By Emma Wohl

Gilberto Freyre (right) with Brazilian writers Adonias Aguiar Filho and Rachel de Queiroz c. 1975, courtesy of the Aguiar family

Gilberto Freyre’s Casa Grande e Senzala has dominated cultural historical discussions of Brazil’s early colonial period since its publication in 1933. The book presented a utopian vision of the early years of colonization and a positive portrayal of miscegenation among Portuguese settlers, the indigenous peoples of Brazil, and African slaves. A response to the identity crisis Brazil was experiencing at the turn of the 20^th century, Freyre’s book marked a turning point in perceptions of racial differences in the nation, causing most of the Brazilian populace to view itself as either a racially or culturally mixed-race. However, the book presents an overly optimistic view of early interethnic relations as Freyre sought to create a racial harmony that was a consistent part of Brazilian identity. Freyre’s focus on a single identity in modern Brazil resulted not only in factual inaccuracies and distortions of reality but also in a larger societal refusal to acknowledge racism in modern Brazil.

Freyre published Casa Grande e Senzala in the 1930s when the question of how precisely to feel about the nation’s large mixed-race population was causing a crisis of identity in Brazil. Freye offered the then radical view that the very strength of modern Brazil resided in its racial complexity; that the nation could not have adapted to the challenges of development were it not for the intermixing of the races.[1] Battling the commonly held belief among Brazilians that “the country’s backwardness (when compared to Western Europe and North America) could be explained by the debilitating influence of the Negro,”[2] Freyre taught Brazilians not only to accept their diversity but also to view it as a source of strength. He rejected criticism from his peers that he should treat African slaves on the latifundia of Northeastern Brazil as the master’s property—rather, Freye considered them an essential ingredient in the formation of Brazilian culture. Culture was something, he boldly proclaimed, that could only be formed by humans.[3] As Latin American historian Lourdes Martine-Echazábal notes, “The work of Freyre … is largely responsible for nurturing and proliferating the belief that every Brazilian was a mestizo in either body or soul.”[4]

This pride, however, came at a cost. Freyre’s unifying vision of the harmonious tropical republic denied marginalized groups a way to vent their difficulties and frustration. In identifying a single ethnic identity, those relegated to the margins continually find it difficult to assert the existence of an ethnic identity other than “Brazilian.” These individuals must confront the publicly accepted narrative of history as a harmonious past to prove that mistreatment during the Colonial Era was always a part of their place within the nation. While perhaps not intentionally so, Freyre’s focus on a single narrative and the populist goal of unity created a society that was hostile to cultural pluralism

Casa Grande e Senzala had a therapeutic influence on views of Brazilian identity, leading to an increased feeling of satisfaction with the nation’s heterogeneous nature. Yet while the Brazilian public widely acknowledged its multiracial identity, the acknowledgement of that identity made it difficult to admit differences or the existence of racial persecution. The influence of Positivism on Freyre’s beliefs inspired a noble impulse of progress through unity, but it also reinforced in him an elitist, hierarchical approach to progress that manifested itself in a romanticized view of the noble intentions of Portuguese settlers and a subservient view of the other groups involved. Thus, while it had a powerful influence on public opinion and shows a step in the transformation of Brazilian identity, Casa Grande e Senzala cannot be taken as an accurate, universal depiction of the first settlers of Brazil.

Positivism

Part-religion, part-social theory, part-political mission, positivism was governed by the belief that “one, unified Humanity could unite all people on earth…from the learned elite to the proletariat, into one social unit.”[1] Thus followers of positivism believed in the ultimate progress of civilization, especially progress through technology, but their movement was not revolutionary: they believed in preserving the strict hierarchies of the Old Republic, so that the elites could be a vanguard, leading the masses into enlightenment.

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Works Cited:

Freyre, Gilberto. The Masters and the Slaves. Trans. Samuel Putnam. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (1946). Print.

Martinez-Echazábal, Lourdes. “Mestizaje and the Discourse of National/Cultural Identity in Latin America, 1845-1959.” Latin American Perspectives 25.3 (1998). Web.

Metcalf, Alida. Family and Frontier in Colonial Brazil: Santana de Parnaíba, 1580-1822. Austin: University of Texas Press (1992). Print.

Nachman, Robert. “Positivism, Modernization and the Middle Class in Brazil.” The Hispanic

American Historical Review 57.1 (1977). Web.

Skidmore, Thomas. Brazil: Five Centuries of Change. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press (2010). Print.

Skidmore, Thomas. “Gilberto Freyre and the Early Brazilian Republic: Some Notes on Methodology.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 6.4 (1964). Web.