The different ways of being coloured and free in a slaveholding society and its possibilities of social mobility: south-eastern Brazil, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries

Abstract

The main theme of this article is to reflect on the different possibilities of social mobility of freed individuals at the height of the slave system in south-eastern Brazil. To this end, three trajectories of individuals and their family groups were chosen to be monitored, having in common the fact that their lives were led in rural areas. The mobilization of resources such as access to land and slave ownership as well as family agency operated the main factors of social distinction and consequently access to vertical mobility.

Keywords

• social mobility
• freedmen
• slave system
• southeast Brazil
• social strategies