Maria Graham authored Journal of a Voyage to Brazil, and Residence There, During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 (London: 1824) following several visits to Rio de Janeiro between 1821 and 1823. She returned again in 1824-1825 when she briefly served as the governess to the Princess Maria da Glória. Maria wrote regularly in her journal, which provided the basis for her published travel account, and she frequently sketched scenes in Rio, particularly landscapes. This Narrative will focus on specific places where Maria described slavery, in order to understand the complex social and physical spaces where enslaved people worked in Rio de Janeiro at the time of Independence from Portugal.

Note, this narrative quotes language used in the nineteenth century that is considered offensive today.

Alida Metcalf is Professor of History at Rice University, Houston, USA

Please send any corrections or comments to acm5@rice.edu.

What does the traveler see? How do they convey what they have seen to others? In this Narrative we travel back in time to Rio de Janeiro in the 1820s, as seen through the eyes and pen of Maria Graham, an English woman of the upper class. Although her Journal of a Voyage to Brazil  (London: 1824) recounts her time in Rio through rich descriptions of people, places, political events, and landscapes, we shall focus on what she saw, commented on, and depicted about slavery. Although she arrived in Brazil as an Abolitionist, over her time, she became accustomed to slavery and even adopted many of the perspectives and expectations of the slave-owning class in Brazil. Our goal is not to judge her, but to use her writings to understand the slave society that she briefly became a part of. At the time of her visits, Rio de Janeiro was a slave city--completely dependent on the labor of enslaved persons, while outside of Rio, the sugar plantations, and emerging coffee farms, also depended on enslaved labor.

Daughter of a Scottish naval officer who was often at sea, and a mother who was often ill, Maria grew up, as many English children of her social class did, at boarding school. There she was very well educated in history, botany, drawing, and French; she also cultivated interests in philosophy. After leaving school, she and her sister accompanied their father to India in 1808, and on the five-month voyage out, she met the naval officer Thomas Graham, whom she married in 1809 soon after arriving in India. An acute but self-conscious observer, Maria recorded many scenes of India in letters to a friend, which became her first book Journal of a residence in India (London: 1812).

In the introduction to this book, Maria suggests that to describe another culture, first impressions are important, because over time

"novelty is lost, and the scene becomes too familiar to seem any longer worth the trouble of a careful delineation."

As we shall see, she falls into this very pattern in her descriptions of slavery in Rio de Janeiro. Her first descriptions of slavery occurred before she reached Rio, and by the time she reached Rio, slavery had become quite familiar and therefore she paid less attention to it in her writing. Nevertheless, her brief comments about the every-day presence of enslaved people as well as her revulsion at the slave trade, offer many clues to understanding life in slave city, such as Rio.

The British portrait painter and art historian, Charles Eastlake, sketched Maria Graham, in Rome in 1819. His portrait shows a earnest woman, thirty-four years-old, with a keen eye.

In 1821, Thomas Graham received command of the ship Doris and was ordered to Brazil and Chile to protect British commercial interests. Already successful as a writer, Maria accompanied him and fully intended to publish an account of her travels on her return. Indeed, the inscription on the title page reveals her confidence at sea--after all, she was the daughter of an Admiral and the wife of a Captain. She quotes from a poem by Lord Byron:

"Once more upon the waters! Yet once more!

And the waves bound beneath me as a steed

that knows its rider."

Maria Graham loved to ride horses, and she was completely comfortable on board ship. Amongst her luggage was her own riding saddle, for she intended to ride when she could. Also traveling with her was her maid, whom she never names. After a long historical introduction on the history of Brazil, she begins her Journal of a Voyage to Brazil with their departure:

"At about six o'clock in the evening of the 31st of July, 1821, after having saluted His Majesty, Geroge IV . . . we sailed in the Doris, a 42-gun frigate for South America."

The Napoleonic Wars were over, but not the wars of independence in Latin America. England had a vested interest in the ensuring that the former colonies of Spain secured their independence, which would open up their markets to English trade. England was, however, neutral regarding the independence of Brazil, given Britain's long alliance with Portugal. In 1807, with Napoleonic troops about to enter Lisbon, the entire royal court departed for Brazil, under the protection of the British Navy.

The Doris had an easy Atlantic crossing and reached Brazil on September 21, 1821. The King, Dom João VI, had recently returned to Portugal, but his son and heir, Prince Pedro, remained in Brazil, with his wife and young daughters.

Finding Pernambuco and Bahia both sites of resistance to Portuguese rule, and very unsettled, it would be several weeks before the Doris departed for Rio de Janeiro.

Capital of Brazil, and formerly the seat of the Portuguese crown from 1808 until 1821, Rio de Janeiro was a busy port city in the Atlantic World when the Doris anchored. The historical map engraved by Michel, from an unknown original supplied to him, is georefrenced over imagineRio's modern digital map of Rio de Janeiro in 1821 (on right). Michel's map shows the central city with its various landmarks labeled. Outside the center were rural parishes, bringing the total metropolitan population to over 100,000. A significant portion of the population was enslaved--48.8%--and many were Africans who had been brought to Brazil by slavers in the trans-Atlantic trade.

Maria Graham begins her account of Rio as if she had not arrived in a slave city. She describes how they rented a house in Catete, a neighborhood to the south of the city center. As the captain's wife, she took special care of a sick midshipman--one of "her boys" as she referred to them.[1] Normally, they would have remained on the ship, but she felt that the midshipman would recover more quickly on shore. This gave her a unique vista into daily life in a slave city.

Catete was a pleasant neighborhood outside of the city center, and it lay near the dense Tijuca Forest that extended back on hills behind the city. On December 19th, 1821, Maria rode on horseback to Larangeiras, a rural neighborhood named for the orange trees that had been planted there. She describes "a little stream that beautifies and fertilises it." This little stream was the Carioca River, the main source of water for the city. On this ride, Maria notices laundresses working alongside the stream:

"the rivulet runs over its stony bed, and affords a tempting spot to groups of washerwomen of all hues, though the greater number are black; and they add not a little to the picturesque effect of the scene: they generally wear a red or white handkerchief round the head; and a full-plaited mantle tied over one shoulder, and passed under the opposite arm, with a full petticoat, is a favourite dress. Some wrap a long cloth round them, like the Hindoos; and some wear an ugly European frock, with a most ungraceful sort of bib tied before them.

