Concubinage in Colonial Brazil

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of Family History
Concubinage in Colonial Brazil: the Inequalities of Race, Class, and Gender

Muriel Nazzari
Journal of Family History 1996 21: 107
DOI: 10.1177/036319909602100201
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CONCUBINAGE IN COLONIAL BRAZIL:
THE INEQUALITIES OF RACE, CLASS, AND GENDER
Muriel Nazzari
Colonial society’s requirement that marriage must be endogamous meant that the
only possible long-term sexual relationship between a man of superior status in
regard to class and/or race and a woman of inferior status was concubinage.
Focusing on racial differences, this study documents such inequality within concubi-
nage and also demonstrates that despite the strong Christian endorsement of
marriage, the church also subscribed to the idea that marriage had to be endogamous.
Thus, when confronted by single sexual partners who were highly unequal, the
church did not oblige them to marry but instead attempted to separate them.
Marriage in colonial Brazil was mostly endogamous. In a previous study, I found that
within that system, men were expected to marry women who were either their equals
or their superiors, especially in wealth. The logical corollary of such a marriage system
was that any sexual relationship with a woman who had no property or dowry or who
was of an inferior race tended to be carried out outside legal marriage. This article
therefore studies long-lasting sexual relationships between men of superior and
women of inferior status, based on research in parish records of baptism and marriage;
censuses; private letters; legitimation processes; and ecclesiastical divorce, betrothal,
and concubinage lawsuits.
Society in colonial Brazil was highly stratified, not only through different degrees
of wealth and property ownership but also by racial categories and civil status, that is,
whether a person was free or a slave. Such hierarchies of property, class, and race set
the parameters for marriage choices in colonial Brazil, and the main mechanism that
ensured equality in marriage was the dowry.’ The seeming exceptions to this rule were
cases of penniless European men who, in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century,
married women of the Sao Paulo elite who were of mixed white/Indian heritage and
who had substantial dowries that included real estate and slaves.’2 In these cases,
Muriel Nazzari is an associate professor in the Department of History of Indiana University. Her
publications include Disappearance of the Dowry: Women, Families, and Social Change in São Paulo, Brazil
(1600-1900) and "Widows as Obstacles to Business: British Objections to Brazilian Marriage and
Inheritance Laws, "in Comparative Studies in Society and History (October 1995). Her present research
focuses on miscegenation, concubinage, foundlings, and the social construction of race.
107
108
however, equality was achieved through the men’s European race that compensated
for their lack of property.
I argue that this endogamous marriage system was at least partly responsible for
the large illegitimacy rate found in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Brazil and
for the prevalence of concubinage. In this article I will not be using the term consensual
union to describe long-lasting relationships outside of marriage because it implies a
certain equality between the partners. I wish to emphasize those relations between men
and women outside of marriage that were highly unequal, including relationships
between masters and slaves in which force might have been applied. I do not wish to
imply that inequality was always present in sexual relationship outside of marriage in
colonial Brazil. There undoubtedly were both casual and long-lasting liaisons between
relative equals, and it is difficult to come by reliable statistics to prove the point in one
way or the other.
I will therefore use the term concubinage, which was the term used by contempo-
raries, and use it to mean an illegal and (from the point of view of the church)
&dquo;immoral&dquo; sexual relationship between a man and woman in which the inherent gender
inequality was reinforced by the added inequality in property, class, civil status, and/or
race.3 (The asymmetry between the sexual partners implied by the term concubinage
was also true of the Latin term used by the Romans, concubinat, which designated
relations men held with inferior or immoral women.)4
My interest in studying the sexual relationship between unequals lies in exploring
in what ways gender inequality was reinforced by social arrangements that included
other inequalities. Within a marriage of equals, whatever inequality existed was solely
gender inequality.
To study status or class differences within concubinage, however, is much more
difficult than within marriage because of the relative paucity of information. When
marriage is between property owners, it is possible to find documentation to compare
the spouses’ class, at least in relation to their wealth and their education, whereas it is
hard to find evidence of difference of class between the men and women in relation-
ships outside of marriage. I propose to show inequality within concubinage by using
racial status to show existing asymmetries. These racial asymmetries were not neces-
sarily correlated to wealth or income, for scholars have demonstrated that not all
Europeans were wealthy nor all persons of color poor. In colonial Spanish America,
calidad and clase were two categories that ranked persons, the first in relation to race
and the latter in relation to class 5 These two different status-conferring factors also
existed in Brazil, and persons were judged in relation to both. Race cannot therefore
be used as an exact counterpart of class. However, since race was as important as class
in setting the limits of an endogamous marriage, it can be used to determine inequality.
To study racial inequality within concubinage, one must first study how contem-
poraries regarded race. Though the Portuguese in Brazil never developed a racially
segregated society, nor ever prohibited interracial marriage or interracial sexual
relations, they did bring from Portugal strong racist tendencies. B ecause Jews, African
slaves, and Moors were not Christian, Portuguese racism originated in the defense of
the Christian faith. After the Jews were expelled from Portugal or obliged to convert
to Christianity, the Inquisition’s concern with the survival of Jewish practices led to a
distinction between &dquo;New Christians&dquo; and &dquo;Old Christians.&dquo; All important privileges,
titles, or positions in the Portuguese Empire came to be bestowed only on those who
could prove they were Old Christians, which, very soon was to mean genealogical
109
proof of their &dquo;purity of blood,&dquo; that is, proof that their blood was not tainted with that
of &dquo;infected races.&dquo; Orthodox Christianity had become confused with biological race.
These racial concerns were easily transferred in the Americas to issues of miscege-
nation with Indians and Africans, both peoples with a pagan past. For instance, in the
second decade of the eighteenth century, the governor of Minas Gerais ruled that all
godparents of baptized adult slaves should be white, for whites had &dquo;drunk the milk
of the Church from their most tender years,&dquo; whereas blacks had been raised as pagan
barbarians. Throughout colonial times in Brazil, candidates to the priesthood or to a
monastic order had to prove the purity of their blood, and the lay religious brotherhoods
were likewise not allowed to admit members whose blood was impure~
Yet the fact that few Portuguese women emigrated to colonial Brazil, and the fact
that those who did stayed in the more developed cities, meant that in frontier regions
the demographic situation worked against the preservation of a &dquo;pure&dquo; European race.
During the gold boom in Minas Gerais only a small minority of baptized infants were
white; most baptisms were of black infants or those with mixed blood, such as
Indian/white mixture (mestizos) or black/white mixture (mulattoes). This fact was very
alarming to the crown, which did not want its colonies governed by colored people.
Thus the Overseas Council suggested in 1725 that a law bypassed prohibiting colored
men from filling positions on Municipal Councils, and restricting these positions not
only to Europeans but to certain Europeans, the husbands or widowers of white
women. The explicit rationale was to encourage white men to marry only white women
and to have children by them instead of by black or mulatto concubines 8 One can
safely assume, therefore, that European contemporaries considered their race superior
to all others. There is also evidence that the children of white men with black or Indian
women, that is, mulatto and mestizo children, were also viewed as somewhat superior
to those with purely black or Indian blood.9
The extreme racism of colonial discourse is illustrated in a frequent comment made
in ecclesiastical concubinage lawsuits. A witness who wished to prove that a certain
man had sexual relations with his slave or with a black or mulatto freedwoman, would
present as evidence that the man bought clothes for the woman or that &dquo;he treated her
as though she were his wife with all the tenderness and good treatment and status as
though she were white The opposite case is that of Francisco Dias, who abandoned
his wife to live with his mulatto slave, but first, in the words of a horrified witness,
&dquo;he beat his wife as though she were black.&dquo;11
The documents on concubinage demonstrate further that it is essential to consider
the role of the church, which set some of the most important parameters within which
individuals played out their lives. Whereas secular society created class and racial
differences between individuals that worked to prevent their marriage, the church
established what was moral and what was immoral. It also had powerful institutional
mechanisms, such as confession and the ecclesiastical law courts, which were used to
attempt to control the behavior of the faithful.
This article is organized in the following fashion. First, I will briefly review the
literature on illegitimacy in colonial Brazil. Second, I will describe the position of
the church on concubinage and the institutional vehicles used in attempts to control
it. Third, I will analyze records that show the racial inequality within concubinage and
illuminate the prevalent discourse about inequality. Last, I will show that the church
did not promote marriage between the sexual partners it prosecuted for concubinage
110
but instead to separate them, thereby demonstrating that it adhered to the

