The Knickerbocker/Volume 63/Number 6/Brazil and Brazilian Society
BRAZIL AND BRAZILIAN SOCIETY.
TRANSLATED FROM THE REVUE DES DEUX MONDES, BY ASHER HALL.
INTRODUCTORY.
Nearly four centuries have elapsed since Pedro Alvarez Cabral took possession of the Southern portion of the New World in the name of the crown of Portugal; yet, save in a few general aspects of its social and moral history, and excepting the seaports upon its coast daily visited by the commerce of the world, Brazil is very imperfectly known. This is not a matter of surprise, for the colonist is always inclined to take up his abode on the coast or at the mouths of rivers. The exploitation of mineral wealth only has drawn a few scattered groups of population to certain points in the interior. As for those travellers whose love of science brings them to this immense continent at long intervals, their observations, nearly always buried in special treatises, are lost to most readers. There remains to be traced a faithful picture of social life in Brazil; to show where, amid the various parts of that empire, the work of civilization has progressed. Perhaps a sojourn of several years in that country may have given us some title to attempt the task. The same picture must embrace the entire creole society, from the wealthy planter to the humble feitor or overseer, and must especially reproduce the peculiar characteristics of each of the various classes. But this society, the offspring of conquest, is based upon slavery. The white has pressed back the Indian, and with the lash bends the negro to the earth. Previously, therefore, to studying the industrial and political forces of the nation in the fazenzu, or interior development, and in the cidade or city, it is necessary to acquaint ourselves with the disinherited races—the Indian, the negro, and the 'people of color.'[1] It is in the rancho that we are best able to observe them. The term rancho is applied to the hut of branches that shelters the Indian in the forest; it is likewise applied to the more substantially built but equally open structure where caravans of men of color and negroes stop with their animals, when transporting merchandise from the coast into the interior. In a word, it is the asylum of the wandering or slave population who form the subject of our first investigation.
CHAPTER FIRST.
THE INDIAN RACES.
The Indian of the eastern coast is wholly intractable to civilization. Like the jaguar, he retreats as the axe of the white man penetrates the forests. The creoles, who are unfortunately too much interested in the question to be implicitly believed, attribute this antipathy to every species of progress to an inherent want of capacity, natural, as they affirm, to all American races. It would be more just, perhaps, to seek its cause in the fixed hatred which the native has cherished against his conquerors ever since their appearance upon the coast.
HANS STADE.
The story of Hans Stade, the Dutch-man, is a striking example of this. A prisoner of the Botocudos, who were only awaiting the time when he should be fat enough for the spit, he was unable to convince his terrible guardians that he did not belong to the race of their persecutors.
'I have already eaten five white men,' said the chief who came to feel of him one day, and all five pretended, like yourself, that they were not Portuguese.'
Having exhausted all his arguments, it at last struck the prisoner to invoke the color of his hair, which was of a fiery red, as was that, he said, of all his countrymen. This idea saved him. The Botocudos, recollecting that the prisoners they had roasted were dark, restored him to liberty.
THE SWORD AND THE CROSS.
This savage hatred, cherished by the red men against the dark-haired whites, is easily explained if we recall the unceremonious manner in which the Spaniards and Portuguese took possession of their forests. Columbus seized San Salvador in the name of the double crown of Castile and Aragon, landing with the sword and creating a fort. Cabral, on arriving in Brazil, instead of building a fort, erected side by side upon the seashore a cross and a gallows. On the news of his discovery, all the adventurers of Portugal flocked to these shores, which had been described to them as so fertile and charming. Having come in search of a rapid fortune, they could not reconcile themselves to clearing the ground with their own hands, whatever might be its wealth. Slaves then were necessary. The land of the negro was beyond the sea, across an ocean yet unknown. The Indians were upon the spot, unsuspecting, daily bringing provisions and never doubting the gratitude of the whites. The latter did not hesitate. They tracked the natives like wild beasts, and even surpassed in atrocity their rivals of Castile. In vain the Popes, who in those days prided themselves upon marching at the head of humanity, at different times declared the Indian a son of Adam, and therefore worthy to enjoy all the rights pertaining to the human family. The pursuit of slaves continued in spite of pontifical bulls, and the Indian was compelled to recede before European invasion. This retreat, however, was valiantly disputed. Brazil had not, like Mexico and Peru, a timid population, who were put to fight by a discharge of artillery; but a race of lusty warriors who defended their soil with a ferocity that astonished the Portuguese themselves, who were at that time the first soldiers in the world. The advantage at last remained with the latter, and the Indian disappeared from the Atlantic coast. At the present day, one must penetrate the distant forests that skirt the great rivers to find the remnants of the Guaranis, and this exploration is not always unattended with danger. Still remembering the ferocity with which the Portuguese pursued their ancestors, they instinctively seize their arrows at the sight of a white man who ventures upon their river-banks, and whose presence reminds them of the enemy of their race. Moreover, civilization has no hold upon these wild charters.
TWO INDIAN CHILDREN
A few yours ago, two young Indian children found in the forest were brought to the mansion of the Emperor of Brazil. The sister, it is true, readily received the care lavished upon her; she learned the Portuguese language, was baptized, was afterwards married to a white man, and was still alive when I was in Rio de Janeiro; but the young man would never permit any approaches; he bit at all who came within his reach like a wild animal. He at last died, suffocating with rage and despair.
