XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

Women descended from Portuguese miners and enslaved Africans: property, wealth, and social mobility in colonial Minas Gerais

• In Event: Reproduzindo a desigualdade: Relações domésticas, direitos e hierarquia racial nas famílias e nas casas de morada dos séculos XVIII e XIX

Abstract

Brazilians have a common saying: rich father, noble son, poor grandson. It references the challenges families may have experienced when attempting to retain wealth past a first successful generation. Though gendered, the phrase can also apply to women. In the context of Brazil's colonial slave society, that generational progression seems particularly salient among people of mixed Portuguese and African descent. This paper delves into the lives of a group of third-generation mixed-descendant women whose grandparents were wealthy Portuguese miners and enslaved African women. It will examine their participation in the marriage economy of the late eighteenth century and their access to property and wealth through inheritance and their ability to mobilize existing socio-economic opportunities. The paper asks whether social mobility was a tangible reality for these women and examines what factors—local economy, inheritance laws and succession practices, and integration into distinct social networks—affected their ability to accumulate or hold onto property and status in an evolving slave society. Additionally, this analysis will address the generational layer of race-making and social inequalities in colonial Brazilian society and women’s role in that process.

Author

• Mariana Dantas, Ohio University