Avanço, arbitrariedade e variabilidade da classificação como mestiços de escravos nascidos no Brasil (séculos xviii e xix)

Abstract

In this article, the propensity to categorize slaves as mulattoes is studied in relation to some regional cases in Brazil from 1750 through 1850. Manuscript censuses, parish records, probate inventories and newspaper advertisements are scrutinized in order to understand the regularities of that type of categorization as well as its relation to other social phenomena, including social and political projects observed in contemporary perceptions on miscegenation, slavery and the slave trade.