INDIOS MANSOS AND INDIOS BRAVOS.
This indocile character has caused the Indiana of the forests to be called Indios bravos, or wild Indians, in contradistinction to the Indians of the frontier, who are called Indios mansos, or tame Indians. Like their ancestors, the bravos live upon fruits, and by hunting and fishing. Each tribe obeys a chief whose authority it is difficult to analyze. Superior in physical strength to other aboriginal Americans, they appear inferior in intelligence; for no historical tradition, no monument bearing traces of civilization, has been found among them.
MYTHOLOGY
As for their religion, it is doubtless the same as that of their ancestors. A Frenchman whom recent political agitations had transferred from his native country to Brasil, has observed these savage tribes with special attention, and made investigations as to their religion. 'Among the hundred tribes scattered between the mouth of the Amazon and the Rio de la Plata,' says M. Ribeyrolles in his work on Brazil, the greater number lived without gods, and no worship was practised beneath the evergreen arches of the virgin forest. This great temple had no other incense than that of flowers. The historians of the conquest and those of the missions nevertheless attribute a very clear mythology to one of the original tribes, the Tupic race. They say that these Indiaus recognize a god—a veritable Jehovah—whom they called Tupan, (Thunder.) As in all legendary theogonies, whether they come from India, Persia, or Sinai, this god Tupan had an opposite, an adversary, a devil, whom they called Anhanga. Below these two majesties of heaven came two series of genii, the good and the wicked, and lower still, as simple ministers or interpreters, were the priests, or sorcerers, who sold the secrets of the gods to the people.'
The transition between the wild tribes and the civilized population of the Brazilian coast is marked by the Indios mansos. It is this class who gather caoutchouc, ipecacuanha, vanilla, sarsaparilla, and in short all those products found only in the distant forests. Having finished their harvest, they proceed to the settlements of the whites to deliver it, receiving in exchange the products of civilized industry—knives, calicoes, spirits, etc. The remainder of the year is spent in hunting, and more particularly fishing, which is their favorite employment.
INDIAN SWIMMERS
Born in a country traversed by numerous rivers, which in the solstices of each year overflow and sometimes cover immense extents of forest, they acquire from childhood such a habit of swimming that water seems to be their natural element. It may be safely said they are the best swimmers in the world. I have frequently seen little Indians, scarcely from the breast, throw themselves into the water and frolic there for a whole day, never troubling themselves about the alligators that swarm in the rivers of Brazil. The adults wear scarcely any clothing, and as for the children, they go, like the little negroes, entirely naked.
TALISMANS.
The greater portion wear a string of beads around the neck. These beads, sold by the sorcerers, and which the Indians consider a powerful talisman against the bites of serpents, are generally formed of small red grains which grow in great abundance in the woods, Those who visit the whites sometimes replace these necklaces with a medal, One day, curious to know the name of the madonna charged with watching over the destinies of an ugly little red-skin, who was demeaning himself like an imp in a stream we were traversing, I requested my half-negro, half-Indian guide to go and speak to the urchin, so that I might approach him. It was with difficulty that the attempt succeeded, owing in a great measure to my foreign costume, which he now saw probably for the first time. At last, however, thanks to my companion, who held his arms and head to keep him from biting, I was able to seize the medal, and what was my astonishment as I recognized a French coin of fifty centimes, bearing the effigy of the republic of 1848!
THE INDIANS AND THE PADRES.
Like the negro, the Indian knows little of religion except the form of baptism; nevertheless, there is a difference between them. The negro, who is a slave, takes his children to the padre with perfect indifference, interested neither more nor less than if he were carrying an arrobe of coffee to market. The Indian, on the contrary, likes to be persuaded; he makes it a principle to do nothing without an equivalent, and only consents to receive the evangelical ablution upon the promise of a glass of cachaça, (brandy,) a piece of calico, or some other material compensation. He would make an excellent Christian if the missionaries could only draw upon exhaustless stores. If he hears there is to be preaching in the neighborhood, he forthwith sets out, piously crouches near the bearer of glad tidings, and impatiently waits the end of the sermon to demand his portion of the good things. These being exhausted, he retraces the road to his hut, till the time arrives when the faithful, for the propagation of religion, shall have again filled the coffers of their ambassadors. If the missionaries are ever able to precede each religious exercise with a distribution of brandy and red silks, men and women will lock in crowds to hear 'the word of God.' It is not rare, according to the people of the country, to meet with Indians who make their conversion a business, and present themselves to every padre that comes along, asking for a new ablution and exacting the reward attending it. In the early time of the conquest, when the extent of wilderness and the absence of roads rendered communication impossible between different parts of the empire, some tribes practised this species of baptismal brokerage on an extensive scale. Whenever a captain-general arrived in a province, he proceeded, according to bis humor, either to pursue the red-skins and make them slaves, or to convert them in order to found a colony. The latter willingly allowed themselves to be approached when it was only a matter of being catechised, for they knew the Gospel was always accompanied with numerous little advantages very much to their taste, such as garments, knives, and particularly a support less precarious than that afforded by forest-life.
