Travels in Brazil

by Henry Koster

The creole slaves are usually employed as tradesmen and household servants; even upon the sugar plantations this is the case where they are not more numerous than what are necessary to fill these departments; to the Africans the field labour is chiefly allotted. The negroes are sent to work as the sun rises, and far from being more capable of exertion in the early part of the morning than under the mid-day heat, the Africans are inactive and languid, until the increasing power of the sun removes the chill which they receive from the cool morning air. They frequently leave their huts wrapped up in their coverlids of baize, seemingly much distressed by the cold. The negroes breakfast about eight o’clock, and for this meal half an hour or less is allowed; and some masters expect that their slaves shall breakfast before they commence their work in the morning;—that is, before sunrise. The time which is allowed for dinner, is from twelve o’clock till two, when the labourers again continue their labour until half past five o’clock. They are now, generally speaking, expected to pick a small bundle of grass for the master’s saddle-horses, in some of the neighbouring provision grounds; but if this is not requisite, the work continues until sunset, about six o’clock. On the arrival of the people at home in the evening, they are sometimes required to scrape the rind from the mandioc for about one or two hours; but as none of the principal estates make a practice of selling the flour of the mandioc, and only prepare the quantity which is necessary for the subsistence of the slaves, this labour only occurs about once in each week, or less frequently. In crop time, the work is only discontinued on Sundays and holidays; and, as is practised on board vessels at sea, the negroes relieve each other at stated hours.

The field negroes are attended by a feitor or driver, who is sometimes a white man; but more frequently a free mulatto is employed for the purpose. It is the practice likewise of some of the planters to appoint a Creole, or even an African slave to the situation. Upon a feitor who is a slave, more reliance is to be placed than upon a free person of colour, for the slave feitor becomes responsible to his master for the work which is to be executed, and is therefore careful that every one should do his duty. It is a remark which is generally made; that the slave feitores require to be watched, that they may be prevented from being too rigorous towards those whom they are appointed to command; their behaviour is usually more overbearing than that of free men; and next to the slaves the European feitores are the most tyrannical. It is likewise frequently observed that even manumitted Africans who become possessed of slaves, which occasionally occurs, treat them in a severe and unfeeling manner, that is nothing softened, but rather rendered more violent, by a remembrance of their own sufferings. Experience in trouble too often leads those who have suffered to the infliction of equal or greater hardships, when opportunities for so doing are afforded; the human being becomes callous; it is tormented, and torments with the same indifference.

Medical attendance is not so well provided for as it ought, which proceeds rather from the small number of practitioners in the country, than from the negligence of the planters; indeed due attention in this respect is so much and so evidently their interest, that this alone, independent of any feelings of humanity, would make them seek every means of obtaining proper advice for their slaves[240]. I do not think that the food which the slaves receive is in sufficient quantities, or of a quality sufficiently nourishing for the labour which they are required to perform; and it would be undoubtedly much too scanty, if the days of intended rest did not supply them with an addition to the stock of provisions which the master affords. I have in another place stated, that the vegetable part of the food of the sugar plantation negroes is chiefly the flour of the mandioc; the animal food is generally the carne do Searà, salt meat which comes from Rio Grande do Sul; and sometimes salt fish supplies its place. The cloathing which is given to the slaves by the master consists of a shirt and drawers of the cotton cloth of the country, and a straw hat; a piece of baize and a mat are likewise afforded to them; but these things are not renewed as often as a due consideration to their comforts would demand. Although the negroes are fed by their masters, still as lands are to be had in abundance, the slaves are permitted to plant whatever they think fit, and to sell the produce to whom they please. Many of them rear pigs and poultry, and occasionally a horse is kept, from the hire of which money may be obtained.[241]

The newly-imported negroes are usually sent to work too soon after their arrival upon the estates; if proper care is taken of them, they may indeed be employed in almost any description of labour at the end of eight or ten months, but not much before this period. Damp situations should be avoided, and they ought not to be sent out in the morning earlier than eight o’clock, and they should breakfast before they leave home: by these precautions the loss of many slaves might be prevented; and they should be followed without any deviation, at least until the new negroes have been for a twelvemonth in the country to which they have been transported.[242]

