The Last Straw: A Case of Racism and Violence in Salvador, Capital of Bahia State

In 1961 a case of attempted murder drew the attention of the readers in Salvador’s newspapers: Ethel Brown, an African American immigrant maid stabbed her employer, Miss Chapman, also an American. The incident is examined as part of the racial tension between Black domestic workers and their White mistresses in Brazil and in the United States, considering the historical context in both societies, and the defeated dreams of Black immigrants that arrived in Brazil seeking the “racial paradise”, only to find that the racial relations among Brazilians were far from favorable to Black people. This paper uses the transnational history approach to discuss the event combining the newspapers portrayal of the crime, police records and the historiography on racial relations in Brazil and the United States in the early 1960’s, and the challenges faced by Black female immigrants in Brazil. It also reflects on the transnational identity of the two women, and the influence of racial/cultural codes from two countries in the arguments of the defense and the prosecution.