Orphans and the transition from slave to free labor in Northeast Brazil: the case of Campina Grande, 1850-1888.

The end of the African slave trade in 1850 signalled a coming labor crisis in Brazil. Between 1850 and abolition in 1888 the balance of slave distribution in the Brazilian empire shifted significantly as slaveowners in the North and Northeast sold their human property to coffee planters in the South. Inflated slave prices in the South proved irresistible to the sugar producers of the Northeast, at that time facing tough competition from European beets and Cuban cane.(1) The image of a languishing Northeast contrasted to a booming Southeast is not, however, fully accurate, for while sugar prices fluctuated, the price for Brazilian cotton soared during the 1860s. The Northeastern province of Paraiba, for example, witnessed an unprecedented boom between 1863 and 1871. Civil war in the United States, of course, brought on much of the Northeastern cotton prosperity. And while slaves had worked the cotton fields in the North American South, cultivation of the Brazilian product fell to the free: the expansion of cotton production coincided with the busy days of the interprovincial slave trade that drained Africans to the South.(2) The Northeast, then, should have pioneered the experiment with agricultural wage labor in Brazil. In fact, it was the area where a colonial mode of production most tenaciously endured. The 1872 census, for instance, demonstrates that of the 15,104 slave and free who lived in the Paraiban municipality of Campina Grande, a mere five (0.03 percent) claimed to work for a daily wage.(3) Such dearth of wage laborers combined with a dwindling slave population might be explained during an economic downturn. But this was not the case in the Northeastern hinterland during an important part of the period. The labor crisis, furthermore, worsened between 1865 and 1870 when hundreds of potential free workers were recruited into the army to fight in Paraguay. An alternative source must have eased the transition from slave to free labor during the boom years.(4) For the area around Campina Grande, Paraiba, there is indeed evidence that an unusual labor source was tapped: free but fatherless children who had not yet reached legal adulthood.(5) This essay will discuss the legal precedent for employing the labor of orphans, and then will examine in some detail use of that labor in Campina Grande between 1850 and 1888. Finally, I will speculate on how this transitional labor force contributed to cement traditional social relations instead of paving the way for the emergence of an economy fully dependent on wage labor.

The Brazilian legal system contemplated orphans in a special way. Brazilian law, inherited largely from the Portuguese Roman tradition, carefully protected property rights of minors. Marriages, with rare exceptions, followed a system of community property; all the family's material possessions belonged equally to the husband and to the wife. Yet when either spouse died, the survivor did not become owner of the whole. Quite the contrary. At the same time that the state scrupulously upheld the rights of the survivor to half the estate, it also zealously guarded the children's rights to inherit from their deceased parent. Thus, when a married person died the entire estate was divided: the surviving spouse maintained half share; the deceased could, by testamentary provision, dispose freely of one-third of the remainder; and the children inherited equally the remaining two-thirds of the deceased's half of the family property (or one-third of the entire estate). When there was no will, children shared in the full one-half of the family property.(6)

In a society where parents sired many offspring, and where life-expectancy was short, children frequently inherited from one parent or the other before reaching adulthood. The state, therefore, legislated responsibility for protecting the property of orphans (understood as those who had lost at least one parent).(7) In the eyes of the law, fathers remained the most competent administrators of their children's worldly goods. They became guardians (tutores) of their motherless children in all cases, except when mental incompetency could be proved.(8) Mothers, on the other hand, were more problematic as guardians. A widow who remarried might put the interests of her new husband and of the children from the new union above those of her offspring from a previous marriage. A widow who did not remarry appeared more likely to take in lovers and thus raise her children in a morally unacceptable environment. Single mothers occupied an even more troubling position than did widows. Natural children of unknown fathers shared the status of orphans. Women who bore children outside marriage were subject to accusations of leading "irregular" lives and of instilling damaging mores in their children. The state, then, made provisions to place men in charge of the heirs' possessions whenever the mother appeared unfit to do so. Widows, nonetheless, often did fulfill the role of guardians of their orphaned children's inheritance, highlighting the degree of power they could achieve when they played their proper role within a highly paternalistic system.(9)

This essay, however, is concerned not with propertied orphans, but with those children whose families had no wealth to divide upon the death of a parent. Without doubt, this propertyless group comprised the vast majority of Brazilian citizens in the nineteenth century. In the municipality of Campina Grande, for example, approximately 85 percent of the free population owned nothing of value to be shared among heirs.(10) The state that regulated care of orphans' material possessions also concerned itself with the moral and physical well-being of those who owned no property. Thus, the law stipulated that guardians should be appointed to care for and educate those children from whom fate had taken a provider without endowing them with earthly goods.(11) The poor also participated in the system of tutorias (guardianships).

The state's concern that poor orphans, if left to themselves, might subvert the communal order prompted measures to knit these children back into the social fabric. To accomplish this goal, orphans should be properly brought up, taught the value of hard work, and able to ensure their own livelihood once they reached adulthood and left the company of their guardians. Therefore, and in recognition of the monetary value of a child's labor, guardians were required to deposit in the municipal treasury a pre-arranged yearly stipend (soldada) that would be transferred to the orphan once he became emancipated, either by reaching legal age(12) or marrying. In the case of young girls, guardians could either deposit a similar yearly stipend (although often a smaller amount than that assigned to boys) or ensure that they married. If more than one competent person sought guardianship of the same destitute orphan, the child would be placed in the care of the closest relative who offered the highest soldada.(13) Young men, thus, would have a nest-egg with which to begin life on their own and young women would have inducements to attract suitors. The potential handicap of orphanage in poverty could be surmounted.

