SEX, CLASS, AND STATUS IN RACIAL RELATIONS--NORTHEAST BRAZIL
W. D. Hohenthal1
Racial prejudice in northeast Brazil does not presume merely a situa-
tion of race contact; the racial situation is of a complex, diffuse, and
subtle character, owing to the relations between the sexes and the desire
to preserve social status, which factors constitute the areas of tension in
interpersonal and interracial situations. At the same time, however, sex
and class carry with them much less emotional charge than in cultures with
puritanical standards, for instance the United States.
Furthermore, as Pierson (1955:433-434) has pointed out, the terms
"Negro" ( ret) and "white" (branco) as used in Brazil cannot be easily
equated to siiilar usage current in the United States. In the latter coun-
try a Negro is anyone descended in any degree, however remote, from an
African Negroid, and the designation includes all hybrids; a white is pre-
sumed to be a person of "undiluted" European ancestry. There is a great
deal of Anglo-American folklore associated with the technique of recogniz-
ing persons ostensibly white but with remote African ancestry, such as
"blue half*-moons on the fingernails" and other highly dubious criteria, too
numerous and witless to relate; in addition, there are many humorous anec-
dotes of a somewhat sad, necrotic kind,
In Brazil, to the contrary, a Negro is one of noticeably Negroid physi-
cal traits and of low social status, whereas a white is a predominantly
Caucasoid person no matter what his ethnic origin happens to be, and includ-
ing many degrees of hybridity. Therefore, as used in Brazil, the terms
"Negro" and Owhite"f are (1) categories of physical appearance; and color has
supplanted race insofar as stereotypes or prejudice are concerned; (2)
categories of social position; (3) capable of variation with respect to
individuals owing to shifting personal relationships; and (4) designations
conferring varying usage with the same individual at different times, in
keeping with specific situations.
The Pbrtuguese settlers of Brazil had no firm prejudice against inter-
breeding with darker-skinned peoples, whether native Indians whom they met
*in the land, or Negro slaves later brought over from West Africa. This
attitude may be explained in part by the fact that Portugal was invaded and
partly occupied from the eleventh to the fovrteenth centuries A.D. by North
African Moors who enjoyed a culture superior to that of the peninsular
Europeans of the time; the Moors arrogated to themselves superior status
and were accorded a sort of grudging respect by the Lusitanians--even today
in Iberian folklore the dark-skinned Moorish princess is an object of roman-
tic and sexual desire. Another factor here was the shortage or lack of
European women in the New World during the sixteenth century.
This attitude of tolerance, or even admiration, for darker hued peoples
was carried over into Brazil by the Portuguese and was reflected in the
17
treatment of their dusky wards. During the period of Negro slavery in
Brazil, interpersonal relations between Brazilian master and Negro slave
were often benign.3 Slave children and scions of squirearchs enjoyed the
most intimate of personal contacts; Negro children were frequently raised in
the "Big Housett; white children were nursed by Negro slave women; and plan-
tation owners more often than not took a paternalistic interest in their
left-handed, hybrid offspring, affording them special opportunities to advance
socially and economically.
As a consequence of this early and widespread hybridization, which still
continues, Brazilian society assumed from colonial times a multi-racial
class aspect. As a reflection of former times, darker-skinned persons today
are still concentrated in the lower social ranks, although they are gradually
rising and assuming more important r6les; and while lighter-skinned persons
still enjoy the greater sociAl prestige, they do not do so because of this
fact alone.  As the Brazilian proverb states*' "tNegro rico e branco; branco
pobre e negro," (A rich Negro is-a white man; a poor white man is a Negro.)
Reflecting the former period of slavery (abolished in 1871), with its
privilege of sexual access to Negro females by white masters, is the attitude
held today by many Brazilians of all social levqls that colored women are
sexually facile. This pose is emphasized by stereotypes referring to the
negrinha, moreninha, and Mulatinha,, all of them endearing or affectionate
terms relating to women of African descent.
An opposite stereotype, involving psychological attitudes arising from
exclusive use of the same privilege by the dominant race to the detriment of
the subordinate race, is fear of -sexual aggression against white women by
Negro men., for which, of course, there is a paral lel in the United States.
This apprehension is shown in the precautions taken by white girls of good
family in their' infrequent opportunities of contact with colored men, 'especi-
ally with those of the lower class; this solieitude reflects the pattern of
female segregation fixed during the colonial period in northeast Brazil,
according to Gilberto Freyre (1950:ii-568 ff).
