By Emília Viotti Costa.
This essay is repeated elsewhere; I got it from Chapter 9 of
Costa, Emília. Da Monarquia à República: Momentos Decisivos. São Paulo: Editora UNESP, 2007.
In English, this essay is entitled "The Myth of Racial Democracy." I found it referenced in Júnia Ferreira Furtado's book called Chica da Silva: A Brazilian Slave of the Eighteenth Century. In her essay, Costa discusses how "social scientists and historians operate on the level of social mythology and they themselves, whether they like it or not, help destroy and create myths. In the process, the "truth" of one generation very often becomes the myth of the next. Studious North Americans, for example, today can talk about the myth of the self-made man. Nevertheless, for many of those who lived in the United States in the 19th century (and perhaps for many today) it corresponded to their experience of life, and it wasn't simply a dream that helped the common man confront his daily frustrations. The myth helped reduce social conflict, that is clear. But it also impelled men to great enterprises, some successes and others failures. It was a part of the American reality, just as real in traditional experience as money, work, and hunger" (368).
While Costa argues that the "self-made man" wasn't a part of the reality in Brazil, but that the myth of racial democracy has been equal in creating possibilities while denying actual reality. Showing data on education that anyone could look up, the disparity in access to wealth based on skin color is striking. To repeat the quote above more succinctly, she notes how "a powerful myth, the idea of a racial democracy - that to a certain point regulated the perceptions of the lives of Brazilians of Freyre's generation - turned into, for a new generation of social scientists, a ruined and discredited myth" (368).
The concept is interesting; in today's world there seems to be a battle for dominance over truths. Do we save time and call them tomorrow's myths? The implication here is that the moment we write something down it becomes myth, even the social scientists, like it or not. So, this would make Júnia Ferreira Furtado's book on Chica da Silva simply another in a long line of myths about her. The previous works on her have been debunked for inaccuracies; are we simply waiting for another set of criticisms to take Furtado's place? I am still struggling to make sense of this, but it seems to me that where one is located in ability to make myths is key; just because something is "truth" doesn't mean it will gain any traction. Take the question of vaccinations in the U.S., for example. The study that was debunked about a link between autism and vaccinations has been so thoroughly shown to be a fraud, but it continues to live on through public discourse and affect the way all of us make decisions about whether or not to vaccinate and how.
Costa proposes a way of looking at racial democracy, that it was a response to the theories of racial hierarchy in Europe, so "confronting the theories that highlighted the superiority of the white population and the inferiority of mestizos and blacks, the Brazilian elite - a minority of whites, some of hwome were not sure of the "purity" of their blood, surrounded by a majority of mestizos - didn't discover a better solution than to located their hopes in the process of "whitening" (branqueamento)" (371). Prejudice then became based on color and not origin, as in the U.S. (Ibid.)
This is an excellent read, and the rest of the book looks appears to be very interesting as well. If you don't read Portuguese but are looking to know more about Brazil's racial landscape, this is a good place to begin.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Book: Chica da Silva: A Brazilian Slave of the Eighteenth Century
Furtado, Júnia F. Chica da Silva: A Brazilian slave of the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
There are multiple accounts of Chica da Silva in print, film, and television, many of which are sensationalistic and mythologize the "lascivious mulatta." Using a combination of resources, but heavily reliant on estate records and court documents, her history is released from a sensationalistic narrative. What it loses in narrative, it gains in substance, and the book is rich with information that includes chapters on Tejuco, the village she lived in, her own story, the diamond market and the mining community surrounding it, what daily life looked like, and finally it traces her estate and family as far as possible.
Furtado states, "This book aims to get to know her, not as a curiosity nor as an exception, but to use her as a medium through which to shed new light on the women of her period and therefore bring them into history. Only thus can they be freed from the stereotypes that have been imposed upon them over time" (xix). One of the misconceptions about slavery the book confronts head on is the relative power that freed women had in the 18th century in the town of Tejuco. First, manumission was much easier for women than men; men and women were both likely to be able to earn money outside of their regular requirements, but because concubinage was so common, women were able to take advantage of their sexual bodies and either buy or earn their freedom. Often they were manumitted in wills, ergo the use of estate records to identify women who were freed. The wills that manumitted most often had stipulations about years of service or other caveats prior to freedom, making sure that the enslaved person had to work for the deceased person's family for some time.
