Escravidão "suave" no Brasil: Gilberto Freyre tinha razão?

• Autor(a) principal: Versiani,Flávio Rabelo
• Data de Publicação: 2007
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista de Economia Política
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0101-31572007000200001
• topic: slave work; Brazil/slavery; Brazil/XIX century

This article examines the question of the supposedly benign character of Brazilian slavery in contrast with North America slavery. In economic analyses of slavery, coercion toward slaves is viewed as a means to achieve maximum output, especially in large-scale agriculture. In small slave holdings, however, coercion was generally inefficient for that purpose, and positive incentives tended to be preferred. It is argued that, as recent evidence on Brazil has shown that small slave holdings prevailed in various regions and periods, this may lend empirical support to the notion of a relatively benign slavery, using more incentives than coercion.