I have represented slavery in what I conceive to be the state in which it usually exists upon the plantations; but any comforts which the human beings who are so circumstanced enjoy, and any respite from severe labour is so entirely at the will of the master, that the instances in which the fate of the slave is hard almost beyond endurance, are dreadfully too frequent. Some planters follow the system of performing certain kinds of work during the early part of the night, besides making the negroes labour for the full usual time during the day;—for instance, the whole of the labour of making the mandioc flour, preparing with the feet the clay for making bricks and earthenware, also building mud walls; besides removing bricks, fire wood, and so forth from one place to another. This extra work is called quingingoo. I even knew of one instance in which the field labour was continued until twelve o’clock at night, by the light of large fires which had been kindled in several parts of the ground. For this manner of proceeding there was no reason, excepting that it was the master’s pleasure so to act, for the season was favourable, and not too far advanced to have continued the work in the usual manner and yet have accomplished the planting of the field in proper time. Of cruelty I could say much, but I have gone far enough, and must not enter into farther details upon this part of my subject. The relation of such misdeeds do more harm than good, they serve as examples for those who have unprincipled minds and unfeeling hearts; and who may consider them as paths in which they may tread, because others have trodden in them, rather than as precipices which ought to be avoided. The power which is entrusted to an individual is too great, abuses must arise, the system is radically bad, and every possible means should be put into action for its extirpation.

I am acquainted with the owners of a few estates who profess to purchase any slaves however bad their characters may be, if they can obtain them below the usual price. The persons of secondary rank who possess only a few slaves, and have not the same means of punishing them if they misbehave which exist upon the great estates, dispose of those of their negroes who act improperly to the rich men who will purchase them. There is an estate in the Mata, of which the owner is known to buy any slave, however ill disposed he may be, provided he can obtain him at a low price. This man manages to keep his estate in the best order possible; every thing goes on regularly upon it. He even prefers purchasing creole slaves to Africans, although the former are invariably more difficult to manage. He is a man of determined character; on the arrival of one of these new slaves, he takes him to the prison of the estate and shews him the stocks, the chains, the whips, &c. saying “this is what you are to expect if you continue in your evil practices;” then a hut is given to the slave; and also cloaths and other articles of comfort, all of which are in a state of greater neatness, and are afforded in larger quantities than are usually bestowed upon the slaves of other plantations. On one occasion a negro struck the feitor, for which he was immediately confined, until the matter could be investigated; the freeman was found to be in fault, and was turned away. The negro suffered a certain degree of punishment for striking a superior, but he was ultimately appointed to the situation of feitor, having before held that of second driver. If this planter did not rule his people with great severity when guilty, his estate would soon become a den of thieves and murderers, for it is well known of what bad materials his gang of slaves is composed. This man is of mixed blood, but is nearly related to some of the first families of the province. It is well that a man should appear, who is willing, for the sake of a trifling difference in the price for which he may obtain his labourers, to take the trouble, and undergo the risk of person and of property in controuling a set of uneducated men, who cannot consequently have any principle of action, and whose habits are of the worst description. According to present circumstances he is of service to the country, for these fellows are kept quiet; but what a dreadful state it is, that the institutions of a country should be so framed that there should possibly exist in its centre, a body of human beings of which many of the individuals are criminals; men, who certainly never will be punished by the laws of the country, though punishment may or may not be inflicted by the person to whom they are subservient.

