A Brazilian Coffee Country, 1850-1900
Stanley J. Stein and his wife Barbara moved to Brazil in the 1950s to carry out fieldwork that serves as the basis for Stein’s Vassouras: A Brazilian Coffee Country, 1850-1900. The work has since become a standard model of archival and interdisciplinary research. Stein originally wished to study ten municipios, but he discovered this was too broad a target for thorough research. Through his study of census records, municipal histories and visiting several towns, Stein eventually chose Vassouras as his target. As Stein (viii) notes, he did not “set out to emphasize economic factors but let the documentation encountered shape the substance and direction of his book.”
Stein studied Brazilian slavery through a combined investigation of notarial records and the oral histories of former slaves on the coffee plantations. Through his study and the oral histories of actual slaves, we discover that the often dehumanizing forces of the coffee plantations failed to dehumanize many slaves. This was due to three powerful cultural forces. The first was the syncretism at the core of slave religion. By combining their own faith with elements of other faiths, the slaves found unity and hope where there was often chaos and despair in their environment. Another important factor in keeping slaves from being dehumanized was the formation of the maroon communities which also brought unity and a semblance of normalcy to the lives of the slaves. Music was instrumental as a means of giving slaves their own entertainment, culture, spirituality, and hope. Stein discusses music in the lives of African slaves from the perspective of the origins of the slave population in Vassouras. Stein discloses that a majority of the slaves on the fazendas of Vassouras “had their proveniences given as Angolla, Benguala, Congo, and Cabinda, with the next largest group terms Mossambique” (76-77). Because of these...