A “Safe Haven”: Runaway Slaves, Mocambos, and Borders in Colonial Amazonia, Brazil
2002; Duke University Press; Volume: 82; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1215/00182168-82-3-469
ISSN1527-1900
Autores Tópico(s)History of Medicine and Tropical Health
ResumoA chapter in the saga of Portugal’s Atlantic discoveries can be reconstructed by following the trails blazed by the settlement of the colonial Amazon between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly in the eastern border regions of Brazilian Guyana. This immense sector of the Amazon was known as Terras do Cabo Norte (Lands of North Cape) throughout most of the colonial period. Like other parts of the Amazon, it was not necessarily impervious to the process of colonization. While the metropole was paying close attention to the crates of sugar leaving the northeastern ports, missionaries and travelers ventured out and borders were demarcated in the far-flung corners of the vast Amazon region. In the beginning, the eastern Amazon was not occupied in economic terms, but it soon attracted the attention of the authorities in Portugal. Although scattered, some small forts were built, beginning in the seventeenth century. And they were not just Portuguese. Not far off, British and French forts also appeared. Interests and objectives were still being defined as settlers gradually arrived. The attention of merchants and colonial landowners was directed elsewhere. Meanwhile, indigenous groups of the region were moving in their own directions.In the far north of colonial Brazil, in what is now the state of Amapá, fugitives—blacks, Amerindians, and military deserters—played a leading role in the pursuit of freedom. Through their own acts, they reinvented meanings and constructed views of slavery and liberty. Moreover, they colonized and occupied vast swathes of the Amazon, particularly those on international colonial borders. Settlers arrived. Ships cast anchor. Economic calculations were made. Forts were built. Boundary markers were put in place. Laws and regulations were sent. Several kinds of adventures were beginning for the men and women in those parts.Fugitives created escape routes. Flight and the establishment of maroon societies (mocambos) in those borderlands took on new meanings. This article illuminates one aspect of the black experience in the Brazilian Guyana region during colonial times. Being a border area, “lessons of colonization” also resulted from the historical experiences of the mocambos and the transnational movement of fugitives. The experiences of the mocambos in the immense Amazon were unique. Their economy was predominantly extractive and until the middle of the century, indigenous labor—slave and free—was more prevalent than that of Africans and their descendents. Furthermore, environmental and geographic conditions, and the “agency” or role of indigenous groups, those in the missions and later in directory system controlled by representatives of the Portuguese crown, and the actions of military deserters altered the scope of possibilities and historical options for establishing mocambos in the Amazon than in other parts of colonial Brazil.1In 1621 the Portuguese crown created the state of Maranhão and Grão-Pará as an administrative unit under the direct control of Lisbon and separate from the state of Brazil. Until the mid-eighteenth century, this region encompassed the entire Portuguese Amazon, Ceará, and Piauí. The colonial government would only divide the areas of Maranhão and Grão-Pará into captaincies in the early second half of the 1700s.2In the initial days of settlement in Grão-Pará, the plantation system was attempted, primarily to grow sugar and tobacco. That experiment failed, mainly due to a lack of vital investments, the price of African labor, which was higher than in Bahia and Pernambuco, as well as epidemics and geographic difficulties. The region’s sugar and tobacco production was eventually destined for internal consumption. Producing aguardente was given priority, and an extractive economy was developed through the drogas do sertão (drugs of the wilderness): cocoa, vanilla, sarsaparilla, urucum, cloves, andiroba (Guyana crabwood), musk, amber, ginger, and piassava. There was also turtle fishing. Coins only began to circulate in Grão-Pará in the mid-eighteenth century. In the previous century, the pillars of the region’s economy rested on the gathering of forest products and indigenous labor. Everything depended on the Amerindians, who worked as guides, fishermen, hunters, bearers, and farinha makers. The region was sparsely settled and the tiny white population basically consisted of colonial civil servants.3Brazilian historiography has generally neglected the African presence in the Amazon. More concerned with “economic cycles”—particularly the sugar, gold, and coffee booms—it has merely sought to analyze the role of slaves in major exporting areas. The basic model consisted of the plantation, the manor house, and productive units with large numbers of