Slave labor and free labor: freedman employed in domestic services in the nineteenth century Recife

• Main Author: Tatiana Silva de Lima
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) 2019-09-01
• Series: Revista Mundos do Trabalho
• Subjects: domestic services; paternalism; wages
• Online Access: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/mundosdotrabalho/article/view/1984-9222.2018v10n20p145

This study highlights the social and labor relations between the liners engaged in domestic services, their former owners and the other workers of the nineteenth century Recife families. These relations were influenced by the different conjunctures arising from the emancipationist politics of the imperial state and from the crisis of slavery in the second half of the nineteenth century. Grounded in paternalism, they produced dependent freedoms and continued exploitation and control, traditionally linked to slave labor, over them. On the other hand, these social relations were not only dictated by paternalism and domesticity. Maids and nurses, especially lining (forro) and free, were able to enjoy more and less autonomy and were part of the contractual logic of work, including demanding in court the payment of unpaid wages.