Associated with this timidity of sexual aggression are allied matters
of sexual jealousy and projection of frustrations, which are demonstrated
equally by white and Afro-Brazilians. Such expressions are usually in the
form of stereotypes; thus, Negroes and mulattoes believe that blonde women
are notoriously inconstant and fickle; they are commonly referred to as
francezas (Frenchwomen), owing to the traditional prevalence of French pros-
titutes with dyed hair in Brazil. Similarly, the counterpart is applied to
mulatto women by white men, these averring that "Ithey would marry a mulatta
if only they could be sure that the wench would be true to them."  Upper-
class white women are notoriously jealous of colored women, and also impute
to Negro men extraordinary and unrestrained powers of sexuality.
A great deal of resistance is felt toward intermarriage of the races,
particularly in the upper and middle classes, but also in the lower class
when this action involves a very dark person or Negro whose marriage would
threaten the social status of the lighter spouse's family. Such reaction
to loss of social status frequently crops up in areas usually free of any
18
ordinary or overt racial prejudice. White girls of good family aver that
they would not marry a Negro even of their own social level, general back-
ground, common interests and sentiments, because they "wouldn't want to
bring shame upon the family."
In line with this, a good part of the African ancestors of many leading
families in northeast Brazil have been expunged from the record by the
device of "historical-elimination,'t that is to say, by simply ignoring one's
Negroid forebears. This is particularly true in those families in which
hybridization with Amerindians has taken place to the extent that the present
generation appears freer of Negroid features, or where the combination of
Caucasoid features and a bronzed skin permits much more easily the disguising
of African ancestry.
During the early nineteenth century a spurt of intense nationalism,
associated with a nativistic vogue and literary romanticism extolling the
virtues of the American Indian, induced iany Drazilian families to exchange
their traditional Portuguese family names for Amerindian names (ex: Freitas
to Sucupira). It Is to be expected that many mulattoes, then attempting to
rise socially, would fervently join such a movement in the desire of elim-
inating historically any forebears who would remind them of previous servi-
tude.
This claim of Indian ancestry is quite common amongst mulattoes,
despite the presence of other members of the same family with unmistakable
African physical characteristics.  It must be admitted, however, that in
Brazil frequently individuals may be (and have been) defined as ItIndians,'t
not because of any biological considerations, but because of social criteria.
For instance, the term caboclo during the sixteenth and seventeenth centur-
ies was applied only to coastal Indians who spoke dialects of Tupf; but
gradually the term came to mean, and is now so used, to indicate any poor
subsistence farmer or backwoodsman (caipira) who may be, or who believes
himself to be, descended from Indian ancestors. Also, we may note the preva-
lence of comments in official reports of the (nineteenth century) Imperial
Diretorfa (eral dos Indios for Pernambuco regarding Caucasians and Negroes
ogcasionally liing with ndian tribes under governmental tutelage, thus:
"E fle indio porquel casado com Indian (He is an Indian, for he is married
to an Indian woman). There are so few Indians left in Pernambuco and adja-
cent states, and those surviving are so acculturated and hybridized with
Negroes and Caucasians, that the essence of this paper necessarily deals
with relations between the major elements of the racial situation in the
northeast, that is to say, Negroes, Caucasians, and hybrids of these.
The concealment of the darkest member of the family, and denial of
mestijo or African ancestry, then, is another artifice used in Brazilian
society as a technique for preservationof~social status. Sometimes families
are unaware of their Negro connections  the Brazilian psychiatrist Rena
Ribeiro (1956:120). cites the case of a co'tutry gentleman in Pernambuco who
had a Negro mistress, and a mulatto son by EiersI He educated this boy, and
helped him socially to the extent that the -bastard son became economically
the best situated member of the, entire family, which only learned of their
dark relative by accident in later years . Here is a case which tends to
19
support Freyre's contention (1951, ii:640) that sentiments of paternity
obligation were factors which exerted considerable influence on the inter-
penetration of race and class in Brazil.tt
Colored persons in Brazil tend to repudiate their race by promoting
their descendants to the white race by intentionally practicing selective
miscegenation. A story is told of a Negro who had attained a certain degree
of social recognition because of his profession and reputation as a musician.
Without opposition from her parents, he married a very pretty Portuguese
girl, but always warned his mulatto children against marrying persons darker
than themselves. One of his sons fell in love with a Negress, and the father
was obliged to break up the affair. All of his children, except one, con-
trived to marry persons lighter in color than themselves. The exception, his
only daughter, ran off with a Negro, and as their first-born child was very
dark, the disconsolate grandfather complained, "Todo meu trabalho atoa!"
(All of my work for nothing!).
The shifting of a Negro family to a higher social class, however, is
not always recognized by fellow members of the same racial group. Professor
Ribeiro recounts (op. cit., pp, 123-124) three cases which reflect varying
attitudes of socio-economic jealousy or envy, defensive pride of race, and
reluctance to admit racial affiliation by the device of ignoring the racial
situation:
(a) A well-known- Negro in Recife advanced to the upper class by virtue
of a university degree, an important Federal job, and by marrying a white
woman. He was immediately nicknamed by his less fortunate and envious Negro
associates, fTlamengo," in allusion to the black-and-white colors of that
famous Rio football club.