Modern historians know that, without a doubt, the vast majority, if not all, of the laundresses Maria saw were enslaved domestic servants. Having her own maid, Maria did not find domestic service odd, yet this, her first description of enslaved people in Rio is of them in a "picturesque" landscape. To be fair, she might not have known so soon after her arrival that most, if not all, of the laundresses were likely enslaved.

One of her sketches is of a particular scene along this road, at the site of a fountain that is known today as the Bica da Rainha. This is her sketch, as later engraved by Edward Finden and published in Journal of a Voyage to Brazil. Visible in the view is the Larangeiras Road, the Carioca River, the Bica da Rainha fountain, and a granite faced hill (today Mirante Santa Marta). The Corcovado Peak is in the far distance. No laundresses can be seen.

_____

[1] While at sea, the midshipmen, who were at that time, very young, had lessons taught by the teacher, and in addition, they learned the art of navigation and sailing. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a midshipman is: "A non-commissioned naval officer ranking immediately below the most junior commissioned officer (i.e. in the Royal Navy, next below a sub lieutenant)" OED Online. January 2022. Oxford University Press).

Enslaved people appeared in the landscape, but the vast views, dense forests, hills, and valleys hid their presence. Yet, as Maria noted, it was enslaved people tending the new coffee plantings, which would make fortunes in Rio. How was it different in the city itself? One might expect that when she finally went to the city center that Maria would see more clearly that the city dependent on enslaved labor. Instead, as she approached the city, most probably in "commodious but ugly carriage" drawn by two horses or mules, she noticed and later recorded in her journal the houses, the hills, the church and the aqueduct that were the major sights along the Catete Road:

"Our road lay through the suburb of the Catete for about half a mile. Some handsome houses are situated on either hand, and the spaces between are filled with shops, and small houses inhabited by the families of the shopkeepers in town. We then came to the hill called the Gloria, from the name of the church dedicated to N. S. da Gloria, on the eminence [hill] immediately overlooking the sea. The hill is green, and wooded and studded with country houses. It is nearly insulated; and the road passes between it and another still higher, just where a most copious stream issues from an aqueduct (built, I think, by the Conde de Lavradio), and brings health and refreshment to this part of the town from the neighbouring mountains."

Later she made a sketch, shown here as engraved published in her book, from a vantage point just below Gloria Church. Her view looks out at the city from the Gloria Hill. The waterfront of Gloria is visible on the left, and the aqueduct with its arches connecting the Morro de Santa Teresa to the Morro de Santo Antonio can be seen. Past Gloria, the shoreline curves towards the city, and the public park known as the Passeio Público is visible. The white twin pillars mark its entrance. Just next to it is the Convento da Ajuda.

Still, no mention of slavery in Rio, yet it is likely that she passed many enslaved people on her trip to the city center, and in fact, her carriage was likely driven by an enslaved man in livery, see the image by Henry Chamberlain, who was in Rio at the same time as Maria: https://historyarchive.org/works/books/views-and-costumes-of-the-city-and-neighbourhood-of-rio-de-janeiro-1822.

At the Carioca Fountain, the main fountain in Rio, Maria first mentions the presence of enslaved people:

"The largest [fountain] is the Carioca,[1] near the convent of Sant Antonio; it has twelve mouths, and is most picturesque in itself: it is constantly surrounded by slaves, with their water-barrels, and by animals drinking. Just beyond are troughs of granite, where a crowd of washerwomen are constantly employed; and over against these, benches are placed, on which there are constantly seated new negroes for sale."

Fountains were central meeting places for enslaved people in Rio because nearly all of the fresh water consumed in the city had to be carried from the fountains to homes and businesses. Although Rio had excellent water, which was very unusual for a city at this time, Rio had very few fountains for the size of its population, and therefore the survival of the entire city depended on the labor of the water carriers.

Completed in 1723, the Carioca Fountain received its waters from the Carioca Aqueduct, which brought fresh, clean water from the Tijuca Forest high above the city. The fountain also had two large receptacles for water, designated for laundresses, who washed clothes in the tanks and then dried them around the square.

Maria describes the scene as “picturesque,” even though she notes that “new negroes” were being sold in the square. By "new negroes," she means the recently arrived enslaved people, who had just experienced the horrific Atlantic crossing on a slave ship.

Image: Although she does not describe them in her text, an image of water carriers in Rio appears in her published book. In the image, the water carriers are labeled as convicts, and they are chained together with oak barrels on their heads. They are under the control of a driver who wields a sword. No original for this image is to be found in her sketchbooks held by the British Museum, and therefore it is unlikely that Maria sketched the water carriers herself. However, chained water carriers had become a common trope reproduced by visitors and artists in Rio, see Henry Chamberlain portrayal of them at https://historyarchive.org/works/books/views-and-costumes-of-the-city-and-neighbourhood-of-rio-de-janeiro-1822.

____

[1] In a note, Maria Graham writes that "the nickname of the inhabitants of Rio is Carioca, from this fountain."

