Race, State, and Armed Forces in Independence-Era Brazil: Bahia 1790s -1840s (review)

Kraay has taken on large, complicated, intertwined issues seeking to use the military as a vehicle to study race and the formation of Bahia's provincial society in the decades prior to and after Brazilian independence. Just one of these topics would be a major endeavor, seeking to tie them together was a difficult task. What role did race play in provincial military affairs? Kraay suggests that race as a stimulus for rebellion was weak in Bahia's post-colonial tri-racial society of blacks, pardos, and whites. Of course, slavery cut across such divisions, as did the complexity of skin tones and social-economic status. It was easier in the colonial era to specify race, but even then one's status, connections, or employment might play a role in determining one's perceived race.

Kraay's locus is Salvador, Bahia, only rarely does he refer to other places. Travelers have long commented on the darkness of Salvador's population. It is a pity that he did not begin this study before the Vice-regal capital was transferred to Rio de Janeiro in 1763, because it would have given a firmer base-line to understanding Brazil's military history. His provincial perspective allows him to examine the anxious tension that occurred when Crown Prince Pedro declared independence in 1822. Should Bahia maintain its loyalty to Lisbon or follow Rio de Janeiro? The answer was not a foregone conclusion, although most textbook accounts seemingly assume that it was. Kraay sees the legacy of the independence era's militarization in the "rounds of seditions, social unrest, and political upheaval between 1824 and 1838" (p. 30). Such a perspective makes Brazil's experience in those years more comparable to that of Spanish American countries.

He devotes several chapters to aspects of the Portuguese imperial regime, the collapse of the colonial military between 1820 and 1825, and the concurrent crumbling of the alliance between local officers and the planter class and the related darkening of the enlisted ranks. In two chapters he discusses the meaning of the creation of the Brazilian imperial state and the effects attempted liberal reforms of the slave society had on the military. Liberal fear of upsetting long-established social hierarchies weakened action toward equality. He analyzed Bahia's failure in 1848 to follow through on strong separatist opinion by noting that the army units in Salvador no longer were made up of local officers and troops, but of soldiers from other provinces whose loyalties were to the imperial government. The 1840's saw the formation of a national army that significantly eliminated what remained of Bahian planter class "direct, personal control over the officers in Salvador" (p. 254).

How much of the Bahian experience can be generalized to Brazil as a whole? This question rightly concerned Kraay for several pages in his conclusion. "Salvador's experience of Brazilian independence," he said, "was quite similar to that of the other principal port cities of the North and Northeast, Recife, São Luiz, and Belém" (p. 256). He rightly emphasized that "there is no single, linear narrative of Brazilian independence" (p. 256). Separation from Portugal and inclusion in the Brazilian empire were severely disputed affairs that played out differently in each province. However, one thing that was universal was objection to forced recruitment into the military, so much so that it contributed to several rebellions, for example the Balaiada (1831-48) in Maranhão.

He showed some sloppiness in referring to the army units stationed in Ba-hia. At the most Kraay was studying the history of a garrison, first a Portuguese one under direct Lisbon control, and then a Brazilian garrison under orders from Rio de Janeiro, but he calls it a Bahian army, Bahian armed forces, Bahian battalions, etc. At best such usage may accurately describe the main origin of the officers and men at a particular point, at worse it can be cause of considerable confusion.

That matter aside...