From the Chamber to the Sertão: Racial Ideology and Practice in the Life of Teófilo Benedito Otoni

Teófilo Otoni (1807-1869) was one of Brazil's preeminent Liberal statesmen.  Throughout his political career he spoke out against inherited privilege and political despotism, instead advocating representative and decentralized government and opposing racial discrimination, African slavery, and the slave trade.  He championed economic development within a capitalist framework. 

           Otoni's ideals were tested, however, while running a business venture in northern Minas Gerais from 1847 to 1861.  He envisioned his Mucuri company as a vehicle for economic development and an opportunity for social engineering.  Otoni introduced steam navigation, constructed roads, and promoted immigration by economically self-sufficient Europeans.  He believed that rejection of slavery and promotion of small scale farming would yield economic prosperity, racial tolerance, and the basis for a democratic society.  Otoni also planned to incorporate hostile local indigenous populations by treating them humanely and encouraging them to shift from foraging to farming.  His utopian vision was embodied in the name he gave the company's base of operations: Philadelphia.

           This paper will examine the contradictions that developed between Otoni's political ideals and the compromises he made to keep his company economically viable.  An inability to attract free construction workers at competitive wages led him to subcontract slave labor from Brazilian owners.  While European immigrants were able to buy modest agricultural lots on reasonable economic terms, he awarded much larger stakes to well-capitalized Brazilian slave owners, many of whom were his own relatives.  Otoni's vision of indigenous integration also proved unrealistic; most local tribes were not interested in adopting capitalist practices of thrift, regimented labor, consumption, and trade.  In the end, his  liberal ideologies fell victim to the harsh realities of his place and time, a contradiction he never fully acknowledged.