Nobrezas do Novo Mundo

Nobrezas do Novo Mundo (The nobility of the New World) represents a welcome addition to the growing literature on the social dynamics of colonial Latin America, particularly Brazil. By combining discussions of race and nobility, Ronald Raminelli brings his audience beyond narratives of Brazilian colonial society dichotomized into black and white, master and slave. He unveils race as a multivalent concept in colonial Brazil—one that did not preclude the entrance of blacks and Indians into the lower nobility. Raminelli recognizes, however, the perils that accompanied African, Indian, Jewish, and Islamic lineages in the Luso-Atlantic, and he deftly navigates the paradoxes inherent in bestowing privileges of nobility on blacks and Indians.Raminelli divides Nobrezas into two parts, with the first part mapping out the structures of nobility in South America and the second part analyzing black and Indian nobility. He delineates four major conclusions. First, he reveals the vulnerability of the New World nobility compared to nobles in the Iberian metropolises. The Portuguese court denied Brazilian subjects the highest titles of nobility, and colonial nobles found it difficult to pass their titles and benefits on to their descendants. Second, Raminelli concludes that the composition of the nobility in Spanish America differed from that in Brazil, with the nobility of Peru and New Spain more closely reflecting that of the Old World. Third, he reveals that Luso-Brazilian and Indian cavaleiros “were hierarchically distinct” (p. 18). Finally, he avers that hierarchical distinctions within the nobility frequently resulted from Luso-Atlantic theories of racial difference. He inserts his argument, therefore, into a wider historiographical debate about the nature of race and racism in the early modern world.The comparisons between Spanish and Portuguese America comprise the weakest part of the book. Raminelli does not employ a consistent methodology to imbue his comparisons with explanatory power. Instead, the narrative wanders sporadically between the nobility of Spanish and Portuguese America without elucidating a coherent argument that ties the two regions together. While Raminelli informs the reader that the second part of the book focuses more directly on Brazil, he does not clearly explain why he decides to abandon analysis of Spanish America at that point. He leaves the reader assured that Spanish and Portuguese America differed in their concepts and practices of nobility, but he remains unclear as to why. His work is much more productive when he focuses solely on Brazil.The second part contains the book's most creative and original contributions. Analyzing Indian and black nobility in Brazil, Raminelli reveals the paradoxical relationship between the fluidity of the Brazilian nobility and prevailing notions of race in the Luso-Atlantic. In return for their help in expelling the Dutch from northeastern Brazil, Tupi leaders received habits and honors of military orders. They used those honors to consolidate their power and prestige, but the benefits that they derived from them remained tenuous. Frequently, titles of nobility did not accompany the conferral of military habits, allowing colonial governors to “valorize the contribution of the ally without confronting the process of consecrating cavaleiros” (p. 161). The quantity and influence of Indian nobles waned following the defeat of the Dutch.Like Indians, black warriors struggled to defend their claims to nobility. They saw their privileges exposed to the vagaries of the Mesa da Consciência e Ordens, which could withhold titles due to impure lineage, and the Inquisition, which could strip them of their honors and titles. Raminelli skillfully navigates the complex and contradictory notions of race characteristic of the early modern era. Racial defects were natural but mutable. Blacks who fought valiantly for the empire had altered their nature by their actions, which allowed them the benefits of nobility. But since their physical features revealed their natural debasement, their social promotions remained suspect and contested. Raminelli concludes that although notions of race were “unstable” between 1650 and 1750, they were generally defined by physical traits rather than religious persuasion or lineage (p. 239). Historians should not shy away, he concludes, from discussing racism as a construct of the early modern era, even if such racist notions differed from their nineteenth-century variants.While Raminelli frequently belabors historiographical conversations, his treatment of them will prove useful to students unfamiliar with the competing paths of scholarship with which he engages. Students of Latin American history will find Nobrezas useful in reconstructing Brazilian and Spanish American social structures. Scholars of the Atlantic will find Raminelli's discussion of Indian and black nobles compelling, representing a fruitful contribution to dialogue about the intersections of race and class

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Colonialism · Literature · Narrative · Nobility · Political science · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical Studies in Latin America · History · History of Colonial Brazil · Law