Maria did not visit the slave market of Rio, known as the Valongo, until she returned in 1823. An image of the Valongo appears as the first illustration in her book, but it not from her hand. Rather, it is a watercolor by Augustus Earle, an English painter who was in Rio in 1820. Maria writes in 1823:

"I have this day seen the Val Longo; it is the slave-market of Rio. Almost every house in this very long street is a depôt for slaves. On passing by the doors this evening, I saw in most of them long benches placed near the walls, on which rows of young creatures were sitting, their heads shaved, their bodies emaciated, and the marks of recent itch upon their skins. In some places the poor creatures were lying on mats, evidently too sick to sit up. At one house the half-doors were shut, and a group of boys and girls, apparently not above fifteen years old, and some much under, were leaning over the hatches, and gazing into the street with wondering faces. They were evidently quite new negroes. "

She then describes her interaction with the enslaved children:

As I approached them, it appears that something about me attracted their attention; they touched one another, to be sure that all saw me, and then chattered in their own African dialect with great eagerness. I went and stood near them, and though certainly more disposed to weep, I forced myself to smile to them, and look cheerfully, and kissed my hand to them, with all which they seemed delighted, and jumped about and danced, as if returning my civilities.

She then recounts that she would protect their innocence by not telling them of what was to come:

Poor things! I would not, if I could, shorten their moments of glee, by awakening them to a sense of the sad things of slavery; but, if I could, I would appeal to their masters, to those who buy, and to those who sell, and implore them to think of the evils slavery brings, not only to the negroes but to themselves, not only to themselves but to their families and their posterity.

Maria conveys her compassion for the newly-arrived enslaved children and her view that slavery damages not only the lives of the enslaved, but those of their masters, who become immoral as a result of owning enslaved persons.

Maria's first views of the slave trade in practice appear before she reached Rio, when she visited Pernambuco and Bahia. When she saw slave markets for the first time, she describes her revulsion, which was made even worse when she learned more about the slave trade from one of the British members of the Slave Trade Commission, a Captain Finlaison who arrived in November 1821 on the Morgiana. Maria writes that this ship

"belongs to the African station, and came to Brazil about some prize business connected with the slave trade."

By this she means that Captain Finlaison had taken possession of a slaver illegally trading. From him, Maria heard stories that

"make my blood run cold, of horrors committed in the French slave ships especially. Of young negresses, headed up in casks and thrown overboard, when the ships are chased. Of others, stowed in boxes when a ship was searched; with a bare chance of surviving their confinement."

She then makes one of her perceptive observations that once a practice is deemed acceptable, individuals lose their moral compass:

"But where the trade is once admitted, no wonder the heart becomes callous to the individual sufferings of the slaves."

In Salvador, she realized that the Doris shared the anchorage with slave ships. Her description of the arrival of a ship carrying captives is poignant and compassionate:

"This very moment, there is a slave ship discharging her cargo, and the slaves are singing as they go ashore. They have left the ship, and they see they will be on the dry land; and so, at the command of their keeper, they are singing one of their country songs, in a strange land. Poor wretches! could they foresee the slave-market, and the separations of friends and relations that will take place there, and the march up the country, and the labour of the mines, and the sugar-works, their singing would be a wailing cry. But that "blindness to the future kindly given," allows them a few hours of sad enjoyment.

Maria had learned that not only was Salvador the major slaving port in Brazil, but that one of the members of the provisional Junta--the local council that had formed after the Liberal Revolution in Porto in 1820--was, in her words, "the greatest slave merchant" of Salvador. This speaks to the fact that the social status of a slave trader was high in Salvador, and that there was widespread acceptance of the practice among the elite.

Maria found the high mortality of the slave trade disgraceful, as well as the widespread use of false papers to trade illegally. She writes,

"Within the last year, seventy-six ships have sailed from this port for the coast of Africa; and it is well known that many of them will slave to the northward of the line,[1] in spite of all treaties to the contrary: but the system of false papers is so cunningly and generally carried on, that detection is far from easy; and the difficulties that lie in the way of condemning any slave ship, render it a matter of hazard to detain them. An owner, however, is well satisfied, if one cargo in three arrives safe; and eight or nine successful voyages make a fortune."

Above, the image of the slave ship the Diligente, at sea right before being captured by the British, comes from a decade after Maria was in Brazil. However, the slave ships she saw in Brazil would have been similar.

______

[1] Treaties between Portugal and England, limited the slave trade by Brazilian slavers to ports below the Equator.



Maria Graham's first encounter with the slave trade occurred in Recife, soon after they first landed:

"We had hardly gone fifty paces into Recife, when we were absolutely sickened by the first sight of a slave-market. It was the first time either the boys [the midshipmen] or I had been in a slave-country; and, however strong and poignant the feelings may be at home, when imagination pictures slavery, they are nothing compared to the staggering sight of a slave-market. It was thinly stocked, owing to the circumstances of the town; which cause most of the owners of new slaves to keep them closely shut up in the depôts. Yet about fifty young creatures, boys and girls, with all the appearance of disease and famine consequent upon scanty food and long confinement in unwholesome places, were sitting and lying about among the filthiest animals in the streets. The sight sent us home to the ship with the heart-ache and resolution, "not loud but deep," that nothing in our power should be considered too little, or too great, that can tend to abolish or to alleviate slavery."

The second time she saw a slave market it was right outside of the house of an English merchant in the city. Again, she found the slave market deeply disturbing:

"This morning before breakfast, looking from the balcony of Mr. S.'s house, I saw a white woman, or rather fiend, beating a young negress, and twisting her arms cruelly while the poor creature screamed in agony, till our gentlemen interfered. Good God! that such a traffic, such a practice as that of slavery, should exist. Near the house there are two or three depôts of slaves, all young; in one, I saw an infant of about two years old, for sale."

Maria did draw this scene, but the view chosen for publication in Journal of a Voyage, came from the hand of the artist Agustus Earle. In Earle's image the buying and selling of slaves takes place in the center of the image, conveying the horror that Maria describes in her text, see Earle's view here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/296748001. In Maria's view, however, she depicts the square largely empty and without a slave market.

In Salvador, she also saw a slave market. Her comment is revealing, for she herself recognizes that the more she sees certain sights, the more she can become familiar with them. Even though, she feels that she remains repulsed by the slave market, she only reports this emotion; she does not describe in detail what she saw:

"There also is the slave market, a sight I have not yet learned to see without shame and indignation."