Another interesting point is the complicated social hierarchy that made ownership of other people so appealing; one measure of a person's wealth was the by number of enslaved people he or she owned. Those enslaved would be used as concubines or be sent to work in mines or trades, and the product of their labor would represent income for their owners and their bodies, human capital. This is outlined very well in Zephyr Frank's Dutra's World, another book worth reading and one I will eventually get to posting here. Furtado emphasizes how "to work and live off one's own graft in a slave society was amounted to serious social dishonor" (18). In my mind, this would mean that working became tantamount to being a slave. Later on she discusses how unhealthy many slaveowners became because of their inactivity.
Furtado refers to Emília Viotti da Costa, who in her essay "The Myth of Racial Democracy" demonstrates how manumission was not a "point of departure for the construction of a black identity," but often the "beginning of a process whereby former slave women embraced the values of the white elite with a view to finding a place in that society for themselves and their descendants" (xxiii). Even though securing a position for their children was difficult because people were legally prohibited from marrying outside their class, allowing white fathers to deny their offspring, Furtado notes how the lack of documentation through regular marriage channels limited the number of stigmatizing evidence of color in official records (xxiv). I am not sure to what extent that helped the general public; in the case of Xica's grandchildren, for example, some were able to use this fact to erase (or at least blur) the color in their family line, but they also lived in a society where one had to arduously fight for one's status. She has a good chapter on brotherhoods that show the importance of social organizations bound together by religion; they form piece of the social capital of the society, as well.
The book is set within the context of a mining community, where the diamond market produced its own volatility because... because diamonds are quite common, it turns out. This created high taxes on production (people were charged a "head" tax for enslaved people, as well as all to prevent too many smaller businesses from attacking larger interests) as well as periodic government halting of the trade until prices were able to drop again. Gold was also a commodity mentioned in the book, although little of Brazil's other exports were discussed.
The chapter on Chica da Silva is engaging; the other chapters give context surrounding it. It highlights infant mortality, the absence of what we would call "childhood" for most slave children, the importance of "honor" in society and the struggle for identity; her ability to adopt her last name is a sign of a battle won; many slaves only had first names and only began to be widespread in ht e late 18th century (51).
From the discussion of how blanqueamento (whitening) through sexual relations and legal means, to note how even within dusty archives, one can see the change from passive to active voice in Chica's will, which symbolically notes a change in her status from slave to wealthy slave owner, this book is a fascinating look into a life that, like so many others, was first ignored, then mythologized and used as a tool of subjugation of the Afro-Brazilian female body. More studies such as this one will add depth to archival research.
There are multiple accounts of Chica da Silva in print, film, and television, many of which are sensationalistic and mythologize the "lascivious mulatta." Using a combination of resources, but heavily reliant on estate records and court documents, her history is released from a sensationalistic narrative. What it loses in narrative, it gains in substance, and the book is rich with information that includes chapters on Tejuco, the village she lived in, her own story, the diamond market and the mining community surrounding it, what daily life looked like, and finally it traces her estate and family as far as possible.
Furtado states, "This book aims to get to know her, not as a curiosity nor as an exception, but to use her as a medium through which to shed new light on the women of her period and therefore bring them into history. Only thus can they be freed from the stereotypes that have been imposed upon them over time" (xix). One of the misconceptions about slavery the book confronts head on is the relative power that freed women had in the 18th century in the town of Tejuco. First, manumission was much easier for women than men; men and women were both likely to be able to earn money outside of their regular requirements, but because concubinage was so common, women were able to take advantage of their sexual bodies and either buy or earn their freedom. Often they were manumitted in wills, ergo the use of estate records to identify women who were freed. The wills that manumitted most often had stipulations about years of service or other caveats prior to freedom, making sure that the enslaved person had to work for the deceased person's family for some time.