The laws regulating orphans' care reflect the assumption that those who legally married and survived the vicissitudes of an environment that often claimed the lives of young adults bore the duty of properly raising the children of the less fortunate. This responsibility, of course, was not always wholeheartedly embraced. Orphans and abandoned children roamed the towns and countryside of Northeast Brazil in the nineteenth century as they had other towns and hinterlands in other regions for centuries before. The fate of these youngsters (especially when tied to the perception that criminals were recruited from their ranks) worried state authorities as their numbers grew. Most of the time, then, any type of care, even if provided by "unfit" mothers, was welcomed.

Certain conditions, however, made poor orphans more attractive to prospective guardians. In periods of labor shortage fatherless youngsters became a reserve army of potential workers. These particular conditions emerged in the Northeastern agreste around the middle of the nineteenth century.

The population of the agreste grew significantly throughout the nineteenth century. At a time when production of sugar cane stagnated along the coast and cattle ranching held sway in the sertao, this Northeastern region between the littoral and the dry hinterland, appropriate for growing food crops, attracted small planters seeking plots on which to grow sustenance for themselves and for their families. In some of the more fertile areas of the agreste, larger landholders experimented with new crops like coffee and wheat, or old ones like sugar cane. The agreste farmers also often planted cotton along with food staples.(14)

Cotton, like so many of Brazil's crops, was overwhelmingly exported. It fed the mills of Great Britain, the world's greatest textile producer. But Brazilian cotton faced stiff competition from other suppliers who were more tightly tied to the British imperial system. In the western hemisphere the United States was the great exporter of cotton to Britain; farther away, cotton exported from Egypt and India also competed with the Brazilian product. When the export of North American cotton to Great Britain was interrupted by the wars for independence (1776-1783), the War of 1812, and the American Civil War (1861-1865), scarcity brought increases in price and demand, and Brazilian suppliers did well. Yet although the population movement into the agreste responded in part to swings of the export market, the region never became dominated by large cotton plantations. Demand fluctuated so greatly and returns proved so uncertain that cotton always shared space with food crops. When the vagaries of the international economy reduced export profits, agreste farmers supplied food for themselves and for those who lived along the coast and in the sertao. Small wonder, then, that the region proved attractive to settlers.(15)

The province of Paraiba illustrates the growth of the agreste population during the nineteenth century. The free population almost tripled between 1782 and 1849. During those 67 years, however, the three geographic regions grew at remarkably different rates: the agreste expanded from 11,035 free inhabitants (21.03 percent of the free population) to 76,932 (50.79 percent). From the least inhabited of the three areas in 1782 it became the most populous in 1849, accounting for over one-half of the province's free citizens.(16)

Table I

Growth in Paraiba's Free Population by Region(*)

                  1782                 1849

Mata       30,092     57.35%    57,322    37.85%
Agreste    11,035     21.03%    76,932    50.79%
Sertao     11,341     21.62%    17,204    11.36%

Total      52,468    100.00%    151,458   100.00%

* The administrative divisions for the period--primeira comarca, segunda
comarca, and terceira comarca--correspond roughly to the three geographical
regions (the coastal strip, or zona da mata; the intermediate zone, or
agreste; and the dry hinterland, or sertao.

Source: Irineu Ferreira Pinto, Datas e notas para a historia da Parahyba, 2
vols. (Parahyba do Norte: Imprensa Official, 1908 and 1916).

After 1850, Paraiba's population also reflected the decline of slavery in the Northeast. The first 50 years of the nineteenth century witnessed a fairly consistent ratio of slave to free among Paraibans. In 1812, slaves comprised 13.6 percent of Paraiba's inhabitants while in 1852 they made up 13.4 percent of the population. This changed dramatically by 1872 when slaves were a mere 5.7 percent of the population. The number of Paraibans grew steadily after 1852, yet the absolute number of slaves declined by one-seventh as Northeasterners sold their slaves South and failed to replace them.(17)

During the twenty years between 1852 and 1872, production of cotton soared in Paraiba, primarily in the agreste. Revenue from cotton peaked in 1868 while the number of arrobas produced reached its zenith in 1871. The income from cotton grew almost eightfold between 1855 and 1868 and the amount of harvested cotton more than tripled between 1855 and 1871. As the province benefited from the export tax on cotton, Paraiba's budget doubled from 377:819$000 reis in 1861 to 777:233$000 reis in 1875. At the same time that the provincial presidents lamented the labor shortage and sought to comply with imperial attempts to staunch the flow of Paraiba's slaves to Southern coffee plantations, they agreed that cotton was the free man's choice, a poor man's crop.(18) While this was undoubtedly true, there must have been an increase in laborers as production accelerated; those laborers became superfluous when demand, price, and finally production of cotton plummeted after 1871.

Table II

Slave and Free Population of Paraiba

Year          Free             Slave            Total

1812    82,174    86.4%   12,988   13.6%    95,162   100%
1852    183,900   86.6%   28,546   13.4%   212,466   100%
1872    254,700   94.3%   21,526    5.7%   376,226   100%

Source: Pinto, Datas, vol. I, pp. 241-242, and vol. II, pp. 180-181, 207-208;
Galliza, Declinio da escravidao, p. 37; Brazil, Directoria Geral de
Estatistica, Recenseamento de 1872.

The Northeastern poor knew that substitutes for slaves would be sought after the end of the African trade. In the backlands of Pernambuco and Paraiba the free poor had become convinced as early as 1851 that the imperial government meant to enslave their children. A decree issued on June 18, 1851 mandated that births and deaths be recorded by notaries in the towns, rather than by parish priests as had been customary before. When publicity preceding implementation of the law reached Paraiba and Pernambuco in November and December of 1851, the poor protested violently, fearing that babies registered as "dark" would become slaves. Armed men and women rose up, and in Pernambuco actually seized control of a town, expelling the authorities who fled in fear of their lives.(19) The intensity of protest contributed to the Emperor's decision to revoke the registry decree in January 1852. Immediately after the end of the slave trade, Northeasteners understood that new sources of labor would be sought and found.

