A History of Latin America

132 CHAPTER 6 COLONIAL BRAZIL

the hours were not so long, but “discipline was
maintained with a severity that often degenerated
into sadistic cruelty where the infl iction of corporal
punishment was concerned.” A royal dispatch of
1700 denounced the barbarity with which owners
of both sexes treated their slaves and singled out
for special condemnation the practice of women
owners who forced their female slaves to engage in
prostitution.
The harsh labor discipline on the plantation
refl ected calculations of cost and profi t. “Slave
owners,” says Stuart Schwartz, “estimated that a
slave could produce on the average about three-
quarters of a ton of sugar a year. At the prices of
the period, this meant in effect that a slave would
produce in two or three years an amount of sugar
equal to the slave’s original purchase price and the
cost of maintenance. Thus if the slave lived only fi ve

or six years, the investment of the planter would

be doubled, and a new and vigorous replacement

could be bought.” This reasoning provided little

incentive for improving work conditions or foster-

ing a higher birthrate among slaves, since children

would have to be supported for twelve or fourteen

years before they became productive. The basic

theory of slave management, concludes Schwartz,

seems to have been “Work them hard, make a

profi t, buy another.”

Obviously, the treatment of slaves varied con-

siderably with the temperament of the individual

slave owner. Although the crown provided slaves

with legal means of redress, little evidence exists

that these were effective in relieving their plight.

The church, represented on the plantation by a

chaplain paid and housed by the landowner, prob-

ably exerted little infl uence on the problem. A very

A scene of Brazilian slavery. New arrivals from Africa wait in a slave dealer’s establish-
ment while the seated proprietor negotiates the sale of a child to a prospective customer.
[Jean-Baptiste Debret, Voyage Pittoresque et Historique au Bresil. By permission of The British Library A/C
No. PL00466]