Ian Read

Europeans who wrote about Brazil during the colonial period (1500–1822) usually depicted the country as a healthy Eden and an exception to the "torrid zone." For more than three centuries, a mostly positive impression of health and climate, shared by intellectuals across the Atlantic, influenced colonialism, European rivalries, the slave trade, and early national sentiment. The enduring reputation was ruined suddenly in the mid-nineteenth century by the arrival of new plagues and prejudicial… Show more

Europeans who wrote about Brazil during the colonial period (1500–1822) usually depicted the country as a healthy Eden and an exception to the "torrid zone." For more than three centuries, a mostly positive impression of health and climate, shared by intellectuals across the Atlantic, influenced colonialism, European rivalries, the slave trade, and early national sentiment. The enduring reputation was ruined suddenly in the mid-nineteenth century by the arrival of new plagues and prejudicial ideas of racial degeneracy. Both the diseases and ideas were infectious, dramatically altering understandings of health and race well into the twentieth century. The rapid change in perception is illustrated by the beliefs of three medical experts, José Francisco Xavier Sigaud, Robert Dundas, and Gustavus Richard Brown Horner. These three men, French-Brazilian, Irish, and American respectively, exemplify the prevalent and transatlantic views of Brazil's climate held by most medical and scientific men who lived in or studied Brazil. Yet they would revise their opinions dramatically when unfamiliar plagues arrived after 1849. When optimism finally returned in the early twentieth century, it rested on a new understanding of climate and race, but their entangled nature continues to persist. Show less

This volume investigates the multifaceted SHAPES (socio-historic, artistic, political, and ecological significance) of global disease. It challenges conventional views of infection and transmission by associating epidemics with ideologies and their accompanying institutions. It argues that the physical threat of epidemics is irrevocably linked to culture, economic resources, social class, and power. Epidemics involve both the infected and non-infected, affect the local and global, and they… Show more

This volume investigates the multifaceted SHAPES (socio-historic, artistic, political, and ecological significance) of global disease. It challenges conventional views of infection and transmission by associating epidemics with ideologies and their accompanying institutions. It argues that the physical threat of epidemics is irrevocably linked to culture, economic resources, social class, and power. Epidemics involve both the infected and non-infected, affect the local and global, and they expose control and neglect. This book provides a radical collaborative approach, drawing contributors from closely related and vastly distant fields in the search for innovative ways to address human suffering, and to find real solutions that may determine whether people live or die. Such an approach is needed within an increasingly interconnected world where both pathological diseases and health behaviors are infectious. Experts from fifteen diverse disciplines in the natural sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities present case studies from across the world and time, demonstrating the uniqueness of each disease and epidemic in its place, but also the shared experiences that span human life and death. In order to identify, measure and control epidemics, we must understand epidemics more as long biosocial processes than abrupt events in nature or culture. Such methodology examines the meaning we attach to epidemics, as well as their material reality, and provides a more complete understanding of how epidemics shape and are shaped. Show less

Asking how diseases are understood in different cultural and social contexts and relations of power gives historians important insight into Latin America’s past and present. How cultural and social context and relations of power change in new epidemiological environments—the ways diseases “talk”—is equally important.

Using more than 2,100 slave runaway announcements from across the Brazilian Empire (1822–1889), this article argues that the typical runaway was an atypical slave. Specifically, runaways were overwhelmingly male and of a limited range of age, worked outdoors and itinerant jobs, and possessed outward (e.g., clothing) and inward (e.g., language and literacy skills) characteristics. This unusual combination put a small minority of bondspeople into a position to flee, while flight remained… Show more

Using more than 2,100 slave runaway announcements from across the Brazilian Empire (1822–1889), this article argues that the typical runaway was an atypical slave. Specifically, runaways were overwhelmingly male and of a limited range of age, worked outdoors and itinerant jobs, and possessed outward (e.g., clothing) and inward (e.g., language and literacy skills) characteristics. This unusual combination put a small minority of bondspeople into a position to flee, while flight remained unthinkable or far too dangerous to the vast majority, even at a point that slavery was presumed to be ending. This finding matters because for more than a half a century, historians have commonly used the runaway slave as the quintessential example of slave resistance. But this interpretation may transform the runaway into an unrepresentative symbol and divert our attention from the many ways that oppression within slavery was, by definition, the lack of opportunities to resist. Show less

