Arid Roads to Coercion

Labor Policies Devised During a Drought in the Year of Brazilian Abolition, 1888–1889

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6440535
AutoresFelipe Azevedo E Souza, Felipe Azevedo Souza (0000-0002-6232-3273)
TradutoresRamón Stern
Ano2025
Volume22
Fascículo2
Páginas6-27
Data de publicação2025-05-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoLabor Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1547-6715 • E-ISSN: 1558-1454
EditoraDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/15476715-11609861
OpenAlexW4410843472
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas14

In the same year that slavery was abolished in Brazil (1888), a severe drought devastated the northern province of Ceará, causing a serious humanitarian crisis. This article argues that debates surrounding the formulation of public policies to assist the thousands of refugees were influenced by the immediate postabolition context. The Brazilian imperial state denied humanitarian assistance measures and instead created an extensive structure of labor policies for refugees to access income and food. Thousands of people were sent under coercion to coffee and sugar plantations in the southern region of the country, while many others faced forced work on large state projects. Through research conducted in personal archives of state agents, it was possible to demonstrate how class and race criteria played a significant role in the articulation of these coerced labor policies, shedding new light on the ways in which unfree labor persisted after bondage

Arid · Biology · Coercion (linguistics · Economics · Political science · Brazilian History and Foreign Policy · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · History of Colonial Brazil · Philosophy · Ecology