Poor man's crop? Slavery on Brazilian cotton regions (1800-1850)

Thales A. Zamberlan Pereira ()

No 2017_10, Working Papers, Department of Economics from University of São Paulo (FEA-USP)

Abstract: The literature about cotton production in Brazil during the nineteenth century in large part associates cotton as a “poor man’s crop” – cultivated by small farmers who did not employ a large slave labor force. Information from population maps between 1800 and 1840, however, shows that slaves represented half the population in Maranhão, the most important cotton exporter in Brazil until 1850. This represented a higher share than that observed in any northeast region in Brazil, and was comparable to those recorded in the United States’ Cotton South. This paper shows that, during the cotton boom years (1790-1820), not only large plantations cultivated the cotton exported from northeast Brazil to Britain and other countries in Europe, but also that slave prices were higher in Maranhão than in other provinces.

Keywords: Slavery; cotton; Northeast Brazil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J47 N36 N96 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-07-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.repec.eae.fea.usp.br/documentos/ThalesZamberlan_10WPa.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spa:wpaper:2017wpecon10

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers, Department of Economics from University of São Paulo (FEA-USP) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Pedro Garcia Duarte ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).