black slaves. The presence of African slaves was believed to have had little economic significance in the Amazon, its socioeconomic landscape had only room for Amerindians. In fact, the Amerindians who were forgotten and excluded from colonial Brazil by historiography after the first years of colonization seem only to have existed in Grão-Pará.4 However, there was more to that region than jungle and Amerindians. The classic work by Vicente Salles is worth noting. It demonstrated that Africans and their descendants were present in the Amazon from the end of the seventeenth century. The first Africans to arrive in Grão-Pará came from the Amapá region between circa 1580 and 1620. They were taken there by the British, who set up trading posts on the coast of Macapá and along the straits.5Compared with other colonial areas, the African slave trade was rather insignificant in the Amazon. Due to a lack of investment capital, it was hard to compete with faster-growing markets that required a continual supply of slave labor and focused on exports. Grão-Pará would be crushed by the competition of sugar from Pernambuco and Bahia, cotton from Maranhão and gold from Minas Gerais. Because the predominantly indigenous population was not an adequate source of labor, settlers complained to the crown that African slaves were needed in that region. Subsequently, in 1682, through a royal permit granted to a monopolist company backed by Portuguese capital, an attempt was made to take 500 slaves to Maranhão and Grão-Pará annually under a 20-year contract. However, that enterprise failed. The permit was cancelled because not a single slave had arrived there by 1685. In 1690 the Companhia de Cachéu e Cabo Verde was formed to take at least 145 Africans per year to that region for a preset price.6The influx of African slaves was modest between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Between 1692 and 1721, 1,208 Africans were taken to Grão-Pará, a very small number compared to the 300,000 to 350,000 Africans taken to the Northeast in the second half of the seventeenth century. The African slave trade to the Amazon was still nearly paralyzed. Prices remained high and settlers—increasingly eager for African workers—went into debt. Even so, 28,556 Africans arrived in Maranhão and Grão-Pará between 1756 and 1788. Of these, 16,077 went to several parts of Grão-Pará.7 Settlers also complained that shipments of Africans bound for Grão-Pará were diverted to Maranhão and Mato-Grosso.There are no statistics for the period prior to 1755. Shipments were sporadic and many were diverted to Maranhão. In his study of the slave trade in the Amazon, Colin MacLachlan warns that statistical data should be used with care. They are most useful to point out trends in the importation of Africans. However, it is difficult to determine the exact number of Africans because the peça de Índia, a standard unit of measurement used in the slave trade, denotes one to three African slaves.8In the course of attempts to take Africans to Grão-Pará, there were several conflicts in the eighteenth century involving colonial and Portuguese authorities and residents of Belém and São Luís. Belém residents and merchants complained that they were always passed over and kept at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the sale of Africans to Maranhão. Thanks to cotton, the Maranhão region in the second half of the eighteenth century was more prosperous, which considerably increased the demand for slaves. In terms of agriculture, the areas of Grão-Pará that benefited the most during that period were restricted to the outskirts of Belém and the Macapá delta. Even so, because the slave market in São Luís was more attractive, there were differences in price. Between 1779 and 1790, the average number of Africans imported to Maranhão annually was 1,605, compared with 547 in Grão-Pará. According to Salles, “Despite this sporadic traffic and special conditions on which the Amazonian economy was based, blacks would reach these far-flung corners anyway,” although their “numeric scale would be progressively reduced, as we moved away from the nucleus of Belém.”9 Even in the remotest regions of Grão-Pará, however, the black population established a presence. The slave trade in that area began to grow in the second half of the eighteenth century. This process resulted from the marquis de Pombal’s policies in that region. During the administration of Governor Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Fur-tado (1751–59)—Pombal’s half-brother—the sale of Africans in Grão-Pará grew rapidly, particularly through the creation of the Companhia Geral do Comércio do Maranhão e Grão-Pará (1755–78). African slave trade was carried on privately and illegally, through smugglers and creole slaves who moved into the area from other captaincies (53,217 slaves entered the Amazon region between 1755 and 1820).10Although the traffic in black slaves was small compared with Maranhão and other slave areas, groups of slaves would be transported to work