| Society-BAHIA-BRAZILIANS The Bahia Brazilians are the inhabitants of the city of Bahia (Salvador), the capital of the state of Bahia in eastern Brazil, and of the surrounding Reconcavo, a semicircle of land bordering the Baia de Todos os Santos (Bay of All Saints). The Reconcavo region encompasses an area of approximately 4,827 square miles (about the size of the state of Connecticut), and its geographical coordinates are roughly lat. 12 degrees-13 degrees S by long. 38 degrees-40 degrees W. The first permanent colony on the Baia de Todos os Santos was established by the Portuguese in 1549 (Haskins 1956: 65). By the end of the sixteenth century, the ethnic groups, crops, animals, and agricultural institutions that were to become characteristic of the Reconcavo were already in evidence. Black slaves were imported shortly after the arrival of the first Portuguese settlers, as well as sugarcane and cattle. Manioc and tobacco produced by the Indians of the region were rapidly integrated into the colonial pattern of agriculture. The combination of sugar mill and plantation (engenho), which formed the basic economic institutions of the Reconcavo until the end of the nineteenth century, already existed in rudimentary form before 1600. By the middle of the seventeenth century, these institutions had been greatly expanded, and Bahia became the leading province in Brazil for the export of both sugar and tobacco. The eighteenth century opened with a series of disasters for the economy of the Reconcavo, resulting in large-scale migrations of the population away from the sugarcane-producing areas. At the end of the eighteenth century, the economy recovered, and the Reconcavo passed through a so-called "golden age," which persisted through the first quarter of the nineteenth century. In the 1820s, the British government began to press Brazil for a treaty to end the slave trade, a treaty which was finally consummated in 1826. It was not until 25 years later, however, after many bitter diplomatic exchanges with Great Britain, that the Brazilians began to fulfill their treaty obligations. After 1852, almost no slaves were landed. Finally, in 1888, Brazil passed a law giving complete and immediate freedom to the slaves without compensation to the slave owners. The loss of slave labor was a severe blow to the sugar industry, but by this time tobacco had surpassed sugar as Bahia's leading export crop. In the twentieth century, as in the nineteenth, the Reconcavo persisted in its monoculture and was reluctant to accept technological innovations in agriculture and industry. Today the official language of the Reconcavo is Portuguese, as it is for the rest of Brazil. This was not always the case, however, for when the first Portuguese settlements were established, Tupi, an American Indian language, was the lingua franca of all segments of the population except the social elite, who spoke only Portuguese. Interest in Portuguese revived with the great literary awakening in the eighteenth century and the expulsion from South America of the Jesuits, who were the principal popularizers and promoters of Tupi. During the nineteenth century, as Portuguese began to filter down to all social levels, coming into contact with both Tupi and various African languages (used extensively by the slave population) it underwent considerable change in both linguistic and vocabulary (Weil et al, 1971: 102). process undergoing some degree of change and making significant additions to the vocabulary (Weil et al. 1971: 102). In the sixteenth century, the importation of slaves into Bahia from various African territories (chiefly the Guinea Coast and Angola) led to the introduction of a number of closely-related African languages, through which mutual communications were established between the different groups of slaves. Gradually there came into general use, especially among the influential, semi-independent negros de ganho (slaves engaged in various occupational pursuits in nearly complete autonomy from their masters), a composite African language called Nago. Nago continued for some time to be the general Black language. Even as late as 1900, Nago was commonly spoken in Bahia by nearly all of the old Africans and by many of the Creoles and Mulattoes as well, and was still heard in the 1930s (Pierson 1967: 72-73). Population growth in the Reconcavo has shown a steady increase, from about 277,503 in 1819 to 450,000 in 1872, 924,032 in 1940, and 1,072,452 in 1950a growth rate of sixteen percent in the last 10-year period noted above. Of the total population in 1950, 493,944 were located in urban centers, while 578,508 were in rural areas. The 1974 World Almanac gives a figure of 1,000,647 for the city of Salvador alone. Agriculture remains the primary economic activity of the Reconcavo, supplemented to some degree by fishing in the bay area (e.g. from the town of Villa Reconcavo). About 70 percent of all crop land is used for the production of the three predominant cropsmanioc, tobacco, and sugarcane. Basic subsistence crops are manioc, maize, beans, peanuts, sweet potatoes, and bananas. Although the Reconcavo is primarily a subsistence and commercial crop region, livestock play an important role in the basically agricultural economyas draught animals, for meat and dairy products, and as a source of manure for the crops. Haskins estimates that in 1948 there were between 800,000 to 850,000 livestock animals in the Reconcavo, primarily cattle, sheep, goats, horses, asses, and mules (1967: 266). There are six major political divisions of the Reconcavo (Central, Northern, Northwestern, Southwestern, Eastern, and Southern), each of which is divided into municipios, totalling 21 in all. The significant political unit is the municipio, the approximate Brazilian equivalent of a county in the United States. Each municipio is composed of two elementsthe sede (seat), which is the administrative center and, regardless of size, is called a cidade; and the rest of the municipio, which in the Reconcavo is primarily rural. The municipio is usually further divided into distritos (districts), each with a center called a villa. Neither the cidade nor