Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550-1835

640 Pages·1986·11.791 MB·English

by  Stuart B. Schwartz

CAMBRIDGE LAT IN AMERICAN STUDIES
GENERAL EDITOR
SIMON COLLIER
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
MARVIN BERNSTEIN, MALCOLM DEAS
CLARK W. REYNOLDS, ARTURO VALENZUELA
52
SUGAR PLANT A TIO NS IN THE FORMATION OF
BRAZILIAN SOCIETY
The publisher wishes to acknoweldge a generous grant
from the National Commission for the
Commemoration o fP ortuguese Discoveries
toward the costs oft his printing.
For a list ofb ooks in this series, please turn to page 614.
SUGAR PLANTATIONS
IN THE
FORMATION OF BRAZILIAN SOCIETY
Bahia, 1550-1835
STUART B. SCHWARTZ
George Baxter Adams Professor of History
Yale University
...� CAMBRIDGE
. .
;: UNIVERSITY PRESS
,
PUBLISHED BY TIEI PRESS SYNDICATE OF TIIE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIOCE
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 lRP, United Kingdom
CAMBRIOCE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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©Cambridge University Press 1985
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and
to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1985
Reprinted 1989, 1995, 1998
Typeset in Palatino
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available
ISBN 0-521-31399-6 paperback
Transferred to digital printing 2004
This book is respectfully dedicated to four Bahian intellectuals:
Teodoro Sampaio, born of a slave in Rio Fundo;
Wanderley Pinho, son of a planter family;
Luiz Henrique, from Nazare das Farinhas on the southern shore;
Katia Mattoso, who came to Bahia from afar.
Their love for their homeland has illumined so many hours of my life.
And to my family: Nancy, Alison, and Lee

CONTENTS
List of figures, maps, and tables page ix
Preface xiii
Abbreviations and special terms xx
Weights and measures xxiii
Part I. Formations, 1500-1600
1. The sugar plantation: from the Old World to the New 3
2. A wasted generation: commercial agriculture and Indian
laborers 28
3. First slavery: from Indian to African 51
Part II. The Bahian engenhos and their world
4. The Reconcavo 75
5. Safra: the ways of sugar making 98
6. Workers in the cane, workers at the mill 132
7. The Bahian sugar trade to 1750 160
8. A noble business: profits and costs 202
Part III. Sugar society
9. A colonial slave society 245
10. The planters: masters of men and cane 264
11. The cane farmers 295
12. Wage workers in a slave economy 313
13. The Bahian slave population 338
14. The slave family and the limitations of slavery 379
Part IV. Reorientation and persistence, 1750-1835
15. Resurgence 415
16. The structure of Bahian slaveholding 439
vii
viii Contents
17. Important occasions: the war to end Bahian slavery 468
Appendixes
A. The problem of Engenho Sergipe do Conde 489
B. The estimated price of white sugar at the mill in Bahia 498
C. The value of Bahian sugar exports, 1698-1766 502
Notes 504
Glossary 573
Sources and selected bibliography 581
Sources of figures 593
Index 594
FIGURES, MAPS, AND TABLES
Figures
1-1. Sugar production in the sixteenth century page 7
2-1. A plantation house 38
3-1. An Indian worker 58
3-2. Indian and African agricultural workers 69
4-1. Caneland in the Reconcavo 80
4-2. A sugar town: Sao Francisco do Conde 92
4-3. The ruins of Engenho Sergipe, "Queen of the
Reconcavo" 93
5-1. An engenho complex 100
5-2. The safra cycle at Engenho Sergipe, 1650-1 104
5-3. The steps in making "clayed" sugar 120
5-4. Sugar crate marks from the Bahian fleet of 1702 124
5-5. The three-roller vertical mill 127
5-6. A seventeenth-century engenho in operation 128
6-1. Continuities: cane cutting 140
6-2. The boiling house 146
6-3. From Brazil to Portugal: slaves packing crates in Brazil
and sugar crates being unloaded in Lisbon 147
7-1. Adjusted price of white sugar at the mill in Bahia,
1550-1768 170
7-2. Tithes for Bahia, Ilheus, Porto Seguro, and Sergipe de
El-Rey, 1612-57 175
7-3. Bahian sugar and tobacco exports, 1698-1765 186
7-4. Slave and sugar prices, 1620-1720 190
7-5. Estimated annual average value of Bahian sugar ex­
ports during five-year periods, 1698-1766 192
11-1. Canefields and sugar mill in the seventeenth century 297
12-1. Continuities: a kettleman 329
14-1. Rural slaves in Bahia 382
15-1. Bahian sugar exports, 1796-1836 427
ix
x Figures, maps, and tables
15-2. Jose Maria dos Santos Lopes's plans for a new type of
engenho, 1803 432
17-1. Africans in the cities: slave porters and representatives
of different African peoples 481
Maps
1. Colonial Brazil 21
2. The Bahian Reconcavo: towns and parishes 84
3. Approximate sailing times from Salvador in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries 182
4. "Demonstration of Bahia" 270
5. Plantations on the Jacuipe River 424
Tables
3-1. Etymology of selected Tupi personal names 55
3-2. Sex distribution, Engenhos Sergipe and Santana,
1572-91 57
3-3. Racial/ethnic designations of parents and godparents,
Engenho Sergipe, 1595-1608 61
3-4. Index of godparentage prestige 63
3-5. Occupational structure, Engenho Sergipe, 1572, 1591 67
4-1. The population of Bahia, circa 1724 88
5-1. The Bahian sugar safra: opening and closing dates 101
5-2. Holy days observed at Engenho Sergipe, 1612-52 102
5-3. Ratios of units used in Brazilian sugar production,
1584-1862 112
5-4. Comparison of colonial American sugar-plantation
yields per acre 114
6-1. Organization of a Bahian sugar works 150
6-2. Structure and average values of Bahian engenho slave
forces 151
6-3. Occupational structure according to place of birth or
color at Bahian engenhos in the eighteenth century 152
7-1. Number of Brazilian sugar mills, 1570-1629 165
7-2. Estimates of sugar production and productivity,
1591-1755 168
7-3. Estimate of the Bahian sugar crop, 1612 and 1629 177
7-4. Sugar prices suggested by representatives of planters
and merchants in Bahia, 1700-19 199
8-1. Sources and recipients of credit in colonial Bahia,
1698-1715 207
8-2. Distribution of capital at some Bahian engenhos,
1716-1816 215