Papers by Aldair C Rodrigues
Journal of Africana Religions, 2021
This article analyzes the persecution of African religions in eighteenth-
century Brazil focusing... more This article analyzes the persecution of African religions in eighteenth-
century Brazil focusing on two important yet largely unstudied
dimensions. First, it explores the militarization of policing Vodun
practicioners by capitães do mato (“bush captains”), whose main function
was capturing runaway slaves, after the destruction of the great
maroon state of Palmares. Second, it examines the demonization by
colonial society of African and diasporic religions, focusing on the
process of knowledge production about the liturgical languages used
by West African priests and the visual culture of the cults dedicated to
the ophidian Voduns (Dan).
Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation, 2023
This dataset contains information about 3,260 freed people who lived in Mariana (Captaincy of Min... more This dataset contains information about 3,260 freed people who lived in Mariana (Captaincy of Minas Gerais), in the Brazilian mining region, during the eighteenth century. The data were extracted from two archival series belonging to Arquivo Histórico da Casa Setecentista de Mariana. Most of it comes from 92 livros de notas (notary book of notes); the first códice dates
back to 1711, when the town was founded, and the last one documents information from 1770. These sources are complemented by two livros de alforrias (freedom certificate books) registering manumissions.
The register livros de notas were used by the Crown official notary to record a variety of contracts and deeds, ranging from trading partnerships to bills of sale for land, enslaved people, gold mines, etc. Our objective is to facilitate access to data about manumissions that are not registered in dedicated codices and therefore are scattered across multiple types of documents
and not cataloged . Headings that indicate a manumission in livros de notas include: escritura de alforria e liberdade (deed of manumission and freedom), escritura de liberdade (deed of freedom), carta de liberdade (letter of freedom), papel de liberdade (freedom paper), and escrito de liberdade (freedom writing), among others. Douglas Lima explains that each type of freedom certificate and their bureaucratic details had specific implications in the lives of Black people shaped by power relations and social control strategies. Despite these 2 variations, the core of their legal impact tends to align. The documents provide the similar basic information that became variables in our spreadsheet, such as the name of the manumitted person, his or her origin, enslaver who granted the manumission, type of concession, and payment and justification for the act of manumission.
Cadernos Afro Memória - Representação e representatividade política negra, 2023
Cadernos Afro-Memória-AFRO-CEBRAP, 2023
Apesar de avanços importantes nos últimos anos, o papel do movimento negro no processo de reabert... more Apesar de avanços importantes nos últimos anos, o papel do movimento negro no processo de reabertura política que culminou na Constituição de
1988 ainda tem pouca visibilidade na história da democracia brasileira. O acervo Reginaldo Bispo e Margarida Barbosa, militantes do MNU paulista
residentes em Campinas,1 permite a superação parcial deste quadro ao oferecer documentos sobre as grandes mobilizações políticas de entidades
negras nos anos 1985 e 1986 pela Constituinte. Apesar de importante, essa dimensão cronológica da redemocratização é bem menos conhecida
do que os acontecimentos de 1987 (Assembléia Nacional Constituinte-ANC) e de 1988.
The Conversation Africa, 2021
Slavery & Abolition, 2021
This article analyzes new dimensions of the process of racialization in eighteenth-century Brazil... more This article analyzes new dimensions of the process of racialization in eighteenth-century Brazil. It argues that colonial society did not racialize Africans as a homogeneous mass but used several social technologies to make sense of the diversity of their origins. The creation of blackness involved an intense production of knowledge on their origins by means of cultural and visual markers (mainly scarification) associated with the
tereotyping label ‘nação’ (nation), and at the same time the use of phenotypic markers that functioned as common denominators of their difference from Europeans. The article contends that these two dimensions of the construction of African difference were not successive, as if one were a stage of the other, as if society first dealt with the diversity of origins and then reduced them to the category ‘negro’. In fact these two instances were interdependent, relational, and hence facets of the same historical phenomenon.