sought
contemporary belief that class and racial endogamy were requisites for marriage.
REVIEW OF ILLEGITIMACY STATISTICS

Foreigntravelers to Brazil in the nineteenth century commented that Brazilians
were not a marrying people. Studies made of the proportion of illegitimate children in
colonial Brazil confirm these observations, showing that illegitimacy rates varied
according to region from a low of 5.5 percent to a high of 65 percent of all births.&dquo; In
the urban area of Sao Paulo itself, illegitimate births in parish registers rose from 10
percent in 1741-55 to 21 percent in 1786-1800 to 31 percent in 1831-4S. If one adds
the baptisms of abandoned children to the number of illegitimate ones, the proportion
of illegitimate children increases from 15 to 20 percent each decade,13 In two parishes
of Rio de Janeiro during the second part of the eighteenth century, one fourth of all
baptisms were illegitimate and one fifth were of foundlings, giving a total of 45 percent
of children born outside of marriage. Moreover, a study of the 1836 Sao Paulo census
shows that 27 percent of all mothers were single, and that proportion rose to 40 percent
in the more densely urban neighborhoods. When the race of free mothers is considered,
27 percent of white mothers were single, compared to almost 50 percent of free black
and mulatto mothers. 14
Contemporaries believed that it was the expense of marriage in the church that
deterred people from marrying,15 To be able to marry, banns had to be read in every
parish in which the bride or groom had resided more than six months. In such a mobile
population, in which a man might have lived in one or two towns in Portugal and then
in several cities in Brazil, this was a very expensive proposition, making it in fact
difficult for persons with limited means to afford marriage. Furthermore, when a
certificate of baptism could not be found, witnesses had to be called and interrogated
by officials of the ecclesiastical court to prove the person had been baptized, thereby
also increasing the fees to be paid. If a dispensation for consanguinity was necessary,
and in small towns where everyone was related this was frequently the case, that also
was expensive.
One may therefore conclude that when people lived together without marrying, or
had long-lasting visiting relationships, one of the reasons may well have been that it
was so expensive to marry. I suggest, however, that another reason men had for not
marrying was the partners’ inequality.

These situations showed up most frequently in ecclesiastical betrothal suits. For
instance, in 1753 Maria Pires brought her case to the church court when her betrothed
would not marry her because of his father’s opposition to the marriage. One of the
witnesses said that he supposed that, although Maria was an honorable woman, the
father objected to her poverty.’6 The slave Quit6ria de Moraes had had a visiting
relationship with Joaquim de Camargo for four years and had had a son with him, so
she brought a suit for breach of promise when she heard de Camargo had arranged to
marry a free mulatto woman. She and her witnesses were not able to convince church
authorities that there had been a betrothal. From Joaquim de Camargo’s point of view,
whether he was a poor white man or a free mulatto, his chosen wife was of a superior
status to his previous lover.’ In the concubinage suit against Joaquim Gongalves and
Catharina Cardosa, a mestizo woman, one of the witnesses declared that he knew they
had lived together for around ten years and had four children. He added that they were
111
both single andhad used the pretext of intending to marry in order to live together, but
that Joaquim had not married Catharina &dquo;because she was not his equal.&dquo;&dquo;
Much of the disapproval of these unequal relationships was clearly related to the
ways in which men gave their lovers privileges that society condemned as unfit for
the status of these women. This was especially so in relations of concubinage between
masters and their slaves, or between white men and their colored concubines. In one
instance, a witness sought to prove the concubinage of a master with his slave with
the words &dquo;He treats her like a wife and has her as mistress of his house.&dquo;19 Another
witness described how a master did not send his slave &dquo;out to work, and allowed her
to take all sorts of liberties,&dquo;20 A blacksmith was accused of cohabiting with his slave,
&dquo;who runs around in slippers whereas his wife goes barefoot.&dquo;21 Bento Fernandes da
Silva, another blacksmith, was accused ofhavinghis other slaves servehis slave lover,
and of &dquo;providing her with everything she needed.&dquo;22
A man’s special treatment of his female slave was many times used as evidence of
concubinage. Lieutenant Miguel Raposo was accused of having lived with his slave,
of having five children with her, and of &dquo;treating her very differently from the way
slaves should be treated.&dquo;&dquo; In another case, a white sergeant major was accused of
having his slaves serve his free mulatto lover and having her come to his house to
participate at his table when he held banquets, at which his guests even drank to her
health.~ Gaspar Ribeiro Salvago, on the contrary, defended himself from the accusa-
tion of concubinage with his slave by stating that &dquo;he did not give her any different
treatment than his other slaves and she didn’t go around dressed in quality clothes,
except for the clothes he provided for her to wear when she went to mass as his wife’s
page.&dquo;’25 These issues of treatment of slaves are also exemplified by the frequent cases
in which a married man was accused of concubinage with his slave &dquo;because he
wouldn’t permit his wife to beat her.&dquo;26 These examples also show that although
masters clearly exploited their slaves when they made them their concubines, these
slave concubines did receive advantages because of the relationship.
THE CHURCH AND CONCUBINAGE