Every thing going so well at first, the missionaries were astonished at the fervor of their converts, and augured well for the future. But when the provisions were nearly exhausted, and the new converts were informed that it was necessary to plant maize and manioc, under pain of soon seeing their rations suppressed, their neophyte zeal began to grow cool. At last the time came when the laziness of the converts and the impossibility of providing for them any longer wearied the patience of the missionaries. Exasperated at having been doped by red-skins, the Portuguese replaced the padre with the feiter, and declared the Indians slaves to punish them for their rebelliousness to Christianity. The latter gave themselves no great concern about their now condition, feeling secure in their proximity to the forest, whither they took refuge on the first opportunity. But these first relations with the whites perverted their habits and their tastes; forest-life appeared to them too rude, and, like the Hebrews in the wilderness, they sighed for the flesh-pots of fertile Egypt Therefore they went in quest of an other baptism, and one day an Indian tribe was seen to arrive an hundred leagues from the province where they formerly dwelt, offering themselves for conversion. The bishop and the captain-general were written to, who, charmed by the proposal, sent monks, garments, tools, and provisions, with directions to evangelize the new-corners and found a Christian colony. It is needless to say that this colony ended like the rest, after passing through the same phases, and moved further on in quest of a new baptism.
INDIAN GOVERNMENT
If religion little disturbs the Indian, politics concerns him scarcely more. Each village is governed by a capitao, selected from among the most respectable of the tribe. Many a time has a mulatto fleeing from slavery or deserting from military service been proclaimed capitao by an Indian tribe with whom he took refuge! The selection is easily explained. The Indian is conscious of his inferiority, even to the dark-colored mulatto, who, moreover, is almost always his superior in physical strength. Add to this consciousness the prestige of dress and sometimes of arms upon people who go nearly naked and are acquainted only with the bow and arrow, and lastly the need of having a chief conversant with the language and customs of the whites, to make themselves heard by the latter when chance or necessity requires it, and the fact is not surprising.
FICKLE HABITS
The efforts hitherto made to employ the Brazilian Indians as domestics have been almost thrown away. Several fazendeiros who have tried it, and whom I have questioned on the subject, have unanimously replied that they were obliged to give it on of the incredible fickleness with which they performed their service. If they felt longing for the forest, forest, they left the house without saying a word to any one, returned to the woods, built themselves a hut with stakes fixed in the earth and a few palm-branches, and there rested themselves from their pretended fatigues, only interrupting their far niente to gather a little fruit or catch a few fish. Some time afterwards, say after two, three, or six month's absence, bring satiated with savage life, they came to resume their work as if they had only left it the day before, never comprehending why the master looked astonished at seeing them, and asked them for explanation. They thus went on with their work for a little while, but soon, wearied a second time of civilized life, they silently effected their escape from the plantation to recruit themselves in the forest and reappear again the following year. These escapades especially occurred upon the day when they received their wages. It is needless to say that all their money went to purchase cachaça, and it not till the last of this was gone that the memory of their for master returned.
A population of such indolent humor is little adapted to the labor of agriculture. This element, therefore, can never be counted on for the colonization of the country. Nevertheless, there are some among these semi-savages who term themselves planters, because they have abandoned the bow of their ancestors and manage to-cultivate a little manioc and maize to sustain their families. As soon as this labor, which lasts but a few days, is finished, they return to their huts of wood and clay, lie down upon their straw mats, and pass the remainder of the year in absolute idleness, occasionally thrumming a miserable guitar which they always keep at their side, to amuse themselves, music being one of their favorite passions.
INSECURITY OF THE FOREST—AN EXPENSIVE BARGAIN.
Though the forests they inhabit have been the time-honored dwelling-places of their ancestors, they are now insecure when in the vicinity of a settlement, for it often happens that the colonist burns down the wood in order to prepare a new field of coffee-plants to replace the exhausted plantations. Our Indian friend then takes his guitar, which constitutes all his personal property, and proceeds to the neighboring mountains to build another hut. Affairs do not always go on so peaceably, however. Not long ago, in the province of Minas, one of these forcible dispossessions came near resulting in tragical consequences, and cost the fazendeiro dearly.