Afro-Asia, 2021
Considering the visual culture of the African diaspora, this article analyzes the effects of the ... more Considering the visual culture of the African diaspora, this article analyzes the effects of the presence of Gbe language groups in the formation of the lexicon used in detailing the ritual scarification of the African population present in the diamond district of the captaincy of Minas Gerais in the eighteenth century. It focuses on the historical process of spreading the term geja, exploring both its meanings linked to specific patterns of scarification and its widespread use for African body markings in general. Its emergence is examined as an index of a broader chain of meanings connected to the Gbe ethnogenesis in a context of great urban concentration of people from Costa da Mina.
Luzo-Brazilian Review, 2016
This article analyzes the process undertaken in the provision of benefices (cathedrals’ prebends ... more This article analyzes the process undertaken in the provision of benefices (cathedrals’ prebends and vicariates) belonging to the patronage of the Order of Christ in south central Portuguese America during the royalist context, in the second half of the 18th century. The objective is to examine the political and social meanings that access to the beneficial network of the Order of Christ provided. The analysis presumes that the monarchy awarded these positions as part of a larger system of rewards for services rendered to the crown.
Estudos Históricos, 2020
This article discusses ethical and methodological challenges underlying the digital approaches to... more This article discusses ethical and methodological challenges underlying the digital approaches to the African diaspora. It takes the process of building a database about the enslaved population that lived in the region of Mariana (Minas Gerais) during the Eighteenth century as a case study. It analyzes the consequences of the insertion of historical information produced in a context marked by the asymmetrical power relations legitimized by slave ideology into digital systems. What are the potentialities and risks of this task in a socially and racially unequal country like Brazil?
Sankofa, 2019
Among the numerous cases and denunciations of the Portuguese Inquisition preserved in the Archive... more Among the numerous cases and denunciations of the Portuguese Inquisition preserved in the Archive of Torre do Tombo, there is the unpublished "Summary against the Blacks of Angola of the Continent of Pernambuco" ("Sumário contra os pretos de Angola do continente de Pernambuco"), 1779, transcribed and analyzed here. It is a set of denunciations rich in information on the social, cultural, identity and religious practices of a community formed in Pernambuco by enslaved people from Angola. In addition, the document offers new evidence on the dynamics underlying the emergence of the word "Malungo" (shipmate) in the eighteenth-century Brazilian Portuguese lexicon.
Este artigo elege a clivagem naturais da terra / reinóis como vetor principal de análise das cara... more Este artigo elege a clivagem naturais da terra / reinóis como vetor principal de análise das características do clero presente no espaço atlântico português, enfocando os clérigos seculares dos Açores, da Madeira e do Brasil durante o século XVIII. Identifica os traços principais do perfil dos sacerdotes que se habilitaram no Santo Ofício e a origem dos titulares das prebendas dos cabidos do centro-sul brasileiro: Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo e Minas Gerais. Demonstra-se que acesso aos lugares do poder eclesiástico foi permeado por uma série de dinâmicas sociais e políticas, intermediando as relações entre a Coroa, as elites locais e segmentos intermédios.
Este trabalho investiga o processo de formação da rede de familiares do Santo da capitania de Min... more Este trabalho investiga o processo de formação da rede de familiares do Santo da capitania de Minas Gerais durante o século XVIII. A análise, com enfoque no aspecto social da familiatura, leva em conta, por um lado, o contexto externo, ou seja, a expedição de cartas de familiares para Minas em comparação com outras áreas sob jurisdição da Inquisição portuguesa; e, por outro, explica o fenômeno a partir do contexto interno. Aqui, buscamos compreender a formação da rede em sua relação com o processo de formação social e econômica da Capitania, destacando a distribuição das familiaturas por comarcas e períodos.
Através da análise de processos de habilitação de clérigos do Brasil ao cargo de comissário da In... more Através da análise de processos de habilitação de clérigos do Brasil ao cargo de comissário da Inquisição, este artigo avalia a penetração dos estatutos de limpeza de sangue na sociedade colonial. O intuito é verificar, primeiramente, as apropriações que se faziam das habilitações que adotavam este critério discriminatório e, em seguida, investigar se o fim da separação da sociedade entre cristãos-velhos e cristãos-novos no âmbito da lei teve efeito na realidade prática durante os anos subsequentes ao decreto de 1773.
