Slaves Plot a Revolt in Minas Gerais, Brazil (1719)
[In the early eighteenth century the captaincy of Minas Gerais was a newly settled region of far-flung gold mining camps where slaves greatly outnumbered whites. As elsewhere in Brazil, the white race brutally dominated the black, but the new mining districts lacked the security and discipline of the older coastal zones. The region's peculiar conditions seem to have brought some temporary alterations in the traditional master-slave relationships, encouraging masters to grant their workers exceptional privileges and responsibilities, and inspiring a high spirit of rebelliousness in the slaves, based upon their understanding that their greatly outnumbered masters were not omnipotent.
These are the impressions given at least by the following letter of Count Pedro de Almeida, captain general of Minas Gerais, to King Joao V. In this document the count reported a conspiracy to rebel involving slaves in widespread parts of the captaincy inspired in part, he thought, by the indulgent policies of the region's slaveholders. Seeking to advise the king, he deplored the masters' easygoing attitudes and urged adoption of more restrictive policies to discipline the restive lave population. Source: Cite in full in Jose Alipio Goulart, Da fuga ao suicidio (Aspectos da rebeldia dos escravos no Brasil) (Rio de Janeiro: Conquista, 1972), pp. 284-286.]
In a letter of June 13 of last year I informed Your Majesty of the unrestrained life style of the blacks in this mining region, especially the runaways who, gathered together in quilombos, dare to commit all kinds of offenses without fear of punishment. I also called Your Majesty's attention to the great importance of this question, because it seemed to be reasonably well founded that the black might possibly carry out operations similar to those of Palmares in Pernambuco, encouraged by their large numbers and the foolhardy attitudes of their masters. Not only do the latter trust them with all kinds of weapons; they also conceal their acts of insolence and their crimes (even those perpetrated against themselves) to avoid the risk of losing them if they should be seized by the agents of Justice. The harm caused by this situation seems without remedy, as I pointed out to you in that same letter, owing to the absence of preventive measures and the great carelessness which has always been characteristic of this situation.
With the passage of time my fears have been verified. No longer satisfied merely to harass us from the mocambos which they control in various places, and have always held despite the great efforts I have made to destroy them, the black now aspire to an even greater enterprise. And, although this is an ambitious undertaking, it is not beyond their powers, if we consider their large numbers compared with the number of white, and if God does not use their barbarousness to block their success, with the many gross errors they commit when seeking to maintain the secrecy of their plans.
Having entered into a conspiracy to rebel against the white which involved most of the blacks of these mines, they attempted to establish contacts with one another by means of various secret agents who went from one place to another over a vast area attempting to arrange a general revolt. They had decided that their first attacks would take place on Maundy Thursday of this year. With all the white men occupied in the churches, they reasoned, they would have time to break into their houses and attack the whites, pitilessly exterminating them. A few days before Holy week those blacks began to quarrel among themselves, because it was the intention of one nation to impose its rule upon the rest, and the secret was therefore revealed in the Rio das Mortes district, where, along with news of the revolt, it was learned that the blacks of that district had named for themselves a king, a prince, and military leaders. I had already decided that this was probably some black nonsense, when another message arrived from a place called Furquim, a dependency of this city two days travel from here, and six or seven days travel from Rio das Mortes. This message outlined circumstances like those reported in the message from Rio das Mortes, and so it began to be clear to me that this was indeed a very serious situation.
I immediately decreed the necessary preventive measures, including the arrest of all the suspected blacks in the several places. And conscious of the fact that on the hill of Ouro Preto there were also suspicious circumstances suggesting that the blacks who lived there were also involved in the conspiracy, and that that was where the greatest danger exited, I went to Vila Rica and ordered two companies of soldiers to ascend the hill to hunt for weapons. None were found, however, either because none in fact existed, or because they had hidden them in some concealed underground places which the blacks of that hill inhabit. I then decreed a strict ban on the possession by blacks of weapons of every kind, at the same time imposing rigorous punishments upon them and upon their masters.
I also ordered that extra precautions were to be taken on Maundy Thursday, the day appointed for the uprising, ordering that all weapons were to be stored in secure places where blacks would not have access to them, and that any weapons left by their owners in their houses should have their gunlocks removed, and should be concealed where the blacks could not find them. An d because the blacks in Rio das Mortes, a district less populated by whites, had displayed greater self-confidence than elsewhere, openly threatening the whites with remarks about the date of the uprising, I ordered Lieutenant General Joao Ferreira Tavares to go there to arrest all blacks he thought were guilty, and to investigate the conspiracy. This he diligently did, arresting and sending to this city the so-called kings of the Mina and Angola nations and others who were allegedly chiefs and military leaders of the rebellion.
Since all these preventive measures were taken before the date determined by the blacks for their first attacks, and since many guilty black men and women were imprisoned, and others punished, the problem ceased to exist. The sedition was extinguished, and the country returned to its former tranquility. However, since we cannot prevent the remaining blacks from thinking, and cannot deprive them of their natural desire for freedom; and since we cannot, merely because of this desire, eliminate all of them, they being necessary for our existence here, it must be concluded that this country will always be subjected to this problem.
This is not, in fact, the first rebellion that the blacks have planned; already in times gone by they have had such intentions. And because their multitudes, in comparison with the number of whites, give them courage; and because the whites place too much trust in them, failing to correct them despite repeated instances of unfaithfulness; and because, by merely looking about them they can see the haven offered to them by the immense forests, the defenselessness of the towns, the absence of soldiers to defeat them or pursue them into the forests, they gain courage enough to attempt anything; and their boldness is a disgraceful result of their prejudiced opinion of the white men. Their self-respect grows because of the fear the whites have of them, a pride which, whether arising from the negligence of the whites or the scorn of the blacks, always has unpleasant and ugly consequences which could easily result from the kind of evil we have just witnessed. Once decisions have been arrived at, Your Majesty might adopt the most useful policies.
May God preserve Your Majesty's Royal Person for many years.
Vila do Carmo, April 20, 1719. Count Dom Pedro de Almeida.
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