欧博allbetU.S. and World, studying past, wars, presi
Originally Posted by jpdivola
A lot to respond to here. But, the highlighted statement really demonstrates the sheer barbarity and inhumanity of slavery. It treated human being like animals. It is obviously wrong to us now. But, even then it was considered wrong by many people.
Of course, lots of societies have had slavery throughout history. But, slavery in the US was particularly bad in that it was racialized with an subordinated population across generations. At least in some other slave societies there were abilities to gain freedom and assimilate into the broader population over time.
I would like to think slavery would have died out in a generation or so without a war similar to Brazil. But, the war was started by the slave owners seceding and taking up arms against the US, so we will never know.
Additionally, given how ferociously equal treatment of black people was fought in the post-civil war years, it is unclear that slavery would have died out as quickly in the US. Post-slavery, Brazil did not have an explicit Jim Crow style system of strict laws mandating segregation. In fact, Brazil encouraged the idea of racial mixing (despite ongoing issues with racism), so clearly there were some differences between the US and Brazilian approaches to ending slavery/white supremacy.
Considering that the Confederates took up arms to keep slavery, I don't think slavery would have died out within a generation. When the Confederates lost, there were Confederates who went to Brazil so they could keep on owning slaves. I think the South would have kept on with slavery until about 1900. That's if its economy didn't collapse from international boycotts.
In the American South, slavery wasn't just an economic system. It was a matter of social hierarchy. Cavaliers from southwest England and English slave owners from Barbados settled the southern states. There was a strong emphasis on aristocracy, hierarchy, medieval manorialism (which morphed into slavery in Virginia and Maryland), an idle society where slaves did the hard labor. American slavery was also about maintaining a rigid social order. Race was front and center within that hierarchy. The idea was that the White slave owners/planters occupied the top, and Black people were doomed to be slaves for life, and at the bottom of the southern hierarchy. Economics was certainly part of why the southern states wanted to keep slavery. Another reason is that southern slave owners feared the idea of Black people having freedom. The idea was "if Black people are free, they will cause so many problems for southern Whites".
Brazil was very slow to abolish slavery as well. It was the last country in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery. While there weren't actual Jim Crow laws, Brazil is a country where racism still took place. On one hand, racial mixing wasn't prohibited. It wasn't treated as something to look down on. On the other hand, there was also an effort, at least in the earlier years post-slavery, to erase Brazil's African heritage. Capoeira is a very popular martial art from Brazil. However, it was banned until at least the 1930s. It wasn't fully legal to practice capoeira until 1940. There was a fear that former slaves would form gangs or start rebellions.
There is one thing to think about with Brazil. Colonialism by the Portuguese was very male-based. Most Portuguese who went to Brazil either didn't bring families with them, or they were single men. Not many Portuguese women went to Brazil. Indigenous women were already there. And the voyages between Africa and Brazil were relatively short. Bringing African slaves to Brazil wasn't as long a journey as taking them to North America. This men Portuguese men had mostly Indigenous or African women to reproduce with. Any notions of racial purity disappeared. There was no such thing as the "one drop" rule.
In America, racial purity became a matter of the hierarchy, especially in the South. The English brought their families over. Slaves were also harder to get. Eventually, while slavery was still legal, importing slaves wouldn't be legal. In America, having one drop of African ancestry made you a Black person. Part of it was the obsession with racial purity. It was a matter of making sure Black men weren't able to have intimate access to White women. Another part was making sure there were plenty of slaves. As slave importation was made illegal, slave owners still wanted slaves. This is where the one-drop rule comes in. One drop meant you could be made a slave (if the mother was born a slave too).
America and Brazil have very divergent histories when it comes to slavery. Brazil had slavery for much longer. However, Brazil was also much less obsessed with racial purity than America was.