Frontier, sugarcane and trafficking: Slavery, disease and death in capivari, são paulo, 1821-1869

Abstract

The deaths and diseases of slaves in the São Paulo State sugarcane municipality of Capivari are addressed, associating the causes attributed to these deaths to the social and economic context and characteristics of the local slave communities. The impact of malaria, relating it to the age brackets, the environment created by work on the sugarcane plantations and the evolution of the occupation of the area, initially by expanding frontiers, is emphasized. The relationship between illness and work processes, as well as the postdisembarkation mortality of Africans and the possibility of mortality crises among the sugarcane captives is explored. The results lead to a discussion of the impact of habitat and Atlantic displacement and the difficulty in acclimatizing.