The fazendeiro, one of the wealthiest proprietors of the country, owned immense tracts of virgin forest, which he had never visited except to hunt the tapir or wild ox. One of his neighbors, wishing to establish a coffee plantation, came to him one day and desired him to sell the two declivities of a hill, the situation of which seemed to promise magnificent crops. It was an excellent thing for the proprietor, who, for want of sufficient laborers, had no expectations of realizing a farthing from this portion of his estate. The bargain was therefore soon made, at the price of ten contos de reís, (about forty-five hundred dollars.) As this hill—or rather mountain, for it was very large—had never been explored, the new owner was greatly surprised when his negroes, who had been sent to make a clearing, returned and told him they had found wild men (gente de matto) in the woods, who lived in huts and appeared to regard them with a very unfriendly eye. Our friend forthwith went to the former proprietor, saying he supposed he had bought a virgin forest and not a colony of Indians, and that, being unable to obtain possession, he gave up the purchase. The fazendeiro promised to make his old tenants vacate, and accordingly sent the overseer of his estate to bid the red men to take up their quarters elsewhere. The latter, getting wind of the matter, determined to act in concert, and replied that having been from father to son and from time immemorial children of the forest, they believed themselves the true owners of the soil. As this response was accompanied with menaces and demonstrations not at all encouraging, the messenger, deeming it useless to insist, returned and made known to his employer the result of his mission. It was thereupon determined to hunt the mountain with all the negroes of the plantation, set fire to the cabins of the Indians, devastate their fields of manioc, and thus force them to leave. But the latter had been on their guard since their first summons, and when the negroes arrived they found themselves arrested by formidable barricades, from which issued invisible shafts that soon compelled them to retire. The affair was now becoming serious. The fazendeiro had undertaken to clear the place, and moreover, his personal pride was involved. He therefore had recourse to more extensive measures, and applied to the judge of the district (comarca) to obtain the expulsion of the savage colony through the aid of the authorities of the province. After going through regular legal proceedings on the matter, a battalion of infantry was sent to carry theim- provised citadel by force. Nearly a year had elapsed since the first assault, and the Indians, thinking themselves for ever rid of their adversaries, had at last ceased to guard the barricades. They were accordingly reposing quietly in their cabins, when a discharge of musketry reminded them that they were not forgotten. At the same instant a mass of soldiers precipitated themselves upon their frail habitations and commenced demolishing them. Resistance was impossible; and what is more, the Indians lose all courage in the presence of firearms. They fled, and at last concluded to take their household gods farther away. The joke of the matter is, how ever, that a few days afterwards the fazendoiro received a bill of twenty contos de reís (nine thousand dollars) to cover the legal and other expenses of the expedition. He had received ten contos for the property, and it therefore cost him four thousand five hundred dollars for the privilege of disposing of it. This is only a slight specimen of 'agreeabilities' of every kind which one meets at almost every step in this privileged country, when he undertakes to solve the grand question of la colonisaçao.
PORTUGUESE ENCROACHMENTS—'THE WHITE MEN TREAT US LIKE DOGS.'
This expropriation of the Indians is one of the natural results of conquest as understood by the faithful subjects of His Majesty the King of Portugal. A French traveller, Auguste de Saint-Hilaire, who visited the province of Rio Janeiro in 1816, relates that one day, a few leagues from the capital, he fell in with a deputation of Indians, who were on their way to request of Dom João VI. authority to set apart, in the ancient forests of their ancestors, a square league of land, where they might build a village and find a shelter from the intrusion of colonists. This tribe, which belonged to the Indios Coroados, (crowned Indians,) a few remnants of whom are still found on the Upper Parahyba, then occupied nearly the entire valley of that river. Before venturing to meet his royal majesty face to face, they sought the chief of the province, the Baron d'Ubá, and one of them addressed him in the following language: 'This land is ours, and the white men occupy it. Since the death of our gran capitão,[2] we are hunted on every side, and we have not even a place to lay our head. Tell the king that the white men treat us like dogs, and beg him to give us some land, where we can build a village.'
THE BOTOCUDOS—CHRISTIAN BARBARITY.
Of all the Indian tribes that have made themselves celebrated by their resistance to the invasion of the conquistadores, the Botocudos hold the first rank, and have marked the annals of conquest with bloody pages. It must be said, to the shame of men of our race, that the children of the wilderness were overwhelmed with ferocity by the disciples of Christ. The latter, finding gunpowder too slow, borrowed from Nature the assistance of one of the most cruel scourges she ever let loose upon mankind. Articles infected with the small-pox were sent as presents to the Indians, who soon perished by thousands, struck down by an invisible evil, whose cause they could not suspect. A few scattered remnants of these unfortunates still roam the forests of their forefathers, awaiting in dread the day when the axe of the Portuguese shall deprive them of their last refuge. Their redoubtable arrows, six feet in length, do not, when closely examined, at all correspond to the idea one has conceived of them. Nearly all I have seen were made of reeds, and seemed more like harmless playthings than instruments of death. These ultra primitive weapons, in a country where iron is found on the surface of the soil almost in a native state, gives one an unfavorable idea of these tribes, who prove so wholly intractable to civilization.
A NATIVE PRIEST AND BACKSLIDER.
Such is the irresistible attraction of the wilderness, that those who have left it cannot live amid other surroundings. The Portuguese annals mention the case of a Botocudo who, taken from the forest while yet a mere child, was brought to Bahia and educated in a monastery. His progress, intelligence, and aptitude having been noticed, he received redoubled attention. Here was a precious acquisition: in him was seen the future missionary of his tribe. As he manifested a taste for the holy orders, he was made a priest, Having at length become free, he left the monastery under the pretext of a promenade, entered the forest that encircled the city, and never reäppeared. It was afterwards ascertained that, instead of catechising his fellows, he had adopted their primitive costume and their wild habits.
LANGUAGE OF THE BOTOCUDOS.
