A Fragile Authority: Black Mothers and Domestic Partners in Colonial Minas Gerais

Family histories of colonial Brazil have noted the common presence of informal families led by unmarried couples of both Portuguese and African descent. The stories behind these families’ origins vary in complexity, but many of them can be traced back to the relationship between a white, propertied, male slave-owner and a black enslaved or freed woman. The union of these couples was often marked by an unequal power relationship that made their association a tricky proposition for these women. Some may have found companionship, respect, and material comfort in their intimate partnership with a former white master or white male acquaintance. Others found themselves treated publicly – if not necessarily privately – as their partner’s slave woman. Their fragile status often affected their own claims to freedom and property; it also affected their claims to parental and domestic authority. Probate records, deeds of sale, and petitions from colonial Minas Gerais reveal these women’s struggles as they strove to protect the integrity of their property and family, particularly in the wake of a white partner’s death. More importantly, these documents reveal how black women appealed to local and imperial officials to demand recognition of their prerogatives as free persons and/or as mothers when their ambiguous status threatened their domestic authority. Through their engagement with the courts, governing councils, and occasionally the king they constructed a narrative of their domestic lives to claim for themselves some of privileges and rights colonial society extended to white women and mothers.