The family and captivity: marital daily life in eighteenth-century São Paulo

• Grant number: 24/05263-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: September 01, 2024
• End date: August 31, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Ricardo Alexandre Ferreira
• Grantee: Marília Tofanetto Alves
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCHS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Franca. Franca , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/07773-2 - THE FAMILY AND SLAVERY: CONJUGAL DAILY LIFE IN 18TH-CENTURY SÃO PAULO, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

The present work aims to evaluate slavery as an obstacle to the conception of the family in eighteenth-century São Paulo. It is worth highlighting here, the family considered legitimate by the Church. Marriage, elevated to the status of a sacrament by the reforming Church, was intended to discipline intimacy. When sexual practice became subject to regulations, the legitimate family was created with it. In the alliance between equals, discreetly suggested in relation to temperaments and austerely inculcated with regard to heritage and, more seriously, color and access to freedom, marriage and, consequently, the Christian family became the right arms of the colonizing project. In this sense, the misfortunes spread throughout the Portuguese-American colony threatened the canon of marriage. Based on this assumption, understanding the family as also a racial project, we will seek, through criminal proceedings relating to the crime of concubinage filed by the Episcopal Court of São Paulo, the reconstitution of everyday tensions - domestic and marital - which, under In the eyes of contemporaries, they marred the triumph of the Christian family in the city of São Paulo. Thus, based on the critique of criminal proceedings, the aim is to investigate the role of non-white individuals, especially slaves, in conflicts threatening family well-being.