The church, of course, condemned concubinage.27 However, the church was also a
forgiving church, giving absolution when the sinner repented, performed a penance,
and promised not to repeat the sin. Yet the nature of a sexual relationship is such that
sexual activity may easily be repeated. Therefore, the sin that could most easily be
confessed was simple fornication with prostitutes or occasional partners, which would
not necessarily be repeated, and could be forgiven, and the sinner could be absolved
upon his or her promise not to sin again.
In fact, it was through the sacrament of confession that the church sought to control
the morality of the population.* The faithful were advised to confess frequently, but
ecclesiastical law obliged them to confess at least once a year during Lent. Parish
priests were ordered to prepare annual lists of the members of all households of their
parish (listed by street), checking off whether every male over fourteen and every
female over twelvehad confessed before Easter. When his parishioners didnot comply,
the priest had to specify what the reason was: whether it was rebellion to church law
or whether there was a more lawful reason, such as the fact that the person had been
away on a trip. Those who had not confessed were given a period of grace in which
they could still do so. Those who continued to disobey the confession rule were
112
excommunicated. 21 This happened to Gertrudes, a poor woman who defended herself

by saying that she had left the city without making her annual confession because she
was ignorant of its importance.3° People who happened to be traveling through Lent
were allowed to confess elsewhere and bring a certificate of compliance back to their
parish priest 31 In several of the ecclesiastical judicial processes related to concubinage,
the male partner, at least, traveled during Lent so that he could confess to a priest in
another parish who knew nothing of his sin of concubinage. So notorious was one
man’s actions in this respect that one of his surnames became Quaresma (Lent).32
Another threw his lover out from his house in order to receive absolution, but later,
while the parish priest was away preaching in the city for some time, he brought her
back in?3 When such actions were discovered, they were used to indict the sinners and
to confirm their guilt.
Concubinage was defined by church law as an illicit relationship between a man
and a woman that continued for a considerable time period.34 The duration of the
relationship was important in the decision whether to prosecute or not. Church law
stated that accusations of adultery were not to be accepted unless there were scandal
and perseverance in the sin that led to a situation of long-lasting concubinage.35 People
were encouraged to denounce others for sins, including concubinage, to the ecclesias-
tical prosecutor or to the bishop on his official visit to a region. Over 80 percent of the
sins reported in episcopal visits to Minas Gerais and Mato Grosso concerned cases of
concubinage.36
Church officials could themselves do the denouncing, and in some cases, they
would receive a third of the fines collected from the convicted sinners. Once a couple
was denounced, there was a lawsuit in the ecclesiastical court to determine whether
the accusation of concubinage could be proved. Once proved, usually through the
testimony of witnesses, the ecclesiastical prosecutor admonished the guilty partners,
requiring them to separate and stop sinning, and each was sentenced to pay a fine. The
fines were many times the lesser expense, for the accused also had to pay court costs.
For instance, in the case of Manoel Pires Dias, who was accused of concubinage with
his slave, the fine was 1$000 each; whereas the legal fees amounted to 15$080,37 If,
after three admonitions the couple continued in sin, the ecclesiastical judge could
sentence them to an even greater fine, or to prison, exile, or excommunication.311
Scholars have shown that in Minas Gerais, it was usually the female partner who was
exiled, whereas the male partner was allowed to remain in town. 31
Fernando Torres London has argued that the church only prosecuted cases of
concubinage in which the relationship was so open that it was viewed as scandalous.
As such, it was a public sin that had to be punished publicly so as to deter other
Christians. 40 Yet nobody could be condemned on his or her reputation only, for church
law established the rules of evidence necessary to prove concubinage. That many
accusations fell through is demonstrated by the fact that only 63 percent of the accused
in the episcopal visits to Minas Gerais of the first half of the eighteenth century were
actually prosecuted, and only 22 percent of the accused were convicted. 41
There is also an interesting class component regarding who accused and who were
accused. A study of those who accused others of sexual sins to the Inquisition in Bahia
in 1591 and 1618 demonstrates that the majority of accusers were of a high social
status, whereas the majority of the accused were of a low status. Men of the elite,
landowners, large-scale merchants, and the members of the civil, military, and eccle-
siastical power structure made up 60 percent of the accusers, and only 25 percent of
113
the accused; whereas slaves were only 10 percent of the accusers but 40 percent of the
accused. Ronaldo Vaifas argues that these results do not mean that the majority of the
men of the elite were necessarily innocent. In a hierarchical society in which the
privilege of race, wealth, and position gave men so much power, and in which most
persons integrated webs of patron/client relations, it would be dangerous for under-
lings to denounce their superiors, even under church guarantees of absolute secrecy. 41
The ecclesiastical concubinage suits in Sao Paulo confirm this trend, for there were
almost no truly important men accused of concubinage. Though there was inequality
between men and women in the lawsuits studied, the men usually did not hold very
high ranks in the militia, nor were they professionals. Out of 79 cases, only three men
were found with titles of any kind: two were officers of the militia, and the third a
doctor of law,43 Many of the men were colored themselves, as was probably the case
above when Joaquim de Camargo chose to marry a freed woman rather than a slave,
or else were relatively poor whites like Jos6 Rodrigues Padilla, who was accused not
only of concubinage but also of not going to hear mass. He defended himself by
claiming that he could not afford to buy the kind of clothes necessary for churchgoing.
One witness argued his statement was not true because he had an aunt who had offered
to help him, which in itself shows he was not well-off.’
INEQUALITY WITHIN CONCUBINAGE