This paper analyzes the vicariates forane and the profile of their main official, explaining the ... more This paper analyzes the vicariates forane and the profile of their main official, explaining the process through which the diocesan apparatus penetrated into the territory of Central-Southern Portuguese America (i.e. Minas Gerais and São Paulo, 1745-1800). Firstly, an explanation is provided of the way in which such structures were organized in the diocesan territory, as well as of their role in episcopal government. Secondly, some light is shed on the power relations and social dynamics that controlled access to the office of vicar forane (vigário da vara).
I argue that the ecclesiastical power positions fitted a rationale similar to that which guided the occupation of offices in the town councils (câmaras) and the lay brotherhoods of mercy (misericórdias). The relationship between the latter and the formation of local elites has been exhaustively analyzed by Portuguese-speaking historians, while the diocesan power positions, on the contrary, are almost always ignored by studies on social groups and the structuring process of social hierarchies in Portugal’s Ancien Regime.
O ponto de partida desta comunicação é a caracterização social dos 457 familiares do
Santo Ofício... more O ponto de partida desta comunicação é a caracterização social dos 457 familiares do
Santo Ofício da capitania de Minas Gerais (século XVIII) através do método prosopográfico.
Observado que a familiatura foi obtida nessa região principalmente por um grupo em processo
de mobilidade social ascendente, verificaremos qual era a eficácia dessa insígnia num
movimento mais amplo de busca por distinção social. Qual era o valor da familiatura na
constelação de insígnias e títulos que ofereciam distinção no Antigo Regime? Além da
familiatura, verificaremos quais outras estratégias o grupo analisado utilizou para sua afirmação
social. Será considerada a entrada nas ordens terceiras, Ordem de Cristo e câmaras municipais.
Que estratégias eram adotadas para a entrada em cada uma dessas instituições? Em qual delas os
sujeitos do grupo analisado entravam primeiro? A entrada em uma ajudava a abrir a porta de
outra? Que impacto todo esse movimento tinha na construção do “viver à lei da nobreza”? O
que significava “viver à lei da nobreza” nessa região da Colônia?
Este artigo busca evidenciar as potencialidades dos processos de habilitação enquanto fontes para... more Este artigo busca evidenciar as potencialidades dos processos de habilitação enquanto fontes para a história social do século XVIII luso-brasileiro. Serão enfocadas três tipologias: habilitações para ordens sacras, habilitações do Santo Ofício e habilitações da Ordem de Cristo. Num primeiro momento, o trabalho apresenta a estrutura geral de cada uma delas, descrevendo as suas etapas e os requisitos que apuravam. Em seguida, procura compreender suas funções e seus significados na ordem social do Antigo Regime. Por fim, aponta os cuidados metodológicos que devem ser tomados na recolha, tratamento e análise das informações contidas na documentação.
Through the study of the action of the inquisition commissioners, this article seeks to reveal th... more Through the study of the action of the inquisition commissioners, this article seeks to reveal the relations between the Portuguese Inquisition and the ecclesiastical structure of the Minas Gerais State Captaincy in the colonial period. The focus of the analysis will be the making and the action of the network of Holy Inquisition commissioners in the gold Captaincy. What was the profile of these commissioners? How were they recruited from the local ecclesiastical hierarchy? What was the role assigned to them in the inquisitional action that took place in Minas Gerais? How did they act? What was the relationship between the introduction of the commissioners into the local ecclesiastical structures and the commissioners inquisitorial activities?
This article discusses the relationship among different mercantile practices and their reflection... more This article discusses the relationship among different mercantile practices and their reflection on the terms used to define the individuals that exercised them. Furthermore, the text examines the vocabulary issues to define the traders, and their relationship to the social status of the merchants in Minas Gerais, and the strategies of social distinction adopted by this group at different points of progress.