The slave markets in Recife and Salvador were more visible, as they were in the center of the city, where Maria came into contact them them. In Rio the main site of slave trading had been moved to the more distant Valongo, where it was easier to avoid.



After describing her visit to Valongo in 1823, Maria writes

"I have hitherto endeavoured, without success, to procure a correct statement of the number of slaves imported into all Brazil. I fear, indeed, it will be hardly possible for me to do so, on account of the distance of some of the ports; but I will not rest till I procure at least a statement of the number entered at the custom-house here during the last two years. The number of ships from Africa that I see constantly entering the harbour, and the multitudes that throng the slave-houses in this street, convince me that the importation must be very great. The ordinary proportion of deaths on the passage is, I am told, about one in five."

She followed up. In a footnote in her published book, she provides the numbers that she obtained from the Customs House in Rio de Janeiro.

During 1821, at least 20,000 enslaved Africans were landed at Rio de Janeiro. A commission had been set up to investigate instances of illegal slave trading, such as by Portuguese or American captains, but as of 1821, the slave trade between Brazil and Africa, carried by Brazilian ships, remained legal. According to the numbers provided by Maria, the majority of the enslaved came from Angola:

Angola: 7452

Cabinda: 3106

Quilumana: 3084

Luanda: 2788

Muzambique: 2543

Benguela: 1635

Ambuiz; Amhuebe: 572

Grand Total: 21,180

In 1822, the numbers increased to nearly 25,000.

Maria's numbers are very similar to those that can be had by consulting the trans-Altantic Slave Trading database, SlaveVoyages. A search for the number of disembarked enslaved persons in Rio de Janeiro in 1821 comes up with 27.298 enslaved individuals landed in Rio.[1]

_________

[1] See the search saved at: https://www.slavevoyages.org/voyages/qlL7QnWW.

Maria visited the prominent city squares, and even though enslaved persons would have been present in every single public square, only sometimes does she record their presence.

One square, the Campo de Santana (St. Anne's Field), lay at the back of the city where it served as an intermediate space between the central city and the surrounding countryside. During the time when Maria was in Rio, the area behind the square was being developed into what became known as the Cidade Nova (New City). Maria Graham described the campo as "exceedingly extensive, but still unfinished." She writes:

"Two of the principal streets run across it, from the sea-side to the extremity of the new town, nearly a league, and new and wide streets are stretching out in every direction. But I was too tired with going about in the heat of the day to do more than take a cursory view of these things, and could not even persuade myself to look at the new fountain which is supplied by a new aqueduct."

This new aqueduct was the Maracanã Aqueduct, which supplemented Rio's first aqueduct, known as the Carioca.

Maria Graham briefly mentions the "new town," which was the Cidade Nova taking shape on the far side of the "unfinished" square.

Buried in footnote 92, which is about the marimba, a musical instrument played by Africans, Maria describes a coronation ceremony that once took place in the Campo de Santana:

"Each nation of negroes has its own peculiar instrument, which its exiles have introduced here. A king of each tribe is annually elected, to whom his people are obedient, something in the way of the gipsy monarchy. Before 1806 the election took place with great ceremony and feasting, and sometimes fighting, in the Campo de Sta. Anna; and the king of the whole was seated during the day in the centre of the square under a huge state umbrella. This festival is now abolished."

The Doris returned to Rio on the 24th of February 1822 when Maria reported that it had been "excessively hot, the thermometer being seldom under 88, and we have had it on board at 92 Fahrenheit." Captain Graham became ill, and Maria did not leave the Doris until March 1, 1822, when she joined an excursion to see a sugar plantation. This is one of the most revealing passages with respect to how Maria saw slavery. As to be expected, she is much impressed by the beautiful scenery, but her descriptions also reveal how fundamental slavery was to the plantations surrounding Rio and how accepting she had become of it.

The group, which consisted of two midshipmen, Mr. Dance (an officer on the Doris), her cousin Glennie, and herself, were picked up from the Doris by a friend, a Mr. N., who came for them "with a large boat of the country." This was her first time on such a boat, and because it was unfamiliar, Maria describes it in detail:

"These vessels have a standing awning, and two very large triangular sails: they are managed according to their sizes by four, six, eight, or more negroes, besides the man at the helm: when rowing, the rowers rise at every stroke, and then throw themselves back on their seats. . . . The boatmen are here universally negroes; some free, and owners of their boats; others slaves, who are obliged to take home a daily fixed sum to their masters, who often pass a life of total indolence, being fed in this way by their slaves."

Again Maria notices that there are great variations among the Black people in Rio: some are free and own their own boats; others are enslaved but working semi-independently with the obligation of returning "a fixed sum" to their owners. She also notices the effect of enslavement on the owners of slaves. Again she returns to how slavery debases those who own slaves. The church Nossa Senhora da Luz [Our Lady of Light] soon appeared:

"Our first view of N.S. da Luz presented such a high red bank, half covered with grass and trees, overhanging the water in the evening sun, as Cuyp [Aelbert Jacobszoon Cuyp, a Dutch Golden Age painter] would have chosen for a landscape; and just as I was wishing for something to animate it, the oxen belonging to the factory [sugar mill] came down to drink and cool themselves in the bay, and completed the scene. . . . On doubling the point of the bank, we came upon a small white church, with some venerable trees near it; beyond that was the house, with a long veranda, supported by white columns; and still farther on, the sugar-house, and the pottery and brick-work."

When they landed, the boatmen carried them ashore, Maria remarks fatter-of-factly, "as the beach is shallow and muddy." They had reached the mouth of a large river that Maria named Guaxindiba, but which a later map (see it georeferenced on the right) labels as Rio Imbuaxu. Maria describes it as navigable and its banks as "astonishingly fertile."