The account book of fines paid to the Diocese of Sao Paulo for convictions in
ecclesiastical lawsuits shows how many relationships outside of marriage involved
men and women of a different race .45 The period covered by the legible portion of the
book is from March 1747 through 1752, and 90 percent of the fines were for
concubinage lawsuits. Fines were applied equally to both partners in concubinage,
according to whether it was their first, second, or third lapse. Fines for a first lapse
amounted to 800 rdis per person if both partners were single, and to 1,000 if one or
both were married. For a second lapse the fines were doubled, for a third lapse they
were tripled. Since these were large fines, the church allowed the condemned partners
to pay their fines in two or three equal payments.46 During the five years between 1747
and 1752, thirty-nine couples were listed as having paid fines for their sin of concu-
binage. Most of these lived either in the center of town or in one of its outlying
neighborhoods, whereas others were from the surrounding villages, most within the
municipality of Sao Paulo. According to the list, most partners resided in the same
neighborhood.47
The majority of those fined for practicing concubinage were single. In twenty-eight
cases, or 71 percent, both partners were single, whereas eleven couples, 29 percent,
included at least one married partner. These statistics confirm the trends found for
Minas Gerais, in which 85 percent of male partners were single and 91 percent of
females were single. In the Sao Paulo diocese book of fines, one finds that of the ten
cases where it is known whether it was the man or the woman partner who was married,
four were male, four were female, and in two cases both partners were married to third
parties. These last statistics suggest that married women were as prone to adultery as
married men, but this is probably due to the small size of the sample, for studies done
in Minas Gerais show that it was more frequent for married men than married women
to be unfaithful: 12 percent of the men accused of concubinage there were married
compared to only 6 percent of the women 48
114
The list of fines paid to the Diocese of Sao Paulo enters the names of the condemned
parties without always specifying their race. In twenty-three cases, there is no mention
of the race of either partner. It can be assumed they were all white, since in no case is
white given as a racial category. (Two of the couples might have been Indians or
mestizos, since they are mentioned as residing in Sao Miguel, an Indian village. If this
were so, failure to mention their race might be due to the fact that the recorder saw
them as equals.) In the sixteen other cases, the race of at least one of the partners was
mentioned, and I will again assume that the unmentioned race was white.
In most of these cases, the man belonged to a race that was viewed as superior to
that of his female partner. Of these sixteen couples, in only one is the racial status of
the man inferior to that of the woman, that is when a mestizo woman was the concubine
of a black slave. Otherwise, the males were all white; and of their fifteen female
partners, five were black, five mulatto, three mestizo, and two Indian. Three of the ten
black or mulatto women were slaves, one of them her own master’s concubine. Six of
the ten black and mulatto women were identified as forras, that is, freedwomen. The
category &dquo;freed&dquo; implied &dquo;once removed from slavery,&dquo; and therefore also had a
negative connotation compared to a person of any color who was born free. In this
book of fines, most persons, 97 percent of the men and 92 percent of the women, were
free. (Fifteen percent of the women were freedwomen.) With regard to their race, 62
percent of the women were white, 13 percent were mulatto, 13 percent were black, 8
percent were mestizo, and 5 percent were Indian. 49
These findings from the book of fines of the Sao Paulo diocese confirm the trend
shown in work done on early eighteenth-century mining regions of Brazil. Studying
the 350 cases of concubinage investigated by the bishop in his 1737 visit to Minas
Gerais, Francisco Vidal Luna and Iraci del Nero da Costa found that 95 percent of the
male partners were free, with only 4 percent freedmen and less than 1 percent slaves.
The composition of the group of female partners was clearly of a lower status. The
majority, 54 percent, were freedwomen; the second group, 27 percent, were slaves;
and women who were born free made up only 18 percent.5’ These findings show a
much greater status difference between the men and the women tried for concubinage
in Minas than those in the book of fines in Sao Paulo. This difference is probably due
to the fact that Minas Gerais, as a booming gold-rush frontier region, had relatively
few European women in the early eighteenth century. The general makeup of the
population in Minas was reflected in the race of the women sentenced for concubinage.
Only 9 percent were white, whereas the majority, 52 percent, were black, with
mulattoes making up 19 percent and mestizos 20 percent . 51
An interesting pattern emerges from the list of fines paid to the Sao Paulo diocese,
which leads to the conclusion that the men tended not only to belong to a race perceived
to be superior to that of their female companions but to be in a better financial situation.
The list provides evidence that suggests that the male furnished the funds to pay the
fines for both partners. The church did not condemn the couple jointly but instead
sentenced each individual, who was expected to pay his or her fine separately. The
date of payment of each partner’s fine is listed for seventeen of the couples. In all but
one of those cases, the man and woman either paid on the same day (four cases), or
the man paid one day before the woman (seven cases), or several days before the
woman (five cases). In only one case did the woman pay before the man, and in that
case the woman was a widow. Yet if each person was responsible for the payment of
115
his or her fine, we would expect to find approximately the same number of cases in
which the woman paid before her partner as those in which he paid first.
The fact that practically all fines were paid either on the same day by both partners
or flrst by the man, then by the woman, suggests that the funds for the payment of
these fines came from the male. Thus there probably was economic inequality within
the couple, even in those cases in which both partners were white, let alone in those
couples in which the men belonged to a race considered superior to that of their
companions. This hypothesis correlates with the one exception above, the case where
the widow paid before her male partner. If she was the widow of a property owner, she
may well have been more affluent than her companion in the sin of concubinage, and
she could therefore reverse the usual order of paying fines. Another concubinage case
with such a role reversal is that of a certain mulatto freedman in Bahia in 1813 who
was supported by his white concubine. 52
POLICY OF THE CHURCH REGARDING

MARRIAGE OF THOSE ACCUSED OF CONCUBINAGE
The church was clearly a part of the highly stratified and hierarchical society of
colonial Brazil. The policies and laws of the church reflected common assumptions
about differences in the &dquo;quality&dquo; of persons. Church sentences prescribed different
punishments for persons of different quality. For instance, if a commoner committed
incest with an ascendent or descendent he would be imprisoned, fined, and sentenced
to the galleys for ten years, whereas the same crime committed by a man with noble
blood would only result in exile to Angola for ten years. Women, because of their
presumed weakness, were also to be sentenced more leniently than men of their class.53
Regarding adultery, there were great differences between the church and the state.
The Portuguese state mainly condemned female adultery, allowing men to kill their
unfaithful wives and lovers with impunity, whereas the church condemned the adultery
of both women and men.-4 Furthermore, because of the possibility that a man might
kill or physically punish his adulterous wife, the church also protected the latter by not
publishing her name. For instance, we find the case of Simao Pinto Guede who was
admonished in 1750 in the Sao Paulo ecclesiastical court for the sin of concubinage
with &dquo;a certain married woman.&dquo;55 Moreover, even if the woman was single, but had
not already lost her good reputation, she was also to be protected from publicity,
especially if she belonged to a family of good status, and/or there was fear that her
father or brothers would punish her.56
Church law, based on a code drafted in the Archbishopric of Bahia and accepted by
its synod in 1707, stated that the clergy should search for those living in concubinage
&dquo;only in order to remove them from sin, and toward this goal should proceed with
admonitions and punishment until in fact they are reformed. ,,57 Lay persons who had
been denounced as living in concubinage &dquo;with infamy, scandal, and perseverance in
sin, should be admonished to remove themselves from their illicit relationship, and
stop the scandal; and if he has her in his home, he must throw her out shortly.&dquo;&dquo;’
Marriage of the sinners was not mentioned in the church code as a solution to the
problem of concubinage until it addressed the situation of slaves who lived in
concubinage. Slaves were also to be admonished (though no fines were to be levied
on them), and their masters were to be warned about what was happening so that they
might take measures to stop the concubinage, &dquo;either through marriage (which is the
116
best method according to God’s Law, and masters cannot prevent such marriages
without putting their own souls in danger) or through any other convenient method.&dquo;&dquo;
It is interesting that the first mention in the church code of marriage of the partners
as a solution for the sin of concubinage is found in relation to the concubinage between
slaves, two persons easily perceived as equals. In a later paragraph on concubinage,

