Small and Medium Slaveholdings in the Coffee Economy of the Vale do Paraiíba, Province of Saão Paulo

Worldwide growth in demand for coffee during the nineteenth century led to increased production in many countries. Brazil took on a heightened role in this market, becoming a major exporter after independence in 1822. Whereas in the 1830s coffee represented 43.8 percent of Brazil’s total exports, by the 1870s it was more than half.1 During the Empire (1822–89), coffee plantations occupied large expanses of Brazil’s territory. The largest concentration of production was in the Vale do Paraíba region, located on the border between the provinces of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas Gerais, where soil conditions, climate, altitude, and the proximity of export ports were favorable. Classic Brazilian historians such as Gilberto Freyre, Caio Prado Júnior, and Celso Furtado felt that large slaveholding monoculture plantations, whose production was destined for the external market, determined the basis of production in both the colonial and imperial periods.2 The slave population was concentrated in the hands of a few large masters, and the Brazilian population was understood to be comprised almost exclusively of slave owners and slaves. The greatest exponents of this view asserted that the coffee economy was based on the use of large-scale slave labor in the production of goods for export. The work of Stanley Stein and Emília Viotti da Costa followed the general proposition that most production was concentrated in export-oriented latifundia with large numbers of slaves, usually around a hundred people.3A revisionist view has taken hold in recent historiography. First of all, studies of coffee production in Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Puerto Rico point to labor arrangements very different from those in Brazil, such as the use of free labor.4 Steven C. Topik provides a more complex picture of coffee culture in the Americas: in many areas the latifundia was not the norm, many smallholders were able to retain or obtain land, and there were no economies of scale in the production of coffee.5In Brazil, a broad debate has taken place over the last three decades with regard to the traditional interpretation.6 New works based in local and regional manuscript sources do not entirely corroborate the general view that coffee production was largely in the hands of latifundistas. The growing incorporation of new sources allows us to qualify or even revise some of the consensual views of classic texts.7 Still, the revisitionist interpretations have not yet been consolidated, and the debate about the importance of slavery in coffee plantation agriculture continues. Nevertheless, a few pioneering studies have incorporated these documents and provide new evidence.Nominal lists (manuscript censuses) from the beginning of the nineteenth century have provided the empirical foundation for many studies of the slaveholding structure for the Vale do Paraíba in the province of São Paulo. Lucila Hermann’s 1945 thesis, the first such study to make use of these sources, pointed to greater complexity in the coffee economy, including the presence of small coffee producers, in the municipality of Guaratinguetá.8 Later, Maria Luiza Marcílio verified nonslaveholders in coffee production, and José Flávio Motta analyzed slave property in Bananal.9 Motta’s study begins in 1801, at which point non-slaveholders planted coffee. But by 1829, when coffee became well established in the region, slaveholders came to dominate cultivation. Coffee planters held an average of 13.8 slaves (compared with an average of 11.7 slaves for all slaveholders).10 In Taubaté, Armênio de Souza Rangel found an average of 7.8 slaves per coffee planter (compared with 5.1 for all slaveholders) in 1835, at a time when coffee cultivation was less extensive than in Bananal.11 Francisco Vidal Luna’s study of the municipality of Areias found an average of 12.6 slaves per slaveholder in 1836.12 My own research established an average of 6.3 slaves per slaveholder in Lorena in 1829, which at the time was less involved in coffee than Bananal and Areias.13 The average slaveholding of coffee producers in Lorena was 10.2 in 1829. A sample of 187 inventories for 1830–79 yielded an average of 22.5 slaves per coffee-producing unit. Thus, coffee planting in its early phases (up until the fourth decade of the nineteenth century) appears to have been organized in a slightly differently manner from that described by the classic historiographers: coffee growers held an average of about 10 slaves, a number similar to that of the slaveholding population as a whole. Some authors disagree with this statement. Rangel, for example, states, “[T]he municipality, in many aspects of its economic and social organization, came close to the model of the exporting plantation formulated by Caio Prado Júnior.”14When considering the Vale do Paraíba overall, we should pay attention to local variations in the economic structure. Some places show a greater proportion of large slaveholders than others: for example, Bananal and Areias in São Paulo and Vassouras in Rio de Janeiro.15 Researchers have demonstrated the importance of small and medium producers in other locations, even during the peak period of coffee cultivation. Maria Celina Whately’s study of nineteenth-century coffee production in Resende, Rio de Janeiro province, found a greater proportion of smallholders in comparison with Vassouras.16 Neither does this location seem unique. Maria Aparecida Chaves Ribeiro Papali (working with 30 inventories from São José dos Campos, São Paulo, from 1870–88) likewise observed the presence of numerous small and medium growers. Most farmers had, on average, 10–15 slave workers.17Aldeci Silva dos Santos observed, based on a sample of 553 inventories, the presence of small properties even in Vassouras: slaveholders with ten slaves or fewer comprised 33.5 percent of inventoried decedents between 1830 and 1879.18 The author went so far as to say that “the success of the coffee economy in the Paraíba Valley [of Rio de Janeiro] owes to the aid of the small property; when it could no longer reserve sufficient space in its landholdings for subsistence production, it came to depend on external supply [from smallholders] to meet its needs.”19 João Fragoso examined almost one hundred inventories from localities close to Paraíba do Sul and found an average of 18.8 slaves per owner for 1830–50 and 20.7 for 1870–75. Célia Maria Loureiro Muniz studied the agrarian property structure of the Vale do Paraíba in Rio de Janeiro during the nineteenth century and found that coffee plantations averaged between 100 and 200 alqueires (roughly 500–1,000 hectares), and many had fewer than 100 alqueires.20 Based on the forms of land appropriation, she showed the size of the properties: “Many books on the coffee economy speak of ‘large properties’ and ‘enormous latifundia.’ However, these coffee plantations were not so large; they had an average of 100 to 200 alqueires and many had fewer than 100 alqueires.”21Did the picture drawn for the valley at the beginning of the nineteenth century remain stable for the following period? The consolidation of the coffee plantation, according to Caio Prado Júnior’s model, occurred in a later period, for which there exist no manuscript censuses. Iraci del Nero da Costa seems to capture the varied reality of coffee production, stating that “small, medium, and large owners coexisted in the most varied sectors and quadrants.”22These reassessments affirm the need to incorporate the small and medium owner into our analyses of the colonial and imperial economies. In other words, we should not limit ourselves to studying the great, all-powerful slaveholders. Other recent research on the economic and demographic importance of non-slaveholders reinforces this point.23 In this regard, we would expect the slave-holding structure of the Vale do Paraíba after 1840 (the peak of coffee production in the region) to resemble the profile outlined in traditional historiography, but we should still pay attention to local variations within the valley.This article focuses on the importance of small and medium slaveholders to the coffee economy in the Vale do Paraíba. My results corroborate those found in the revisionist literature discussed above, including Herrmann, Whately, Papali, Santos, and Muniz. My data suggest the presence of a significant number of small and medium slaveholders in several different parts of the Vale do Paraíba—even during the height of the coffee boom. These owners coexisted with a reduced number of large plantations. Nevertheless, the proportion of large slaveholders varies at different locations. I will also describe the slave population of Vale do Paraíba, relating its attributes to the size of slaveholdings.In this comparative analysis, I make use of the 1872 census, the registers (matrículas) for 1871–72, and Emancipation Fund classification lists that have been unearthed for the municipalities of Bananal (1874), Lorena and Cruzeiro (1874), Paraibuna (1874), São José dos Campos (1874), São Luís do Paraitinga (1874), and Taubaté (1872).24 The Emancipation Fund dated from November 13, 1872 and was created based on the Lei do Ventre Livre (the Free Womb Law), issued September 28, 1871. The law declared children born to slave mothers to be free persons. The regulation mandated that the fund’s resources be allocated first for the freeing of slaves with certain categories of relatives, and later for others. Family preference was shown in the following order: (1) married couples owned by different owners; (2) couples who had children under the age of eight that were born free by virtue of the Free Womb Law; (3) couples who had freeborn children under the age of 21; (4) couples with minor slave children; (5) mothers with minor slave children; and (6) couples with no minor children. The remaining slaves would be shown preference in the following order: (1) mothers or fathers of free children not included in the categories above; and (2) any remaining slaves between the ages of 12 and 50, beginning with the youngest females and the oldest males (see Collecção das Leis do Império do de all slaves into these for example, over with no would not be included in the classification than 12 or than were most to be will demographic on the slave age and to the of I a more of the slave in the classification I the slave property in these and it with the results of other research for the beginning of the nineteenth appears to be a between property size and certain demographic of the slaves. Thus, we have been able to the reality of slavery from the lists of for the first three decades to the in and there were in the of slave during the nineteenth does not of the economic of all the slaveholders in the However, the regional economy be as a coffee almost all economic were or to coffee found to coffee production, goods and for the coffee even in the Silva coffee economy and far the studies point to the growth of coffee production and subsistence Silva dos Santos small even in the coffee not as a but with the role of large the between coffee producers and other growers for Some authors to these plantations as of coffee which its height in the Vale do Paraíba in the was by and to demographic of slaves. In the Vale do Paraíba, percent of the population was this slightly than that found in the of São Paulo it the of slaves in the the Vale do and the for our study for percent of the slaves on the registers for the São Paulo of the Vale do Paraíba. In the 1872 census, both the slave and free Taubaté was the most municipality of our locations, with The a total population of about slave population of the largest in the Taubaté had that to the census, slaves were a significant of the total The of population that was was than in the province of São Paulo. The proportion in Paraibuna and São José dos Campos was a over on coffee production in the of the nineteenth the to the greater presence of free there were no large numbers of at the