in several parts of the colonial Amazon. Even in the region of Rio Negro (now the state of Amazonas), where indigenous labor was predominant, the last quarter of the eighteenth century saw the beginning of a trend towards replacing the Amerindian workforce with Africans and their descendents. Data for 1786 regarding the rural area of Barcelos, Rio Negro, indicates the existence of fazendas and small landholdings owned by 27 whites and 60 Amerindians, and worked by black and indigenous slaves. We know that 116 black slaves and 76 Amerindian sharecroppers worked on white-owned land. There were also 130 blacks and 84 indigenous sharecroppers working on small fazendas owned by Amerindians. On the basis of calculations of per capita productivity, Ciro Cardoso determined that farms owned by Amerindians were more productive and suggests that they and their families might have worked “alongside their slaves and employees.” In the city of Belém, in the later decades of the eighteenth century, the black slave population was also on the rise. Even in more remote regions, such as Santarém and the towns and former missions in the areas of Tapajós, Solimões and Tocantins Rivers, the black slave population, although minute, established a presence in the final decades of the eighteenth century. Farmers and peasants attempted to develop small farms and an extractivist economy using indigenous workers and black slaves.11As Ciro Cardoso stresses, although black slavery grew in the Amazon in the second half of the eighteenth century and the first two decades of the nineteenth century, it was still far removed from the typical characteristics of plantation colonies. The first sugar plantations were established in the Belém region. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the number of royal engenhos— sugar producers—fell and were replaced by small aguardente distilleries. These required a smaller investment of capital and “chronic poverty made it impossible to solve the labor shortage” in that region.12 In 1751 there were only 24 royal engenhos in the entire captaincy of Grão-Pará. Also, the construction of forts throughout the eighteenth century due to the militarization of the borderlands, particularly near French and Spanish possessions, created a demand for Amerindian and African labor.13In Grão-Pará, the production of rice, cotton, and especially coffee and cacao predominated between 1773 and 1818. Cacao was an important crop in the Tocantins region.14 As for coffee, it was first planted in Pará in 1727, taken there from Cayenne—French Guyana—by Sergeant Major Francisco de Melo Palheta after he went there on a “commission” from the governor of the captaincy. Two decades later, about 17,000 coffee bushes had been planted there. Livestock husbandry predominated in the Marajó area. In 1783 there were 153 cattle and horse fazendas on Joanes Island and in the surrounding region. That number rose to 226 in 1803.15 In terms of exports, however, the colonial economy of Grão-Pará stagnated in the late eighteenth century. Between 1796 and 1811 the top ten products included cacao, cotton, rice, fine cloves, coffee, sarsaparilla, leather, aguardente, copaiba oil, and untanned hides.16 According to Manoel Barata, Grão-Pará’s “secondary” products included sugar, cinnamon, indigo, andiroba oil, honey, tapioca, Brazil nuts, guaraná, soap, turtle butter, starch, tar, logs and planks of a variety of woods.17Between 1750 and 1820, as Cardoso argues, a countless number of humble sítios with few or no slaves or indigenous workers developed in this vast colonial area alongside plantations and large cattle and horse fazendas. These units could produce export items, but were characterized by crops destined for local markets. In these agrarian structures, Africans gradually replaced indigenous workers.18 In terms of the agrarian structure of the colonial Amazon, both small- and medium-sized units of production predominated. These were more associated with subsistence farming than exports, and did not exclusively use slave labor. The village of Barcelos, in the Rio Negro region, is a noteworthy example of many colonial rural settlements in several parts of the Amazon. The 87 rural landholdings there had an average of 2.83 slaves and 1.84 indigenous workers each. In Barcelos, per capita food production was as much as seven times greater than production for export. Even considering the scarcity of quantitative data for the colonial period, the predominant agricultural activities in the Amazon were subsistence farming and the production of food for local markets. During the eighteenth century, this vast colonial area became a peasant society (campesinato), particularly after 1750. According to Cardoso, there were three kinds of peasant societies: (1) missions and aldeamentos (missionary-run Amerindian villages) that became towns after 1757; (2) free small farmers, who consisted of former soldiers, deported convicts, mestiços and free Amerindians, whether “landowners or not, with highly varying degrees of