The scenery was lovely and Maria, who lived to ride, rose at dawn to see the estate. One morning, she attended the once-a-week gathering of all the enslaved laborers on the plantation:

"After breakfast, I attended the weekly muster of all the negroes of the fazenda; clean shirts and trousers were given the men, and shifts and skirts to the women, of very coarse white cotton. Each, as he or she came in, kissed a hand, and then bowed to Mr. P. [the administrator] saying, either "Father, give me blessing," or "The names of Jesus and Mary be praised!" and were answered accordingly, either "Bless you," or "Be they praised."

Even though Maria notes that half of the enslaved were recently arrived from Africa, which means that they had recently survived the slave trade, which as we know Maria found disgusting and inhumane, she found the custom of the daily blessing softened enslavement. For Maria, who learned that this ritual was repeated every morning and every evening, this exchange placed enslavement within a larger religious context that, although she does not say it explicitly, accepted the relationship between master and slave as one under God. Her comment is muted, but it reveals her view that the ritual exchange of blessings and praise

"seems to acknowledge a kind of relationship between master and slave. It must diminish the evils of slavery to one, the tyranny of mastership in the other, to acknowledge thus a common superior Master on whom they both depend."

Moreover, she suggests that the enslaved on this estate were treated well and she saw her host, as an example of a "good master:"

"As each slave passed in review, some questions were asked concerning himself, his family, if he had one, or his work; and each received a portion of snuff or tobacco, according to his taste. Mr. P. is one of the few persons whom I have met conversant among slaves, who appears to have made them an object of rational and humane attention."

Earlier, she remarks that Mr. P. is the superintendent of the estate, so perhaps not its owner. He is, however, in her words, " literally, here 'king, priest, and prophet.'" She then seems to agree with his views--that the Black people of Rio are excellent workers, highly motivated, and successful, especially in contrast to lazy Portuguese and Brazilians. Maria writes,

"He tells me that the creole negroes and mulattoes are far superior in industry to the Portuguese and Brazilians; who, from causes not difficult to be imagined, are for the most part indolent and ignorant. The negroes and mulattoes have strong motives to exertion of every kind, and succeed in what they undertake accordingly. They are the best artificers and artists. The orchestra of the opera-house is composed of at least one-third of mulattoes. All decorative painting, carving, and inlaying is done by them; in short, they excel in all ingenious mechanical arts."

The Doris left Rio on March 10th, 1822 for Chile. Captain Graham died enroute, and Maria remained in Chile for a year before returning to Rio, arriving on March 13th, 1823. Brazil had declared its Independence from Portugal, and Prince Pedro had become Emperor. Maria rented a cottage in Gloria, on a hill overlooking the bay, where she went to live with her cousin Glennie, who was sick and needed rest. Maria describes the place as

"pleasant to me on many accounts: it is cool, and there is a shady walk for the sick. It is almost surrounded by the sea, which breaks against the wall; and not being near any road, we shall be perfectly quiet here."

Again, although she is living in a slave city, she says little about those who brought the water and food, kept the house clean, or were to be seen throughout the city, even though, as she mentions, "here the servants are slaves."

Maria entered into the social whirl in Rio, even visiting the royal residence in São Cristóvão:

"May 6th. [1823] —To-day I rode to San Cristovaŏ, through a very beautiful country. The palace, which once belonged to a convent, is placed upon a rising ground, and is built rather in the Moresco style, and coloured yellow with white mouldings. It has a beautiful screen, a gateway of Portland stone, and the court is planted with weeping willows; so that a group of great beauty is formed in the bosom of a valley, surrounded by high and picturesque mountains, the chief of which is the Beco do Perroquito. The view from the palace opens to part of the bay, over an agreeable plain flanked by fertile hills, one of which is crowned by the very handsome barracks that were once a Jesuit establishment. I rode round by the back of the palace to the farm, which appears to be in good order; and the village of the slaves, with its little church, looks more comfortable than I could have believed it possible for a village of slaves to do. The Imperial family now live entirely here, and only go to town on formal business or occasions of state."

Although we cannot tell from the map by Raymundo Everard, georeferenced on the right, where the provision grounds worked by the Emperor's enslaved people were, the yellow and green rectangles might be them. Maria believes these small grants prove the failure of enslaved labor, yet her description also reveals how important these fields were to the enslaved working at São Cristóvão:

"After all, slaves are the worst and most expensive servants; and one proof of it is this, I think. The small patch that each is allowed to cultivate for his own use on many estates generally yields at least twice as much in proportion as the land of the master, though fewer hours of labour are bestowed upon it."

In her published book, a view of the Palace of São Cristóvão appears, above, as engraved by Edward Finden. An enslaved man stands in the foreground, with a halo over his head.

Maria visited several sugar plantations outside the city in August and September 1823. Her descriptions of traditional plantation slavery come from the eye of the outsider, who deemed herself superior not only to the enslaved but also to the wealthy sugar planters who hosted her on her trip. Yet, although she does not accept slavery in principle, she is coming to accept it in practice. She now believes that the enslaved could live well enough under good masters, And she is impressed by the complexities of the production of sugar.

Initially, she planned to travel alone, with a Black man for protection:

"[August] 20th [1823] .—I had long wished to see a little more of the neighbourhood of Rio than I have hitherto done; and had resolved on riding at least to Santa Cruz, about fourteen leagues from hence, and as the road is too well travelled to fear extraordinary accidents, and I am not timid as to common inconveniences, I had determined to hire a black attendant and go alone. This determination, however, was over-ruled by Mr. and Mrs. May, whose brother, Mr. Dampier, kindly offered to escort me. . . . Mr. Dampier on a tall bay horse high in bone, with a brace of pistols buckled round him, in a huge straw hat, and a short jacket; I on a little grey horse, my boat-cloak over my saddle; otherwise dressed as usual, with a straw riding hat, and dark grey habit; and our attendant Antonio, the merriest of negroes, on a mule, with Mr. Dampier's portmanteau behind, and my bag before him."