the church code again mentioned marriage as a solution, stating that if a single or
widowed woman who has been charged with the sin of concubinage should marry, the
church prosecutor shall dismiss all charges against the couple, adding that if both
partners were single and they married each other, charges would also be dismissed .60
However, the first several pages in the church code that dealt with concubinage did
not propose this solution.
The first solution suggested by church law was separation. Moreover, this was the
solution promoted almost exclusively in the more than fifty ecclesiastical lawsuits
against concubinage I studied. In 1773, when Jos6 Ant6nio de Araujo, a single man,
was accused of concubinage with his cook, the single freedwoman Francisca, he was
admonished to throw her out of his home within three days and to refrain from seeing
her again.61 Another man was told by the priest to move his concubine of over twelve
years to another parish, which he did. However, witnesses concurred that he continued
to visit her.62 When those accused were a master and his female slave, the master was
invariably sentenced to sell the slave. In the lawsuit against Lieutenant Miguel Raposo
and his slave Quitdria, the lieutenant, who had lived with his slave for over fifteen
years and had five children with her, whom he acknowledged as his, never accepted
the sentence by signing a confession. We do not know, therefore, whether he ever
obeyed the sentence.63
In the case of Jos6 Rodrigues Padilla and B ernarda Lopes, the sentence did include
the possibility of marriage. The wording was &dquo;on condition that they prepare to marry
or [italics added] have his accomplice, Bernarda Lopes, marry outside this parish
This sentence gave the male partner a choice: he could marry the female, or, if his
partner was too unequal to marry, he should find her a husband (which usually implied
endowing her). In another case, the parish priest suggested to Indcio de Freitas, a
married man, that he find a man willing to marry his mistress, promising to marry them
free of charge.65 The solution of finding a husband for the woman did not always work.
Joao Pinto de Aguiar, a married man, followed his confessor’s advice and found a slave
husband for his slave mistress. Yet he later prevented them from living together and
kept the slave woman in his own house,66 Another woman, responding to her confes-
sor’s pressure, married a newcomer to Sao Paulo, who abandoned her after a few
months and left for Rio deJaneiro. In later testimony, she declared that she only married
him because she felt so intimidated by her parish priest. It is significant that the priest,
however, had not made her marry the man she was alleged to be living with, though
he was a widower and therefore free to marry.6’
Clearly, church authorities subscribed to the then current view on marriage, which
had to be between equals, and thus found it difficult to oblige a man to marry a woman
who was not his equal. Ecclesiastical judges therefore proposed the separation of the
sinning couple, or that the woman marry a third party.
The interest of the church in the equality of marriage partners is also demonstrated
in the questions asked of prospective brides and grooms. One of the routine questions
was what inheritance each prospective spouse had received or expected to receive.
(Because the Portuguese inheritance system did not allow full testamentary freedom,
117
and children could not be disinherited, most children of property owners had an
approximate idea of what they would inherit.) This question was even asked of slaves.
For instance, when Felix Monteiro de Barros and Quit6ria Dias started their wedding
proceedings, they were both asked what the quality of their parents was and what
inheritance they expected. Felix explained that he was the son of the slave Maria and
that his father was reputed to be white and of quality, but that he had not received an
inheritance nor did he expect one because he was illegitimate and the slave of Capitain
Antonio Leyte de Barros. Quitéria, the illegitimate daughter of a mixed Indian/white
woman, and therefore free, was asked the same question and answered that she did
not know her father but assumed he must have been an Indian.68 The question was
asked of all, rich and poor alike, and every couple sought to prove their equality. For
instance, Rita de Moraes said she was very poor. Her flanc6, Jos6 Martins de Oliveira,
added that &dquo;though he was also poor, he was of the same quality as his flanc6e, and
hard-working and capable of supporting her.&dquo;69
There is no evidence that the church officially discouraged the marriage of couples .
who could not show equality, or at least superiority of the bride, which was the socially
acceptable inequality within marriage. Yet it seems significant that church practice
always included these questions related to property ownership and status in its
proceedings before a wedding. Furthermore, the acquiescence of the church in the idea
of endogamous marriage is shown in the wording used by the bishop of the Diocese
of Sao Paulo in a sentence he issued on February 5,1779, in a betrothal suit. He stated
that &dquo;since there is no inequality between the betrothed, and in light of the information
received, the Reverend Vicar can continue with the publication of the banns.&dquo;70 The
church’s interest in endogamous marriages helps explain its obvious reluctance to
encourage the marriage of couples sentenced for concubinage, most of whom consisted
of a male of higher status with a female of lower status.
Within this context, it is significant that the church in colonial Brazil actually had
thepower to obligepeople to marry, apower that shows up most frequently in betrothal
suits. When a betrothal was proved to the satisfaction of the church, it had the authority
to imprison the partner who no longer wanted to marry and to oblige the couple to
marry. An example is the two-year-long betrothal case of Joaquim Antonio de Souza,
a mulatto engaged to Maria Francisca dos Anjos, a white woman with property. When
he wished to break the engagement, the church had him imprisoned and sentenced
them to marry within a month.&dquo; This, of course, was the type of couple contemporaries
thought should marry, in which the bride-to-be was of a superior status to her fiancé.
In many other betrothal suits, the recalcitrant man was imprisoned and obliged to
marry.’2 Betrothed women who had changed their minds were also imprisoned and
made to marry the man to which they had been betrothed.’3 The church therefore had
the power to oblige couples to marry, yet it did not do so in most of the concubinage
cases studied, even when, as in the majority of cases, both partners were single.
That the church did not oblige couples accused of concubinage to marry not only
reflects on how church authorities were fully integrated into the contemporary values
system, it also confirms that all or almost all those couples must have been unequal in
status. The evidence points to relationships in which the male was of a superior class,
race, or status and the female of an inferior class, race, or status. In this respect,
concubinage in colonial Brazil had all the advantages for the male of morganatic
marriage, in which a wife had no rights to the property or status of her husband.
118
However, it lacked the disadvantages of morganatic marriage, because partners in

concubinage could dissolve their relationship at will.
From the point of view of the male partner, concubinage was a relationship in which
he had the greatest possible control. His property remained his alone, whereas within
marriage, there was a regime of community property in which his wife had title to half
the property and had a veto right on the sale of real estate, and his father-in-law and
brothers-in-law would feel free to interfere with how he administered the property.
One nineteenth-century letter spells out explicitly the advantages of concubinage.
The letter was written by a professional, Dr. Arthur M. de Azevedo, to the mother of
Zezinha, the woman who had had his child. Zezinha’s family appears to have been a
family of quality andher mother, probably a widow, had seen better times. Dr. Azevedo
writes how, because of his love for Zezinha, he broke his engagement to the daughter
of one of the prominent families of Rio de Janeiro. As a consequence, the woman’s
father, with the help of Azevedo’s own mother and uncles, had threatened to have him
drafted and sent to the war in the south of Brazil if he did not go through with the
marriage. He did not change his mind but paid another man to take his place in the
draft, resigned his position in one of the imperial ministries, and bought a ranch far
away in Minas Gerais, where he intended to live until the affair had blown over.
The letter was not, however, an offer of marriage to Zezinha. Instead Dr. Azevedo
offered to settle shares on Zezinha, on her mother, and on her sister, so that they would
have an independent income, and he asked them to join him in his ranch to live &dquo;as
though we were married.... with the fazenda in my name.&dquo; These last words show
his concern over full control of his estate. Furthermore, there are words in his letter
that show that one of his reasons for breaking his engagement with the other woman
may have been that he thought her family was interested in his money. That concern
could be translated to mean he had learned that she would not bring to the marriage as
much property as he.71
Men in colonial Brazil did not marry women who were not their equals, which
means that men of property married only property owners or the daughters of property
owners. A pattern developed through which many young men entered a relationship
of concubinage for many years until they felt they were in a position to marry.
Portuguese legislation permitted the &dquo;natural&dquo; children of a commoner to inherit
equally with legitimate children (natural children were those born to unmarried
partners who were both either single or widowed and could, therefore, have married
if they so desired). 75 That two single persons lived together, had children, and yet did
not marry, despite the church’s clear condemnation of the relationship, suggests that
the reasons for not doing so were considered valid. When Josd Antonio Fernandes,
still single in his old age, sought in 1824 to recognize the children he had had with his
partner of many years, a single mulatto woman, he made it explicit, declaring that there
was no impediment to their marriage except for the difference in their color and status,
since he was a noble.’6 In the petition to legitimize his daughter, retired Lieutenant
Colonel Joao Gomes Nobre, from Ceara, also made it explicit when he declared that
he had not married his lover because &dquo;it was prohibited by law for at that time he was
an Infantry Adjutant and she had no nobility in spite of being white, or at least looking
white, ,,77
Men consciously chose to establish two different relationships with women, con-
cubinage and marriage, usually choosing them sequentially, the former before the
latter. There is an interesting series of letters written in the 1770s by Colonel Carlos
119
Manoel Gago da Camara to a doctor’s widow, the mother of the colonel’s natural son.
There would not seem to have been that much difference in their status, for the colonel
was himself the natural son of a Portuguese nobleman. He later was able to become
legitimized and succeed to the property and honors of his father. The difference in their
status must have been mainly a question of property, because several years into the
correspondence he wrote her that he was going to marry a common friend who had
recently become a widow, adding that he had asked her brothers to give him an
inventory of her property.78 He wrote in a matter-of-fact manner, demonstrating that
therehad never been thepossibility ofhis marrying the mother of his son, and assuming
she would understand his need to marry a property owner.
In the two preceding cases, the differences between the partners were almost
entirely questions ofproperty and, therefore, class. There were many other cases where
the difference was much greater. Such was the case of Second Lieutenant Josd Paulo
de Roza, who never married but had a very long relationship with his mother’s slave,
Anna Maria de Jesus, which resulted in their having twelve children. His mother freed
her twelve grandchildren and their mother, Anna Maria; and though the Lieutenant did
not marry Anna Maria, he proceeded to legitimize their children so that they could
inherit his property. In such a relationship all the power was in the male’s hands, not
only because of his gender but because the woman was a slave, and he was her legal
master. Yet in this and so many other instances, the result was upward mobility for the
woman and especially for her children.79
Thus concubinage, as described in this article, was a relationship with different
implications for men and women. Men were obviously aware of the inequality of their
partners but may have chosen such relations not only as way stations toward legal
marriage but also as sexual relationships in which, as distinct from marriage, they had
the most power and freedom of action. The women in such relations may or may not
havehad much choice. Women slaves undoubtedly were the most exploited, although,
as seen above, some of them benefited from being their masters’ concubines, as did
their children, especially when they were freed. Thus it is possible that some female
slaves made the rational choice to promote the relationship. All women in such unequal
relations would necessarily have to submit to their male partner’s every whim if they
wished to preserve the stability of the relationship. Concubinage was therefore a
relation of much power for the male and conscious submission for the female, in which
the determining factors were the inequalities of race, class, and gender between the
partners.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank the Indiana University History Faculty Seminar and two anonymous
referees of this journal for comments on previous drafts of this article. The research
was carried out with the support of a Fulbright Area Research Grant and an award from
theJoint Committee on Latin American Studies of the S ocial Science Research Council
and the American Council of Learned Societies.
NOTES
1. Muriel Nazzari, Disappearance of the Dowry: Women, Families, and Social Change in
São Paulo, Brazil (1600-1900) (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991).
120
2. Ibid., chaps. 1-6.