(b) A Negro judge in a northeastern city once required a house-servant,
and a colored candidate was sent to him by a colleague. Knocking on the
door, the applicant was confronted by a Negro woman, of whom the would-be
servant demanded, "Go tell your mistress . * 0omi whereupon the other inter-
rupted, saying, 'I am the mistress."  The applicant then retorted, "tAh, this
is a Negro house? Pardon me, I do not work for Negroes, though I am black."
(c) A university graduate, mulatto, whose intellectual bent impelled
him to submerge his racial traits in the interest of obtaining social status
to the point of denying that he ever had anything to do with Negroes, when
challenged with respect to certain of his companions, replied with surprise,
"Oh, is he a Negro?"
It should be observed at this point that in Brazil racial attitudes and
opinions frequently can be (and often are) expressed overtly without the
guilty emotionalism peculiar t.o the United States. One may speak freely
about "niggers" (using this term) even to obvious Negroes. An ambivalent
attitude certainly exists; thus a Negro, quarreling with a white man, may in
exasperation call the latter a damned nigger" (nigo danado), but on the
other hand, twV0 white men may address each other as "my nigger" (meu nego)
as a friendly term of intimacy. Such usage obviously depends on tone of
voice and the emotional or social circumstances, as in the United States
20
where similar modes surround the epithet "son-of-a-bitch." If the latter is
prefaced by the adjective "told,lt and uttered with a wink or a nudge in the
ribs, it becomes actually a term of endearment, and would hardly shock an
archdeacon.
Occasionally, Brazilians will aver that what frequently takes place in
their society is the substitution of race by class . . . this in order to
explain the anomaly of acceptance of Negroes in social groups priding them-
selves on white ancestry; the explanation may be phrased as follows: "When
a Negro obtains a better position, and is accepted socially by virtue of his
University ring [indicating professional field], it is not the Negro but
rather the Negro's ring that is accepted." Perhaps this anecdote will serve
to illustrate the point: a certain Caucasian merchant had three teen-age
daughters; one of them fell in love with a lower-class workman, and the
father accepted his. new son-in-law only because he was white. Another of
the girls had a Negro swain, who studied law at the University; he was
acceptable owing to his future profession.  The father habitually advised
the third girl, as yet'unattached, "tOperario so se f~r branco; negro so se
f6r doutorl"  (A workman only if he is white; a Negro only if he is a
doctor.').
However, attainment of professional degrees does not always automatical-
ly result in the presumed accompanying rise in social status. For example,
in Brazil a cleric has incontestable social prestige, especially if he is
Catholic; and as a consequence, many mulattoes attempt to obtain the desired
social recognition through the exercise of being a religious minister.
Sometimes this occurs, and there are stories current which reflect the gen-
eral sympathy felt for such outstanding individuals, to wit: a certain
Brazilian bishop going to Rome had his dark skin noticed with surprise by
another foreign prelate,. who ejaculated, "Est nigerl" (He is black!), to
which a third high church dignitary retorted, "Sed sanctis!'   (But holyl).
There are many versions of this tale.
Nonetheless, sacerdotal regalia and office do not always guarantee to
Negro priests the desired prestige and social recognition inherent to their
position. The case is cited by Ribeiro (idem, p. 127) involving a Negro
priest assigned to a small town in the seFtao (bush) the population of which
was largely white and vociferously proud of. being so; the priest noted with
discomfiture that hardly anyone attended church services save extremely
religious women (beatas), old people of the poorest class, and children under-
going catechism. Upon inquiry, one of the beatas blurted out, "May the Holy
Virgin forgive me, Senhor Vicar, but the truth is that they don't come be-
cause you are black!," and forthwith requested for herself a transfer to
another parish. Extreme cases such as this, however, are exceptional, the
usual thing being that a colored priest is accepted by virtue of his clerical
status, and not because of his ethnic origin.
Catholic priests of Negro ancestry fare much better than Protestant
ministers of either Caucasoid or Negroid race. As Brazil is overwhelmingly
Catholic, there is naturally greater social prestige for those communicants
and divines of the Roman faith. In point of fact, Protestant evangelical
sects recruit their members largely from amongst the lower socioeconomic
21
(largely Negroid) classes, and Catholics generally refer to Protestant
celebrants as gentinha (no-account folk) or as crentes (believers, in. the
sense that they are devotees of the wrong faith). Even within the evangeli-
cal cults there seems to be some sort of social rating, thus Presbyterians
are reckoned as being superior to Baptists, but the general attitude is that
being a Protestant is equivalent to being either a Negro or of the lowest
socio-economic class of ignoramuses.
