Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition SÏ€o Paolo and Salvador [Paperback]

Kim D. Butler (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0813525047 | ISBN-13: 978-0813525044 | Publication Date: May 1, 1998

Winner of the American Historical Association's Wesley-Logan Prize and the Association of Black Women Historian's Letitia Woods Brown Prize "An important, original, much-needed comparative study of post-emancipation Brazil." --Joao Jose Reis, Universidade Federal da Bahia "A deftly written analysis that goes well beyond most existing studies of slavery's legacy in the hemisphere. The author's candor is refreshing, and her use of interviews provides a major new source of evidence." --Robert M. Levine, author of Brazilian Legacies and Father of the Poor?: Vargas and His Times Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won is the first book-length study devoted to understanding the political life of urban Afro-Brazilians in the aftermath of abolition. It explores the ways Afro-Brazilians in two major cities adapted to the new conditions of life after slavery and how they confronted limitations placed on their new freedom. The book sets forth new ways of understanding why the abolition of slavery did not yield equitable fruits of citizenship, not only in Brazil, but throughout the Americas and the Caribbean. In Sao Paulo, Afro-Brazilians united against racial discrimination, giving rise to a vocal black press and numerous political groups. One of these became the first national civil rights organization and Brazil's only black political party. In Salvador, African identity prevailed over black identity, and social protest was oriented toward protecting the right to practice African-based cultural expressions such as candomble and capoeira. Of all the eras and issues studied in Afro-Brazilian history, post-abolition social and political action has been the most neglected. Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won sets the Afro-Brazilian experience in a national context as well situating it within the Afro-Atlantic diaspora through a series of explicit parallels, particularly with Cuba and Jamaica. Kim D. Butler is an associate professor of history in the Africana Studies department at Rutgers University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (May 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813525047
• ISBN-13: 978-0813525044
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #450,233 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #28 in Books > History > Americas > Central America > El Salvador

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A ground breaking study in the area of race relations, July 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition SÏ€o Paolo and Salvador (Paperback)

Finally a book that goes beyond, the fact that Brazil is not a racial democracy, and examines how the Afro-Brazilian has fought aganist racism. Dr. Butler shows the various ways that Afro-Brazilians have fought and reacted aganist racism. However, what makes this study so important is the primary research that she used,particularly in the case of Salvador,Bahia;very little has been known about how Afro-Brazilians have reacted to racism in the north-east. This is probably the most important book in the field of Afro-Brazilian studies-a must buy for all those who are interested in the Afro-diaspora in the Americas,and how Black folk have reacted to racism after slavery.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won, February 14, 2008

By 

Publius (Southeast United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition SÏ€o Paolo and Salvador (Paperback)

Following the dissolution of slavery in nineteenth-century Brazil, large numbers of nonwhites struggled for the fruits of freedom within a finite space. That space, dominated by a decidedly smaller but powerful white elite, dictated the parameters and definitions of the so-called "high brow" culture. Due in large part to mid-century developments in transportation (the railroad in particular), Brazil began to mature rapidly as it linked to the wider transatlantic economy. Accompanied by increasing demands on African slave imports and a newer coffee-based export economy, Brazilian elites loudly rallied around the theme of progress. For Africans and their descendants, abolition initially brought great promise, Kim Butler argues in 'Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won,' but subsequently struggled for a share of that ill-defined freedom well into the twentieth-century and beyond.

For Butler, Associate Professor of History and Chair of the Africana Studies Program at Rutgers University, the rather complicated meaning of freedom itself is at issue. Africans and Afro-Brazilians believed that the end of slavery meant fuller participation in Brazilian society at the social, cultural, economic, and political levels. Psychologically, she argues, the failure of such notions was a devastating and bitter pill to swallow for many.

Butler discovered that blacks responded largely within three strategic avenues: integrationism, alternative integrationism, or separatism. Stated briefly, in the first case blacks could culturally assimilate to the dominant strata in hopes of improved social mobility and patronage networks. Alternative integrationists in Sao Paulo, on the other hand, formed somewhat elaborate organizations such as Centro-Civico Palmares and Frente Negra Brasileira in order to gain political rights within the context of patronage ties and generally accepted cultural dictates. Significant ethnic divisions and infighting, the author argues, effectively prevented these groups from collectively organizing around racial lines in order to press for change. In contrast, separatists often withdrew from the "contact zones" of the mainstream Brazilian culture in order to achieve protection and retention of dignity within an otherwise humiliating and potentially unsafe police state.

As in the case of earlier Cuban cabildos, Brazil's candombles of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries (at least initially, until their popularization) afforded alternative integrationists and separatists alike the structural ability to survive amidst complex socioeconomic and sociopolitical changes. In some cases, Afro-Brazilians consciously embraced their African cultural heritages and inadvertently "encroached" on the cultural hegemony of the white elites. In Salvador, for instance, the radical redefinition of "carnival" from the 1860s until the turn of the century represented a willingness of Afro-Brazilians to work within the existing political system. Despite efforts to coalesce around a Brazilian cultural identity, Afro-Brazilians met mounting resistance by a (white) elite-controlled police counter response. Only by the growing cross-race and cross-class popularization of previously outlawed capoeira groups did many Afro-Brazilians finally achieve increased protection under Bahian law.

At bottom, 'Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won' is concerned primarily with African agency in the Atlantic and African Diaspora worlds. In using the Diasporan Model, Butler explicitly states that Afro-Brazilians, like their Atlantic counterparts generally, were at once defined and redefined by both internal and external forces. Her account, originally a dissertation at Johns Hopkins University (1995) entitled "Identity and Self-Determination in the Post-Abolition African Diaspora," suggests that African responses to identity formation were quite varied. From a variety of peculiar contexts and factors, Sao Paulan society revolved around racial stratifications; black Salvadorans, however, found common ground culturally. In either case, Butler argues that a willingness to press for individual or collective advancement indicated a varied and startlingly active approach to carving out the "fullest" freedom possible.

Butler's account is remarkably insightful for its widely applicable framework. Given the use of an early articulation of the Diasporan Model, Butler's conclusions seem generally solid. Now over a decade old, 'Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won' would likely be a much different work if written today. One cannot help but see its dated qualities in the age of its secondary sources and somewhat skeletal conclusions. Given the somewhat disjointed juxtaposition of Sao Paulo and Salvador, recent work would no doubt help to provide a more nuanced comparison. Overall, Butler's abundant use of contemporary newspaper accounts and organizational minutes still provides a surprisingly fresh account for its privileging of Afro-Brazilian sources over their white elite counterparts.


Note: Given the option, I'd give it 3.5 stars.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond a Beginner's Book, March 28, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition SÏ€o Paolo and Salvador (Paperback)

Dr. Bulter's book is undoubtedly for the apiring "heavyweights" of Brazilian racial politics because it assumes that the reader has a basic to moderate understanding of Brazil's history, since it deals mainly with the political aspects of two of the major slave holding states after abolition (the late 1800's and onwards). This is a great thing for those who want detail--and yes, there are visuals. You can read overviews of Brazil in the encyclopedia; this is a book that can be brought into the classroom--undergraduate and graduate alike.