Books by Aldair C Rodrigues
Igreja e Inquisição no Brasil: agentes, carreiras e mecanismos de promoção social, 2014
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Papers by Aldair C Rodrigues
century Brazil focusing on two important yet largely unstudied
dimensions. First, it explores the militarization of policing Vodun
practicioners by capitães do mato (“bush captains”), whose main function
was capturing runaway slaves, after the destruction of the great
maroon state of Palmares. Second, it examines the demonization by
colonial society of African and diasporic religions, focusing on the
process of knowledge production about the liturgical languages used
by West African priests and the visual culture of the cults dedicated to
the ophidian Voduns (Dan).
back to 1711, when the town was founded, and the last one documents information from 1770. These sources are complemented by two livros de alforrias (freedom certificate books) registering manumissions.
The register livros de notas were used by the Crown official notary to record a variety of contracts and deeds, ranging from trading partnerships to bills of sale for land, enslaved people, gold mines, etc. Our objective is to facilitate access to data about manumissions that are not registered in dedicated codices and therefore are scattered across multiple types of documents
and not cataloged . Headings that indicate a manumission in livros de notas include: escritura de alforria e liberdade (deed of manumission and freedom), escritura de liberdade (deed of freedom), carta de liberdade (letter of freedom), papel de liberdade (freedom paper), and escrito de liberdade (freedom writing), among others. Douglas Lima explains that each type of freedom certificate and their bureaucratic details had specific implications in the lives of Black people shaped by power relations and social control strategies. Despite these 2 variations, the core of their legal impact tends to align. The documents provide the similar basic information that became variables in our spreadsheet, such as the name of the manumitted person, his or her origin, enslaver who granted the manumission, type of concession, and payment and justification for the act of manumission.
1988 ainda tem pouca visibilidade na história da democracia brasileira. O acervo Reginaldo Bispo e Margarida Barbosa, militantes do MNU paulista
residentes em Campinas,1 permite a superação parcial deste quadro ao oferecer documentos sobre as grandes mobilizações políticas de entidades
negras nos anos 1985 e 1986 pela Constituinte. Apesar de importante, essa dimensão cronológica da redemocratização é bem menos conhecida
do que os acontecimentos de 1987 (Assembléia Nacional Constituinte-ANC) e de 1988.
tereotyping label ‘nação’ (nation), and at the same time the use of phenotypic markers that functioned as common denominators of their difference from Europeans. The article contends that these two dimensions of the construction of African difference were not successive, as if one were a stage of the other, as if society first dealt with the diversity of origins and then reduced them to the category ‘negro’. In fact these two instances were interdependent, relational, and hence facets of the same historical phenomenon.
I argue that the ecclesiastical power positions fitted a rationale similar to that which guided the occupation of offices in the town councils (câmaras) and the lay brotherhoods of mercy (misericórdias). The relationship between the latter and the formation of local elites has been exhaustively analyzed by Portuguese-speaking historians, while the diocesan power positions, on the contrary, are almost always ignored by studies on social groups and the structuring process of social hierarchies in Portugal’s Ancien Regime.
Santo Ofício da capitania de Minas Gerais (século XVIII) através do método prosopográfico.
Observado que a familiatura foi obtida nessa região principalmente por um grupo em processo
de mobilidade social ascendente, verificaremos qual era a eficácia dessa insígnia num
movimento mais amplo de busca por distinção social. Qual era o valor da familiatura na
constelação de insígnias e títulos que ofereciam distinção no Antigo Regime? Além da
familiatura, verificaremos quais outras estratégias o grupo analisado utilizou para sua afirmação
social. Será considerada a entrada nas ordens terceiras, Ordem de Cristo e câmaras municipais.
Que estratégias eram adotadas para a entrada em cada uma dessas instituições? Em qual delas os
sujeitos do grupo analisado entravam primeiro? A entrada em uma ajudava a abrir a porta de
outra? Que impacto todo esse movimento tinha na construção do “viver à lei da nobreza”? O
que significava “viver à lei da nobreza” nessa região da Colônia?