connection to the market”; and (3) Amerindian slaves (until 1757) and black slaves who profited from “the shares they received from the fazendas, and when their masters gave them the time to work [their own fields], selling any surplus they produced.”19 We could also include the countless mocambos—particularly in the eastern borderlands—in the eighteenth century; however the socioeconomic and political relations between these areas and Portugal and other parts of the Portuguese empire constitute another parameter.20More detailed information about the structure of the slave economy based on African slave labor in colonial Grão-Pará is scarce. What we do know is that the extractive economy persisted and indigenous labor—first slave, and then free in the aldeamentos—was still used. Food crops, particularly manioc, were planted for internal consumption. In 1759, for example, the fields of Macapá yielded 3,850 alqueires of rice and large quantities of maize, cotton, bananas, and watermelons.21 The slave population of African origin was actually scattered throughout the Amazon in the eighteenth century. Black slaves not only worked the fields side by side with Amerindians but also gathered “drugs of the wilderness,” operated canoes, and built the military fortifications that dotted Grão-Pará.The colonial areas of the Amazon were rife with mocambos and fugitives. Furthermore, because British, French, Dutch and Spanish interests surrounded the border region, there was always the fear that slaves might escape from Portuguese territory. The borders were mobile, being the objects of constant disputes, particularly in the second half of the eighteenth century.Conflicts and borders explain the historical processes of this region from the late 1600s and throughout the eighteenth century. In his chronicles of Grão-Pará, Baena observed that disputes between the Portuguese and French had worsened since the last quarter of the seventeenth century. The Oiapoque River area had belonged to Portugal since 1636, and was first explored in 1678. At that time, the French were known to have explored as far as the source of the Amazon River and penetrated into surrounding areas. In 1685 Gomes Freire de Andrade complained to the governor of Cayenne that the French were going to Cabo Norte to buy Amerindians. Three years later, the king of Portugal expressed his displeasure to the governor of Grão-Pará because he had received a complaint from the French ambassador stating that four Frenchmen accused of trading near the mouth of the Amazon River had been imprisoned and mistreated. On that occasion, he asked for the punishment of those responsible for such arbitrary acts. Illicit trade between the French and Amerindians in the borderlands was always a cause for concern for the Portuguese authorities. It was prohibited by the ordinances of the Overseas Council. In 1721, and once again in 1723 and 1724, military expeditions were sent to suppress that commercial intercourse.22The eastern region of Grão-Pará captaincy—on the border with French Guyana—gave the most cause for concern. With the help of merchants and indigenous groups, escaped slaves migrated from the Portuguese and French sides of the border in search of freedom. The two crowns had signed a treaty in 1732 regarding the return of fugitives, which in this context initially had more to do with Amerindians. However, territorial disputes made it more and more difficult to control and police that area. There was mutual distrust between France and Portugal regarding their colonies in that region. Doing their best to honor the treaty, the French and Portuguese authorities returned runaway slaves to each other on several occasions. In 1732, 12 blacks owned by a Frenchman, Dit Limozin, escaped from the presidio in Cayenne. That year saw complaints from the French and Portuguese alike about constant escapes by slaves and the process of returning captives, which was usually complicated. There was a steady stream of protests. On that occasion, the governor of Pará complained that he had received “harsh” letters from French slaveholders and even from the governor of Cayenne about delays in returning fugitives. However, he observed that the French did not always observe the Treaty of Utrecht. Furthermore, Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries also complained that their slaves had fled into Cayenne. The Portuguese authorities reminded the French that the return of runaway slaves had to be reciprocal. In 1733, when handing back 25 slaves to French settlers, the authorities of Grão-Pará demanded reciprocity from their counterparts in French Guyana. The following year, King John I instructed the captain general of the state of Maranhão to return slaves from Cayenne who sought refuge in Portuguese territory. The Portuguese crown would punish anyone who sheltered fugitives on their side of the border.23Escapes were frequent and slaves began to flee en masse. When the Portuguese returned slaves to the French with guarantees that they would not be