Another interesting point is the complicated social hierarchy that made ownership of other people so appealing; one measure of a person's wealth was the by number of enslaved people he or she owned. Those enslaved would be used as concubines or be sent to work in mines or trades, and the product of their labor would represent income for their owners and their bodies, human capital. This is outlined very well in Zephyr Frank's Dutra's World, another book worth reading and one I will eventually get to posting here. Furtado emphasizes how "to work and live off one's own graft in a slave society was amounted to serious social dishonor" (18). In my mind, this would mean that working became tantamount to being a slave. Later on she discusses how unhealthy many slaveowners became because of their inactivity.
Furtado refers to Emília Viotti da Costa, who in her essay "The Myth of Racial Democracy" demonstrates how manumission was not a "point of departure for the construction of a black identity," but often the "beginning of a process whereby former slave women embraced the values of the white elite with a view to finding a place in that society for themselves and their descendants" (xxiii). Even though securing a position for their children was difficult because people were legally prohibited from marrying outside their class, allowing white fathers to deny their offspring, Furtado notes how the lack of documentation through regular marriage channels limited the number of stigmatizing evidence of color in official records (xxiv). I am not sure to what extent that helped the general public; in the case of Xica's grandchildren, for example, some were able to use this fact to erase (or at least blur) the color in their family line, but they also lived in a society where one had to arduously fight for one's status. She has a good chapter on brotherhoods that show the importance of social organizations bound together by religion; they form piece of the social capital of the society, as well.
The book is set within the context of a mining community, where the diamond market produced its own volatility because... because diamonds are quite common, it turns out. This created high taxes on production (people were charged a "head" tax for enslaved people, as well as all to prevent too many smaller businesses from attacking larger interests) as well as periodic government halting of the trade until prices were able to drop again. Gold was also a commodity mentioned in the book, although little of Brazil's other exports were discussed.
The chapter on Chica da Silva is engaging; the other chapters give context surrounding it. It highlights infant mortality, the absence of what we would call "childhood" for most slave children, the importance of "honor" in society and the struggle for identity; her ability to adopt her last name is a sign of a battle won; many slaves only had first names and only began to be widespread in ht e late 18th century (51).
From the discussion of how blanqueamento (whitening) through sexual relations and legal means, to note how even within dusty archives, one can see the change from passive to active voice in Chica's will, which symbolically notes a change in her status from slave to wealthy slave owner, this book is a fascinating look into a life that, like so many others, was first ignored, then mythologized and used as a tool of subjugation of the Afro-Brazilian female body. More studies such as this one will add depth to archival research.
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Documentary: A Son of Africa
When your high school history class is assigned Olaudah Equiano's autobiography, and it's due on a day your are gone, this is a good 30min documentary to toss in. It dramatizes the context, so it may help students get an image and a few ideas, namely a visualization of African agency in the 18th century.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
African Dimensions of the Stono Rebellion
John K. Thornton, “African Dimensions of the Stono Rebellion," American Historical Review 96:4 (1991): 1101-13.
This is an excellent article on the Stono Rebellion, especially if you are already familiar with it. I wasn't, so that involved some brief looking around to get more context. Here's some I quickly pulled from Wikipedia (that should introduce some controversy between me and the occasional visitor):
VERY brief Wikipedia download: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stono_Rebellion)
Where: South Carolina
When: 9 September, 1739
What: An enslaved man named Jemmy pulled together some other people, and using flags and drums, marched their way toward Spanish Florida, where it was known that former enslaved people might have refuge. Exact numbers are as of yet unclear, but 20-100 or so fought, and they picked up recruits along the way. The rebellion was put down and most were executed, not before they killed dozens of people. I believe they call it Stono because of the name of the bridge they crossed.
Why: People didn't like being enslaved. This should be unremarkable; however, there is often an implicit surprise in the texts I read about slavery as if they were saying, "Yes, but what's the real reason you revolted?"