3. For studies about concubinage in colonial Mexico, see Thomas Calvo, "Concubinato y
mestizaje en el medio urbano: El caso de Guadalajara en el siglo XVII," Revista de Indias 44
no. 173 (1984): 204-12; and "The Warmth of the Hearth: Seventeenth-Century Guadalajara
Families," in Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America, ed. Asunción Lavrin (Lincoln
and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1989). See also Robert McCaa, "Marriageways in
Mexico and Spain, 1500-1900," Continuity and Change 9, no. 1 (1994): 11-43.
4. Grimal, Pierre, O amor em Roma (São Paulo: Martim Fontes, 1991), 132, cited in
Fernando Torres Londono, "Público e Escandaloso: Igreja e concubinato no antigo bispado do
Rio de Janeiro" (Ph.D. diss., University of São Paulo, 1992), 8.
5. Robert McCaa, "Calidad, Clase and Marriage in Colonial Mexico: The Case of Parral,
HispanicAmericanHistoricalReview 64 (1984): 477-502. For an extensive study
1788-1790,"
of race and class in marriage and concubinage, see Verena Martinez-Alier, Marriage, Class and
Colour in Nineteenth-Century Cuba: A Study of Racial Attitudes and Sexual Values in a Slave
Society (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974).
6. Luciano Raposo de Almeida Figueiredo, "Barrocas Famílias: Vida familiar em Minas
Gerais no século XVIII" (master’s thesis, University of São Paulo, 1989), 166.
7. See Charles R. Boxer, Race Relations in the Portuguese Empire (Oxford, UK: Clarendon,
1963); M. Tucci Carneiro, Preconceito Racial: Portugal e Brasil-Colônia (São Paulo: Brasil-
iense, 1988), especially chap. 4; Evaldo Cabral de Mello, O nome e o sangue. Uma fraude
genealógica no Pernambuco colonial (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1989).
8. Charles R. Boxer, The Golden Age of Brazil, 1695-1750 (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1962), 166. In 1771, an Indian was removed from his post of captain-major
because be had married a black woman, thus "having stained his blood and shown himself
unworthy of the office." This incident suggests that Indians were not viewed as negatively as
blacks. Gilberto Freyre, The Masters and the Slaves, trans. Samuel Putnam (Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1986}, 409.
9. These ideas, which gave a positive weight to the white component of people with mixed
ancestry, were to continue into the twentieth century, making Brazilian racism different from
the American variety, which is completely binary. See Carl Degler, Neither Black nor White:
Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the U.S. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1986); and Thomas Skidmore, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought
(New York: Oxford Universtity Press, 1974).
10. For instance, Arquivo da Cúria Metropolitana de São Paulo (hereafter ACMSP), Auto
de perguntas nupciáis, 1753, Domingos dos Santos, pardo forro, CaetanaRodrigues, pardaforra.
In this case, dos Santos had paid Rodrigues’s master for her freedom in order for them to marry.
When she became free and refused to marry him, witnesses were called, one of which testified
to how well he treated her when they were living together.
11. The words of a witness in the case, cited by Figueiredo, ‘Barrocas Famílias," 111; a
similar case is cited by Laura de Mello e Souza, "As Devassas eclesiásticas da Arquidiocese de
Mariana: Fonte primária para a história das mentalidades," Anais do museu paulista 33 (1984):
71 n.11.
12. Elizabeth Anne Kuznesof, "Ilegitamidade, raça e laços de família no Brasil do século
XIX: Uma Analice da informaçao de censos e de batismos para São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro," in
História e População: Estudos sobre a América Latina, ed. Sérgio Odilon Nadalin, Maria Luiza
Marcílio, and Altiva Pillati Balhana (São Paulo: ABEP, 1990), 166.
13. Maria Luiza Marcilio, A cidade de São Paulo: povoamento e população; 1750-1850
(São Paulo: Pioneira, 1974), 159.
14. Elizabeth Kuznesof, "Sexual Politics, Race and Bastard-Bearing in Nineteenth-Century
Brazil: A Question of Culture or Power?" Journal of Family History 16 (1991): 241-60.
15. For the comments of São Paulo’s eighteenth-century governor, Dom Luis António de
Souza, on why few people married, see Documentos interessantes para a história e costumes
121
de São Paulo, 93 vols. (São Paulo: Arquivo do Estado de São Paulo, 1897-1980), 23: 380-1;
see also Maria Beatriz Nizza da Silva, Sistema de casamento no Brasil colonial (São Paulo:
Queiroz, 1984), 50-6.