The servant she had hired--Maria does not reveal if he was enslaved or a Free Black man--was, to her "merry." This suggests two things that were true for her: if Black people were in good humor they were not being exploited, and if she were to be served by an enslaved or free person, tshe preferred them to be content and happy in their subordination. On the first day they rode past the village of Capão do Bispo, over the stone bridge at Rio Faria, and as far as Campinho, but not finding shelter at the Venda, or roadside inn, were taken in by a local woman and her daughter, where Maria makes a revealing observation about slavery in rural Brazil:

"There was nothing at the venda to eat, no place for us, none for our horses, and so we set out again to brave the pitiless storm; a few yards, however, brought us to a low cottage on the road side, and there we knocked. A mulatto serving-man came round cautiously to reconnoitre from the back of the house, when having ascertained that we really were English travellers benighted[1] and wet, the front door was opened, and we found within a middle-aged very kind-looking woman, and her little daughter; her name is Maria Rosa d'Acunha. Her husband and son were absent on business, and she and the little girl were alone. As soon as we had changed our wet clothes, and had provided for the horses, which our hostess put into an empty building, she gave us warm coffee, bread and cheese, and extended her hospitable care to the negro [Antonio, Maria's servant]. She gave Mr. Dampier her son's bed, and made up a couch for me in the room where she and the child slept. These people are of the poorest class of farmers, not possessing above four or five slaves, and working hard themselves. They appear happy however"

Here we see that in Maria's eyes, poor farmers owned four or five enslaved persons, and worked alongside of them. As compared to the plantations that she was about to visit, which had two hundred enslaved workers, four or five did seem to mark a lower economic and social status. Nevertheless, owning enslaved people was not only common in rural Rio de Janeiro, but Maria now saw it as essential for economic survival on a farm.

________

[1] benighted: overcome by darkness

Maria and her fellow travellers arrived at the Fazenda dos Affonsos the next day; a large sugar plantation owned by a wealthy widow. Maria reports that

"The estate employs 200 oxen and 180 slaves as labourers, besides those for the service of the family. The produce is somewhere about 3000 arobas [about 45,000 kilos] of sugar, and 70 pipes [about 14,100 liters] of spirits [i.e., rum]. The lands extend from Tapera . . . where 200 years ago there was an aldea of reclaimed Indians, about a league to Piraquara. There are about forty white tenants who keep vendas, and other useful shops on the borders of the estate near the roads, and exercise the more necessary handicrafts. But a small portion of the estate is in actual cultivation, the rest being covered with its native woods; but these are valuable as fuel for the sugar-furnaces, and timber for machinery, and occasionally for sale. The owners of estates prefer hiring either free blacks, or negroes let out by their masters to send into the woods, on account of the numerous accidents that happen in felling the trees, particularly in steep situations. The death of an estate negro is the loss of his value, of a hired negro, only that of a small fine; and of a free black, it is often the saving even of his wages, if he has no son to claim them."

The wages received by an enslaved person, rented out for their labor, came to, according to Maria, two patacas per day, plus food. Elsewhere Maria gives the value of ten patacas to be eighteen shillings, hence the daily wage was 3 shillings and 7¼ pence, quite a bit higher from the weekly wage of farmworkers in Sussex in 1824, who earned 9 shillings and 6 pence per week, or 1 shilling 7 pence per day in a six-day workweek.[1]

Maria then comments on the enslaved workers, who worked indoors and who were mainly women:

"By the time we had examined the sugar-work, and seen the garden, it was two o'clock, and we were summoned to dinner. . . . After dinner some of the family retired to the siesta; others occupied themselves in embroidery, which is very beautiful, and the rest in the business of the house, and governing the female in-door slaves, who have been mostly born on the estate, and brought up in their mistress's house. I saw children of all ages and colours running about, who seemed to be as tenderly treated as if they had been of the family. "

And she concludes that

"Slavery under these circumstances is much alleviated, and more like that of the patriarchal times, where the purchased servant became to all intents one of the family. The great evil is, that though perhaps masters may not treat their slaves ill, they have the power of doing so; and the slave is subject to the worst of contingent evils, namely, the caprice of a half-educated, or it may be an ill-educated master. Were all slaves as well off as the house slaves of Affonsos, where the family is constantly resident, and nothing trusted to others, the state of the individuals might be compared with advantage to that of free servants. But the best is impossible, and the worst but too probable; since the unchecked power of a fallible being may exercise itself without censure on its slaves."

This comment reveals her contradictory views of slavery. While she opposes it in principle, she sees it as acceptable if the masters are enlightened and kind. That night, however, she rejects it in principle and in practice, in in a way that probably insulted the enslaved person:

"On retiring to my room at night, a handsome young slave entered, with a large brass pan of tepid water, and a fringed towel over her arm, and offered to wash my feet. She seemed disappointed when I told her I never suffered any body to do that for me, or to assist me in undressing at any time. In the morning she returned, and removing the foot bath, brought fresh towels, and a large embossed silver basin and ewer, with plenty of tepid water; which she left without saying a word, and told her mistress I was a very quiet person, and, she supposed, liked nobody but my own people, so she would not disturb me."

_______

[1] A. L. Bowley, Wages in the Nineteenth Century, 40.

The next day they visited another sugar plantation, also owned and run by a woman,

" Dona Mariana, the eldest daughter of the Baroness de Campos, and to whom we had a letter of introduction. Here we met with a most polite reception from a handsome ladylike woman, whom we found attending to her engenho, which is indeed an interesting one."

Soon they were on a tour of the sugar house, worked by a modern steam engine, not the traditional water wheel:

"Dona Mariana led us into the engenho, where we had seats placed near the rollers, which are worked by an eight-horse power steam-engine, one of the first, if not the very first, erected in Brazil.

As with the Fazenda dos Affonsos, there was a large enslaved workforce:

"There are here 200 slaves, and as many oxen, in constant employ. The steam-engine, besides the rollers in the sugar-house, moves several saws; so that she has the advantage of having her timber prepared almost without expense."