PBS (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p284.html)
has some of the primary documents and a brief summary that adds a great deal to the above. Letters show how one enslaved man named Thomas Elliot was given a suit of clothes for his bravery in fighting off the rebels. This is an example of how people had to and did make calculations about their wellbeing in the long term vs. short term (much of the newer literature about enslaved people seems to work very hard to show that enslaved people were as rational as any other human being; this seems to be a reaction to the previous literature that seemed to imply the opposite).
In any case, the Thornton article is rich, so I suggest you read it, but what follows is my brief interpretation. The title of the article gives away what Dr. Thornton would like us to think about, and that is that the Rebellion's roots go back to the Kingdom of Kongo from 1680-1740 (1102). He cites several factors that may have supported the rebellion; the fact that many of the enslaved people would have likely come from the same area, spoken Portuguese, that they would have had a strong Christian tradition in Kongo, and that because their kingdom was strong, they were less likely to have been previously enslaved by others nearby. Some of them may have also been warriors already and possibly had access to firearms, so their ability to organize and fight may have been enhanced. Their tactics (brief attacks, relocate, attack again) are said to be consistent with fighting tactics in the kingdom of Kongo (1113).
The message in this article is clear; while historians of slavery look for transatlantic aspects in other areas of enslavement, there is a good deal of value in looking at the transatlantic aspects of rebellion. A study like this appears to me a general trend away from considering the plantation in a vacuum, which returns explanatory power to people from the Kingdom of Kongo as opposed to imagining their reality as solely a reaction to local events. The plantation "complex" is imagining slavery as an Atlantic and worldwide set of connections, but this article goes a step beyond that, showing how one might look at these accounts with a framework where the plantation is the periphery as opposed to the center.
Something I have been asked to think about in my coursework for this week is to analyze how slavery, race, and gender are tied together. In looking at this article, it would be interesting to know what women's roles in the Rebellion were. I have noticed so far that if a woman does something during this time period, it's treated as anomaly, as improbable as that seems. That anomaly, however, usually turns up as a sensation, so the fact that I have not yet read about women with respect to this Rebellion yet doesn't mean it isn't there, but it makes a good case for looking with more vigor.
This is an excellent article on the Stono Rebellion, especially if you are already familiar with it. I wasn't, so that involved some brief looking around to get more context. Here's some I quickly pulled from Wikipedia (that should introduce some controversy between me and the occasional visitor):
VERY brief Wikipedia download: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stono_Rebellion)
Where: South Carolina
When: 9 September, 1739
What: An enslaved man named Jemmy pulled together some other people, and using flags and drums, marched their way toward Spanish Florida, where it was known that former enslaved people might have refuge. Exact numbers are as of yet unclear, but 20-100 or so fought, and they picked up recruits along the way. The rebellion was put down and most were executed, not before they killed dozens of people. I believe they call it Stono because of the name of the bridge they crossed.
Why: People didn't like being enslaved. This should be unremarkable; however, there is often an implicit surprise in the texts I read about slavery as if they were saying, "Yes, but what's the real reason you revolted?"
PBS (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p284.html)
has some of the primary documents and a brief summary that adds a great deal to the above. Letters show how one enslaved man named Thomas Elliot was given a suit of clothes for his bravery in fighting off the rebels. This is an example of how people had to and did make calculations about their wellbeing in the long term vs. short term (much of the newer literature about enslaved people seems to work very hard to show that enslaved people were as rational as any other human being; this seems to be a reaction to the previous literature that seemed to imply the opposite).
In any case, the Thornton article is rich, so I suggest you read it, but what follows is my brief interpretation. The title of the article gives away what Dr. Thornton would like us to think about, and that is that the Rebellion's roots go back to the Kingdom of Kongo from 1680-1740 (1102). He cites several factors that may have supported the rebellion; the fact that many of the enslaved people would have likely come from the same area, spoken Portuguese, that they would have had a strong Christian tradition in Kongo, and that because their kingdom was strong, they were less likely to have been previously enslaved by others nearby. Some of them may have also been warriors already and possibly had access to firearms, so their ability to organize and fight may have been enhanced. Their tactics (brief attacks, relocate, attack again) are said to be consistent with fighting tactics in the kingdom of Kongo (1113).
