Sob a sombra da escravidão: Ingênuos e órfãos nos processos tutelares em Lages-SC (1871-1888)

Abstract

This work investigates guardianship processes involving ingenuous children in the Comarca of Lages, Santa Catarina, between the years 1887 and 1888, in a context marked by the final transformations of the Brazilian slave regime. The problem guiding the research consists of understanding how requests for judicial guardianship, made by masters and former masters, expressed continuities of masterly domination practices in a legal scenario of formal freedom inaugurated by the Free Birth Law (1871). The objective is to analyze the complexity of these guardianship processes, identifying the arguments used by the petitioners, the social and family ties mobilized in the actions, and the ways in which guardianship was used to maintain relations of dependency and control over free-born children and their families. The research is based on the Social History of Slavery, engaging primarily with the studies of Sidney Chalhoub (2010;2011;2012), Keila Grinberg (2010), Hebe Mattos (1998), and Maria Helena Machado (1994), who understand freedom as a process marked by disputes, negotiations, and the persistence of slave structures. The main sources used are five guardianship cases concerning nine ingenuous children, located in the Digital Archive of the Court of Justice of Santa Catarina. The analysis demonstrates that the legal abolition of slavery did not eliminate the structures of domination built during the slavery period. On the contrary, guardianship was frequently used as a legal instrument to reorganize and preserve the power of the landowners, ensuring control over child labor and Black families. However, sources also highlight the actions of mothers who mobilized different forms of resistance, negotiation, and defense of their autonomy and that of their children.