Maria observed the dangerous work of feeding the cut canes into the rollers, a task done by enslaved women:

"While we were sitting by the machine, Dona Mariana desired the women, who were supplying the canes, to sing, and they began at first with some of their own wild African airs, with words adopted at the moment to suit the occasion. She then told them to sing their hymns to the Virgin; when, regularly in tune and time, and with some sweet voices, the evening and other hymns were sung"

On the return visit a few days later, Maria describes a long conversation with Dona Mariana about the plantation, where the distinction between the newly arrived Africans and the enslaved born in Brazil (the creoles) is discussed:

"After supper I had a great deal of conversation with Dona Mariana concerning the sugar-work, the cultivation of the cane, and the slaves, confirming what I had learnt at Affonsos. She also tells me, as I had heard before, that the Creole negroes are less docile and less active than the new negroes. I think both facts may be accounted for without having recourse to the influence of climate. The new negro has the education of the slave-ship and the market, the lash being administered to drill him; so that when bought he is docile from fear, active from habit. The creole negro is a spoiled child, till he is strong enough to work; then, without previous habits of industry, he is expected to be industrious, and having eaten, drunk, and run about on terms of familiar equality, he is expected to be obedient; and where no moral feelings have been cultivated, he is expected to show his gratitude for early indulgence by future fidelity.

Finally, Maria notes the high mortality of enslaved children born on the plantation:

Dona Mariana tells me, that not half the negroes born on her estate live to be ten years old. It would be worth while to enquire into the cause of this evil, and whether it is general."



Although their goal was Santa Cruz, they actually rode beyond it to reach an indigenous village (aldeia) originally founded by the Jesuits. Maria writes

"After breakfast, we rode along the causeway that crosses the plain of Santa Cruz, to the Indian aldea of San Francisco Xavier de Itaguahy, commonly called Taguahy, formed by the Jesuits not very long before their expulsion. The situation of the aldea and church is extremely fine; on the summit of a hill overlooking a rich plain, watered by a navigable river, and surrounded by mountains.

Maria visits several indigenous homes, and learns a bit about the people she meets:

"The Indian huts at Taguahy are very poor; barely sufficient in walls and roof to keep out the weather, and furnished with little besides hammocks and cooking utensils; yet we were every where asked to go in and sit down: all the floors were cleanly swept, and a log of wood or a rude stool was generally to be found for a seat for the stranger, the people themselves squatting on the ground."

" I enquired of one of the women, in whose hut I sat down, if she knew whence her tribe came: she said no; she had been brought, when a mere child, from a great distance to Taguahy, by the fathers of the company; that her husband had died when she was young; that she and her daughters had always lived there; but her sons and grandsons, after the fathers of the company went, had returned to their fathers, by which she meant that they had resumed their savage life. "

Maria then comments on the social position of the indigenous in a slave society:

"The Indians here must work for others, and become servants; a state they hardly distinguish from slavery. Besides, slaves are plentiful; and as the negro is hardier than the Indian, his labour is more profitable; therefore, a willing Indian does not always find a master. The produce of his little garden, or his fishing, is rarely sufficient for his family; and without the protection of the priest, whose chief favour was procuring constant occupation, the half-reclaimed savage droops, and flies again to the liberty of his forest, to his unrestrained hunting and fishing.

She also comments on intermarriage between indigenous women and Potuguese/Brazilian men:

Many of the Indian women have married the creole Portuguese [i.e., Brazilians]; intermarriages between creole women and Indian men are more rare. The children of such couples are prettier, and appear to me to be more intelligent, than the pure race of either.

When they finally reach Santa Cruz, the views were stunning:

" Saturday, 23d .—The morning was excessively cold but clear, and the view of the extensive plains of Santa Cruz, with the herds of cattle upon it, most magnificent. The pasture, which extends many leagues on each side of the little hill on which the palace and village are situated, is here and there varied by clumps of natural wood; the horizon extends to the sea in one direction, and every where else the view is bounded by mountains or woody hills."

Originally a Jesuit estate, Santa Cruz became a royal possession following the explusion of the Society of Jesus in the eighteenth century. Many improvements had been made while the court was in Rio, and as Maria notes, the artisans were mixed race free Blacks and Brazilian-born enslaved people:

"The palace itself occupies the site of the old Jesuits' college. Three sides are modern: the fourth contains the handsome chapel of the very reverend fathers, and a few tolerable apartments. The new part was built for King John VI., but the works were stopped on his departure. The apartments are handsome, and comfortably furnished. In this climate hangings, whether of paper or silk, are liable to speedy decay from damp and insects. The walls are therefore washed with a rich creamy white clay, called Taboa Tinga, and cornices and borders painted on them in distemper.[1] Some of these are exceedingly beautiful in design, and generally very well executed, the arabesques of the friezes being composed of the fruits, flowers, birds, and insects of the country. One of the rooms represents a pavilion; and between the open pilasters, the scenery round Santa Cruz is painted, not well indeed, but the room is pleasant and cheerful. The artists employed were chiefly mulattoes and creole negroes."

_________

[1] "A method of painting, in which the colours are mixed with some glutinous substance soluble in water, as yolk of egg mixed with water, etc., executed usually upon a ground of chalk or plaster mixed with gum (distemper-ground): mostly used in scene-painting, and in the internal decoration of walls. Chiefly in such phrases as ‘painting’ or ‘to paint in distemper’ (Italian pingere a tempera)." Oxford English Dictionary, “distemper (n.2),” December 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1131575078.