As a minor attitude, or perhaps an ancillary one, is the notion that
the provenance of a given family, particularly if it is a principal (nobre)
area or region, should confer greater social prestige; that is to say, a
region where economic and social development has been the greatest, with
the establishment of 'culturedt or "urbane"t convivial standards; of more
frequent relations with the centers of intellectual and cultural diffusion;
and where the standard of living also has been high. All this is, of
course, in contrast to rustic regions where the inhabitants are ignorant
hill-billies, having the simplest sort of life, and maintaining an inferior
course of existence.
In some cases, this attitude of superiority of locale involves racial
considerations as well, for instance: a very dark mulatto, a widely trav-
eled and well educated man, in conversing about Brazilian cities he had
visited, referred to Sao Salvador da Bahia with undisguised contempt, des-
cribing that metropolis as "ta center of crude and superstitious niggerdom
[ negrada].t In this situation the subject perhaps reflected the vague or
difuse attitude of dislike manifested by people desirous of shedding their
Negro ancestry or affiliations, fairly common to northeast Brazil. His
opinion may have been motivated by recognition of the large Negro popula-
tion of Bahia, and also by the very numerous (or more noticeable) retentions
of African traditions in that city. That this attitude is not unique is
reflected in the common gibe of northeastern Brazil, tO branco da Bahia't
(The white man from Bahia), indicating an individual whose pretensions to
being white remain in doubt, or whose pretensions can be easily challenged.
Conclusions
In northeastern Brazil social recognition of the individual was origi-
nally predicated on the assumption of a person of worth (filho d'algo or
fidalgo, "son of someonett) being European (Caucasoid), Catholic, and econ-
omically and/or politically powerful, which frequently presupposed a man to
be an owner of property and slaves.
But very early in Brazilian history, even in colonial times, there
were permitted exceptions and substitutions of these conditions as a con-
sequence of (1) the functioning and subsequent reduction of the semi-feudal
and patriarchal system, (2) miscegenation and acculturation with respect to
Negroes and Amerindians, and (3) an increasing development of social forms
termed It individual istic. t
These movements of individuals, and even of entire families, from one
social class to aother, and from one race to another, despite erratic
22
shufflings and contradictory attitudes, have tended to prevent in Brazilian
society the establishment of a fixed racial ideology, such as we observe in
the United States.  Racial prejudice in Brazil seems to be of exceedingly
diffuse and shifting character.
Those exceptions in Brazilian society, where we note firm reluctance
to racial hybridization, may be partially explained by adherence to extreme
class endogamy because of loyalty to aristocratic traditions; by unyielding
loyalty to what are regarded as standards of European culture; and reten-
tion of the patriarchal and traditional forms of Brazilian family and col-
onial society.
As a consequence we note the differences between races and cultures
becoming accentuated in the upper classes; racial prejudice thus inhibiting
such matters as interpersonal and interracial relationships, particularly
with regard to intermarriage between Negro and white, but not so much with
respect to mulatto-white unions, and even less so regarding affiliations
between whites and quadroons or octoroons. These attitudes, however, are
not restricted to the upper classes of Brazilian society, but tend to
permeate downward, thus influencing attitudes of the society in general,
which is reflected in common agreement that social worth is largely mea-
sured according to skin color, this consideration being frequently modified
by social status afforded by peculiar professional attainments or affilia-
tion.
ENDNOTES
(1)  This paper was read at the First Annual Anthropological Meetings,
May 18, 1957, sponsored by the Kroeber Anthropological Society. The
present version is somewhat modified and expanded.
(2) Northeast Brazil comprises mainly the states of Ceara, Rio Grande do
Norte, Paraiba, Pernambuco, Alagdas, and Sergipe; contingent states
would be Piauf to the north and Bahia to the south.
(3) Literally taken, this statement is entirely misleading and may be
challenged as erroneous; what is meant here is that, despite the
obvious horrors and cruelties inherent to slavery, well attested to
historically, in Brazil there was a certain measure of benignity fre-
quently developed between master and slave, and offspring of both, so
anomalous (by comparison with conditions elsewhere) as to be note-
worthy. Obviously, all was not ever well between master and slave in
Brazil, nor is this implied.
23
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Freyre, Gilberto
1950   Casa grande e senzala.  2 volumes, 6th edition.  Livrarfa Jose
Olfmpio, Rio de Janeiro.
1951   Sobrados e mocambos.  3 volumes, 2nd edition.  Livraria Jose
Olfmpio, Rio de Janeiro.
Pierson, Donald
1955   Race Relations in Portuguese America.  In ItRace Relations in
World Perspective,It edited by Andrew W .Tind. University of
Hawaii Press, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Ribeiro, Rene
1956   Religiao e relaqoes raciais.  Ministerio da Educajao e
Cultura, Servijo de Documentajao. Inmprensa Nacional, Rio de
Jane iro.
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