Caetana Says No: Women's Stories from a Brazilian Slave Society

Karasch, Mary C., 1943The Americas, Volume 60, Number 3, January 2004, pp. 476-477 (Review)

Published by The Academy of American Franciscan History DOI: 10.1353/tam.2004.0017

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editors Introduction as well as the brief notes that introduce each of the texts will serve to orient students of all levels. Inevitably, some historical periods are treated more effectively than others. Particularly excellent is the chapter on Peronism, which avoids reproducing the structuralist biases of an earlier historiography and will therefore be extremely useful to instructors. A lengthy excerpt from Daniel Jamess groundbreaking account of the impact of Peronist ideology anchors the chapter, which presents a host of diverse perspectives on modern Argentinas most formative political experience. Less successful is the chapter dedicated to the first half of the twentieth century, which neglects recent scholarship on the Unin Cvica Radical and pays only scant attention to anarchism, syndicalism, and socialism. The innovative scholarship of Luis Alberto Romero and Leandro Gutirrez on the rise of barrio culture in interwar Buenos Aires would have been a useful addition here, as would any consideration of the Argentine film industry of the 1930s and 1940s. Also useful would have been an excerpt from Eduardo Gutirrezs Juan Moreira, an example of gauchesque literature that was hugely influential among urban workers at the turn of the century and would have been interesting for students to read alongside Hernndez and Lugones. Of course, since any one-volume introduction to Argentina is by necessity incomplete, this list of omissions is a bit arbitrary and beside the point. The Argentina Reader is a terrific pedagogical tool. By providing such an impressive variety of voices and perspectives, it will significantly improve any college course on Argentina. My only complaint is that all bibliographic information is buried in a long list at the end of the book. At the very least, I would have included the publication date and original title alongside each excerpt. That minor quibble aside, this book succeeds in introducing students to Argentina, without reducing it to any simplistic stereotype. George Mason University Fairfax, Virginia MATTHEW B. KARUSH

Caetana Says No: Womens Stories from a Brazilian Slave Society. By Sandra Lauderdale Graham. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xxii, 183. Illustrations. Bibliography. Sample Documents. Notes. Index. $50.00 cloth; $18.00 paper. These are the narratives of exceptional women in nineteenth-century Brazil. One is that of Caetana, a slave who sought to escape an undesired marriage via an annulment after her marriage to another slave. A second is of Dona Incia Delfina Werneck, a single woman of a wealthy coffee planter clan, who freed a slave family in turn making them her heirs. Each narrative is based on a core document: in the first case, an annulment petition registered in ecclesiastical courts in Salvador, Bahia; in the second, Dona Incias will which is also reproduced in English translation along with that of her sister, Francisca, a single mother who raised a natural child. Through these and other women, Sandra Lauderdale Graham explores womens lives and gender relations within plantation families of the Paraba River Valley.

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Caetana is a much broader study than this summary suggests, and it reveals meticulous archival research into diverse types of documents. Unlike many authors who find a remarkable source and describe it without context, Graham is most careful to situate her historical subjects within the families of a specific slave society. Her stories illustrate the complex, ambiguous reality of everyday lives rather than slavery stereotypes of brutal planters and docile slaves. Caetana did say no after a marriage imposed on her by her master, but he also helped her seek an annulment. Dona Incia tried to be a benevolent mistress by freeing a favorite slaves family upon her death, but instead they inherited her debts. The most detailed of the womens lives is that of Dona Incia, since she was surrounded by literate men who left a paper trail. We do not know why she never married because she left no explanation; she could not read or write, which was then not uncommon among elite women. We know even less about Bernardina and her children, the slave family that Dona Incia freed. And other than the annulment case, there is also very little about Caetana. In so far as her voice entered the official record, Caetanas master reported that she did not want to marry anyone (p. 62). We are then left with the question, why? Graham offers various explanations, including the familys ties to the Convent of Santa Teresa in So Paulo and the Brazilian tradition of celibate religious life styles. This brief reference suggests that we need to know more about the religious belief system by which the women ordered their lives. All of these women, and the planters in their lives, may have been motivated by nineteenth-century popular religious beliefs; the difficulty is to find a way to document them. As the author demonstrates, two Catholic priests lived in Caetanas household, and they must have influenced the slave womans religious formation. Perhaps Caetana resisted a true marriage because she intended to become a beata, a lay religious woman. Unfortunately, we do not know what happened to her after her petition for the annulment was denied and she was ordered to go live with her husband. In the case of Dona Incia, there is a brief mention of her lifetime membership in a sodality dedicated to Our Lady of the Conception. At least for the late colonial period, one insightful book on womens religious lives is Leila Mezan Algrantis, Honradas e Devotas: Mulheres da Colnia: Condio feminina nos conventos e recolhimentos do Sudeste do Brasil, 1750-1822 (1993). Nonetheless, Caetana is a finely crafted book on womens lives under patriarchal planters. Readers will appreciate the authors vivid descriptions and analysis of typical Brazilian social customs and gender roles of the nineteenth century. The short length of the book combined with photographs will make this especially attractive for classroom use. My one complaint is that the press did not provide clear reproductions of all of the excellent illustrations. Oakland University Rochester, Michigan MARY KARASCH