Tetanus and other widespread endemic diseases of Brazil's early national period speak to intimate details of common life and give clues to big, vexing questions, such as why Brazil's population expanded dramatically at the turn of the twentieth century. Tetanus was for a long time one of Brazil's deadliest afflictions, especially among infants, but historians know very little about it. Using archival sources from across the Empire and early Republic, this article argues tetanus… Show more

Tetanus and other widespread endemic diseases of Brazil's early national period speak to intimate details of common life and give clues to big, vexing questions, such as why Brazil's population expanded dramatically at the turn of the twentieth century. Tetanus was for a long time one of Brazil's deadliest afflictions, especially among infants, but historians know very little about it. Using archival sources from across the Empire and early Republic, this article argues tetanus disproportionately killed the enslaved population, but gradually diminished in virulence for nearly all groups across the country by the second half of the 1800s. This decline should be attributed only partially to medical knowledge. Rather, indirect demographic and technological changes were more important factors in Brazil. Show less

Despite the inherent brutality of slavery, some slaves could find small but important opportunities to act decisively. The Hierarchies of Slavery in Santos, Brazil, 1822–1888 explores such moments of opportunity and resistance in Santos, a Southeastern township in Imperial Brazil. It argues that slavery in Brazil was hierarchical: slaves' fleeting chances to form families, work jobs that would not kill or maim, avoid debilitating diseases, or find a (legal or illegal) pathway out of slavery… Show more

Despite the inherent brutality of slavery, some slaves could find small but important opportunities to act decisively. The Hierarchies of Slavery in Santos, Brazil, 1822–1888 explores such moments of opportunity and resistance in Santos, a Southeastern township in Imperial Brazil. It argues that slavery in Brazil was hierarchical: slaves' fleeting chances to form families, work jobs that would not kill or maim, avoid debilitating diseases, or find a (legal or illegal) pathway out of slavery were highly influenced by their demographic background and their owners' social position. By tracing the lives of slaves and owners through multiple records, the author is able to show that the cruelties that slaves faced were not equally shared. One important implication is that internal stratification likely helped perpetuate slavery because there was the belief, however illusive, that escaping captivity was not necessary for social mobility. Show less

This article compares slave-trading networks in the 1860s and 1870s in Santos and Mogi das Cruzes, two largely dissimilar townships in the south-eastern province of Sao Paulo, Brazil. These local markets had different structural patterns, even though buyers in both places depended on personal connections to procure single or very small lots of slaves.Santos had a more defined network of slave traders, while buyers and sellers in Mogi das Cruzes relied more on family connections. These findings… Show more

This article compares slave-trading networks in the 1860s and 1870s in Santos and Mogi das Cruzes, two largely dissimilar townships in the south-eastern province of Sao Paulo, Brazil. These local markets had different structural patterns, even though buyers in both places depended on personal connections to procure single or very small lots of slaves.Santos had a more defined network of slave traders, while buyers and sellers in Mogi das Cruzes relied more on family connections. These findings are linked with studies on the internal market in Brazil and other parts of the Americas to show that local slave trading was more important than has been assumed, yet requires greater study to under-stand fully. Show less

Between 1802 and 1849, cholera and influenza pandemics killed hundreds of thousands from Shanghai to Seville to New York, but these diseases did not dip below the South American portion of the equator.1 As a result, Brazil gained a reputation of good health, an opinion confirmed by European travelers and some provincial authorities.2 This rosy reputation wilted in 1849 when a yellow fever epidemic devastated several seaports, including the imperial capital of Rio de Janeiro. Following this… Show more

Between 1802 and 1849, cholera and influenza pandemics killed hundreds of thousands from Shanghai to Seville to New York, but these diseases did not dip below the South American portion of the equator.1 As a result, Brazil gained a reputation of good health, an opinion confirmed by European travelers and some provincial authorities.2 This rosy reputation wilted in 1849 when a yellow fever epidemic devastated several seaports, including the imperial capital of Rio de Janeiro. Following this outbreak, waves of epidemics swept the nation with unfamiliar and terrifying virulence. Brazilians were struck again and again by cholera, smallpox, yellow fever, and bubonic plague until the early 1900s. Show less

We explore these questions by looking at the networks of interlocking boards of directors of major joint stock companies in Brazil and Mexico in 1909. We test whether in Mexico businessmen relied more on networks and other informal arrangements to do business than in Brazil.