the villa is a corporate entity separate from the municipio or district (i.e. there is no urban organization per se). In the Reconcavo area, the cidades are either small cities, towns, or villages, while the villas may be either villages or hamlets. The size of the municipios varies considerably, being very large where the population is scattered and small where the settlement is dense. The Reconcavo, as with all of Bahia, is dominated by the city of Salvador. Reconcavo society is characterized by a strongly-developed class structure, with little vertical mobility. The influence of this class structure permeates all aspects of the culture (e.g. marriage, labor, housing, etc.). Hutchinson, in his studies of Villa Reconcavo (1957, 1963), a small community in the Central Reconcavo sugarcane area, distinguished four separate social strata: (1) the aristocratic upper class, composed of plantation-owning families, linked to one another by marriage, all of whom are well educated and of Caucasoid appearance; (2) a local upper class, composed of local bureaucrats, plantation administrators, sugar mill technicians, merchants, and professional people whose educational range varied from university-educated doctors to illiterates and whose racial backgrounds included "pure" Caucasoids, brancos da terra (Whites with known or suspected Black ancestry), Mulattoes, and some Blacks; (3) the working classes, composed of plantation workers, craftsmen, and fishermen, generally consisting of Blacks, Mulattoes, and dark-skinned mesticos; and (4) cidade dwellers in menial positions: porters, water carriers, washerwomen, domestic servants, and odd jobbers, among whom were Blacks, Mulattoes, and some brancos da terra. Although this class analysis is based only on one community, it corresponds closely to the general class structure throughout the sugarcane zone, and, with some modifications, to that of the city of Salvador itself. Salvador's upper-class stratum consists not only of landed aristocrats and their descendants but also of urban capitalists, speculators, and members of several professionsdoctors, lawyers, and engineers. In general, the criteria for the determination of class status in the Reconcavo are: (1) source of income (2) type of work (3) educational level (4) family background (in varying degrees), and (5) physical or racial appearance. Class differences are also in evidence in terms of marriage stability. The upper classes tend to marry within their own group, thus serving the function of tying together the comparatively small number of large extended families that constitute this class. This factor, coupled with the fact that the upper-class families tend to enjoy a diversified economic structure, lead to a greater stability in marriage than is found among the lower classes. (See Hutchinson 1957 for additional data on class, family, and marriage patterns.) Traditionally, religion occupied a large part of the lives of the upper-class aristocracy. Nearly every plantation in the rural areas had its own chapel, which formed part of the owner's house, and its own chaplain, who saw to the spiritual needs of the landowning family and their slaves. Much of the landowner's wealth was spent on religionbuilding churches, sponsoring religious processions, and maintaining religious brotherhoods for laymen. In the twentieth century, however, Catholicism is no longer the official state religion, and interest in religion has generally waned, especially among the upper classes. Concomitant with the influential period of the Catholic church, there arose during the nineteenth century, various African cults called candomble, representing a fusion of Catholic beliefs and rituals with African mythology and religious practices. Today, as with Catholicism, little interest is shown in the religious aspects of these societies. More recently, spiritualism has been introduced to the area and seems to be growing in popularity, especially because of the healing powers displayed by the mediums. In most cases, people are drawn to it through illness and the promise of a cure. Protestantism has made little headway in the Reconcavo; there have been a few converts, but apparently there is considerable resistance to another organized religion. The reasearcher is advised to go to the historical works by Gilberto Freyre (1963, 1956), which are particularly applicable to Bahia, and to the novels of Jorge Amado (1936, 1935), for a good idea of the flavor of life in this region. Culture summary by John M. Beierle Amado, Jorge. Cacau. 3d ed. Rio de Janeiro, Ed. Jose Olympio, 1936. 277 p. Amado, Jorge. Jubiaba. Rio de Janeiro, Ed. Jose Olympio, 1935. 371 p. Amado, Jorge. Mar morto. Rio de Janeiro, Ed. Jose Olympio, 1936. 346 p. Amado, Jorge. Suor. 2d ed. Rio de Janeiro, Ed. Jose Olympio, 1936. 225 p. Freyre, Gilberto. The masters and the slaves. 2d ed. New York, A. A. Knopf. 1956. (English trans. of Casa grande e senzala, first pub. in 1936). Freyre, Gilberto. The mansions and the shanties. New York, A.A. Knopf, 1963. (English trans. of Sobrados e mucambos, first pub. in 1936.) Haskins, Edward Cooper. An agricultural geography of the Reconcavo of Bahia. Ann Arbor, University Microfilms, 1956 [1967 copy]. 17, 428 l. maps, tables. (University Microfilms Publications, no. 17,891) Dissertation (Geography) University of Minnesota, 1956. Hutchinson, Harry William. Village and plantation life in northeastern Brazil. Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1957. 9, 199 p. illus., maps, tables. Hutchinson, Harry William. Race relations in a rural community of the Bahian Reconcavo. In Charles Wagley, ed. Race and Class in Rural Brazil. 2d ed. New York, International Documents Service, Columbia University Press, 1963: 16-46. Pierson, Donald. Negroes in Brazil: a study of race contact at Bahia. [New ed.]. Foreword by Herman R. Lantz. Carbondale and Edwardsville, Southern Illinois University Press, 1967. 83, 420 p. tables. Weil, Thomas E. Area handbook for Brazil. By Thomas E. Weil et al. Washington, D. C., U. S. Government Printing Office, 1971. 18, 645 p., illus., tables. 7830 | |
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