GROWING IN SILENCE: THE SLAVE ECONOMY OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY MINAS GERAIS, BRAZIL

This study focuses on the slave economy of nineteenth-century Minas Gerais. This was the largest regional slave system that ever existed in Brazil and, at its high point the servile population of Minas was larger than those of any slave society in America at any time, except the United States, Cuba and Saint Dominque in their heydays. In spite of its obvious importance in the history of slavery in the Western world, very little research has been done on this area. The prevailing views can be summarized as follows: in the eighteenth century, owing to the gold and diamond rushes, a large contingent of slaves was gathered in Minas. As the mining boom faded away, the slaves retreated with their masters to the subsistence sector, where they became economically "underutilized." The regional economy entered into a dormant period until it was roused by the rise of the coffee industry some decades later. The bondsmen were then massively transferred to the coffee zones, which became the stronghold of slavery in the province. The non-plantation regions are presented as a pool of servile labor for the coffee areas of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas, and are said to have been less committed to the survival of the slave regime than the plantation zone.;Far from being a supplier of slaves to other areas, Minas was a heavy net importer of bondsmen during most of the century. For the 1870s and 1880s our estimates show that the coffee zone was in fact the principal importer, but a large number of non-plantation municipios were also net importers. Minas Gerais had, in the late years of slavery, the lowest manumissions rates in the country. The evidence does not support the idea that the non-plantation areas were less committed to slavery than the coffee zone.;The Mineiro case shows that the crucial condition for the survival of slavery was not the production of plantation crops for exportation, but, as Wakefield, Nieboer, Domar and others have argued, the existence of free land. Throughout the century there was no voluntary supply of wage labor because the agricultural frontier was wide open and the free peasants had plenty of land from which to obtain an independent subsistence. In this context, a class of non-working landlords could have survived only by continuing to rely on coerced labor.;Our findings revise most of these contentions. The slave population of the nineteenth century was not a heritage from the gold rush, but rather the result of fresh imports not induced by mining. The association between slavery and coffee culture, or indeed between slavery and any kind of plantation agriculture was not nearly as strong as it has been affirmed. Even at its apogee, in the imperial period the coffee industry employed only a relatively small fraction of the provincial slave labor force. The bulk of the Mineiro economy where the vast majority of the slaves were employed, was neither composed of plantations nor was export-oriented. Isolation from external markets, diversification and self-sufficiency were its chief characteristics. Minas had the lowest level of per capital exports in Brazil and, outside the coffee region this level actually declined in real terms during the century. The core of the provincial economy consisted of internally diversified agricultural units producing for their own consumption or for sale in local markets. Slaves were also used in a variety of non-agricultural occupations, including manufacturing. Their employment in mining was negligible.