Slave traders assigned Africans stereotyped aptitudes to match labor niches.
Evidence
For a long time the Portuguese morador or âsettlerâ in Brazil had himself assumed that all slaves from Africa were âAngolasâ or âBantusâ and since Brazilian agriculture was developed by the âBantuâ farmer his reputation continued to hold even long after it became apparent that âall Africansâ were not âalike.â For the âAngolas,â sought at the engenhos (sugar mill and plantation complexes in the immediate hinterland of Bahia called Reconcavo), a composite belief in their âdocilityâ and willingness to assimilate and in their greater âmechanical inclinationâ was grafted onto the earlier reputation of agricultural excellence. The âMinasâ on the other hand encountered an entirely different demand: regarded as more enterprising and intelligent than âAngolasâ and as poor plantation hands at the same time, they were valued as household slaves and in the trades and skills. â Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the BlackâŠ, 759
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- ADDENDUM: Connects to the article on moral panics over âimmodestâ dress as identity signaling â both show ascribed group traits serving economic/class hierarchies.
Related
- Colonial labor demand shaped racial typing of African ethnic groups (similarity 0.83)
- Brazilian slaves functioned as social dress as well as labor (similarity 0.83)
- Brazilian slaveholders and later writers racialized African ethnic groups by supposed docility (similarity 0.81)
- Brazilian slavery served display and vanity far beyond material production (similarity 0.80)
- Brazilian slaves functioned as the master classâs costume and dress (similarity 0.79)
- Brazilian planters assigned different African ethnic groups different natural temperaments (similarity 0.79)
- Brazilian historical writing reproduced colonial stereotypes of docile versus rebellious Africans (similarity 0.79)
- Brazilian slave-trade nationalization reorganized ethnic slave disposition patterns (similarity 0.78)