Almeida, Memoria sobre O estabelecimento d'uma companhia de colonisação nesta provincia (1835; facsimile edn., Salvador, 1985)Google Scholar; ‘Proposta que faz Thomaz Geremoabo’ [1857], APEB, SH, 4606; Pang, , O Engenho Central, pp. 49–50.Google Scholar The literature on São Paulo is extensive. See, e.g., Costa, E. Viotti da, Da senzala à colônia, 2nd edn. (São Paulo, 1982)Google Scholar; Stolcke, V., Cafeicultura: Homens, mulheres e capital (1850–1980) (São Paulo, 1986), pp. 17–94Google Scholar; Dean, W., Rio Claro: A Brazilian Plantation System (Stanford, 1976)Google Scholar; Martins, O cativeiro; T. H. Holloway, Immigrants on the Land: Coffee and Society in Sao Paulo, 1886–1934 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1980), chap. 3Google Scholar; Andrews, G. R., Blacks and Whites in São Paulo, Brazil, 1888–1988 (Madison, Wisc., 1991), chaps. 2–3Google Scholar; and Machado, O plano. For sugar prices, see Eisenberg, , The Sugar Industry, p. 16.Google Scholar

84 Eisenberg, , The Sugar Industry, p. 225.Google Scholar

85 Bahia, , Relatorio (1889, Machado Portella), p. 157.Google Scholar The slow, partial recovery of the Bahian sugar industry after 1891 suggests that planters in the Reconcavo did eventually re-establish labour arrangements on their estates; and, no doubt, on some or perhaps even many estates, planters depended heavily on former slaves for labour in the 1890s and the early years of the twentieth century. By the early 1940s, seasonal migrants from the interior apparently composed a sizeable proportion of the labour force employed in the Bahian sugar industry. See Caminha, Filho, A cana de açúcar, pp. 33,Google Scholar who described migrant workers as unreliable and who insisted that the lack of a ‘fixed’ labour force was one of the main problems confronting the sugar industry in Bahia. It should, however, be noted that post-abolition labour arrangements on Bahian sugar plantations remain a largely unexplored topic. But see Scott, , ‘Defining the Boundaries’, pp. 93–8.Google Scholar

86 Machado, , O plano, p. 18.Google Scholar Also see Naro, , ‘Revision’, pp. 68, 79–80Google Scholar; and Dean, , ‘The Brazilian economy’, p. 704.Google Scholar

87 On this point, see Scott, , ‘Defining the Boundaries’, p. 96.Google Scholar

88 See, e.g., Andrade, , ‘Transição’, 79–82; Reis and Reis, ‘As elites agrarias’, pp. 314–18.Google Scholar Reis and Reis (p. 315) do note that, in contrast with what took place in Pernambuco, exports of sugar from Bahia declined in the second half of the nineteenth century. They argue that ‘the decline…should be attributed to the cotton boom caused by the American Civil War rather than to any shortage of labour’ (i.e., free labour for use in the sugar industry). The argument does not, however, stand up to closer scrutiny. On the one hand, it does not explain why the sugar trade in Bahia continued to stagnate and decline even after the end of the Civil-War cotton boom. On the other hand, it cannot be reconciled with the available information on cotton in Bahia. In 1868, the best year after 1850 for the Bahian cotton trade, the province exported only 6.5 million tons of cotton, less than half the amount of cotton shipped overseas from Pernambuco in the same year. And even in 1868, cotton accounted for a smaller share of Bahia's total export earnings than sugar. Furthermore, since the mid-nineteenth century, the textile industry in Bahia, unable to obtain an adequate local supply of raw materials, had regularly imported raw cotton from other areas of the Northeast. Bahia,…, A inserção, vol. 4, pp. 121–2Google Scholar; Araújo, and Barreto, ,’ A Bahia', p.52Google Scholar; Sampaio, J. L. Pamponet et al. ., ‘Algodão e têxtil’, pp. 189, 196.Google Scholar

89 On the disproportionate representation of Bahia in cabinets during the Empire, see Carvalho, J. M. de, A construção da ordem: A elite polĩtica imperial (Rio de Janeiro, 1980), pp. 104–106.Google Scholar Katia Mattoso (‘Au Nouveau Monde’, Annexes, pp. 390–400) has identified 115 Bahians who were awarded titles of nobility during the Brazilian Empire (1822–1889), 68 of whom she lists as being landowners. Not all those landowners were sugar planters in the Recôncavo. Even so, it is probable that her list underestimates the number of Bahian sugar planters who received titles of nobility. A spot check of the list reveals several plantation owners who are not identified as such (e.g., Joaquim Pires de Carvalho e Albuquerque, João Maurício Wanderley, Egas Moniz Barreto de Aragao, and Inocêncio Marques de Araiijo Góes).