In the courtroom of Juiz de Fora: a case study of race, gender, social status, and Black masculinities in the post emancipated city (1890-1910)

• In Event: Flows of Freedom: post-abolition, black women, Afro-Brazilian history and culture

Description for Program

The discussion of the Atlantic Diaspora in the Americas has been engaging important debates among intellectuals and scholars. Struggles for self-determination, citizenship, national identity, displacement, and belonging are common aspects that connect Afro-diasporic experiences. Brazil was the last country on the globe to abolish the slavery system in 1888. The social foundation based on a racialized-gendered hierarchy in this context helped to construct a notion of who would be considered part and a citizen of the newly post-abolished society. In doing so, this paper investigates one trial record for physical assault in 1891 Juiz de Fora city, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The case study describes a conflict between the Black railroad station guard Bertholino and the parda (brown) washerwoman Julia to explore the nature of race, former slave status, and gender in the immediate post-abolition period in Juiz de Fora, a city with a large Afro-Brazilian population in the state’s extreme south. Through evaluation of several archival sources, this paper is an initial attempt to understand the meanings of race and gender in post-abolition Juiz de Fora and Black masculinities as contested identities as Brazil’s labor market underwent a watershed transition. Here, post-abolition is understood as a transitional period for evolving racial and gender conceptions. I seek to contribute new insights into this broad shift by focusing on how Black men navigated changing conceptions of race and masculinity in a newly emancipated society.

Author

• Estela Gonçalves de Souza, Michigan State University