Table III

Cotton Exported From Paraiba 1855-1884

                 Price/Arroba         Value
Year   Arrobas      (reis)       (contos de reis)

1855   195,665       5$200            1,019
1856   255,492       5$250            1,339
1857    --(*)        --(*)            --(*)
1858   188,741       7$730            1,458
1859   156,150       7$650            1,193
1860   227,008       4$600            1,047
1861   178,267       8$300            1,473
1862   216,468      11$800            2,546
1863   197,505      18$700            3,702
1864   397,728      21$700            8,636
1865   446,973      16$200            7,241
1866   542,133      12$200            6,614
1867   398,620      10$200            4,066
1868   569,897      13$700            7,808
1869   533,609      14$000            7,471
1870   377,178      17$000            6,442
1871   681,355       8$850            6,030
1872   238,313       8$670            2,066
1873   215,802       7$350            1,586
1874   390,493       6$630            2,589
1875   249,884       6$150            1,537
1876   341,519       5$300            1,811
1877    87,750       5$900              521
1878    67,988       --(*)            --(*)
1879   109,057       --(*)            --(*)
1880    --(*)        --(*)            --(*)
1881    --(*)        --(*)            --(*)
1882   215,028       6$050            1,299
1883   133,980       6$660              893
1884   137,898       6$000              829

* Figures not available

Source: Relatorio do presidente da provincia da Parahyba, 1855-1884.

While children of the poor were rarely relegated to outright slavery, evidence for the municipality of Campina Grande points to increased demand for the labor of orphans during the 1860s; this demand decreased during the 1870s and disappeared almost completely during the great drought of 1877-1880. During the 1860s and 1870s, individuals with labor needs sought out children who fell under the legal provisions regarding poor orphans, and requested that the orphans' judge grant them responsibility for raising the child. The existing practice of caring for orphans expanded to meet more pressing labor needs.

Laws governing guardianship of propertyless orphans entrusted civil authorities with the responsibility of identifying those children and providing them with guardians. In fact, a June 18, 1851 decree recommended that Inspetores de Quarteirao (the lowest division of the police hierarchy) diligently seek "orphans, or minors without a father, in order to inform the judge."(20) In Campina Grande, after 1850, actual practice of the law proved quite different. Individuals who wished to take on the care of orphans (and in return receive the use of their labor) sought out the children that they wanted and petitioned the orphans' judge to become guardians of specific individuals. The problem of abandoned orphans was not solved; authorities continued to lament the large numbers of fatherless children who desperately needed a guardian's care.(21) But those perceived as good laborers became disputed targets.

While working in several notaries' offices in Campina Grande transcribing nineteenth-century inventories I was surprised to find, interspersed in the inventory bundles, many requests to take on the guardianship of destitute orphans. At the time only those that went beyond the standard petition for children interested me since I planned to use descriptive information from these requests to illuminate social relations between the propertied and the poor. The resulting sample of 128 petitions, a small fraction of the total requests for wards, provides the anecdotal evidence in this essay. Nonetheless, the overwhelming majority of the tutoria papers in the Campina Grande notaries' offices are simply the standard, unembellished, requests for children. Most of the requesters resided in outlying areas, not in the township of Campina Grande, indicating that the wards would probably work in the fields. The agricultural nature of Campina Grande society and the legal provision that children of farmers would be entrusted as wards to other farmers(22) leads me to believe that often, when no specific work was stipulated in the wardship papers, the children worked as young farm laborers. The urban population, with easy access to the notarial office, complained to the judge or changed the status of the wards more often than did those who lived outside the town. Thus, some of the most interesting tutorias refer to children apprenticed to townsmen. Nonetheless, the sheer volume of requests for wards in areas referred to as sitios or lugares where farming was the norm attests to the significance of wardships among small farming families.(23)

The most systematic accounting of wardships is found in a "Livro de Tutellas" (Book of Wardships) kept for the municipality of Campina Grande between 1871 and 1874. In this listing, the notary recorded the name and age of each orphan, the child's place of residence, the parent granted guardianship (if that was the case), whether the orphan inherited property from the deceased parent, and, if not, the amount of the yearly stipend. During that three-year period, the judge assigned 250 children to guardians; 66 of these inherited some property while 184 did not. Of the 184 propertyless children, 134 were boys and 50 were girls, suggesting guardians of the poor preferred male laborers. Among the propertied, sex was far more evenly divided, although the 35 girls slightly outnumbered the 31 boys. For the non-propertied, mothers became guardians of 44, fathers of none, godparents of two. The vast majority (138), however, went to individuals outside the immediate family. The numbers for the propertied, not surprisingly, were quite different. Mothers became guardians of 41 children, fathers of 2, and 23 were entrusted to those outside the nuclear family. Among the propertyless 37 were described as natural children, 10 were offspring of "public women" (prostitutes), two were children of slaves, and two were foundlings. In contrast, all those who inherited property were legitimate children. Only 16 of the entire group of 250 orphans lived in the town of Campina Grande; the remainder were scattered throughout the surrounding countryside.(24)

