The Faculties of Law and Slavery in Brazil (1827-1888): natural law and political economy in the theoretical basis of the "servile element"

• Grant number: 21/12518-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: March 01, 2022
• End date: December 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Law - Theory of Law
• Principal Investigator: José Reinaldo de Lima Lopes
• Grantee: Ariel Engel Pesso
• Supervisor: Tamar Herzog
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Direito (FD). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Harvard University, United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 19/04345-9 - Law schools and slavery in Brazil (1827-1888): Natural Law and Political Economy in the legitimation of the `servil element´, BP.DR

Abstract

This research project deals with Law Schools and slavery in the nineteenth century and seeks to answer the following question: "did legal teaching serve as a legitimizing tool for slavery?". Our hypothesis is that the teaching practiced within the Academies of Law reinforced and justified the slave regime (the "servile elemento", as it was called at the time), through the use of philosophical, legal and economic arguments that supported the maintenance this way of working. The period analyzed corresponds to the creation of legal courses in 1827 until the abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888. The disciplines selected for analysis are the "Natural Law" and the "Political Economy", since the former "opened" the course in the 1st year, the latter closed it in the fifth year. Due to the propaedeutic character of these disciplines, there was a thematic proximity with slavery, attributing to it arguments of a philosophical and moral as well as economic order. Through the historical method, inscribed in the history of ideas, it is intended to make an intellectual history that combines at the same time an institutional history and a history of legal thought. (AU)