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Thomas Ewbank's Depiction of Cruelty to Brazilian Slaves
Ryan Patrico
In 1856, the English-born American scientist Thomas Ewbank published a travelogue detailing his first-hand encounters and experiences during his journey through nineteenth-century Brazil. Entitled Life in Brazil; or, A Journal of a Visit to the Land of the Cocoa and the Palm, the memoir received much acclaim both from other travel writers, such as John Codman and J. C. Fletcher, and from a more general reading audience. John Codman, for instance, "felt that Ewbank, [compared with other travel writers,] was the best observer, and the most graphic in detail."[1] If one wishes to understand Ewbank's writings, especially his comments regarding Brazilian slavery found in Life in Brazil, it is crucial that his work be framed and contextualized within the historical moment in which it was created. That is, how do Life in Brazil and its observations fit into the international travelogue movement of the nineteenth century? From what motivations and backgrounds did Ewbank and other Anglo-American visitors to Brazil write? And how did their perspectives and inspirations shape the documents they created? These questions will be examined in this essay. Specifically, this essay will place Thomas Ewbank's Life in Brazil within the general Brazilian travelogue genre of the nineteenth century and then will compare Ewbank's opinions and depictions of slavery to those of other English-speaking travel writers of the time.
By the mid-nineteenth century, any English speaker wishing to learn more about the country of Brazil, its inhabitants, or its landscape had to look no further than the works authored by English-speaking travelers to Brazil. More than scholarly publications aimed simply at the educated and erudite, these books and journals "were written by travelers with the expectation of affording light and pleasure to thousands of readers"[2] in an age without radio or television. Indeed, this form of entertainment became so popular among American and British audiences that the "trickle of travelers' tales from [the]...region...began to swell until it became a torrent."[3] Yet the men who wrote these travelogues did not do so simply to give their respective societies the opportunity to live vicariously through their writings. Instead, on the whole, English and American travel writers of the nineteenth century wrote with clear political, religious, and ideological motivations. The majority of the men who wrote Brazilian travelogues, including Thomas Ewbank, were white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. As a result, the underlying factors prompting these writers to describe the Brazilian nation have been placed by historians such as Charles Hamilton into three categories: to (1) "publicize the superiority of republics," (2) reinforce "the superiority of Protestantism and of Anglo-Saxon know-how," and (3) use Brazil as anecdotal evidence for or against slavery.[4]
Ewbank's own writings followed the above conventions quite closely. While he was "intrigued [by Brazil's] monarchy,"[5] which he viewed as a novelty quite distinct from a republic, this curiosity by no means corresponded with acceptance. In fact, in his travelogue Ewbank argued that "the feeling was universal that not another foot of North America should be polluted with monarchy." And Ewbank's adherence to the norms of nineteenth-century travelogue writing was not limited to his strong republican sentiments. He, like other English-speaking writers on nineteenth-century Brazil, used his reflections as an opportunity to place Anglo-Saxon Protestantism above the "pagan mysteries and ceremonies"[6] of Brazilian Romanism. In fact, Ewbank's opposition to Catholicism and Catholic society was so vehement that he describes finding what he considered "a purely heathen religion everywhere, with Christian terms and pagan practices."
As a result, in his travelogue Ewbank conveys many attitudes consistent with other Protestant travel writers of the nineteenth century. Addressing a domestic audience eager to read about a foreign land still untouched by mass communication, Ewbank's work expressed the popular American belief that monarchies were flawed and that Catholicism was inherently misguided. But Ewbank did not stop there. Instead, Life in Brazil is perhaps most well-known, not for its staunch republicanism or anti-Catholic diatribes, but for its passionate opposition to slavery and its various manifestations. For this reason, Ewbank's comments on slavery will be the focus for the rest of this essay. Specifically, Ewbank's travelogue offers several different reasons for his strong stance against slavery, and these criticisms can be traced back to Ewbank's own religious, ethnic, and social identities.
In his writings, Ewbank cites three primary objections to the practice of slavery in Brazil. His first, and perhaps most spirited, argument relates to the way in which slavery dehumanizes and objectifies the slave. Slaves, hidden behind iron masks or burdened with heavy loads, were not considered human beings but rather units of labor, treated with less regard than even common farm animals. He even remarks that he "would rather, a thousand times, be a sheep, pig, or ox, have freedom, food, and rest for a season, and then be knocked on the head, than a serf on some plantations." Ewbank, in describing punished slaves behind cumbersome, iron masks, demonstrates how these tortured people became lifeless beings: anonymous, faceless, and ultimately devoid of human characteristics.
Ewbank's first conclusion, that Brazilian slavery was inherently dehumanizing and degenerate, is closely related to his second observation: that the immorality of slavery was the byproduct and natural result of a society based on another debauched institution, Roman Catholicism. His travelogue Life in Brazil clearly illustrates this opinion:
Ewbank views the wicked institution of slavery as naturally evolving from a religion that failed to imbue its society with any sense of Christian ethics and morals.
Consequently, Ewbank's third main critique of Brazilian slavery was that he saw the institution as a rejection of a fundamental Christian duty: hard work. Instead of laboring for their own benefit and welfare, slave owners let others toil on their behalf, thereby rejecting the idea that God expected hard work from all human beings. In other words, slavery was antithetical to the Protestant work ethic. Ewbank alludes to this belief when describing an encounter with a Bahian planter. Speaking with "much freedom on slavery," the farmer said that he thought that "the land [could] never be cultivated in the northern provinces by whites." Put differently, Ewbank considered white Catholics of Brazil to be lazy and slothful, precisely because they rejected their duty to work with their own hands, to be lazy and slothful. Slavery, then, constituted a hindrance to the earning potential of the individual and of the nation. Much in line with the argument in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Ewbank considered slavery an artificial barrier to progress and productivity.
Although Ewbank is best known for his strong objections to slavery in Brazil, his feelings on the topic cannot be separated from his overall contributions to Brazilian travelogues of the nineteenth century. Ewbank did not compartmentalize his various identities — his religious, ethnic, and national backgrounds. Instead, his Protestant, Anglo-Saxon, and capitalist paradigms were closely bound up with his perspectives and opinions as an abolitionist. For this reason, Ewbank's Life in Brazil can be properly understood only when placed firmly within the historical movement of Brazilian travelogue writing in the nineteenth century and within a framework that accounts for Ewbank's entire worldview.
Notes
[1] Hamilton, Charles Granville. 1960. "English Speaking Travelers in Brazil, 1851-1887." The Hispanic
American Historical Review 40 (4): 534.
[2] Ibid., 533.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Cardozo, Manoel. 1961. Slavery in Brazil as Described by Americans, 1822-1888. The Americas 17 (3):
242, 246-247.
[5] Ibid., 242.
[6] Ibid., 245.
Works Cited
Cardozo, Manoel. 1961. "Slavery in Brazil as Described by Americans, 1822-1888." The Americas 17 (3):
242, 246-247.
Ewbank, Thomas. Life in Brazil; or, A journal of a visit to the land of the cocoa and the palm. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1856.
Hamilton, Charles Granville. 1960. "English Speaking Travelers in Brazil, 1851-1887." The Hispanic
American Historical Review 40 (4): 534.