Despite the fact that both the United States and Brazil have a history of the institution of slavery, each country documented a different reaction to the emancipation of those in bondage. Racial relations among Brazilians were significantly different in comparison to the documented experiences of African Americans residing in the United States after the abolition of slavery. For instance, while African Americans became subject to discriminatory laws that included Jim Crow Laws and Black Codes, Brazil did not experience the same form of government-imposed racism. In other words, legislations did not institutionalize racism among the people of Brazil; however, the situation did not mean the country had racial equality after emancipation. On the contrary, Brazil witnessed a rise in social hierarchies based on “race-specific intercepts.” For that reason, Brazilians embraced the misplaced notion of racial equality since social classifications relied on wealth as opposed to the color of one’s skin. By that logic, the perceptions of racism witnessed in American history were different from the ones depicted in Brazil only because Brazilian legal systems did not recognize the superiority of one skin color at the expense of another. This paper argues that by 1980, racial inequality was evident in Brazilian societies as the Caucasians residing in the country supported a social order stemming from ideologies of colored inferiority by dominating the political, social, and economic fields.
The nineteenth and twentieth-century Brazilian societies lacked precise definitions for racial terms. Clearly, the country did not have an apparent disparity between ethnic groups. For one to understand the given for the claim, he or she could consider the situation in the United States within the same period. In American communities, one was white or black; never both. In that sense, if a man or woman had even the slightest hint of African genes, he or she was automatically black and eligible for inferiority. The given ideologies formed the grounds on which Americans defined slavery in their States and later the segregation laws to ensure a separation of races. Meanwhile, matters were different in Brazil as the institution of slavery that encouraged the importation of persons of African descent went on to support multiculturalism. Evidently, despite efforts to prevent “racial mobility” or interracial marriages, blacks and whites produced multicolored offspring that could not fit within a particular racial class. In other words, unlike in the United States, a person born of both white and black parents was not considered black but warranted a different racial affiliation. Hence, Brazil was multiracial as the communities had more than two racial categories and skin color, during and after slavery, defined one’s social class albeit without a law to impose what was clearly a cultural norm. On a similar note, a Brazilian with a hint of Caucasian blood was better off than the people with darker skin tones. A “brown” or “mulatto” person in Brazil had more social mobility than a dark skinned man or woman and as a result, the mentioned lack of focus on racial inequality became plausible. As hinted by the thesis, what this research proves is the reality that even with the extra labels that called for further divisions among the black populace, Caucasians remained superior by controlling the politics, society, and economy of Brazil.
Evidently, the use of policies to sustain racial inequality in Brazil began with the institution of slavery that revolved around holding people of African descent in bondage. The first indications of abolition gained momentum from the 1850s and only accelerated in the later years until the complete destruction of slavery in 1888 through the “Golden Law.” As one would expect, legislations cannot destroy traditions; therefore, the emancipation of black slaves did not necessarily mean that ex-slaves were equal to their previous masters. Rebecca Scott goes on to argue that it was more than mere cultural norms that made the assimilation of blacks as free people and the creation of an egalitarian society impossible. In the author’s words, there were limits to the liberation of slaves in Brazil because the Golden Law did not stipulate “compensation for the slaveholders,” “welfare for the slave,” and certainly did not plan for the “transition to a new order.” On the given grounds, the color line survived the emancipation process, and whites remained the superior race even in the absence of the slavery institution. Without slavery, there were no laws that outrightly sought to suppress the black populace; still, the Brazilian government enacted regulations to control the people of color with a particular interest in the ex-slaves. After all, the domination-subordination relationship between races had proven effective in protecting the interests of the country through the free labor availed through slavery. New methods were necessary for the sustenance of Brazilian societies and economy.
One such tactic entailed ensuring that there were enough Caucasians to influence the political infrastructure of the country. Accordingly, the State encouraged European immigration as a means to “whiten” the populace and at the same time discouraged intermarriages among the inhabitants. It is no wonder records reveal that between 1890 and 1914 an estimated one million and five hundred thousand Europeans crossed “the Atlantic to Sao Paulo, [with] the majority [having] their passages paid by the [Brazil] State government.” Once combined, immigration and the prevention of interbreeding ensured that the number of Caucasians had sustenance without compromising the superiority associated with white skin with the inferiority that came with being colored. The given example manages to highlight an instance in which political decisions directly influenced racial relations in Brazil after 1888. While such policies did not portray the same form of harsh treatment that African Americans experienced in the United States, they certainly served the same purpose by making it impossible for Brazilians to achieve racial equality.