In Lorena and São Luís de and Taubaté, slaves for and percent of the total than the in Thus, the greater presence of slaves in the municipalities with the of coffee production, with the of São Luís do the slave in the slave population of these municipalities around percent between and with the of growth in Bananal and São José dos Campos slave in the Brazilian and to for this in the of from on the slave population in the first of the 1870s in and from the three sources on slaves in The 1872 showed a slave population than that in the registers of for of the municipalities The was The occurred in Lorena and Cruzeiro and The classification lists I located percent of the slave population in the São Luís do and Taubaté showed a between the slave population in the registers and that in the classification In São José dos Campos, and Lorena and the classification were about of population in the the be of the total number of who the the slave classification lists for Lorena and São José dos Campos, São Luís do and These documents the of the slave which we for and a that or Other was included for some localities but not for others. example, the of slaves were in The of was in Lorena and São José dos The lists the of slave and we were able to the of owners whose slaves were the appears that some slaves the and similar were in or more example, one slave was on one as the of a freeborn and on in the of between 12 and The of such varied from place to we found no in Bananal and Paraibuna and three in Taubaté, in São José dos Campos we found in Lorena and and in São Luís do In some we were able to between slaves by of the between were able to on some owners by the da de São Paulo the on owners in the with that from the classification lists us to the economic of the slaveholders. However, a small number of the slave owners in the classification lists in the and many in the not on the classification and who usually not own sample a significant proportion of all slaves in the Vale do Paraíba at the beginning of the However, slavery was not the The areas most involved in coffee production had a proportion of slaves in to the free The of the slave population seems to the most between more on the slaves and owners to an of the slave we found this in the classification The from these lists to a the of slavery in the should that the lists a of on a large number of slaves, they do not the slave In the slaves included in the classification lists show a demographic profile different from that observed for the population in other the of slaves were to the of in the to Taubaté and Bananal the greatest in the slaves. a significant in the slaves for the in not to a in we should this to the proportion of slaves in the or to the of slaves in the between and in the about of the total slave population (see In São José dos Campos, the of this age was even at São Luís do Paraitinga a number of slaves or percent of the the other slaves than were a more than a of the total number of slaves in Lorena and São Luís do and the Free Womb that to the classification lists preference to slaves with certain and not other categories of slaves as those over the slaves a significant of (see In São Luís do percent of slaves had in Bananal it in Lorena and Cruzeiro and in São José dos Campos The largest of slaves with occurred in Paraibuna this results from a of of slaves in the total on the registers of these last three localities (see and the of the between for the first locations. In the proportion of in the was the of more should also point that between slaves and were on the to in the law and the of the born of slave mothers after the Free Womb in Lorena and with in Paraibuna and in São José dos the number of in Bananal our found free born of slave in this were In there were free couples in this and free In São Luís do we found and married couples that included a free Thus, we say that a number of slaves with free also the slave a that a of and in to traditional about of all slaves were in agriculture in Lorena and and São José dos In São Luís do agriculture was the of a slightly number a of the numbers of in agriculture percent of all a than that of to the of we also an according to Some were as and was also by even it was also as the of a significant number of to of the on the the other certain were and In some as greater or example, and slaves as property an of the and of in The slave population be as a for the of and even of the region, for the time the other of be understood over time and to our data with that from other studies for other in this period those based on similar and with research on these municipalities at other in time based on lists of some based on the classification of the slaveholding structure very different from place to The average slaveholding in the 1870s was more than in in São José dos Campos and São Luís do Paraitinga the were to In Lorena and and Taubaté, the average slaveholding was a than slaves. These last three localities were in average they were to the municipalities than they were to In of the other municipalities does the of coffee and of the slave population seem to have close to the size of The average for the municipalities was with a of of slaves also followed the of average number of slaves, as a of or the the the most found in Bananal and the most found in São José dos Campos regional observed at the beginning of the nineteenth century discussed in the of this these regional do not in the of the The other localities have for São Luís do for Lorena and for Taubaté, and for the average and we with those by other for the localities at the of the nineteenth based on the lists of of the and average and the for the time the data we found average and a of in Bananal than in the other in the nineteenth Lorena and Cruzeiro and Taubaté close to for the period Still, when we the results from with those from the beginning of the nineteenth we do some Lorena and São José dos Campos, and Taubaté show average for the period for the São Luís do Paraitinga followed a of both average and in