The tutoria papers unveil a traditional society divided between the propertied and the poor. While degrees of wealth differentiated the propertied, labor helped define the place of the poor. Orphans without property were reintegrated into society through participation in the process of production. Many of the requests for orphans explicitly stated the service, or labor, expected from the children. Of the 184 destitute orphans listed in the "Livro de Tutellas," 73 were assigned a specific soldada in recognition of service to be provided, while three others were to be taught a trade and eight more sent to school in lieu of the yearly stipend. For 81 poor orphans the notary did not record whether or not a soldada had been assigned, and in 19 cases he clearly indicated the children were to receive no stipend. Of these, nine were boys aged six or under (and thus not yet of working age) and ten were girls between the ages of one and seventeen. Girls apparently were granted soldadas infrequently: 71 of the 73 recorded stipends went to boys and only two were assigned to girls. The boys were paid for their services, probably because their labor in the fields or in shops brought more immediate monetary returns than did the domestic service assigned to girls. Furthermore, facing a scarcity of slaves in an expanding agricultural economy, guardians had to offer stipends to be put in charge of youngsters whose labor others in their community also coveted.

Table IV

Orphan Wards in Campina Grande, 1871-1874 (n = 250)

                        Propertied          Poor
                     n = 66 (26.4%)   n = 184 (73.6%)

SEX

Boys                     31  (47%)         134 (73%)
Girls                    35  (53%)          50 (27%)

GUARDIANS

Mothers                  41  (62%)          44 (24%)
Fathers                   2   (3%)           0  (0%)
Godparents                0   (0%)           2  (1%)
Others                   23  (35%)         138 (75%)

BIRTH STATUS

Legitimate               66 (100%)         133 (72%)
Natural                   0                 37 (20%)
Of "Public Women"         0                 10  (5%)
Slaves                    0                  2  (1%)
Foundlings                0                  2  (1%)

Source: "Livro de Tutellas," 1871-1874, TCCG.

The emphasis on putting poor boys to work was perceived as a major benefit of the wardship system. When Jose Antonio de Farias Capoeiro asked to take on the care of a 12-year-old orphan, he stated that he would at least "make him acquire the habit of work." One of Campina Grande's wealthier citizens, Bento Pereira Luna, requested in 1865 that he be granted guardianship of his natural son, Firmino, now 14 years old, who had been born before Bento's marriage. He claimed this son lived in "complete indolence, with no occupation whatsoever, and is acquiring bad habits." The father wanted to be recognized as his son's guardian in order to give him an appropriate education which would, apparently, include some type of labor. (It is interesting to note that Bento was not inclined to recognize his son officially and thus give the boy inheritance rights.) In June of 1874, Joao Barbosa de Barros Silva asked to become the guardian of an orphan named Candido, offering to pay him 15$000 reis annually. He also volunteered to give the boy the "necessary education" and "through hard work, instill in him the love of good habits |faze-lo no trabalho ter amor aos bons costumes~."(25)

In both the city and the countryside, those who did not use their propertyless wards as common laborers proved exceptions to the norm. One uncle, requesting that the stipend for his nephew be waived, stated that he was educating the boy "in literature," as the village primary school teacher would confirm. Once the nephew learned to read and write he would be apprenticed to a blacksmith. Since "a literary and artisan's education should be preferred to hired labor," he expected to have his petition approved. It was, but one year later the judge transferred the boy to another guardian who resumed the yearly deposits.(26) The practice of "hired labor" resumed as well.

Facing a shortage of workers, many aspiring slaveowners probably found the tutorias system a good substitute for forced labor. In my sample of 128 tutoria requests, 94 (or 73 percent) were for the period between 1860 and 1875. For the years covered by the "Livro de Tutellas" (discussed above), my sample included 17 orphans. Assuming a correlation between the sample and the total number of tutorias granted that is roughly equal to that of the 1870-1874 period, then 1,017 poor orphans were officially entrusted to guardians between 1860 and 1875. During the five years between 1862 and 1867, my sample of 59 wards would be roughly equivalent to a total of 639 propertyless orphans who might have replaced slaves as laborers. For a town the size of Campina Grande, with a total slave population of 1,105 in 1872, these children became a significant labor source. Even those who could not afford slaves might become guardians of poor children. Orphans provided a viable alternative to slaves. The yearly contributions to the orphans' accounts in the municipal treasury were usually bargain rates for labor. Most stipends ranged from 12$000 reis to 50$000 reis per year. In comparison to slave values, orphaned children provided inexpensive labor, even considering the additional expense of feeding and clothing them. Since wardships could be cancelled if the children failed to render adequate service, orphans not only provided an alternative to the dwindling slave supply, they often constituted a less risky investment than purchasing slaves whose entire value had to be paid at one time and whose masters could not usually recuperate their investment if the slaves became ill, died, or ran away. Tutorias, then, could be used to enlarge the pool of laborers available to individuals who had the resources to pay a small yearly stipend for that labor.(27)

In the period when the labor of healthy orphans was in high demand, tutorias also reveal the vulnerability of single mothers. The law stipulated that only widows who lived honestly should be entrusted with the responsibility of raising children without a father. Thus, accusations against the moral rectitude of single mothers might free their children to work for others. As the cotton boom accelerated after 1861, so too did such accusations against poor mothers.(28)

The most vulnerable women were those whose children had been born out of wedlock. While natural children did have significant legal rights, even rights of inheritance from their father,(29) the morality of the mother who had not legally married was open to question. The mere assertion that an orphan was a natural child sometimes convinced the judge that he should appoint as guardian someone other than the mother.(30) Births out of wedlock were, however, common and complex enough that besides claiming a mother's single state, prospective guardians strengthened their case by further characterizing the woman as immoral and, therefore, unfit to raise her children. Thus, along with the classification of "natural" mother, we see in requests for wards descriptions of mothers as prostitutes, "public women" who led "evil lives," and practiced bad habits.(31)

Table V

Value of Slaves in Campina Grande, 1854-1887

             Price Range    Average Value
Age           (in reis)      (in reis)

6-10    300$000-  800$000    530$933
13-15   300$000-1:180$000    712$103
16-18   500$000-1:320$000    791$111

Source: 299 Inventarios and slave sales, Primeiro Cartorio de Campina Grande
and Terceiro Cartorio de Campina Grande.