The maxim of Buffon, 'The style is the man,' was never, perhaps, more justly applicable than to the shapeless idiom of the Botocudos. The wooden disk attached to their lower lip, forcing it to drop upon the chin, exposes their teeth to view, and prevents them from articulating the labials. If a b or a p occurs in a syllable, they are obliged to bring their lips together with their hands to produce the required sound. An analysis of their words reveals in the clearest manner the primitiveness of their social condition. Show them a cane and they will answer tchoon, (tree.) With them a cane is only a tree stripped of its branches. Then ask them the name of a post, and they will again answer tchoon; of a branch, or piece of wood, or a stake, and still it is tchoon. The single word po expresses, according to circumstances, the hand, the foot, the fingers, the phalanges, the nails, the heels, and the toes. Animality, which seems to be their only code, is especially conspicuous in compound words. If they wish to speak of a sober man they call him cooang-a-mah, (empty belly;) or of night, they would say taroo; tatoo, (time of hunger,) because, gluttonous as they are improvident, they never lay by any provision, and are obliged at night to await impatiently the return of daylight to supply the wants of a stomach never satisfied. With most nations, or at least with the occidental nations, the idea of the just preceded that of the unjust, as is indicated by the compound form of the latter in the different languages—un-just, in-juste, un-gerecht, in-iquus, a-dikos, etc. With the Botocudos it is the reverse; the normal condition is that of the thief—neinkaik. An honest man would therefore be a non-thief, (neiakaik-amnoop.) In the same manner, lying (yahpahwaing) being their custom, the truth would be yahpahwaing-amnoop, (a non-lie.)
'BUNGS.'
What could have been the origin of the wooden disk inserted in their lower lip, and which has given them the name of Botocudos?[3] I had attributed it to a religious practice, the meaning of which had easily been lost among a people without traditions; but an untiring traveller, M. Biard, has informed us that he has seen this disk serve them as a table. This, however, was probably only the trick of some young Botocudos, who thought to get a glass of cachaça for his cleverness. Such a performance would not be possible by a person of mature years, for with such the lip, obeying the weight of the disk, falls over upon the chin. I saw a chief of these savages appointed capitão by the Emperor of Brazil, who had consented to wear pantaloons and to leave off these hideous ornaments. The flesh of the lip had been brought sufficiently close to heal, and left visible only an enormous scar; but the lobes of the ears, not so fleshy as the lip, and less susceptible of vital action, could not recover their former shape. They reached almost to the shoulders, forming two rings, the opening of which measured nearly two inches in diameter.
INDIAN WOMEN
With the red-skins, as with all primitive races, the women do all the labor. They build the huts, carry the baggage and children upon a march, weave fabrics from rushes or grass, and manufacture vessels of clay for domestic use. The only work done by men is the making of arrows, and their only occupation is hunting. Any other labor would be unworthy of them. One will readily comprehend that the Indian woman, under a servitude so degrading, Ignorant of every thing that elevates the female character, remains just as she left the mould of nature. Deformed by hard work, disfigured by ill-treatment, living a mere animal life, she can only awaken a feeling of disgust in those who see her for the first time. Observe her eyes, and you see the oblique and timid glance of a wild animal, and nothing of that magic light which reveals intelligence. The consciousness of inferiority causes her to flee from a stranger and conceal herself. In old age, the wrinkles that everywhere furrow her tawny akin, blackened and seamed by age, the blows she has received, exposure to the sun, and fatigue, give her head the appearance of that of an old orang-outang, grimacing and hideous, beneath a long black peruke.
Such are the aborigines of Brazil, Shall we advance toward civilization, or recede from it, in passing from the Indians to the blacks? We shall soon judge.
Chapter Second
The Negro
Nothing seems more simple than to trace the physiognomy of the negro, Nothing, however, is more complex, if aside from all preconceived ideas, we make it a point to be truthful.
THE MORNING SUMMONS.
After a long journey on horseback I at length reached a fazenda, where I was reposing quietly, when, about three o'clock in the morning, I thought I heard a trumpet sounding a reveille. That is nothing, senhor,' said my guide, who slept in the same room with me. 'It's only the feitor summoning the negroes in order to take them to the fields.' This warlike sound was in fact an announcement to the slave that the hours of sleep were ended, and his labor was to commence. But it is not the privilege of all the blacks to wake at the sound of the trumpet. In most instances I only heard a wretched drum, which I can only compare to the boxes which accompany the bear-shows at the fairs in the Alps and Pyrenees.
THE 'BENÇAO.'
I had just again closed my eyes when a sudden explosion of human voices reawoke me.
'Don't disturb yourself, senhor,' said my guide, 'it is the negroes who, before going to the fields, have come to ask a blessing, (benção.) The benção plays a great role in the negro's life. It is the invariable salutation with which he approaches you. To perform a benção according to rule, the slave must take off his woollen cap with his left hand, and stretch out the right in the most humble posture; many of them add a slight flexion of the knees. This attitude is so suggestive of the beggar, that when I first arrived I instinctively carried my hand to my vest-pocket. To avenge himself for this vexation of the white, the blacks exact the benção from the little negroes, and the latter in turn exact it from the macacos, (monkeys,) which they educate to this effect.
GREAT ADO ABOUT ΝΟΤHΙΝG.