So far, this paper has focused on Brazilian politics, but it is evident that there was a direct link between the country's societies and the existing policies. In other words, what the government supported went on to affect the communities of Brazil by imposing laws that determined the actions of the people from the local to State levels. On one hand, just as it was in the United States, slavery in Brazil had set the pace for racial relations in the country. The only difference was in the fact that while white Americans relished their superiority, the Brazilian “national pride” was the exact opposite as it urged the people to overlook “the existence of racial consciousness and discrimination.” George Andrews’ Blacks & Whites in São Paulo concurs as he mentions “false pride of race” as a problem that remained persistent in the wake of emancipation. Both writers argue that racial democracy did not allow anything else, and emancipation simply freed the people in bondage but did not eradicate racial classifications in the First Republic (1889-1930) and the Second Republic (1930-1964). Democracy came afterward. On the other hand, the situation was apparently expected as the presence of biracial individuals who could not fit into a particular group helped promote the understanding of inequality as an occurrence that revolved around wealth as opposed to race. Such notions make sense when one considers the mulatto communities as a double-edged sword. The mixed raced men and women had connections with the predominantly inferior blacks but were also eligible for higher social statuses since they boasted of Caucasian blood. Hence, for a long time, mulattos made it impossible for Brazilians to realize that whites had access to more if not all socio-political benefits available in the country.
Extensively, by allowing the mulattos certain privileges because they possessed European blood, the white populace in Brazil expertly covered up the truth that blacks were at a disadvantage courtesy of their ancestry. For illustration purposes, and to understand the given claim[s], one may consider the plight of mulatto individuals residing in Brazil within the target years. Obviously, biracial individuals had two options: denounce their African heritage for the “whitened” identity or accept it and deal with the suppressed socio-economic roles in society. Naturally, most of the mulatto communities chose the option that guaranteed them a higher place in the social hierarchy. By the 1960s, Brazilians began to address the problem of false racial democracy. In a 1964 military coup that “eroded the upper and middle classes,” Afro-Brazilians were at the forefront in the denunciation of the misplaced notions of equality in the country. In the peoples’ views, racial democracy was false because a “majority of the black population [lived] marginalized and in poverty.” Central to the coup were the accusations of social norms being subject to the whims of the Europeans who readily overlooked the needs of the blacks to protect the subtle yet palpable trends of white supremacy. Obviously, the master-slave relations between the races were impossible to reverse or change since each group had the perfect grooming for its function in society. Perhaps the survival of “black slave trade” even in the twenty-first century is the best example of how the first institutions of slavery in Brazil and other countries survived years after abolition. Apparently, persons of African descent remain the most eligible candidates for enslavement as some countries like Mauritania never abolished “the owning and trading of humans.”
Finally, yet importantly, the politics and cultures went on to affect the economy even after the liberation of slaves. Now, as citizens, the ex-slaves were at liberty to choose where to work and live as opposed to their previous lives in bondage where they were the properties of the masters. As mentioned above, the government encouraged the immigration of more Europeans into Brazil in the years after emancipation. Hence, colored individuals were often stuck in low-income employment that did not necessarily mean they worked less. In other words, menial labor begot little pay and ensured blacks remained in a state of abject poverty. Apparently, such phenomena were acceptable if not unavoidable based on the high “intensification of the work and low pay” model where black laborers remained stuck in working conditions that were akin to slavery. Meanwhile, whites claimed the well paying and authoritative positions that went on to guarantee their control over all the aspects covered in the preceding parts of this paper. Hence, one could argue that since wealth statuses defined a person’s standing in society, the Brazilian economy influenced the prevalance of racism in the country. Correspondingly, and as one would expect, blacks had limited rights within the boundaries of slavery and that alone meant ex-slaves were ill-equipped to compete with their sovereign counterparts. In the 1889 publication of “Progress In Brazil-The Economiste Francais,” the anonymous journalist reports on the efforts made towards encouraging more Europeans to immigrate into Brazil. From the mentioned payments for passage to the allocation of land to immigrants, whites had complete control of the Brazilian economy. Subsequently, such an arrangement went on to reconnect with the political and social phenomena already covered.
In conclusion, with the proper control of Brazil’s political sphere, the Europeans were able to dictate the economic and social norms of the regions with little to no opposition, until the coup of 1964. Evidently, and as emphasized above, black slavery defined the roots of racial relations in the region by placing the European nations at a ruling position to control the coloreds. The enslavement of Africans was not subject to Brazil only; on the contrary, the Atlantic Slave Trade ensured that Caucasians had access to an unlimited supply of free and hard labor from the continent. By that logic, while a study of the impact of black slavery at a global capacity will require more time and research, it proved easier to focus on one country in determining the same. Thus emerges the reason for choosing Brazil. As a country that is not only grounded in a history of slavery but was also the last to abolish the system, Brazil was an ideal region for the chosen topic. Today, racial prejudices are evident throughout the world and after conducting the documented research, it is clear that slavery is at the roots of the same. In other words, by knowing that blacks were at one point, the property of whites paves the way for tension and misunderstandings within communities that harbor individuals from the two racial groups. It is all in history.
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