punished, this did not necessarily solve the problem. The Portuguese accused the French of punishing returned fugitives “severely,” which led to further escapes, even by the same slaves. The king of Portugal even demanded that the French authorities promise not to execute recaptured slaves returned to them. The French not only complained—and loudly—but did everything they could to retrieve their runaway slaves. It was charged that French envoys infiltrated the border regions to spy on and capture fugitives. The return of escaped slaves—and the escapes themselves—would become a problem for French and Portuguese authorities alike.24 There were complaints about French incursions purportedly intended to capture fugitives. The problem was more complex in a disputed border region. In 1727 Portuguese and French officers and soldiers set out on a joint mission on the Oiapoque River to inspect the landmarks stipulated by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. In 1728 the inspection was repeated, and landmarks and drawings were identified that confirmed the division of Portuguese and French territory. Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and principally French settlers crossed the borders to hunt for runaway slaves, trade with Amerindians, and expand their dominions. In 1724 Portuguese authorities based in Grão-Pará seized a ship from French Guyana, following orders from the Overseas Council. They discovered that its crew had intended to engage in trade in the border region. Every move sparked suspicions and redoubled vigilance.25Amid these disputes and fears, slaves never stopped escaping in the eastern borderlands. Although the forest was dense and, therefore, a guaranteed refuge, the escape routes they followed were risky and dangerous. When fleeing from Cayenne to Pará or vice versa, fugitives usually preferred to go by sea or along the region’s many rivers. If they entered the steep forests they could fall prey to hunger, wild animals, fevers, and the tracking dogs of their French pursuers. In the Pesqueiro area of Macapá, for example, the bodies of three fugitives were found “who died perhaps from hunger or wild beasts, for the signs do not indicate clearly what happened as the vegetation and marshes were flooded, and only the mountains and hills were free.”Runaways made canoes and rafts to sail the waterways. In 1765 word came from Amapá that fugitives had crossed the Matapi River on rafts, which could be found in the grasslands beside the Uanará-Pecú River and the lakes of the Arapecú River, where sure signs that the fugitives had been there were also discovered. However, boats often sank. While sailing off of Cabo Norte, Manoel Antônio de Oliveira Pantoja, learned that some runaway black slaves from Cayenne had been there, and found the remnants of their shipwrecked boats. It was even said that some, stalked by hunger and despair, turned back and gave themselves up voluntarily. In fact, while hunting at the headwaters of a stream, an Amerindian came across four slaves who were weak from eating only hearts of palm for several days. Their owners were residents of Grão-Pará.26Over the years, colonial disputes remained unresolved and slaves kept on fleeing. Their frequent escapes were accompanied by a steady stream of complaints from the French. It was not unusual for canoes to sail to Grão-Pará from Cayenne to capture runaway slaves. The authorities also learned that there were blacks from Cayenne in the Maguari-Caviana Point region. It should be observed that escape routes ran in both directions. Although the French continually complained, the stream of escaped slaves fleeing from Grão-Pará to Cayenne was just as steady. Some news was alarming. In 1752 a French escort ship that had stopped in Belém made the local authorities very nervous. They did not want any contraband whatsoever, although many soldiers were bartering goods to obtain “some heavy kerchiefs and pieces of striped cloth they could hide in their fort.”27 In September 1773, escaped slaves from Grão-Pará were later identified in Cayenne. According to the Jesuit Laillet, “A little over two years ago seven blacks arrived here in Cayenne after several battles and deaths, but they were poorly received,” in this case, punished and imprisoned.28The entire region was involved in conflicts caused by colonial disputes. Slave escapes and the establishment of mocambos were an integral component of this hostile environment. There were fears of slave revolts and foreign invasions; consequently, all events were closely monitored by authorities. The case of Squad Leader Leonardo José Ferreira, which took place years later while he was traveling in that region, sheds light on this issue. In 1777, when working with Amerindians and in contact with fishermen near Cayenne, he proposed to spy on the French settlers in that region for some sort of “prize.” The most interesting detail is that he believed that espionage activities would not arouse the least suspicion among the French. While contacting local