Again I fell asleep. An hour later I was once more arosed by a fearful tumult. It was as if a host of tigers and wild cats were fighting and tearing each other with horrible cries. The noise evidently grew nearer. This time I rushed to the window. The day had begun to break, but I could only see a cart coming from the forest, drawn by three pair of oxen. Two blacks, armed with long goads, drove the team. One guided the first pair of oxen by the horns, and led the way; the other, leaning over the front of the cart, pricked the lazy animals. It was the guttural cries of the negroes, the bellowing of the stubborn cattle, and the squeaking of the heavy wheels that made all this noise—and all about drawing a few stalks of sugar-cane.
BRAZILLAN ROADS.
Roads are unknown in South-America. If it is necessary to open a passage through a forest, to transport the harvest, a gang of slaves are sent in the evening, who set a few trees on fire, cut a few impeding branches, and throw a little earth into the worst hollows. This work achieved, they return under the impression that they have made a road. During the night a storm comes on, which, in a few hours, floods the ground with immense torrents. These diluvian rains come down in streams, forming ravines in the road, if it is on inclined ground, washing away all the loose earth, and leaving impassable gullies. If the read crosses a basin, the water converges there from all parts of the forest, and by its accumulation changes it into a lake. Hence arise all the difficulties which make journeying into the interior of the new world so painful, and even impossible, without a large force of men and mules.[4]
A CURE FOR LAZY MULES
If the negroes are ignorant of the advantages of macadamized roads, they make up for it by their ingenuity in urging their nonchalant animals over difficult ground. If they have exhausted their stock of caresses, shouts, and blows, they leave the team and gather a few dry branches, which they place un- der the bellies of the quadrupeds and set on fire. It is an unfailing remedy, and one which I have also seen employed by Catalan muleteers.
NEGROES IN THE FIELDS—THE FEITOR.
As it was too late to repose any more, I determined to go out on the plantation and see the slaves at work. After half an hour's walk through fields once cultivated but now abandoned, I reached a little plateau covered with sugar-cane. About an hundred blacks were cutting the cane, and placing it in bundles on the carts that were to carry it to the mill. One feitor superintended the loading, and another the cutting. The latter, who generally attended to disciplinary matters, had a threatening aspect. He was a large, muscular mulatto, of brutal physiognomy, with sun-burnt skin. An old straw hat, linen pantaloons, and a striped shirt composed his raiment. At his waist was suspended an enormous palmatorium, (a species of large ferule for correcting minor faults.) Standing behind the man, his right hand clasping a long whip, and his eyes fixed on the group, he grumbled incessantly, making his line advance or fall back, like a drill-sergeant manœuvring a squad of infantry.
COOKING.
At a little distance, at the edge of the forest, three or four negresses, with their infants in sacks on their backs, were preparing food for the laborers. Two immense pots of angú (corn-soup) and another of feijão (haricots) rested on three rocks that supplied the place of andirons, and were cooking over a slow fire. The little negroes, too young to work in the field, supplied fuel and raked the fire. Each negress looked after the pot assigned to her, from time to time stirring the contents with an enormous ladle, to have it cooked uniformly, and, during spare moments, taking her babe from her back and giving it the breast. Calabashes, lying in heaps near the pots, represented the service-dishes. The negro, like the Indian, knows no other knife and fork than his fingers.
I was desirous of witnessing a slave repast, and I waited, seated in a rancho, till the hour should arrive. I watched the ranks of workmen, harassed by the incessant shouts and long whip of the feitor—and woe to laggards who, let ting their comrades got ahead of them, fell out of line. Notwithstanding the apparent haste, it was easy to see, by the play of their muscles and the expression of their faces, that they did just enough to keep out of the way of the locador (lash) and to await as patiently as possible the hour of breakfast. Armed with a crooked scythe nailed to a long wooden handle, they cut the cane with an automatical movement, the force of which evidently lay in the whip held by the feitor.
THE BREAKFAST.
The breakfast-hour at last arrived. About nine o'clock, at a sign from the superintendent, work ceased as if by enchantment along the whole line, and all approached the pots. The rations were ready, and two rows of calabashes disposed along the ground. Each took a calabash full of angú and a smaller one of feijão; and seating himself upon a stone set to devouring his fare without speaking a word, with the same indifference and calm resignation he formerly manifested under the whip of the overseer, and which, acquired in infancy, seems to form the chief characteristic of the black slave. In the evening they receive another ration of corn-soup and haricots, and at nightfall they return to their cabins.
ROUTINE—SUNDAY EMPLOYMENTS
I have often since seen the negroes in the fields, and assured myself that for them the programme of one day is the programme of the whole year and of their whole life. When not harvesting they are planting; and the planting done, they hoe incessantly till harvest-time; for weeds grow rapidly in these warm, moist countries. On Sunday, labor is suspended. The Portuguese is too good a Catholic to make his negroes work on the day of rest; but he allows them to employ that day on their own account, and even gives each of them a piece of land where they raise corn which they sell to mule merchants. The income from this harvest is intended to replenish their wardrobe; but the field negro, not over-fashionable in his attire, generally prefers a bottle of cachaça or a pipe of tobacco to a new shirt, He consequently comes off most frequently in rags, greatly to the despair of the senhor.
