Ser forro sob condição: uma história social da alforria condicional no Rio de Janeiro (1821 – 1837)

Abstract

This research aims to collaborate with studies on the practice of conditional manumission in Rio de Janeiro. Its main objective is to understand the practice of conditional manumission and its meanings for captives, slave owners and the State throughout the 1820s and 1830s. Conditions revoked through judicial means. Understanding the meanings and uncertainties of being between captivity and freedom is the concern that drives this research. The defined period corresponds to a time when the law allowed the revocation of manumission due to the ingratitude of the manumitted against the grantor of manumission (1821 – 1837). Civil actions were the main sources used, but journals, legislation, manumission letters and other specific documents were also consulted. The geographical clipping is the province of Rio de Janeiro. Although conditional manumissions had been negotiated in other regions of the country and in other periods and that there are already studies on this subject, there are still points that can be expanded and deepened. I selected Rio de Janeiro as the privileged location for this study, because, being the capital of the Empire at the time, it was the center of legal disputes processed in the Casa de Suplicação in Brazil and in the Court of Appeal in Rio de Janeiro.