The Specter of Crisis: Slaveholder Reactions to Abolitionism in the United States and Brazil

THE SPECTER OF CRISIS: Slaveholder Reactions to Abolitionism in the United States and Brazil Robert Brent Toplin* In a paper read before the Southern Historical Association's 1970 meeting Professor Thomas E. Skidmore closed a comparative study of race relations in the United States and Brazil with an interesting suggestion . He recommended that historians begin related research by asking first about the similarities between conditions in the two countries rather than asking about the differences. Whether the subject is slavery, abolition, or race relations, this proposal seems helpful. Too often comparative studies begin with an a priori observation that the conditions in the two countries were noticeably distinct, leading the sudent into a web of difficulty in defining the sources of contrast. By first examining the similarities between the United States and Brazil, the contrasts can more readily be placed where they belong.1 In a more extended analysis it would be worthwhile to compare several aspects of the abolition controversy in the two countries with a view toward both similarities and differences. We would want to compare the ideologies of the abolitionist movements, the disagreements among abolitionists regarding gradualism and immediatism and moderate and radical tactics, the presence of racism in both the pro and antislavery camps, the extent to which proprietors manumitted their slaves, and " An earlier version of this paper was read before the 1971 meeting of the Southern Historical Association. The author is grateful for financial assistance from a Younger Humanist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a Ford Grant in the Humanities. 1 Thomas E. Skidmore, "Comparative Race Relations Since Emancipation—The United States and Brazil; How Different?," presented at the Southern Historical Association Meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, Nov. 12, 1970. Much of the confusion lias resulted from efforts to expand on the implications of contrasts suggested in Frank Tannenbaum, SZace and Citizen: The Negro in the Americas (New York, 1946) and Stanley M. Elkins, Shvery, A Probhm in American Institutional and Intellectual Life (Chicago, 1959), pp. 52-139. Two important studies which do much to clarify the problems involved in contrasting slavery and race relations in the United States and Latin America are: David Brion Davis, The Problem of Shvery in Western Culture (Ithaca, 1966), pp. 223-288; Carl N. Degler, Neither Bhck Nor White: Shvery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States (New York, 1971). 129 130CIVIL WAR HISTORY their reactions to programs for gradual, compensated emancipation.2 The present study is limited in that it addresses one major theme, yet a theme that can suggest approaches to the aforementioned topics. By beginning with an emphasis on similarities, the study asks: To what extent did the abolitionist movements in the United States and Brazil represent real threats to slaveholders in the two countries, threats not only in the form of applying pressure toward long-term emancipation but also immediate dangers? An understanding of the Brazilian experience will shed more light on the perspective of those American slaveholders who saw secession as an answer to their problems. In many ways the reasons slaveholders gave for their opposition to emancipation in the United States and Brazil reflected similar patterns of argument. Some of the most important concerns are immediately obvious . Simple pecuniary interest in the security of property would be one. Men who had invested heavily in servile labor would not want to see this investment suddenly decreed worthless. The threat to a whole life-style would be another primary concern of slaveholders facing an abolitionist challenge. Slaveholding generated a social and political world which would be altered radically if the fundamental institution on which it rested were destroyed. A fear of race adjustment in the postemancipation society also troubled the slaveholders. This problem is well documented regarding American history, but we should also be cognizant of the virulent forms of racism that pervaded Brazilian slaveholding society. The language of anti-abolitionist propaganda in Brazil in the 1880's became so laden with hostile stereotypes that the country's most famous black abolitionist, José do Patrocinio, thought, "prejudice against colored people can prolong slavery indefinitely." In both countries racism served as an obstacle to emancipation.3 Less obvious are the...