FAMILIES
Not only was slavery harsh but the making of families was also extreme. In 1778, José da Lisboa wrote,“ Because of the obvious benefits accruing from male labor over female, there are always three times as many males as females among the slave population, which perpetuates the pattern of their failure to propagate as well as their failure to increase in number from generation to generation”. Slave owners in Brazil viewed their slaves as replaceable and the shipment of slaves from the West Africa were insurmountable. Native born slaves populations was slightly higher women to men, 100:92, where as the Africans that were not born in Brazil were a little less 100:125, women to men. Also what was interesting was how the African men “vied” for the African woman and the formations of African families was extremely dissatisfactory and limiting even among free Blacks. In terms of the relationships in Bahia there were not a lot of married couples, “As one might expect, slaves had scant opportunities for affectionate relationships either episodic or long lasting. More than 27 percent claimed to be bachelors, and that number could be raised to 98 percent if we considered those whose marital status is not known to have been single “.
Read more about this topic: Slave Revolts In Brazil Prior To 1835
Famous quotes containing the word families:
“Affection, indulgence, and humor alike are powerless against the instinct of children to rebel. It is essential to their minds and their wills as exercise is to their bodies. If they have no reasons, they will invent them, like nations bound on war. It is hard to imagine families limp enough always to be at peace. Wherever there is character there will be conflict. The best that children and parents can hope for is that the wounds of their conflict may not be too deep or too lasting.”
—New York State Division of Youth Newsletter (20th century)
“Whatever else American thinkers do, they psychologize, often brilliantly. The trouble is that psychology only takes us so far. The new interest in families has its merits, but it will have done us all a disservice if it turns us away from public issues to private matters. A vision of things that has no room for the inner life is bankrupt, but a psychology without social analysis or politics is both powerless and very lonely.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)
“Notwithstanding the unaccountable apathy with which of late years the Indians have been sometimes abandoned to their enemies, it is not to be doubted that it is the good pleasure and the understanding of all humane persons in the Republic, of the men and the matrons sitting in the thriving independent families all over the land, that they shall be duly cared for; that they shall taste justice and love from all to whom we have delegated the office of dealing with them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)