Maria visited one of the villages where the Black workers lived, found a working hospital, and concluded that the lives of the enslaved at Santa Cruz were also good:

" I walked about a little in the village of the negroes. There are, I believe, about fifteen hundred on the estate, the greater part of whom belong to the outlying farms or feitorias, of which there are, I believe, three; Bom Jardin, Piperi, and Serra: these yield coffee, feijoă [beans], and maize. The immediate neighbourhood of Santa Cruz is appropriated to the rearing of cattle, of which there are this year about four thousand head; and a good deal of pasture land is annually let. The negroes of Santa Cruz are not fed and clothed by the Emperor, but they have their little portions of land; and they have half of Friday, all Saturday and Sunday, and every holiday, to labour for themselves; so that they at most work for their master four days, in return for their house and land; and some even of the external marks of slavery are removed, as the families feed and clothe themselves without the master's interference. The Emperor has appropriated great part of a very commodious building, erected by his father for the royal stud, to the purpose of an hospital. I visited it, and found a white surgeon and black assistant; decent beds, and well-ventilated apartments: the kitchen was clean, and the broth, which was all I found cooked at the time of night when I was there, good: there were about sixty patients, most of them merely for sores in their feet, some from giggers [chiggers], others a sort of leprosy from working in damp grounds, and a few with elephantiases; fevers are very rare; pulmonary complaints not uncommon. Several of the inmates of the hospital were there merely from old age; one was insane; and there was a large ward of women, with young children: so that, on the whole, I consider the hospital as affording a proof of the healthiness of the negroes of Santa Cruz.

On returning to Brazil, she lived briefly with the royal family at São Cristóvão in seven rooms "at the very top of the wing occupied by the Empress." On the first morning, she writes

"I never shall forget the pleasantness of the first morning, when on opening my window, instead of the noise and filth of the city, I looked upon the beautiful Gardens of the Palace and the Coffee Grounds which clothe the Mountains of Tijuoa [Tijuca] and smelt the perfume of the orange blossoms that came with every breath of the morning breeze."

She had brought many things with her to use in her teaching of the princess, and one of them was a camera obscura [1], which allowed for more accurate depiction of landscapes, as seen in her drawing above, out of her window at the palace.

At the palace Maria had servants, the only one whom she names is Black Anna. Was she an enslaved woman? A royal slave, meaning that she belonged to the Emperor? Or was she a Free Black woman? Maria does not elaborate, but she had confidence in her because Black Anna "knew the manners of the English."

Many enslaved persons worked in the palace, as we know Maria discovered that the princess, a very young girl, was

"bathed not in the bath room but in the open apartment, where the slaves, male and female, were passing, and through which the Empress's guard always paraded, and I could not think it right that she should be thus expoed, entirely naked, to all comers."

Neither did Maria approve of the fact that the princess was allowed to hit her playmates, both black and white:

"She had always been accustomed, not only to have little black slaves to play with and beat and tyrannize over, but a little White Girl, the daughter of one of the Ladies. I observed that in her rough play, she only only kicked and beat the little blacks, but slap't her white playmate (a small timid child) with the energy and spirit of a reckless little tyrant."

Maria became close to Empress Leopoldina, who raised in Austria, spoke excellent English. But Maria's presence cause conflict and jealousies at court, and she was demoted from governess to English teacher. Outraged, she resigned her post and said that she would leave Brazil immediately.

________

[1] An instrument comprising a darkened room or box with a convex lens or a pinhole in one side, used for projecting an image of an external object on to a surface inside the instrument so that it can be viewed, drawn, or (in later use) reproduced on a light-sensitive surface. Also figurative (now rare). Cf. magic lantern n., pinhole camera at pinhole adj. B.2. Oxford English Dictionary, “camera obscura (n.),” July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/6418517154.

But Maria remained. Again, it was the landscape and the flora and fauna that seemed to have most fascinated her, and caused her to stay. She rented a cottage in Larangeiras and spent her days collecting, drawing, and preserving specimens of plants. for Kew Gardens in London.

Departing Brazil in 1825, she returned to Britain where she remarried; her second husband was the painter Augustus Wall Callcott. As he was knighted in 1837, Maria subsequently became known as Lady Maria Callcott. Maria and Augustus were part of a group of artists and writers, and Maria continued to travel and write. She drafted, but never published an account of the life of Prince Pedro. The original manuscript is held at the Biblioteca Nacional, Brasil. Maria suffered very poor health which brought to an end her travels. She continued to write and became best known for her children's book on the history of Britain, Little Arthur’s History of England, which became a best seller. She died in 1842.

Maria Graham arrived an Abolitionist, but over time came to accept slavery as part of life in Brazil at the time of Independence. Over time, slavery, and even the slave trade, became familiar to her, and therefore not worthy of much comment in her journals. Although her first descriptions of the slave trade convey her revulsion at the trafficking of Africans to Brazil in Pernambuco and Bahia, in Rio, the slave trade was less visible, because it was conducted in a more remote part of the city. Still, she did visit the Valongo in 1823, and she did research the numbers of enslaved people who arrived from Africa during the time that she was in Rio, coming to numbers that are very similar to those trusted by modern scholars today. Yet, when she visited sugar plantations, where she was hosted by the owners of the enslaved labor force, she describes slavery in detail but does not condemn it in the same language that she uses for the slave trade. To be sure, she believed that slavery debased both the enslaved and the enslaver, and she believed that its legacy would be negative. Perhaps because she saw herself as English and certain that she came from a superior culture that did not permit slavery in its homeland, and perhaps because as a woman, particularly after the death of her husband, she was often vulnerable, she did not criticize slavery in Rio de Janeiro as deeply as she criticized the slave trade. It is certain, however, that everyone she knew in Rio, and she too, benefitted from the labor of the enslaved every single day. They also benefitted from the labor of the descendants of the enslaved, the Free Black people of Rio. Maria relied on her friends to invite her to their homes where she was served by enslaved and free Black servants, to introduce her to wealthy plantation owners who invited her to visit their estates, where again she was served by Black people while she satisfied her curiosity about plantation slavery. Gradually, she adopted the perspective of the slaveowning class, who saw slavery as not only necessary but indispensable. Maria could never justify the ugly side of slavery, which was violence and the slave trade. Once enslaved Africans had adjusted to Brazil, and to decent masters, however, Maria saw less fault. She presents numerous examples of places where enslaved people lived under what she saw as the “good” rule of the master class. Over time, slavery became so familiar to Maria Graham that she no longer saw the point in describing it. It had become invisible.