Even widows who had been legally married could lose their children if charged with immorality. On the other hand, once a mother convinced the judge that she was honest, upright, and hardworking, she became by law the preferred guardian of her children. Because widows with no property could never assume that the judge would permit them to keep their children, their petitions focused on their moral rectitude. One woman, for example, explained to the judge that she was not only a good mother but also a conscientious daughter who cared for her own elderly mother as well as for her fatherless son. She supplied the testimony of a "pessoa de criterio" (an honorable individual) who assured the judge that she did indeed live honestly and worked to feed and clothe herself, her mother, and her son. The judge was convinced; he granted to her custody of the boy.(32) In the process, the mother conformed to expectations regarding the proper behavior of women, and became indebted to the patron who had helped her.

In October of 1865, Thereza Maria de Jesus stressed her personal honesty and her compliance to demands of the state when she petitioned to retrieve a son from his legal guardian. The widowed mother of two sons and a young crippled daughter, Thereza had recently lost both sons to the state. The eldest had been impressed by army recruiters and the second son, 14-year-old Antonio, under orders from the orphans' judge, had been placed in the service of Major Joao Florentino Cavalcante de Albuquerque. Claiming "extreme misery" exacerbated by the heavy responsibility of caring for her handicapped daughter, Thereza petitioned the judge to return Antonio to her custody so that he might help support his mother and his little sister. She argued that she should be given back her son based on "the benefits established by law in favor of women" particularly since she was "still a widow who lived honestly and was of advanced age." The judge granted her request.(33)

Other widows were not so fortunate. Those accused of dishonesty, reprehensible conduct, living in concubinage, or leading unregulated lives, lost their children to strangers.(34) Realizing this might happen, poor mothers sometimes willingly gave infants to individuals they knew and trusted. These "foster parents" requested guardianship of the child before it reached working age and became attractive to those seeking laborers.(35) In the best of circumstances, a poor mother had to find bondsmen to convince the judge that she would faithfully deposit the yearly stipend for the use of her own children's labor.(36) The practice of tutorias, then, obliged women who owned little or no property to seek aid and protection from men of some stature in the community.

The 1860s also witnessed an increase in the number of fathers who legally recognized paternity of children born outside church-sanctioned marriage. Although these perfilhacoes were quite common throughout the nineteenth century, evidence suggests more concern with legalizing the situation of natural children during the cotton boom.(37) And grandparents who raised children following the death of the parents in the cholera epidemics of the 1850s sought to legalize their control in the 1860s by requesting formal guardianship over the orphans (sometimes more than 10 years after they had actually assumed care of the children).(38) This sketchy and inconclusive evidence suggests that informal control over the labor of children had become precarious enough that even men of the immediate family were careful to take all necessary steps to protect that important resource.

There is little evidence of discontent with the expansion of tutorias during the cotton boom. Not all the free poor were adversely affected by the system. It is clear, instead, that the poor were involved at both ends of the process: they could be orphan wards but they could also be guardians. Many of the honorable poor felt protected from the loss of their own children and some gained additional laborers by taking in wards. Guardians offered their wards protection from military recruitment, a particularly compelling reason not to resist the system especially during the years of the Paraguayan War.

Occasionally, nonetheless, voices raised in protest--not so much against the system itself, but against unfair application of the law. One of the most powerful denunciations of the "orphan for hire" practice came from the aunt and godmother of Joao Peteira de Sousa, a 14-year-old orphan she had raised until the judge "through false information" (so she claimed) had assigned him to a guardian. Her Complaint argued that "poor orphans are not destined by law to become slaves of the powerful" and that good judges "would not distribute orphans as patronage." She claimed the boy's guardian forced the child to work beyond his strength. The judge, nonetheless, denied her request to retrieve her nephew. The legal guardian stated the aunt had not, as she claimed, raised the boy, and that she "had no home, lived off public charity (vive de esmolas), and was often drunk," thus unfit to provide Joao with the appropriate moral climate in which to grow to adulthood.(39) Although orphans sometimes resisted their assigned fate by running away, they rarely denounced mistreatment at the hands of their guardians.(40) In only one instance did I come across the stated suspicion that a guardian had been responsible for the death of his ward; and when the body of the girl was exhumed, authorities found she had died not from abuse but from small-pox.(41)

During the prosperous cotton boom years complaints against the system of tutorias appear to have been strictly individual in nature. Yet in 1874 and 1875 glimmers of organized discontent appear. When peasants protested against the state in the Quebra Quilos Revolt of November and December, 1874, many grievances surfaced: they challenged new taxes, a new recruitment law, and imposition of the French metric system. Henrique Milet, a contemporary observer, argued that the cotton crisis intensified unrest among the free poor, leading directly to the depradations caused by kilo smashers as they attacked markets and public offices in dozens of Northeastern towns.(42) During the revolt rioters also forcibly took orphans from their guardians, returning them to their mothers. The following year, at least two young men contracted lawyers to withdraw their soldadas from the municipal treasury.(43)

By the mid-1870s, then, a more generalized discontent toward tutorias had emerged, connected to economic decline in the region. Official requests for guardianships grew in the 1860s, but one might wonder whether the yearly deposits continued to be made regularly once cotton revenues declined. Soldadas ranged from a low of 8$000 reis per year for a 6-year-old boy to 80$000 reis per year for a 16-year-old who worked in a shop in town. Assuming that orphans received an average annual stipend of 15$000 reis between the ages of 7 and 14, and a yearly average of 50$000 reis from age 15 to 21, without computing the interest, the orphan would have access to the tidy sum of 455$000 reis when he came of age. In the 1860s this amounted to approximately US $100, about half the price of a healthy, productive slave--a small fortune for the destitute.(44) It is unlikely that the hundreds of youngsters taken on as wards in the 1860s collected anything near that sum once they came of age in the 1870s.