Books by Aldair C Rodrigues
century Brazil focusing on two important yet largely unstudied
dimensions. First, it explores the militarization of policing Vodun
practicioners by capitães do mato (“bush captains”), whose main function
was capturing runaway slaves, after the destruction of the great
maroon state of Palmares. Second, it examines the demonization by
colonial society of African and diasporic religions, focusing on the
process of knowledge production about the liturgical languages used
by West African priests and the visual culture of the cults dedicated to
the ophidian Voduns (Dan).
back to 1711, when the town was founded, and the last one documents information from 1770. These sources are complemented by two livros de alforrias (freedom certificate books) registering manumissions.
The register livros de notas were used by the Crown official notary to record a variety of contracts and deeds, ranging from trading partnerships to bills of sale for land, enslaved people, gold mines, etc. Our objective is to facilitate access to data about manumissions that are not registered in dedicated codices and therefore are scattered across multiple types of documents
and not cataloged . Headings that indicate a manumission in livros de notas include: escritura de alforria e liberdade (deed of manumission and freedom), escritura de liberdade (deed of freedom), carta de liberdade (letter of freedom), papel de liberdade (freedom paper), and escrito de liberdade (freedom writing), among others. Douglas Lima explains that each type of freedom certificate and their bureaucratic details had specific implications in the lives of Black people shaped by power relations and social control strategies. Despite these 2 variations, the core of their legal impact tends to align. The documents provide the similar basic information that became variables in our spreadsheet, such as the name of the manumitted person, his or her origin, enslaver who granted the manumission, type of concession, and payment and justification for the act of manumission.
1988 ainda tem pouca visibilidade na história da democracia brasileira. O acervo Reginaldo Bispo e Margarida Barbosa, militantes do MNU paulista
residentes em Campinas,1 permite a superação parcial deste quadro ao oferecer documentos sobre as grandes mobilizações políticas de entidades
negras nos anos 1985 e 1986 pela Constituinte. Apesar de importante, essa dimensão cronológica da redemocratização é bem menos conhecida
do que os acontecimentos de 1987 (Assembléia Nacional Constituinte-ANC) e de 1988.
tereotyping label ‘nação’ (nation), and at the same time the use of phenotypic markers that functioned as common denominators of their difference from Europeans. The article contends that these two dimensions of the construction of African difference were not successive, as if one were a stage of the other, as if society first dealt with the diversity of origins and then reduced them to the category ‘negro’. In fact these two instances were interdependent, relational, and hence facets of the same historical phenomenon.
I argue that the ecclesiastical power positions fitted a rationale similar to that which guided the occupation of offices in the town councils (câmaras) and the lay brotherhoods of mercy (misericórdias). The relationship between the latter and the formation of local elites has been exhaustively analyzed by Portuguese-speaking historians, while the diocesan power positions, on the contrary, are almost always ignored by studies on social groups and the structuring process of social hierarchies in Portugal’s Ancien Regime.
Santo Ofício da capitania de Minas Gerais (século XVIII) através do método prosopográfico.
Observado que a familiatura foi obtida nessa região principalmente por um grupo em processo
de mobilidade social ascendente, verificaremos qual era a eficácia dessa insígnia num
movimento mais amplo de busca por distinção social. Qual era o valor da familiatura na
constelação de insígnias e títulos que ofereciam distinção no Antigo Regime? Além da
familiatura, verificaremos quais outras estratégias o grupo analisado utilizou para sua afirmação
social. Será considerada a entrada nas ordens terceiras, Ordem de Cristo e câmaras municipais.
Que estratégias eram adotadas para a entrada em cada uma dessas instituições? Em qual delas os
sujeitos do grupo analisado entravam primeiro? A entrada em uma ajudava a abrir a porta de
outra? Que impacto todo esse movimento tinha na construção do “viver à lei da nobreza”? O
que significava “viver à lei da nobreza” nessa região da Colônia?