Negotiated Motherhood: Tutelage, Legal Discourse, and Children of Color in Rio de Janeiro, 1871–1900

My paper utilizes child custody cases to explore changing concepts of freedom, citizenship, childhood and family in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Tutela (the guardianship of orphans) is a part of Brazilian law with roots stretching back to seventeenth-century Portugal. However, as the Free Womb Law went into effect in 1871, a discernable shift took place in the treatment of orphaned children in Brazil. Prior to this period, tutela was a vehicle through which wealthy orphans gained access to the inheritance of deceased parents. As the process of abolition gained momentum in the late nineteenth century, judges began using this legal structure as a way to address the growing number of free black children in society. Free black children, often with at least one living parent and no inheritance, were nonetheless labeled “orphans” by judges as a form of legal control and social surveillance. In urban areas like Rio de Janeiro, these children were placed in the homes of white, upper-class professionals who swore to make them “useful citizens”. Some parents of tutelados were complicit and even enthusiastic that their child was being “given a future” while others were decidedly less convinced of the merits of the process. Through analysis of these legal documents, my paper reveals the custody battle for free black children that developed between their parents (most often formerly enslaved women) and the state. This paper interrogates the struggle of free and enslaved mothers to retain familial rights using the discourse of tutelage litigation in late nineteenth century Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I argue that tutelage cases frequently became forums through which black families aired a multitude of issues.