Title: Silences of the law: Customary law and positive law on the manumission of slaves in 19th century Brazil
Abstract:Historians have unanimously credited Brazil with a particularly generous law: any slave who offered his master his own value in cash acquired his freedom, the owner being obliged to accept the ransom....Historians have unanimously credited Brazil with a particularly generous law: any slave who offered his master his own value in cash acquired his freedom, the owner being obliged to accept the ransom. This law, however, never existed in writing, though the practice was widespread and can certainly be said to have been recognised as customary law. The absence of the rule in written law is not a mere omission to codify customary practice, but is the result of deliberate opposition to recording the rule in written form. This raises the question of the relation between customary law and written law in a literate society. The author maintains that the deliberate silence of the written code on this point fits a society grappling with a chronic manpower shortage and anxious to control not only the slave labour force but also freed slaves. To represent the sale of freedom as dependent on the master's good will and as being, at least in theory, revocable if the slave showed ingratitude, helped to keep freedmen in a state of personal dependence. The silences of the law have their meaning. Codified law is a discourse on society, a self‐description constructed by the State. It is not the only possible discourse. Its silences supply, in intaglio, alternative descriptions of the same society. In 19th century Brazil this duality, this double‐facedness, reflects the contradictions of a country which presents itself as liberal, but has a social structure still based for the most part on relations of personal dependence.Read More
Publication Year: 1985
Publication Date: 1985-02-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 30
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