The message in this article is clear; while historians of slavery look for transatlantic aspects in other areas of enslavement, there is a good deal of value in looking at the transatlantic aspects of rebellion. A study like this appears to me a general trend away from considering the plantation in a vacuum, which returns explanatory power to people from the Kingdom of Kongo as opposed to imagining their reality as solely a reaction to local events. The plantation "complex" is imagining slavery as an Atlantic and worldwide set of connections, but this article goes a step beyond that, showing how one might look at these accounts with a framework where the plantation is the periphery as opposed to the center.
Something I have been asked to think about in my coursework for this week is to analyze how slavery, race, and gender are tied together. In looking at this article, it would be interesting to know what women's roles in the Rebellion were. I have noticed so far that if a woman does something during this time period, it's treated as anomaly, as improbable as that seems. That anomaly, however, usually turns up as a sensation, so the fact that I have not yet read about women with respect to this Rebellion yet doesn't mean it isn't there, but it makes a good case for looking with more vigor.
Monday, April 4, 2016
A Look at a Book: Feeding Mexico: The Political Uses of Food since 1910
Ochoa, Enrique. Feeding Mexico : the political uses of food since 1910. Wilmington, Del: Scholarly Resources, 2000.
There is little wonder why this book received the Michael C. Meyer Manuscript award. It is impeccably organized and very well presented. The book offers a look back at food policy in Mexico from right after the Porfiriato to contemporary times, showing how the State Food Agency in Mexico expanded both in size and in scope as it responded to crises in various presidential administrations and shrunk as those crises reverted. Its main purpose, according to Ochoa, was to achieve political stability as opposed to make lasting changes. The reader will follow retail food subsidies as they begin in urban areas and as they eventually travel to rural areas; this is also concurrent with the formulation of a more centralized state. The conclusion ends with the drastic contraction of the State Food Agency in the 80s and 90s, which the author shows was connected to social and political turmoil.
One of the somewhat unrelated questions I am left with at the end is, does war increase dependency? As exports surge during wars because their price surges as well, doesn't the exporting country have a vested interest in keeping that war machine afloat? When war doesn't pull in exports, economies that depended on those exports are left in a weak bargaining position. Though I have no idea what the U.S. military supply chain looks like, I wonder what that dynamic looks like - how many countries are exporting goods that are military related? How dependent are they on those exports? This is probably simplifying a complex set of variables, but it's interesting to think about.
There is little wonder why this book received the Michael C. Meyer Manuscript award. It is impeccably organized and very well presented. The book offers a look back at food policy in Mexico from right after the Porfiriato to contemporary times, showing how the State Food Agency in Mexico expanded both in size and in scope as it responded to crises in various presidential administrations and shrunk as those crises reverted. Its main purpose, according to Ochoa, was to achieve political stability as opposed to make lasting changes. The reader will follow retail food subsidies as they begin in urban areas and as they eventually travel to rural areas; this is also concurrent with the formulation of a more centralized state. The conclusion ends with the drastic contraction of the State Food Agency in the 80s and 90s, which the author shows was connected to social and political turmoil.
One of the somewhat unrelated questions I am left with at the end is, does war increase dependency? As exports surge during wars because their price surges as well, doesn't the exporting country have a vested interest in keeping that war machine afloat? When war doesn't pull in exports, economies that depended on those exports are left in a weak bargaining position. Though I have no idea what the U.S. military supply chain looks like, I wonder what that dynamic looks like - how many countries are exporting goods that are military related? How dependent are they on those exports? This is probably simplifying a complex set of variables, but it's interesting to think about.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Article: Anotaciones sobre la produccIón de alimentos durante el porfiriato
Coatsworth, John Henry. "ANOTACIONES SOBRE LA PRODUCCIÓN DE ALIMENTOS DURANTE EL PORFIRIATO." Historia Mexicana 26, no. 2 (October 1976): 167-187. Historical Abstracts.
