Suchergebnisse

Go-betweens -- Encounter -- Possession -- Conversion -- Biology -- Slavery -- Resistance -- Power

This article reconstructs slave family life in a rural town in which a large number of slaves married, slave women had high fertility, and slaves lived primarily in nuclear families. The marriage and fertility rates of slaves lag behind those of the free population, but do not differ radically from them. This portrait of slave family life contrasts with the common portrayal of slave families in Brazil in which historians report that few slaves married and slave fertility was low. Despite the demographic similarities between slave and free families, the key differences between the slave and the free populations rested on the master's legal right to own slaves as property. Because slaves were property, the Portuguese laws of inheritance mandated the division of slaves among the heirs of the deceased master. Probate judges and heirs often broke up slave families; thus the mortality of masters severely affected the ability of slave families to survive over time.

Les auteurs comparent deux communautés, l'une située au nord-ouest du Portugal, l'autre à São Paulo, Brésil, et cherchent à identifier les similitudes en matière de structures familiales. Les parametres systématiquement mis en parallèle sont principalement: l'illégitimité, la matrilocalité, la fréquence des chefs de ménage féminins, les types de succession et les modèles migratoires. La question principale est de savoir dans quelle mesure une similitude constatée sur un de ces points s'explique par quelque transfert de coutume ou de législation portugaise. Il apparaît finalement que c'est ensemble que coutume et loi ont contribué à recréer au Brésil des modèles familiaux proches des modéles portugais, quoique modifiés par l'environnement brésilien.

AbstractThe two key aspects of water infrastructure – engineered and human – in mid-nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro are the foci of this article. On the one hand, gravity flow engineering brought fresh water from the Tijuca Forest to the fountains in the city, but on the other, hundreds of slaves carried heavy jugs of water from the fountains though the streets to residences. Using the account of Thomas Ewbank (1856), georeferenced historical maps and a field study, this article first reconstructs the route of the Carioca Aqueduct, then, using the accounts of Ewbank and other travellers, turns to the delivery of water in the city by enslaved water carriers.