16. ACMSP, Processos de Esponsáis, 1753, Maria Pires, justificante, Joao Barbosa, justificado.
17. ACMSP, Processos de Esponsáis, 1762, Quitéria de Moraes, justificante, Joaquim de
Camargo, justificado, bairro de S. Pedro, hoje Jaraguá.
18. ACMSP, Processos Crime—Concubinato Duplo, 1779, Réus: Joaquim Gonçalves,
solteiro, Catharina Cardosa, solteira, Maria de Camargo, solteira, Interior de São Paulo,
Guarulhos. Joaquim was accused of being simultaneosly involved with two women.
19. Torres Londoño, "Público e escandaloso," 89.
20. Figueiredo, ’’Barrocas famílias," 142.
21. Ibid., 110.
22. ACMSP, Processos Crime, Concubinato, 1747, Réus: Bento Fernandes da Silva, solteiro,
e Tereza, solteira e sua escrava.
23. ACMSP, Processos Crime—Concubinato, 1779, Denunciados: Miguel Raposo, tenente,
e Quitéria, sua escrava, Interior São Paulo, Guarulhos.
24. Figueiredo, ’’Barrocas famílias," 143.

25. ACMSP, Processos Crime, Concubinato, 1736, Bairro de Penha, Denunciados: Gaspar
Ribeiro Salvago e Vitória, carijó bastarda. In the text, Gaspar uses the word slave when speaking
about the woman in question, yet he declares she is his administrada, a legal arrangement for
the use of Indian and mestizo labor that was not exactly slavery, because administrados could
not legally be sold, yet approximated slavery because administrados had no right, at that time,
to voluntarily change masters. See MurielNazzari, ‘"Transition toward Slavery: Changing Legal
Practice Regarding Indians in Seventeenth-Century São Paulo," The Americas 49, no. 2 (1992)
137-41. See also John Monteiro, Negros da terra: índios e bandeirantes nas origens de São
Paulo (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1994).
26. For instance, ACMSP, Crime, Concubinato, 1751, Nossa Senhora do O, Réus: Joao Pinto
de Aguiar, casado e Quitéria, sua escrava mulata; also ACMSP, Crime, Concubinato, 1784,
bairro de Tatuapé, Denuciados: Manoel Pires Dias, casado, e Ana, sua escrava.
27. The Council of Trent explicitly condemned concubinage. Fernando Torres Londono, "El
Concubinato y la Iglesia en el Brasil Colonial," Estudos CEDHAL (São Paulo) 2 (1988): 9.
28. Church law in eighteenth-century Brazil came from an ecclesiatic constitution formu-
lated in 1707 in the Archbishopric of Bahia: Constituiçôes primeiras do Arcebispado da Bahia,
feitas e ordenadas pelo ilustríssimo e reverendíssimo senhor Sebastião Monteiro da Vide bispo
do dito Arcebispado, e do Conselho de Sua Magestade, propostas e aceitas em o synodo
diocesano que o dito senhor celebrou em 12 de junho do anno 1707 (São Paulo: Typografia 2
de dezembro, 1853), hereafter Constituiçôes.
29. Constituiçoes, Liv. I, Tit. XXXVI and XXXVII. See also Ronaldo Vainfas, "A conde-
nação do adultério," in Mulheres, Adúlteros e Padres, ed. Lana Lage da Gama Lima (Rio de
Janeiro: Dois Pontos, 1987).
30. AMCSP, Processos Crime, Não safisfez os preceitos da Quaresma, 1780, Réu: Gertudes
bastarda, chamada Gerundinha.
31. For the rules about lists of parishioners who had confessed, and desobrigas (certificates
given by a priest to confirm the compliance of annual confession), see Constituiçoes, Liv. I,
Tits. XXXVI and XXXVIII.
32. ACMSP, Processos Crime, Concubinato—1779—Denunciados: Joao de Almeida
Quaresma, Patrícia Correa.
33. ACMSP, Processos Crime, Concubinato—1779—Denunciados: José Roiz Padilla,
Bernarda Lopes; Mairiporá, freguesía de Juquery.
34. Constituiçôes, Liv. V, Tit. XXII, par. 979.
35. Constituiçôes, Liv. V, Tit. XIX, par. 968: "Porêm, não se admittirá denunciação, ou
accusação criminal em nosso juizo contra pessoa leiga para effeito de ser castigada, por se dizer,
122
que commeteo adulterio, se juntamente não houver infamia, e perseverança, que induza
amancebamento."
36. Concubinage accounted for 85 percent of denunciations in the episcopal visits to Minas
Gerais. Luciano Figueiredo and Ricardo Martins de Sousa, "Segredos de Mariana: pesquisando
a inquisição mineira," Acervo Revista do Arquivo Nacional 2, no. 2 (1987): 18. The practice
accounted for 80 percent of the denunciations to Mato Grosso. Torres Londono, "Público e
escandaloso," 275.
37. ACMSP, Processos crime, concubinato, 1784, Manoel Pires Dias, casado, denunciado,
e Ana, sua escrava, concubina, bairro de Tatuapé, São Paulo. The monetary unit in the
seventeenth century was the real (plural, réis). The denomination of 1,000 réis was written
1$000 and called milréis. It became the monetary unit by the end of the eighteenth century.
38. Constituiçôes, Liv. V, Tit. XII, par. 980-3.
39. Laura de Mello e Souza, "As devassas eclesiásticas da Arquidiocese de Mariana: Fonte
primária para a história das mentalidades," Anais do Museu Paulista, 33 (1984): 70.
40. Torres Londono, "Público e escandaloso," 285-8.
41. Calculated from figs. 4, 5, 6, and 7 in Luciano Raposo "Barrocas Famílias," 70-1.
42. Ronaldo Vainfas, "A teia da intriga: Delaçao e moralidade na sociedade colonial," in
Histðria e Sexualidade no Brasil, ed. Ronaldo Vainfas (Rio de Janeiro: Ediçoes Graal, 1986),
52-4.
43. The three cases were (1) ACMSP, Processos crime, concubinato, 1779, Tenente Miguel
Raposo e Quitéria, sua escrava; (2) ACMSP, Processos crime, concubinato, 1762, Doutor
Constantino José da Silva e Azevedo, solteiro, e Maria dos Prazeres, solteira; and (3) ACMSP,
"Livro de receitas e despesa do dineiro das condenaçoes da jusfiga eclesi&amacr;sticas, Diocese de São
Paulo," (hereafter "Livro de receitas"), 11 de janeiro de 1749, Sargento mor Francisco da Rocha
de Abreu, e Lara, preta forra.
44. ACMSP, Esponsáis 1762, Quitéria de Moraes, justificante, Joaquim de Camargo,
justificado, bairro de S. Pedro, hoje Jaraguá; and ACMSP, Crime, Concubinato, 1779. Denun-
ciados: José Roiz Padilla, Bernarda Lopes; Interior de São Paulo, Mairiporá.
45. ACMSP, "Livro de receita."
46. For the fines to be levied, see Constituiçoes, Liv. V, Tit. XXII, par. 980-1. To help give
an idea of the value of these fines, the amount of manioc flour consumed in one month as a
ration by one soldier in a Rio de Janeiro garrison in 1718 was worth 423 réis (for the size of the
