Neither Black nor White Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States

However, Degler attributes the large number of free blacks in Brazil to three factors. Degler efforts to answer his two main question; “to determine if slavery in Brazil differed from that in the United States?” and to “account for the difference in race relations in Brazil and the United States?” Maxine Margolis in her critique of Mr. Degler gives concise examples of how Brazil embraced Negro contributions where American counterparts either suppressed or totally negated the possibility of Negro contribution. He offers the fact that there were jobs that needed to be preformed by free blacks and as a result, the Portuguese had no major qualms about manumissions. Traditionalists espouse the large number of free blacks in Brazil to mean that Brazil was more accepting of free blacks. In refute of this point, Degler argues that like the government of Brazil, the Catholic Church was not in any position to affect a significant number of slaves, citing the fact that many slaves only came into contact with pastors once a year. Within the sub-topic Who is a Negro, professor Degler clearly defines the term I the two countries. The author’s opinion seems to be that the differences between Brazil and the United States with regard to the law and religion existed on paper and in doctrine but not in actuality. He also argues that Brazilian slavery was physically harsher, thereby less humane, than that of the United States. He feels that out of this racial divide separate race relations grew in each country. Under the sub-title, Who Protects the Slave’s Humanity? The author chronicles the fact that there was virtually no difference in the legal definition of a slave between the two countries.

Bibliography

Degler, Carl N. He is currently a Professor of History at Stanford University. The Historians credited with advancing this position were; Frank Tannenbaum in his book Slave and Citizen: The Negro in the Americas (Alfred A. The two factors that facilitated the selection of this time period where, that slavery was well established in both countries, and a wealth of evidence existed for making the comparison, during the time period.