DANCING.
Sunday, nevertheless, has its attractions for the slave. Having no anxiety on that day as to the hour of rising, he profits by this to dance through a portion of the preceding night. The orchestra is composed of young negroes, who beat with their hands upon a kind of drum placed between their legs, made of the section of a hollow tree-trunk, the ends of which are covered with dog or sheepskin. Most frequently they sing an accompaniment, to increase the noise. Generally but one dancer is seen in the group. He leaps, runs, and gesticulates; and when he finds himself getting exhausted he rushes to some one of his companions whom he selects to succeed him. The choice commonly falls upon a woman. The latter in her turn enters the ring, abandons herself to all sorts of choreographic improvisations, and when fatigued, chooses, in her turn, some man to take her place. The dance is thus kept up, and complete lassitude of the performers alone puts an end to the scene.
THE NEGRO HUNTER.
If the negro is a hunter, he buys a gun worth some ten milreis, (five dollars,) and goes out to shoot the agootee, (American hare,) the armadillo, the macaco, (monkey,) or the lizard.
THE SENHOR'S BIRTHDAY.
The anniversary of the master's birthday is to the slave a day of joy and feasting; he is provided with carne soca, (dried meat,) and sometimes presented with an allowance of cachaça. Every thing, then, mounts into paroxysm—the contortions of the dancers, the beating of drums, and the shouts of the young negroes. The cries of Vivo o senhor! Viva a senhora! (Long live the master! Long live the mistress!) alone interrupt the indescribable fantasias of the orchestra and the fearful tumult of the dance.
DOMESTICS—PUNISHMENTS.
Such is ordinarily negro-life on the plantations. Some lead a more gentle existence—such, for instance, as the master has attached to his personal service. Their condition is almost the same as that of European domestics. If they commit a fault that demands corporal punishment, they slip away before they are caught, and run to a neighboring fazenda, where they know some friend or relative of their master, and beg him to intercede (apadrinhar) for them. These favors are never refused, no matter what may have been the antecedents of the supplicant. The fazendeiro first reads him a lesson of morality proportioned to the gravity of the offence, and after admonishing him that he must never come to him again, he ends by giving him an apologetic letter to his master. Armed with this talisman, the delinquent fearlessly presents himself; for a request of forgiveness, even from an inferior, is sacred to the Brazilian. But, unfortunately, as there is always a way of getting around a difficulty, it often happens that the master, after having read the letter, says to the negro: 'I will forgive you, at the senhor's request, the hundred strokes of the whip (chicote) that you so richly deserve; but as you are a very bad fellow I cannot keep you any longer in the house, and you must join your comrades on the plantation.' This is the most terrible punishment to a slave, for field-life possesses all the horrors of slavery without affording any of its benefits.
Punishments may be divided into three classes. Slight faults are expiated by a few strokes of the ferule on the palm of the hand; a dozen blows is the minimum. This punishment is especially applied to women and children. The chicote, or whip, is used for serious offences and robust men. The object of punishment is firmly secured to a post and surrounded by his comrades, who are present at the infliction in order to add solemnity to the scene and to receive themselves salutary impressions for the future. A large negro or mulatto performs the duties of execution. At each blow he stops to take breath, and allows the sufferer to utter a sharp cry, followed by a prolonged groan. More than one hundred strokes are seldom given at a time. If the punishment is very severe, the remainder is put off till the next day or the day following. When a large number of lashes have been inflicted, and the executioner has a strong arm, it is sometimes necessary to carry the poor wretch to the hospital and dress his wounds. Lastly, there is the carcere duro for old offenders. It is ordinarily a cell (tronco) where the culprit is kept motionless, his feet and hands being firmly fixed to posts. This punishment is not greatly practised, especially during the day, for it is important not to keep the black from his labor. He is therefore only shut up during the night, and a dose of the chicote administered in the morning or evening, either after or before incarceration, takes the place of confinement in the daytime.
Too frequent recourse to the lash, (tocador,) it must be confessed, is not had, especially among the small proprietors, who may at any moment be obliged to sell their slaves. The bastinado leaves marks on the back and shoulders, and it is upon these parts of the body that the purchaser reads the character of the negro.
A NEGRO MURDERER.
One curious fact will show how some masters, in case of emergency, manage the skins of their slaves. A few years ago a negro was hung at Rio Janeiro who had committed his seventh murder. On six occasions he had killed his senhor, and six times he had changed hands, being sold by the heirs of the murdered man as an excellent laborer, Rather than give him up to justice and avenge the death of their father, they preferred to render him good for evil, leaving his life safe and his back unscarred. Not possessing so much of the evangelical spirit, the relatives of the seventh victim had the murderer arrested, and he was sentenced to the gallows. He walked to the scaffold with perfect coolness, and before giving himself up to the executioner, cried in a loud voice to the numerous blacks around him: 'If each of you had followed my example, our blood would long ago have been avenged.' These words found no echo, and never will do so in Brazil, although the number of slaves is much greater than that of the whites, by reason of the jealousies of race which the Europeans take care to encourage between the different tribes. These instances of masters falling be neath the poniard or poison of African vengeance, are not rare on the plantations. They were much more frequent formerly, when the slave-trade daily brought fresh cargoes of negroes who had once known liberty. The latter died or gradually became extinct, and those who were born in the country, degraded by slavery, forgot the free land of their ancestors.
