Governor of Grao Para and Maranhao Informs the Portuguese King of Cruel Punishments Inflicted upon Indian Slaves (1752)
[As the Brazilian legal historian, Agostinho Marques Perdigao Malheiro, wrote in the 1860s, ancient Portuguese laws contained extraordinary provisions concerning slaves "such as applying the lash or torture as a means of forcing them to confess, branding them with a hot iron, mutilating parts of the body, excessive use of the death penalty, and other cruel punishments." Obviously such punishments were not formulated at the Portuguese Court without considerable awareness of Brazil's conditions and without some expectation that slaveholders there were willing or even eager to adopt them. In fact, Portuguese kings and their councilors must have understood that Brazilian slaveholders were capable of going far beyond officially sanctioned levels of brutality.
The following letter, written in 1752 to King Jose I by the governor of Grio Para, Francisco Xavier de Mendonca Furtado, indeed suggests that Brazilian slaveholders, perhaps a large majority, at certain times and place were capable of inflicting almost unbelievable punitive excesses upon their slaves. Although the governor was mainly concerned here with the cruel treatment of Indians, his letter more than hints at the plight of blacks owned by masters of the kind who could inflict such atrocities upon a race of people whose slave status was often doubtful, who enjoyed generally more government and ecclesiastical protection than blacks, and who, in fact, during Mendonca Furtado's own governorship would be freed en masse by a royal decree of June 6, 1755.
Source: Instituto Historico e Geogrifico Brasileiro, A Amazonia na era pombalina. 1 ° Tomo. Correspondincia inedita do Goaernador e Capitdo-General do Estado do Grdo Pard e Maranhdo Francisco Xavier de Mendoca Furtado (Sao Paulo, 1963), pp. 304-306.]
Sir: In order to authorize brand marks on the blacks found in quilombos [runaway-slave settlements] in the state of Brazil, Your Majesty was pleased to proclaim the law of March 3, 1741 [providing for branding the letter “F," signifying Fugido or runaway, on a shoulder of each slave in a quilombo, and for cutting off an ear in the event of a second offense]. The officers of the Chamber of this city, having petitioned Your Majesty to allow that law also to be observed in the State of [Grao Para e Maranhao] so that the punishments provided for in it might also be imposed upon slaves found in mocambos [another common term for runaway-slave settlements] in these districts, Your Majesty decided in consultation with the Overseas Council to order by the resolution of May 30, 1750, that this law be carried out here, branding slaves found in mocambos, but entirely forbidding that Indians captured in those mocambos be branded like the blacks in any way. This was made quite clear in a Provision of the Overseas Council dated May 12, 1751.
That punishment, which Your Majesty did not wish to impose upon Indians found in those mocambos, who were exempted from it by that same law, I find practiced here with a level of immoderation that is both brutal and scandalous.
It is the custom here among most of the inhabitants that when some of these Indians, whom they call slaves, run away or commit some other act which offends them, they order them bound, and with a red-hot iron or lancet, brutally incise the name of the supposed master on their chests. And, since the letters are often large, it is necessary for them to be written in two rows. The miserable Indians endure this torment without any human relief.
When I first saw one of them with this brutal, disgraceful, and scandalous lettering, on his chest, I was filled with an appropriate sensation of horror. Intending to bring to trial the would-be master who had ordered it I learned that he was dead. I then saw a great many of them [in this condition], and then people informed me that this was a quite normal thing. And since it was so prevalent that nobody was surprised by it, neither the governors nor the ministers forbade it, and it was in fact accepted and entirely known to them.
To prevent the people from convincing themselves that I also condoned continuation of this shocking offense, I not only began to criticize it, but also ordered into my presence every Indian who could be found with such lettering. And since many of them were free and found themselves in the power of their would-be masters, who possessed no more right to keep them in captivity than that very violence which accompanied their capture, I at once ordered them declared free.
Concerning those who were legally, or half legally, kept as slaves, or [held so] in conformity with the customs of the country, I ordered suspension of their legal- slave status until I could bring the situation to Your Majesty's royal presence, so that I might make these people understand that, even if those Indians were in fact slaves, they could never possess that vicious liberty, especially when an explicit law exists in opposition to it.
I brought no further judicial proceedings against them because if I had started an examination or taken any additional action in the matter, those who would be found guilty would number only a very few less than the total number of inhabitants. Since the problem was so widespread, for the moment it seemed best to me to condemn and obstruct it as much as possible, making these people recognize the absurdity of what they were doing.
The practice had its beginnings in the ill-advised enthusiasm of one of the Troop Commander who were ordered into the backlands to redeem some captive Indians. Not wanting to mix them up with those belonging to the Royal Treasury, he ordered all of them branded, and since these people had witnessed his example and are ignorant to an extraordinary degree, they started to imitate him, going beyond the single brand mark to an entire name.
Since this vicious custom has spread to most of the inhabitants and it is impossible to punish an entire people, and also because it is unjust to allow them to continue oppressing these Indians, it seemed to me that Your Majesty, if it should please you to do so, might promulgate a law here ordering that nobody may apply such lettering, not even a brand
mark. And, in regard to the past, after scolding [the offenders] for the brutality they have inflicted upon [the Indians], it might please Your Majesty to pardon them for their crime and to relieve them of the punishment that they had incurred for committing such crimes, granting Indians found with such lettering their full freedom, and ordering every person possessing one of those Indians to have him appear at the Offices of this Government within a certain period of time, which in my opinion might well be four months. And at the end of that time, if one of them is found in slavery or has not been required to appear, the person in whose power he is found should receive the punishment that may seem just to Your Majesty in such a case. Your Majesty will order what seems proper. Para, [Brazil] November 16, 1752.
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