Churches and Citizenship in Colonial Brazil: The Afro-Brazilian Experience

The churches that stood at the center of most colonial Portuguese and Spanish American communities did more than just accommodate religious practice.  These buildings embodied the civilizing relationships that linked local populations to the political courts of the Iberian Peninsula, to the ecclesiastical courts of Rome, and ultimately to the courts of heaven.  As embodiments of church, state, and divine interests, colonial Portuguese and Spanish churches contributed actively to rituals that sanctified social hierarchies, mediated civic life, and helped define the level of citizenship an individual or group could claim within colonial society.   This paper examines the union that existed between churches, citizenship, and civic life in Brazilian province of Minas Gerais in the closing decades of Brazil’s colonial era. 

This paper specifically focuses on the way this province’s large but often-marginalized Afro-Brazilian populations used ecclesiastical architecture and religious material culture to negotiate their citizenship status with other ethnic and socioeconomic groups.  Church buildings, religious images, and even simple objects such as candles and altar cloths helped enslaved and freed blacks and mulattoes concretize and at times advance their social positions.  Examining these and other objects offers valuable insights into the powerful impact that religious architecture and material culture had on society in colonial Minas Gerais and throughout larger Latin America.