CITY NEGROES—PURCHASING FREEDOM.
The negro of the town has a milder fate than his brethren of the country. At Bahia, Pernambuco, and Rio Janeiro, the three grand centres of slavery, the streets, the market, and the port are in undated with these Ethiopians of black and shining skin, who do the heavy work of those populous cities. The surveillance of feitors being impossible in such duties, the proprietors leave their slaves to act for themselves, only exacting a milrois (fifty cents) each day, which sum the latter religiously pay every evening. This condition is far from being oppressive to the African. Sober and robust, he takes his place at the quay, or at the custom-house, or the large stores—at any place where merchandise is to be loaded or transported and sometimes earns as much as ten milreis (five dollars) in a day. When he has saved money enough, he goes to his senhor, presents him a purse containing the price of his ransom, and, in the name of the law, demands his liberty.
RUNAWAYS.
Easy as is the life of the city negro compared with that of the plantation hands, some of them attempt to escape from slavery by flight.
In the majority of cases, these fugitives are brought back, and are first sent to the house of correction, where they are flogged according to the duration of their absence, unless the master, being desirous of selling them, prefers to save their backs intact. Sometimes, when pressed with hunger, they return and give themselves up of their own accord, after obtaining a letter of intercession from some friend of their master. As we said before, this favor is never refused. The more adventurous expatriate themselves in order to escape pursuit, going to Europe if they can find a captain who will take them on board, or penetrating the interior to Indian territories which the whip of the feitor has never reached.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF THE NEGRO.
The black race in Brazil, as elsewhere, is composed of different types. The negroes of the coast of Minas present, with the exception of color, the Caucasian type: a high forEhead, straight nose, regular mouth, oval features, and athletic form all reveal within them a strong and intelligent nature. The eye and lip alone betray the sensuality which seems inherent in the whole Ethiopian race. Individuals of this type, who are in the enjoyment of liberty, give daily and unequivocal proofs of their superior aptitude. I have seen negro mechanics, merchants, priests, physicians, and lawyers, who, even by the admission of the people of the country, could boldly compete with whites in the same professions. It is to this vigorous race that those kings of Soudan belonged, who for years maintained supremacy over that immense country.
THE REPUBLIC OF PALMARES
In Brazil, the negro Henriquez Diaz, celebrated in the annals of the Portuguese, compelled the king, Don João IV., to appoint him colonel, and make him a knight of the order of Christ, by his bravery and military talents. The Dutch still remember the terrible blows he inflicted on them in the so-called war of independence, at the head of his African regiment.[5]
INFERIOR TRIBES
Unfortunately, alongside these superior tribes are others who seem as nearly allied to brutes as to men, and to descend by insensible degrees to the man-monkey of Oceanica. Slavery, seizing upon the negro from his infancy, makes him a mere machine for producing sugar or coffee, and not only saps his intelligence, but perverts all the nobler instincts of his nature. Here lies in a great measure the secret of the inferiority of the so-called 'sons of Ham.'
- ↑ Mulattoes and other mixed races.
- ↑ This great captain, an uncle of the Baron d'Ubá, was a Portuguese, José Rodriguez da Cruz, who had founded a colony of Indians on the banks of the Parahyba.
- ↑ Botoque signifies, in Portuguese, the bung of a barrel, whence the name Botocudos, men with bangs.
- ↑ I have sometimes seen twenty pair of oxen panting with the effort of drawing a log that four European laborurs could have easily moved with levers.
- ↑ If the Portuguese annals are to be believed, the negroes of the Province of Pernambuco made themselves famous in the seventeenth century by their energetic efforts to secure their independence. Some of them, lying from servitude, took refuge about thirty leagues from the city, in the depths of the forest, at a point which they called Sertão dos Palmares, (the Wilderness of Palms.) More than twenty thousand of their fellows responded to their call, and soon Palmares became a republic, with its laws, and a fortified capital. A chief selected from the most renowned warriors, administered justice, looked to the public defence, and commanded expeditions, This colony was not much to be feared by the towns on the coast, for it lacked arms and munitions; but those nearer to it suffered considerably. There was need of women, iron, tools, salt and provisions, to establish the new city and make it prosperous, and expeditions of every sort occasionally came to rain and terrify the neighboring planters, who vainly claimed the protection of the government, which was then at war with the Dutch. At length Holland yielded, and thenceforth the destruction of Palmares was resolved upon. It would still take years to repair the disasters of the war of independence and organize the expedition. Finally there appeared before the wooden ramparts a force of seven thousand men. Having brought no artillery with them, they were at first repulsed, and the siege turned into a blockade. Famine soon began to decimate the blacks, and artillery having arrived, the defences were stormed, The zambé, or chief, and the surviving defenders, finding themselves overwhelmed, preferred death to servitude, and threw themselves from the pinnacle of the rock that had formed their citadel. The remaninder of the inhabitants were reduced to slavery. The black republic of Palmares had enjoyed an existence of more than half a century.