In periods of economic stagnation there was little incentive to enforce fully the guardianship law. If mothers or relatives took care of youngsters after the death of their father, it is unlikely that the state would try to exact payment for the services of the children. It seems improbable that relatives of the destitute or even strangers would willingly pay for the privilege of engaging in an apparent act of charity.(45) In the 1860s, however, payment was indeed made. Mothers as well as strangers competing to be given the care of orphans at times set off bidding wars over the stipend to assure the judge would grant them the child. During the 1860s and early 1870s the requirement to pay for services was so rigidly enforced that those who did not appear wealthy enough to fulfill that responsibility had to provide bondsmen who would guarantee the financial interests of the orphan. Poor mothers who qualified to become guardians were not exempt from posting bond to maintain the company of their children.(46)

The change came when, after years of bonanza, local and provincial treasuries fell on hard times after 1872. In years of serious budgetary deficits, money deposited for orphans might have been diverted to pay more pressing charges. It is likely, also, that as the cotton boom subsided, those involved in that export crop as well as in ancillary businesses found their need for labor receding. Demand for orphans declined; so, one might assume, did the conscientious depositing of stipends. This is what makes it likely that by 1874 and 1875 many orphans were not paid for their labor; mothers and relatives would then certainly resent their continuing in the service of others.

The end of the cotton boom was followed by one of the most devastating droughts in Northeastern history. Between 1877 and 1880, rivers dried up, crops failed, and migrants from the interior poured into the cities searching for survival. The system of tutorias collapsed. Requests for wards continued to reach the county judges, but on a much smaller scale than during the 1860s. Only after the Golden Law of 1888 abolished slavery did the region see renewed interest among farmers in claiming wards. In 1888 the new targets were the recently freed minors who could, technically, be considered orphans. The system of tutorias, then, also smoothed the final transition from slave to free labor.

In resorting to the labor of orphans, Northeastern farmers refused to face the ultimate implications of an end to slavery in the international context of the nineteenth century; they chose a traditional solution for a modern labor problem. They clung to continuity and avoided change. The laws that regulated tutorias were conceived from a medieval mindset that stressed communal order under the leadership of honorable men. They relied on notions of patronage that underlay Brazilian society and politics.(47) The demand for laborers in the 1860s thus reinforced traditional social relations. Poor wards and slaves, in practice, led fairly similar lives. Women were forced to seek protectors in order to keep their children. Men formalized their control over offspring by recognizing the state's right to legislate the status of the children. When the demand for wards increased, the grip of the honorable and the propertied tightened. The waning of slavery thus reinforced clientelism in Paraiba's agreste.

Table VI

Budget of Province of Paraiba, 1859-1885 (in mil-reis)

                                           Surplus
Year    Income   From Cotton   Expenses   (Deficit)

1859   296,010      --(*)         --(*)      --(*)
1860   235,804     52,336         --(*)      --(*)
1861   391,706     73,651       377,819     13,887
1862   391,327    127,319       364,555     26,772
1863   352,403    185,097       288,193     64,210
1864   599,366    431,818       400,432    198,934
1865   547,808    359,382       606,664    (58,856)
1866   860,861    416,177       539,869    321,992
1867   723,147    244,105       555,572    167,574
1868   786,859      --(*)       764,942     21,917
1869   544,889      --(*)       486,701     58,188
1870     --(*)      --(*)         --(*)      --(*)
1871   424,682      --(*)         --(*)      --(*)
1872   603,742      --(*)         --(*)      --(*)
1873   503,346      --(*)         --(*)      --(*)
1874   479,637      --(*)       711,433   (231,796)
1875   569,995    120,027       777,233   (207,237)
1876   436,637     77,249       599,448   (161,811)
1877   228,476     68,831       651,427   (432,951)
1878   205,633      --(*)       509,963   (304,330)
1879   310,633      --(*)       347,680   (37,047)
1880   483,303      --(*)       941,122   (457,819)
1881   678,560      --(*)       448,492    230,068
1882   557,014      --(*)       692,956   (135,942)
1883   665,369      --(*)       569,087     96,281
1884   436,344      --(*)         --(*)      --(*)
1885   397,807      --(*)         --(*)      --(*)

* Figures not available

Source: Relatorio do presidente da provincia da Parahyba, 1859-1885.

When applied within the context of expanding cotton exports, tutorias helped keep down the costs of labor and thus increased immediate profits for those involved in marketing the crop. The wardship agreement (between the judge and the guardian, in which the orphan rarely participated) tied children to the service of one individual for many years. If, for example, the tutoria were formalized when the orphan was seven years old, the child would work fourteen years for his guardian before coming of age. Thus, the cost of labor remained low even as the abilities of the orphans increased with age. Since competition for laborers also took place early in their productive life, there was little need to lure workers with higher wages. Orphans, who could only use their soldadas after they became legally emancipated, remained fully dependent on their guardians until adulthood. Tutorias thus prevented the development of a consumer mentality among the poor since wards received no direct payment for their labor for many years. Guardians, who provided orphans with food, shelter, and clothing, were not likely to spend more than absolutely necessary for the upkeep of their wards.

