THE FAMILY AND SLAVERY: CONJUGAL DAILY LIFE IN 18TH-CENTURY SÃO PAULO

• Grant number: 25/07773-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: September 01, 2025
• End date: February 28, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Ricardo Alexandre Ferreira
• Grantee: Marília Tofanetto Alves
• Supervisor: Antonio de Almeida Mendes
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCHS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Franca. Franca , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Université de Nantes, France
• Associated to the scholarship: 24/05263-4 - The family and captivity: marital daily life in eighteenth-century São Paulo, BP.DR

Abstract

The broader research of which this proposal is a part aims to evaluate slavery as an obstacle to the conception of the family in eighteenth-century São Paulo. It is important to highlight that the reference here is to the family considered legitimate by the Catholic Church of the eighteenth century. Marriage, elevated to the status of a sacrament by the reforming Catholic Church, was intended to discipline intimacy. When sexual practices became regulated, the concept of the legitimate family was established alongside it. In the alliance between equals, which is subtly suggested in terms of temperaments and firmly instilled regarding heritage, color, and access to freedom, marriage-and, by extension, the Christian family became key components of the colonizing project. Based on this assumption, and understanding the family as a racial project, conducted through the investigation of criminal proceedings related to the crime of concubinage, which are filed in the Episcopal Court of São Paulo, this research aims to interpret the daily tensions - domestic and conjugal - that, under the eyes of contemporary clerics and faithful, undermined the triumph of the Christian family in the city of São Paulo in the eighteenth century. To detail such themes, explored by the ongoing Ph.D. research, developed with FAPESP funding, this proposal for BEPE (Research Internship Abroad Scholarship) outlines plans to gather survey materials (sources and bibliography). Additionally, it aims to establish intellectual exchanges with scholars from different parts of the world who attend the University of Nantes, France. The intention is to contemplate, among other perspectives, the global analyses related to Family History and the History of Slavery in the modern period to expand the theoretical-methodological references of the area in which the ongoing Doctoral study is situated.