ration, see Dauril Alden, "Price Movements in BrazilBefore, During, and After the Gold Boom,
with Special Reference to the Salvador Market, 1670-1769," in Essays on the Price History of
Eighteenth-Century Latin America, ed. Lyman L. Johnson and Enrique Tandeter (Albuquerque,
NM: University of New Mexico, 1990), 348.I calculated the price of the monthly ration from
the 1750 price shown in table 11.4, p. 350). Other prices: a gold necklace, 12$000; eight sterling
silver spoons, 5$360; a dozen pewter plates, 2$000. See Nazzari, Disappearance of the Dowry,
179).
47. No residence is given for nine couples. Of the others, twenty-eight were from the same
and only two from different towns, parishes, or neighborhoods. The breakdown is the following:
center of São Paulo, 6; outlying neighborhoods, 14 (Conceição, Penha, Santana, Bom Sucesso,
Cotia, São Miguel, Santo Amaro); neighboring villages, 10 (Mogi, Jundiahi, Juquery,
Tremembé, Jacarehi); and unknown, 9; total, 39.
48. The statistics for Minas Gerais were taken from Francisco Vidal Luna and Iraci del Nero
da Costa, "Devassa nas minas Gerais: Observaçoes sobre casos de concubinato," Anais do
Museu Paulista 31 (1982): 227.
49. A study of accusations of adultery in São Paulo shows comparable statistics. In 98
accusations of a husband’s adultery, 72 percent of concubines were free, 19 percent slave, 4
percent free Indian, and 4 percent unknown. Raquel Bumplesperger Lopes Domingues da Costa,
"Divórcio e anulação de matrimônio em São Paulo colonial," (master’s thesis, University of
São Paulo, 1986), 268.
123
50. Vidal Luna and del Nero da Costa, "Devassa nas Minas Gerais," 227.
51. Ibid., 231.
52. Luis Mott, "Os pecados da família na baía de Todos os Santos (1813)," Centro de Estudos
Baianos (Salvador, Brazil) 98 (1982): 5-55. Cited in MariaBeatriz Nizza da Silva, Vidaprivada
e quotidiano no Brasil (Lisbon, Portugal: Estampa, 1993), 174. The description of his relation-
ship was expressed in the following words in the document: "De porta adentro, teúdo e manteúdo
com Paulina Maria, branca." Though Nizza da Silva does not remark about it, these words are
especially interesting because they are the exact reversal of the words used in most of the cases
of concubinage. It was usually the concubine who was described as teúda e manteúda
(supported). In the above quotation, the use of the masculine form (teúdo e manteúdo) informs
the reader explicitly that she was supporting him.
53. For the punishment of incest, see Constituiçoes, Liv. V, Tit. XX.
54. The lover could not be killed with impunity, however, unless he were of the same or a
lower status than the betrayed husband. Vainfas, "Acondenação do Adultério,", 43-4.
55. ACMSP, "Livro de receita," fine No. 69, 1750, Simão Pinto Guede.
5 6. For the church law protecting married women and reputable maidens, see Constituiçôes,
Liv. V, Tit. XXIII, Par. 990-2.
59. Constituiçôes, Liv. V, Tit. XXII, Par. 989.
60. Constituiçôes, Liv. V, Tit. XXIII, Par. 992.
61. ACMSP, Processos Crime, Concubinato, 1773, Réus: José António de Araujo, solteiro,
Francisca, liberta, solteira.
62. ACMSP, Processos Crime, Concubinato, 1779, Interior S.P., Mairiporá, Denunciados:
Antonio de Camargo, Escolástica de Godoi (cabocla).
63. ACMSP, Processos Crime, Concubinato, 1779, Guarulhos, Réus Denunciados: Miguel
Raposo, tenente, e Quitéria, sua escrava.
64. ACMSP, Processos Crime, Concubinato, 1779, Interior S.P., Mairiporá, Denunciados:
José Roiz Padilla, Bernarda Lopes.
65. ACMSP, Processos Crime, Concubinato, 1779, Interior S.P., Mogi Guaçu, Denunciados:
Inácio de Freitas, casado, Domingas, carijó.
66. ACMSP, Processos Crime, Concubinato, 1751, Nossa Senhora do O, Denunciados: João
Pinto de Aguiar, Quitéria, sua escrava, mulata.
67. ACMSP, Processos Crime, Concubinato, 1748, cidade, Denunciados: Josefa Maria de
Jesus Avila, Francisco Leite, viúvo, concubino da ré citados: Francisco de Avila, Natalia,
bastarda.
68. ACMSP, Processo de Casamento, 1752, Felix Monteiro de Barros e Quitéria Dias,
administrada do L. António Leite.
69. ACMSP, Processos de Casamento, 6-84-2477, José Martins de Oliveira, Rita de Moraes.
70. ACMSP, Processos Esponsáis, Auto de Justificação Entre Partes, São Paulo,1780, Maria
Gertrudes, Justificante, Joaquim Pereira Machado, Justificado.
71. ACMSP, Processos Esponsáis, Interior S. Paulo, Ubatuba, 1772, Autor: Maria Francisca
dos Anjos, Réu: Joaquim Antonio de Souza, mulato prezo. The suit is incomplete, and the
sentence is later embargoed by Joaquim, so we do not know whether they in fact married. He
defended his refusal to marry her by accusing her of being a loose woman.
72. For instance, ACMSP, Processos Esponsáis, (1) Freguesia de N.S. de Nazareth, 1751,
Rosa Cardosa de Lima, justificante, João Afonso Escudeiro, justificado; (2) Ana Maria Inácia,
autora, Francisco José Vas, réu; (3) Santo Amaro, 1751, BoaventuraFurtado, justificante, Maria
de Jesus, justificada; (4) Freguesia de Santo Amaro, 1758, Simoa de Melo, autora, Domingos
Marques Requeixo, réu.
73. ACMSP, Processos Esponsáis, 1753, Domingos dos Santos, oficial de armeiro, pardo
forro, justificante, Caetana Rodrigues, parda forra, justificada.
124
74. Letter addressed to Illm.a Exm.a Senr.a D. Emilia F. Vega, January 3, 1876, Biblioteca
Nacional, Seção Manustritos 20, 1, 2: Cartas dirigidas a Miguel Arcanjo Galvo (Cartas e outros
escriptos. Centro, Sul e Norte do Imperio e Paizes Estrangeiros. Postos em ordem por M.A.G.
1885), vol. I, no. 314.
75. Linda Lewin, "Natural and Spurious Children in Brazilian Inheritance Law from Colony
to Empire: A Methodological Essay," The Americas 48, no. 3 (1992) 351-96.
76. Arquivo Nacional, Legitimações no Desembargo do Paço (hereafter Legitimaçõies),
Caixa 126, Pacote 2—Doc. 35—1824, Joaquim José Fernandes, Thezoreiro Geral da Junta da
Fazenda Publica da Provincia do Esp. Santo.
77. Legitimações, Caixa 125, Pasta 2, Doc. 38.
78. Legitimações, Caixa 126, Pasta 1, Doc. 15, 1809, Joaquim Manoel Gago da Camara.
79. Legitimações, Caixa 126, Pasta 2, Doc. 13, 1822, Alferes José Paulo de Roza.

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