The decline of slavery coupled to an expanding export economy contributed, in Campina Grande, to more tightly bind clients to patrons. Wards learned deference and their proper place as laborers in local society. Women learned they must rely on honorable men within the community, rather than on themselves or on their children. And local authorities used their control over the fate of orphans to reward a political following within the community. In Northeast Brazil tutorias eased the transition to free labor; in the process, however, they maintained a social order that elsewhere was fast becoming obsolete.

Department of History Columbia, SC 29208

ENDNOTES

An early version of this article was presented at the annual meeting of the South Eastern Council on Latin American Studies in April, 1992. My thanks to Rosemary Brana-Schute and Angela Thompson for their helpful comments. Research in Paraiba was funded by a Fulbright Study Abroad grant.

1. See, especially, Robert Edgar Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 1850-1888 (Berkeley, 1972), pp. 47-69; Robert Wayne Slenes, "The Demography and Economics of Brazilian Slavery, 1850-1888," Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1975; and Diana Soares de Galliza, O declinio da escravidao na Paraiba, 1850-1888 (Joao Pessoa, Paraiba, 1979).

2. Galliza, Declinio da escravidao; Stanley J. Stein, The Brazilian Cotton Manufacture: Textile Enterprise in an Underdeveloped Area, 1850-1950 (Cambridge, MA, 1957), pp. 44-45; James C. Fletcher and D. P. Kidder, Brazil and the Brazilians, 7th ed. (London, 1867), p. 525; and The Empire of Brazil at the Universal Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia (Rio de Janeiro, 1876), pp. 260-261.

3. This figure refers to the number listed for the category of "criados e jornaleiros" (servants and day laborers). While other census categories might have included wage laborers, it is remarkable that so few campinenses perceived themselves (or were willing to describe themselves) primarily as wage earners. Brazil, Directoria Geral de Estatistica, Recenseamento da populacao do imperio do Brazil a que se procedeu no dia 1o. de agosto de 1872 (Rio de Janeiro, 1873-1876).

4. For alternatives to dwindling slave labor on the coastal sugar plantations of Northeast Brazil see J. H. Galloway, "The Last Years of Slavery on the Sugar Plantations of Northeastern Brazil," Hispanic American Historical Review 51:4 (November 1971): 586-605; and Peter L. Eisenberg, "Abolishing Slavery: The Process on Pernambuco's Sugar Plantations," Hispanic American Historical Review 52:4 (November 1972): 580-597.

5. The documentation dealing with guardianships of minors is filed with the estate inventories at the Terceiro Cartorio de Campina Grande, Paraiba, Brazil, hereafter cited as TCCG.

6. For the best explanation of inheritance laws in Brazil see Linda Lewin, "Natural and Spurious Children in Brazilian Inheritance Law from Colony to Empire: A Methodological Essay," The Americas 48, 3 (January 1992): 351-396; see also Alida Metcalf, "Women and Means: Women and Family Property in Colonial Brazil," Journal of Social History (Winter 1990): 277-298; and Muriel Nazzari, Disappearance of the Dowry: Women, Families, and Social Change in Sao Paulo, Brazil (1600-1900) (Stanford, 1991).

7. Candido Mendes de Almeida, ed., Codigo Philippino; ou, Ordenacoes e leis do Reino de Portugal (Rio de Janeiro, 1870), Liv. I, Tit. LXXXVIII deals with the legal considerations regarding various categories of orphans.

8. Ibid., Tit. LXXXVIII, par. 6.

9. Nazzari, Disappearance of the Dowry, p. 100.

10. Joan E. Meznar, "Deference and Dependence: The World of Small Farmers in a Northeastern Brazilian Community," Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Texas, 1986, p. 72.

11. Almeida, Codigo Philippino, Liv. I, tit. LXXXVIII, pars. 10-15.

12. Legal age was lowered from 25 to 21 in 1831.

13. Almeida, Codigo Philippino, Liv. I, tit. LXXXVIII, par. 13.

14. Manuel Correia de Andrade, A terra e o homem no nordeste, 4th ed. (Sao Paulo, 1980), pp. 21-28; Irineu Joffily, Notas sobre a Parahyba (Rio de Janeiro, 1892), p. 165.

15. Meznar, "Deference and Dependence," pp. 141-190.

16. Joffily, Notas, pp. 334-337; Galliza, Declinio da escraviaao, p. 27; Irineu Ferreira Pinto, Datas e notas para a historia da Parahyba, vol. I (Parahyba do Norte, 1908), pp. 241-242; and Irineu Ferreira Pinto, Datas e notas para a historia da Parahyba, vol. II (Parahyba do Norte, 1916), pp. 180-181, 207-208.

17. Pinto, Datas, vol. II, pp. 207, 243, 302; Galliza, Declinio da escravidao, p. 37; Brazil, Directoria Geral de Estatistica, Recenseamento de 1872.

18. Relatorio do presidente da provincia da Parahyba do Norte, 1848-1880; see also Galliza, Declinio da escravidao, pp. 43-58. Figures are not always consistent throughout the different documents and should be used to give a sense of change rather than as evidence of absolute amounts.

19. See Relatorio apresentado a assemblea legislativa provincial da Parahyba do Norte pelo excellentissimo presidente da provincia o Dr. Antonio Coelho de Sa e Albuquerque em 3 de maio de 1852 (Parahyba, 1852), p. 3; Joffily, Notas, p. 187; Hamilton de Mattos Monteiro, Crise agraria e luta de classes (o nordeste brasileiro entre 1850 e 1889) (Brasilia, 1980); Hamilton de Mattos Monteiro, Nordeste insurgente (1850-1890), 2nd ed. (Sao Paulo, 1981); Meznar, "Deference and Dependence," pp. 86-88.

