Slave Ownership as Social Prestige
In urban areas of Latin America, slave ownership was a way to assert prestige and high social and economic status. Illustrations in European travel accounts confirm this trend by often portraying scenes in which slave owners and their families are followed by a line of enslaved men, women, and children in the streets of Brazilian cities such as Rio de Janeiro.86 Consider the example of Debret’s well-known lithograph Un employé du gouvernement sortant de chez lui avec sa famille (A Government Employee Leaving His Home with His Family) in his travelogue Voyage pittoresque et historique au Brésil, published between 1834 and 1839.87 The lithograph (figure 8.9) depicts a bureaucrat strolling with his family.
The text explaining the illustration reminds readers that Black people predominated in the streets of Rio de Janeiro, a statement confirmed by the population estimates of the period. In 1821 the city’s total population was 116,444, whereas the enslaved population consisted of 57,549 individuals.88 Like many other European travelers, Debret also commented that it was uncommon to see white women in the streets, for they often remained secluded in the domestic sphere.89 The artist explained that these respectable white families always walked in a line led by the male slave owner, in this case a government employee. The party respected the hierarchy of Brazilian slave society, from the higher to the lower rank. The man was followed by his children, the younger before the older, then by his pregnant wife. After the family comes the mucama, or housemaid, usually a Brazilian-born mixed-race woman who, according to Debret, was placed higher than the enslaved Black women domestic servants.90 The other persons in the line were the Black wet nurse, then the slave of the wet nurse, the master’s domestic slave, a young slave who was being trained in service, and, finally, a new enslaved boy, who according to Debret was the slave of all the others.91
Figure 8.9.
Un employé du gouvernement sortant de chez lui avec sa famille (A Government Employee Leaving His Home with His Family), in Jean-Baptiste Debret, Voyage pittoresque et historique au Brésil, 3 vols. (Paris: Firmin Didot Frères, 1834–39), vol. 2, plate 5.
The order of the characters in the line, their clothing, and their relative sizes show the sexual and hierarchical relations in the family and among the enslaved population. The white slave owner heading the line is visibly the most important and clearly distinct from the rest of the group. Whereas the domestic enslaved man seems to be somewhat integrated into the family, the new enslaved boy is clearly depicted as a commodity. The enslaved housemaid who usually had a close relationship with the mistress and often provided sexual services to the male slave owner occupies a prominent position in the family hierarchy, and her representation and clothing mirror that of her mistress. However, both the mucama and the wet nurse are represented barefoot, underscoring their slave legal status, even if in reality the ones working in richer households probably wore shoes. As we move farther down the line, the enslaved persons are younger and have darker skin. Their clothing and attitude are also more humble than those of the bondspeople who precede them in the line. Overall, Debret’s lithograph exposes the complicated engines of Brazilian slave society and how racial hierarchies operated, especially in urban areas. White slave owners occupied the highest positions, but there was also a hierarchy among enslaved people and freedpeople according to sex, color, and seniority. A freeborn mixed-race man had higher status than a freeborn mixed-race woman, and both occupied a better position than freed mixed-race individuals. Lower in the social and racial pyramid were mixed-race bondspeople, then enslaved Black men and women. African-born enslaved individuals had lesser status than their Brazilian-born counterparts.
Even after purchasing their freedom, African-born men and women continued to be considered foreigners in Brazil.92French artist Biard also documented the presence of enslaved men and women in Rio de Janeiro’s streets, quickly realizing how slavery was vital to the existence of both Brazil’s bigger cities and smaller towns.93 Shortly after arriving in Rio de Janeiro, the artist expressed surprise that even white people of modest means were followed by bondspeople while walking in the streets, even when there was no need for them: “There was a very small embarrassment that has already arisen several times in Rio. In slave countries, it is customary to carry nothing; I have seen people both very well and not so well dressed being preceded by a Negro carrying packages so small that they could be put in one’s pocket.â€94 Like other visitors, Biard understood that as in other Latin American cities, owning enslaved property in Brazilian cities was also a matter of social prestige. As a result, whereas carrying objects and packages was perceived negatively in a society where only enslaved men and women performed manual work, displaying human property in public was a sign of wealth.