Description
Book SynopsisFirst published in Portuguese in 2006, Walter Fraga's
Crossroads of Freedom brings readers into the world of the last generation of enslaved men, women, and children who toiled in Bahia's sugar plantations and later struggled to make lives for themselves following Brazil's abolition of slavery in 1888.
Trade Review"Mary Ann Mahony has adeptly translated one of the best monographic histories of slaves for the vast sugar lands of Brazil. . . . This book extends Fraga’s 2004 dissertation and is a must read for specialists of slavery, emancipation, or Brazil, and, if contextualized, should be compelling to undergraduates and general readers as well. Highly recommended." -- I. W. Read * Choice *
“This rich collection of documents constitutes a major contribution to the literature on post-emancipation Brazil.” -- Oscar de la Torre * EIAL *
"[C]arefully researched ...
Crossroads of Freedom provides unique insights into what happened next following the emancipation of the slaves from the sugar plantations of Recôncavo." -- Eugene Carey * Latin American Review of Books *
"
Crossroads of Freedom is a pleasure to read and a tremendous contribution to the study of slavery and abolition." -- Anadelia A. Romano * Journal of Latin American Studies *
"A masterful translation. . . .
Crossroads of Freedom provides valuable insight into not only slavery and freedom in the Recôncavo of Bahia and Brazil by extension, but also how these social forces informed Brazilian race relations more generally and the directives of the black liberation struggle in terms of battling persistent patterns of social inequality." -- G. Reginald Daniel * Bulletin of Latin American Research *
"Walter Fraga's book is undoubtedly one of the most important results of Brazilian social history that has been produced in the past 15 years." -- Alain El Youssef * European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies *
Table of ContentsA Note on Currency and Orthography vii
Introduction to the English-Langauge Edition / Mary Ann Mahony xi
Foreword to the Brazilian Edition / Robert W. Slenes xxiii
Acknowledgments xxvii
Introduction 1
1. Slaves and Masters on Sugar Plantations in the Last Decades of Slavery 9
2. Tension and Conflict on a Recôncavo Sugar Plantation 29
3. Crossroads of Slavery and Freedom, 1880–1888 56
4. May 13, 1888 and Its Immediate Aftermath 74
5. Heads Spinning with Freedom 103
6. After Abolition: Tension and Conflict on Recôncavo Sugar Plantations 139
7. Trajectories of Slaves and Freed People on Recôncavo Sugar Plantations 161
8. Community and Family Life among Freed People 190
9. Other Post-emancipation Itineraries 211
Epilogue. In the Centuries to Come: Projections of Slavery and Freedom 236
Notes 245
Glossary 283
Bibliography 285
Index 301