20. Joao da Matta Correia Lima, "Provimento de Correicao," number 3, Campina Grande, 23 August 1869, TCCG.

21. See, "Correicoes," 1869, TCCG; Segundo Vice Presidente da Provincia da Parahyba to Ministro do Imperio, 6 May 1879, Arquivo Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (hereafter cited as AN), IJJ9 233; and Gazeta do Sertao, 10 January 1890, p. 4, col. 1.

22. Almeida, Codigo Philippino, Liv. I, tit. LXXXVIII, par. 13.

23. See, for example, Manoel Francisco Barbosa to Juiz de Orfaos, 3 November 1859; and Joao Jose da Silva Coutinho to Juiz de Orfaos, 7 October 1892.

24. "Livro de Tutellas," 1871-1874, TCCG.

25. Jose Antonio de Farias Capoeiro to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 18 February 1864, TCCG; Bento Pereira Luna to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 9 November 1865, TCCG; Joao Barbosa de Barros Silva to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 26 June 1874, TCCG.

26. Francisco Bernardo Lopes da Cunha to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 11 August 1864, TCCG.

27. Of course, wards could not be sold, neither could they be used as collateral to raise loans, which probably made them less than ideal substitutes for slaves when Africans were readily available for purchase.

28. Among the requests for tutorias stored with the inventarios, charges of immorality rise from zero in 1862 to five per year in 1864 and 1865, and seven in 1866. The "Livro de Tutellas" identifies ten mothers of orphans as "public women" between 1871 and 1874. Such charges dwindle to one per year in 1876 and 1877, back to zero in 1878 and 1879.

29. See Lewin, "Natural and Spurious Children," pp. 361-366.

30. See statement of Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 20 April 1863, TCCG; statement of Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 25 August 1863, TCCG; statement of Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 7 March 1867, TCCG; and statement of Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 18 January 1870.

31. See Domingos Jose de Calda to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 19 December 1864, TCCG; Francisco Quirino Pereira to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 11 February 1865, TCCG; Antonio Jose Pinto Ozorio to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 25 July 1865, TCCG; Francisco Alves Pereira to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 26 March 1868, TCCG; and Joao Rodrigues Pereira to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 21 September 1872, TCCG.

32. Maria Baptista to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 6 December 1869, TCCG.

33. Thereza Maria de Jesus to Juiz de Orfaos, Campins Grande, 19 October 1865, TCCG.

34. See Antonio Frere de Andrade to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 10 December 1862, TCCG; Thomaz Bezerra Cavalcante to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 4 August 1864, TCCG; Francisco Esmirino Pereira to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 15 February 1865, TCCG; Antonio Albuquerque Vianna to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 10 February 1866, TCCG; and Justiniano de Barros Araujo Lima to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 16 April 1866, TCCG.

35. See Maria Delphina da Conceicao to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 7 August 1866, TCCG; Joaquim Nunes Pereira to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 1 October 1866; and Francisco Alves Pereira to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 26 March 1868.

36. See Maria Joaquina do Espirito Santo to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 19 February 1874, TCCG; and JoseGoncalves de Arruda to Juiz de Orfaos, 15 July 1874, TCCG. In this case, Jose Goncalves argued that the mother was a prostitute and that her fiador was unacceptable; the judge transferred the child away from the mother's care.

37. See Escritura de perfilhacao e reconhecimento paterno que faz Paulo Mordanho da Silva, 3 September 1867, Primeiro Cartorio de Campina Grande (hereafter cited as PCCG); Escritura de perfilhacao e reconhecimento paterno que faz Joao Velho Barreto, 7 May 1868, PCCG; and Joao de Souza Carneiro to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 26 April 1864. TCCG.

38. Bartholomeo Pereira da Silva to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 6 October 1868, TCCG.

39. Maria Pereira de Oliveira to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 28 January 1864, TCCG.

40. For an exception, see the complaint of the orphan Raimundo to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 5 July 1868, TCCG.

41. Chefe de Policia da Provincia da Paraiba to Presidente da Provincia da Paraiba, Parahyba do Notre, 6 November 1874, Arquivo Historico do Estado da Paraiba, Joao Pessoa, Brazil.

42. Henrique Augusto Milet, Os quebra-kilos e a crise da lavoura (Recife, 1876).

43. Joao Jose de Franca Lima to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 12 February 1875, TCCG; Antonio Chavier de Oliveira to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 7 July 1875, TCCG; Manoel Francisco do Nascimento granting power-of-attorney to Reverendo Doutor Leonardo Antunes Meira Henriques, Campina Grande, 20 February 1875, PCCG; and Manoel Ignacio Francisco granting power-of-attorney to Ireneo Ceciliano Pereira Joffily, Campina Grande, 8 April 1875, PCCG.

44. For rate of exchange and average price of slaves in Brazil between 1850 and 1888, see Joseph Earl Sweigart, "Financing and Marketing Brazilian Export Agriculture: The Coffee Factors of Rio de Janeiro, 1850-1888," Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Texas, 1980, p. 303.

45. In the 1980s the practice of looking for urban maids among the children living on sitios in the region surrounding Campina Grande rarely included the offer of cash payment. The young girls received room, board, and basic toiletries in return for their services.

46. See for example Joaquina Maria da Conceicao to Juiz de Orfaos, Campina Grande, 24 February 1879, TCCG.

47. See Richard Graham, Politics and Patronage in Nineteenth Century Brazil (Stanford, 1990).