Abstract
Impending abolition of slavery in Brazil during the late nineteenth century meant the potential shortage of labor for southeast coffee planters. In preparation, the province of São Paulo subsidized, in part and then in full, the travel expenses of Europeans who migrated there. To what extent was the program successful in capping the wage bill of planters after emancipation? How did the occupational distribution by race change as compared to other regions without such a program? Consolidated evidence on wages and the value of output indicates that the return to labor actually increased after abolition, as did rural and urban employment segregation in favor of whites over blacks; in contrast, economic growth elsewhere in the Americas was more subdued and alternatives like sharecropping prevailed. This work integrates the traditional immigration literature with recent Afro-Brazilianist perspectives: New earnings estimates confirm that Europeans were exploited to nearly the same extent as slaves, yet non-monetary benefits and racism may have supported the former group’s opportunities for social mobility.
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Notes
The Italian Geographical Society asserted, in 1888, that the São Paulo immigration program served “to substitute white slaves for black ones” (in Hall 1969: 122).
The labor supply of African Americans, especially women and children, was substantially reduced in the USA after emancipation (Ransom and Sutch 1977: 45); moreover, slowing growth in world demand for cotton contributed to the South’s poor economic performance after the war (Atack and Passell 1994: 380–1). In Brazil, the price of coffee boomed between 1885 and 1895, going from $1.50 per 10 kg in 1885, to $3.75 in 1890, and stabilizing at around $2.84 in 1895 (Holloway 1980: Appendix II, 177).
In the present usage, “Afro-Brazilian” refers to those who identify with the official census categories of preto (black) or pardo (brown); these groups are similar in many economic respects and as compared to the category branco (white). For convenience, unless otherwise noted, the generic “black” is used to refer collectively to both pardos and pretos.
For an extended discussion of the contrasts between these three cases, see Domingues (2008).
The occupational distribution of pardos, literally “browns,” diverges from that of pretos, or “blacks,” in two interesting cases: In São Carlos, their relative participation in manufacturing exceeded even that of whites; and, in Bahia, nearly one-fifth of pardos were, notably, listed as being employed in the liberal professions.
The first collection of studies to empirically evaluate the hypothesis of post-abolition black marginalization in the southeast—a position which can be traced to Bastide and Fernandes (1959) and Fernandes (1965)—includes Andrews (1988, 1992), Silva Maciel (1985), and Skidmore (1993). Over the past two decades, the topic has received renewed attention, in light of unpublished data, by such authors as Domingues (2003, 2008), Jacino (2012), and Monsma (2006, 2010). The characteristic literature on immigrants and their adaptation to life in Brazil after slavery is represented by Hall (1969), Dean (1976), and Holloway (1980).
Prado Júnior (1953) and Furtado (2006 [1959]) consider the economic transition from slavery to free-labor capitalism and its implications for the social standing of blacks and mulattos; along with Stein (1957), who investigates the status of blacks on coffee plantations in eastern São Paulo State; and Ianni (1962), who analyzes the neighboring state of Paraná (Curitiba), coming to the conclusion that abolitionism was essentially a self-serving phenomenon to maintain the established system.
See Monsma (2006) and Skidmore (1993). The literature on black political organization includes Mitchell (1985), Andrews (1992), and Domingues (2007), among others. Schwarcz (1987), Butler (1998), and Domingues (2008) explore the representation of Afro-Brazilians in early twentieth-century newspapers.
African Slave Embarkations by Major Destination Region (1501–1866) from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (www.slavevoyages.org, Accessed 05/2015).
From 1820–1849, an estimated 1.275 million African slaves disembarked in Brazil; compare this with no more than twenty thousand registered, mainly European, immigrants during the same period (slaves disembarked from Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, Accessed 09/2015; number of immigrants from IBGE 2007, Table 4.1, 227).
In 1860, 5 years before abolition, the census indicates that an incredible 89.0% of blacks in the USA were enslaved; author’s calculation based on figures from Gibson and Jung (U.S. Census Bureau 2005).
Minas Gerais is presented here because it is perhaps the only state with data on the slave-free distribution by race spanning the full century before abolition; also, Minas Gerais is a useful case of comparison because it likely had the highest rate of manumission and the fastest-growing free black population in Brazil.
See Kodama, Table 1, p. 202. Note that these figures differ slightly from those in Table 3, based on Hall and Holloway, perhaps due to transcription errors and/or rounding.
The state population is from Andrews (1988), Appendix A, p. 247.
Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), Recenseamento Geral do Brasil 1920, V4.1.
The illiteracy rate of blacks (pretos) joining the state military service in 1922/23, nonetheless, was twice that of whites (brancos), or 51.6% versus 25.7% (Domingues 2003: 156), and higher than among the foreign-born in 1920.
In 1888, for instance, the Italian Geographical Society documented a series of abuses (in Hall 1969: 122).
Some data on yields over three time-periods (in “processed beans per 1000 trees”) are presented in Holloway (1980: 97) for three regions (Central, Mogiana/Paulista, and Frontier): the average yield was 56 arrobas in 1905, and 55 1/3 in 1910–1914; falling to just 43 2/3 arrobas in 1924–1928 as a result of damage from the coffee borer pest.
Holloway (1980: 55) reports the sizes of families entering the Immigrant Hostel: from 1902 to 1923, there were an average of 4.7 people per family; among those receiving subsidies (these data only span 1902–1910 and 1918–1921), the average size was 5 persons; children under 12 made up from 23 to 34% of entries to the port of Santos (p. 57).
Based on a combined sample of 914 loans, averaging over ten contos (million réis) each.
According to Atack and Passell (1994: 526), “Few workers switched between these markets [casual day laborers and longer-term workers hired by the month] despite a substantial wage premium paid to day workers.”
In 1903, 1904, and 1907, the number of third-class departures from the Santos port exceeded the corresponding number of arrivals plus those coming to São Paulo from Rio de Janeiro via train (Hall 1969; Appendix I, pp. 184–5).
The probability of each occupation given race is approximately equal to the sum of two separate terms: 1.) the likelihood of being free given that race, times the probability of that occupation given “free” and 2.) the likelihood of being slave given that race, times the probability of that occupation given “slave.”
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The author is grateful for helpful comments from participants at the 41st Annual Economic and Business History Society Conference, “On the Role of Labor” session (Montréal 2016); and at related seminars held at meetings of the Western Economic Association International (Portland 2016) and Eastern Economic Association (New York 2017), and by the Economics Department at Western Washington University (Bellingham 2017). The author also thanks the editor, referees, and production team for their suggestions; the usual disclaimer applies.
Appendices
Appendix 1
See Table 7.
Appendix 2
See Table 8.
Appendix 3
See Table 9.
Appendix 4
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Bucciferro, J.R. A lucrative end: abolition, immigration, and the new occupational hierarchy in southeast Brazil. Cliometrica 15, 391–418 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11698-020-00211-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11698-020-00211-4