The slaves of the cotton estates undergo, as may be supposed, the same kind of punishments, and are subject to the same species of treatment as those which have already been spoken of; their management, as in other parts, is conducted on the whole in a more lenient or more rigorous manner, according to the dispositions of the owners. They are however liable to greater privations from the nature of the country in which they reside, and they do not enjoy the benefit of crop time, which is so favourable to the negroes of the sugar plantations. Food is not so easily obtained in parts which are so distant from great towns and from the sea-coast; and greater difficulty is experienced in the sale of the mandioc, the beans and the maize which the slaves raise upon their own provision grounds. Still the negroes of the cotton districts sometimes gain their freedom by their own exertions, for as cotton is a most lucrative plant, and yet may be cultivated and brought to market with little or no out-lay of money, those of the slaves who plant regularly and gather their trifling quantities, frequently in the end meet with the reward of their labours. This is not the case with the sugar-cane, for in cultivating this plant assistance is necessary, much work being required to be done within a given time, owing to the seasons in planting it, and to the nature of the cane when it ripens; and there is likewise the difficulty of having it ground, and of receiving the proceeds, &c. In the manufactory the slave has not his property under his own eye; it passes through the hands of many other individuals, and as there is no personal respect for the owner of the property, nor any means of redress in case of injustice, the slave has only a poor chance of being properly dealt with; the above circumstances being those to which the culture of the sugar-cane is subject, it is scarcely ever planted by slaves on their own account.

The cattle districts employ few slaves, and these are occupied at home, for scarcely any of them, unless they are Creoles, are deemed capable of undertaking the more arduous employments of pursuing the cattle, breaking in horses, &c. The slaves remain in the huts to attend to the less enterprising occupations. The climate of the Sertam is accounted well adapted to the constitutions of the Africans; sickly negroes are often purchased at reduced prices by persons who reside in the interior, under the idea that the climate will soon re-establish their health. The circumstance of the non-existence of the chigua or bicho[243], in the plains of the Sertam is of much importance; for this insect is extremely injurious to some of the negroes;—notwithstanding every precaution, the feet have in some instances been destroyed by them. The chigua has more effect upon the flesh of some persons than upon that of others; and the subjects who are violently attacked by this insect, are sometimes only preserved from being crippled by their removal to a part of the country in which it does not exist. The dryness of the air and soil of the Sertam generally removes agues of long standing, and likewise the complaint which frequently proceeds from the ague, and is called amarellidam, or yellowness. The Africans are seldom attacked by the ague, but they have often the amarellidam.

In the back settlements, beyond the plains of the Sertam, bordering upon the mountains where cotton is planted, and from which the plains are in part supplied with food, the number of negroes is becoming considerable. I have had opportunities of conversing with negroes from the Sertam, and have invariably found that they preferred their residence in the cattle districts even to a removal into the country bordering upon the sea. The diet of the Sertam negro is preferable to that of the plantation slave, so that this circumstance, independently of all others, would make the former be well aware of the superiority of his situation. Fresh beef and mutton are the usual food of the Sertam slaves, but upon the plantations these are rarely served out.

The most dreadful complaint to which negroes are subject more than other descriptions of men, is that which, in the Columbian islands is known under the name of yaws, and in Brazil by that of bobas. I had opportunities of seeing it, and most loathsome is the sight of the individuals who are afflicted with it. The body becomes covered with large ulcers, the patient is reduced to a mere skeleton, and is rendered generally for a time quite helpless. The facility with which it is communicated to others increases the distress of the patient; for every precaution must be taken in separating the sufferer to some distance from the other slaves. The adult who recovers from it seldom enjoys as perfect health as before. The negroes say that it gets into the bone; every change of weather is felt by those who have had the disorder, although they are again accounted in health, and in some cases the use of one or other of the limbs is occasionally lost for a time. A certain diet must be observed for many months after the disorder has apparently left the person who has had it, for the purpose of preventing a relapse; and sometimes a deviation from this, even some years after, will cause violent pains in the joints. The following circumstances occurred under my own eyes. A child belonging to one of my neighbours, whilst I resided at Jaguaribe, was in the practice of coming to amuse itself with some of the children of the plantation. He had this disorder upon him; and soon afterwards the son of a labourer caught it; all this was not made known to me, until a slave of eight years of age was reported to me to have the bobas; and shortly afterwards an old man, the father of this child, likewise fell sick. In the course of a short time, notwithstanding every care was taken, other persons were afflicted with the disease. A surgeon was applied to, and he prescribed mercury to all the patients. An infant of a few months old, which afterwards caught the disease, underwent the same treatment. The children who had arrived at a certain age all recovered, and until the period of my departure, they had never experienced any return, nor had felt any bad effects from it. The old man still laboured under it, but was recovering. The growth of the infant was stopped by the disease, and very little hopes were entertained of saving its life.