fishermen, he would pretend to be hunting for runaway slaves in the surrounding forests. Looking for mocambos was to be his cover. Although they were eager for news of Cayenne, the highest colonial authorities in Grão-Pará were afraid to send him on this espionage adventure at the time. Three years later, after the same Squad Leader Leonardo José Ferreira had arrested runaway slaves from Cayenne in Macapá, he warned, “These blacks may have fled without any motive that should cause concern, but I remember that it may well be [that] this said escape is a pretext for an intelligent person to come to Macapá and observe us.” Quilombolas who escaped from Cayenne and Pará established their mocambos close to the borders and migrated throughout the region.29More than the forest itself, the borderlands were a safe haven for quilombolas. Portuguese men-of-war kept a close watch on the entrance to Guyana and the Oiapoque River, right on the border, in an attempt to prevent runaway slaves from leaving and French settlers from entering. However, the sea was like the forest—too vast to be effectively patrolled. While sailing past Cabo Norte, José de Santa Rita came upon five “Portuguese blacks” who had escaped from Cayenne and were in a “small boat” sailing along “the coast for 30 to 40 days” until they reached Mexiana Point, where they were found and escorted back. The borderlands were not only a geographic refuge but also a perfect social and economic hideaway in the Amazon. As they did elsewhere, fugitives sought to form groups, develop an economy and seek alliances with other social sectors. In 1765 it was suspected that fugitives had run away from the forts being built in Amapá, and it was “well to presume that they keep to the farms, seeking in them the sustenance of maize and bananas.” Runaways and quilombolas certainly help. Although it did not always happen, to a certain extent they could count on the support of Amerindians, publicans, canoe owners, and other slaves. Certainly aware of the solidarity they might find, the commander of the fort of São José in Macapá ordered in 1766 that anyone who helped blacks escape would be duly punished.30Some of those borderlands were already settled by mocambos, Amerindian groups, and deserters. It was said that there was a “French inhabitant with 150 blacks” on Unari Mountain. The fugitives in those regions used several strategies. A petition to the Macapá city council stated that the quilombolas had a protective network involving fazenda slaves and other residents, “because they maintained friendships for part of the year, coming from the mocambo, where they hide, to the fields of this settlement, from where they not only take the produce but also clothing and tools.”31The colonial authorities were extremely concerned about the mocambos of the Amazon, particularly those in the borderlands. In 1734 they decided to organize expeditions to wipe out the mocambos and sent convoys to the headwaters of rivers to capture fugitives. Investigations revealed that there was an important mocambo on the Anauerapucú River in 1749, whose black residents had fled north when they were surprised by expeditions hunting Amerindians. The mocambos quickly began to appear and multiply. From north to south, and east to west in the vast expanse of that region, mocambos and/or quilombos were established. In 1762 residents of Arauari complained that their fields were being destroyed by slaves who lived in “large mocambos.”32Contacts between quilombolas and the French and other social sectors were not a threat or a promise. They were a fact that terrified the colonial authorities of Grão-Pará. Investigations shed light on the details of these colonial experiences. An interrogation conducted in Macapá in 1791 revealed how blacks on both sides of the border communicated with each other. Miguel, a slave owned by Antônio de Miranda, provided this information. On his way back from “his master’s field,” he came across José, the slave of the late João Pereira de Limos, who asked Miguel if he “wanted to see and talk to blacks who had run away.” José took Miguel to a corral, where they found Joaquim, the slave of Manoel do Nascimento. Miguel was then told that “their [the quilombolas’] signal is to suck in their lips,” as if they were whistling. They met several quilombolas who were suspicious because they did not know Miguel and threatened to “attack him with bows and arrows.” The first contacts began, and the quilombolas wanted to know “how they [black slaves] were doing around here,” meaning the town of Macapá. Miguel also asked “how they were doing over there” in the mocambos in the Araguari region as well as in the borderlands and the French territory. According to the quilom-bolas, “they were doing very well,” and had “large fields and they sold their produce to the French because they traded with them.” In the mocambo where they lived, there was also a Jesuit priest sent by the French, and it was he who “governed them and they had very good fortune.” At that time,
Referência(s)