This article was published in Spanish, so it might be difficult to follow unless you speak Spanish or find tables and charts compelling beyond words. I took from it two things: first, that many historical sources play fast and loose with the truth. In this case, the irony shouldn't go missing, the article reviews a book called Statistics, and revises upwards food production levels to show that despite the dramatic decreases shown in the book, the numbers are much more stable than previously thought. So, if anyone tells you that during the Porfiriato there was a drastic decrease in food production due to farmers producing other non-food crops for export, you can look up this article and profess a slightly more nuanced view.
Blog: The Job of Academia
Recently in one of those impromptu conversations that yields a great deal of wisdom for everyone present or, at least, something to ponder, I heard two things. Lack of confidence is a career killer. At heart, we all know this somehow; the appearance of confidence (in the right doses of course) is attractive; it's opposite inspires pity. That's not what the professor was talking about - it was about how it will frustrate your efforts to finish work to publish and, at the end of the day, this is a job, and our success is measured by how much we publish. The goal is to get over the bar of the editor, and once you get there, you either get published, or you get a reader's report. Either way, you win. So, just bang the words out and there you have it.
This led to some interesting discussion and reflection.
This led to some interesting discussion and reflection.
Friday, April 1, 2016
Documentary: The Fidel Castro Tapes
Excellent documentary with tons of footage that discusses in broad terms U.S. and Cuban relations within a global context. You will see an overthrow of the Batista regime, Castro's initial popularity with the U.S. public, escalating tit-for-tat tensions (Cuba looks for foreign investment, gets it from Russia; Russia sends aid and arms, buying sugar; U.S. initiates a naval blockade, Russia trades Turkey for Cuba without talking to Castro; Castro nationalizes American businesses, and the real trouble begins). It takes us all the way to the Bush II era. Well worth the 55 minutes for an information-packed overview.
Documentary: Havana Curveball
The curveball in the title is the metaphorically thrown to the documentary's protagonist, Mica, as this 16-year-old reflects on a three-year project to send baseball gear to Cuba. In the beginning, Mica's innocence is touching, and the hook to the story, sadly understated, of his grandfather's two-year asylum in Cuba while fleeing Nazi Germany in 1941 is compelling. Mica's parents, both journalists, film the documentary, and one begins to wonder at the level of preparation one would have to go through in order to take Mica's journey. Shot from Mica's perspective, we learn quickly that there is an embargo on Cuban trade, so the baseball gear he tries to send is impossible through the U.S. Postal Service. Finally having sent some on his own through Canada and later through an organization equipped to take equipment with it, he ventures to Cuba himself. Two key points of his understanding of how complicated it is to give away things to the "less fortunate" are worth mentioning. During his journey, he meets a group of players and realizes that after he makes a human connection, he doesn't want the condescending role of the "American Savior." The fact that something doesn't sit right with him is revealed later when he tries to give away, in true U.S. style, some of his gear to a group of kids playing in a field. The disillusion that happens next reminds me of the time I held out a bowl of candy to a group of kids at Halloween. When asked, "How many can we take?" I responded, "Whatever you think is reasonable." After a brief loss of faith in "humanity," my wife explained to me I got exactly the reaction I asked for. Mica got more than he asked for, and his documentary gives the viewer more than expected.
Documentary: Odd People Out
Even if you haven't read Reinaldo Arenas' Before Night Falls, (Antes que anochezca) this is an excellent documentary in its own right. The documentary is a series of interviews with people close to him (and not so close - they found and interviewed his biological father). If you have read the book, you will find this a good companion that puts a face, in some cases, to the characters he describes in the book. It is also gives insight into the complications and dangers of being homosexual during a good part of Castro's regime, though you don't get a sense of what the political landscape looks like now. The footage is all shot in Cuba. I need to go back and watch the film adaptation of Arenas' autobiography, but given the choice, I would recommend watching this if you are looking for a way to add depth to your reading.
Available at kanopystreaming.com
Available at kanopystreaming.com