during this the of coffee in the different in the we would expect the results for Bananal to have occurred in the other coffee was the with Rio de In this the between the municipalities should be a of the municipalities would have for average slaveholding and for a determined However, the in these over we the of the by the size of in the of slave property allows us a of the and The total number of slaveholders and slaves increased for all the between and the of the nineteenth we growing numbers of slaveholders with small in all in Bananal (see this the of the total slave population owned by smallholders in all localities Lorena and the other the of large slaveholders and slaves represented a greater proportion of the slave the the were some the localities under In percent of slaveholders in Bananal owned slaves, percent of slaveholders in Lorena owned slaves. The slaves this owned represented percent and percent of all slaves, Thus, Bananal had both the proportion of smallholders and the proportion of slaves owned by These were similar in Lorena and São José dos Campos, São Luís do and of almost of the slave as were in the slaveholders who slaves on the with those in the da de São Paulo we were able to the of some of the owners on the the owners where we were able to obtain on these percent of the slaveholders in percent in São José dos Campos, percent in percent in Lorena and percent in Taubaté, and percent in São Luís do to this agriculture appears to have been more in the localities of São José dos Campos and in owners had on average, than and (see In São Luís do percent of the slave population was owned by in coffee percent in Lorena and percent in percent in Taubaté, and percent in São José dos had average similar to those of producers and as coffee growers had the largest average three than the of slave property coffee growers some growers owned one other plantation owners Bananal be with the other localities The lists slaveholding coffee growers in São José dos of percent had fewer than 10 In of slaveholding coffee growers in had fewer than 10 slaves. data point on coffee producers in Bananal be from a of coffee plantations, when a was from the Rio de Janeiro to the that classification with our other data coffee growers who of coffee and owned slaves percent of the total slave The growers who owned less than 10 slaves of a more than a of the total Thus, the small slaveholders involved with coffee production at the beginning of the from around to of the coffee certain at the beginning of coffee Taubaté, and Lorena on very similar of average and by the data do not between from the total number of slaves. the other the size of and of more in São José dos Campos and than the other municipalities in the Bananal most the traditional the largest of slaves and the largest and most concentrated Nevertheless, even Bananal a significant number of owners with fewer than of all Thus, we do not have for all the localities in the Vale do Paraíba, we that the and of slave property was there during its period of coffee to the from historiography, the data I have the importance of small and medium slaveholders during the height of coffee production in most of Vale do Paraíba of São Paulo. In the such small and medium slaveholders for more than of owners and owned more than of the slave population of the areas do significant in of slaveholding between the but these not over the of the nineteenth the slaveholders who owned more than one hundred slaves, in Bananal to the model in the of coffee production and slaveholding in the Vale do Paraíba of São Paulo not be from those found in which was in our but from the of even in Bananal we found a significant number of small and medium including many owners with one small and medium slaveholders were not involved in production for the but also coffee in significant Thus, the economic and demographic of the Vale do Paraíba was not to the of the large coffee data that other became more concentrated as coffee production during the nineteenth In this many smallholders could have been Still, the also many of resources to remain in the and from the coffee at the point of greatest in property small and medium still were very to the The increased concentration that the of the coffee economy not small and medium slaveholders from production, and it to the the economic that the of coffee created for less both in coffee cultivation and also in other or production for small and medium owners export subsistence or even in even in to slave results point to the importance of the small and medium property in the coffee have similar in other of and even where we would expect the of large plantations, have found that smallholders in export A significant of Brazil’s free population owned some in the of land and slaves, which the Brazilian the of slaves in the Vale do Paraíba of São Paulo some into the of and a in the of an

Agricultural economics · Archaeology · Colonialism · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Empire · Geography · Historiography · Independence (probability theory) · Population · Production (economics) · Sociology · Demography · History · History of Colonial Brazil · Rural Development and Agriculture · Urban Development and Societal Issues

• La distribución de la riqueza en el Buenos Aires rural entre finales de la colonia y la primera mitad del siglo XIX. ¿Una desigualdad moderada y en declive

  Open Access•Jorge Gelman, Daniel Santilli•América Latina en la Historia…•2017

  Add to list

• Economic inequality in Latin America and Africa, 1650 to 1950

  Open Access•Sara Galli, Dimitrios Theodoridis et al.•Economic History of Developing…•2022

  Add to list

• American Slavery in Recent Brazilian Scholarship, with Emphasis on Quantitative Socio-economic Studies

  Herbert S Kein•Slavery and Abolition•2009

  Add to list

• Reconstructing a slave society

  Open Access•Sara Galli, Dimitrios Theodoridis et al.•Historical Methods A Journal of…•2024

  Add to list

• Slavery

  Thomas Thurston•Slavery and Abolition•2006

  Add to list