Before concluding the theme, it is imperative that we hurriedly skim
over the saddest and most serious by-product of United States slavery,
race prejudice. We are familiar enough with the limitations of the man
of color in the South today. In the days of slavery, discriminations
were just as severe, if not more so, against any man of black skin,
whether slave, mulatto, freedman, quadroon, or octoroon. The slightest
strain of black in a man's pedigree made him a "nigger." A freedman
was better than a slave only in an economic way. Otherwise he had
virtually no rights. He could not vote, marry a white, hold office,
give testimony in case of a white man on trial, and for militia
services was limited to fatigue duty. In many parts, however, the
freedman could keep his own money, possess land, have slaves, a wife,
and even own one gun to protect his home.[51]
In Portuguese America it is often said that the race problem has been
allowed to solve itself, which is largely true. The slave in Brazil
was looked down upon as a menial laborer, rather than as an offshoot
of a lower race. Marriages between the lower classes of either race
were not scorned by society. Inter-racial marriages were legal,
Brazilian society favoring the marriage of the higher type of the
white to the lighter type of Negroid. Of course, among the highest
class of the land, the wealthy planters and officials, unions with
persons of non-genuine white ancestry were not relished. Here and
there existed race prejudice in mild form.[52]
Mulattoes who were free were ranked above freedmen of pure ancestry.
The former were generally considered as white, for as a rule in Brazil
a man passed as white if he contained a fair degree of white blood in
his veins. These free mulattoes had a regiment of their own with their
own officers, as was the case with the blacks. Many wealthy planters
at Pernambuco were men of color. Many of the Creole blacks in this
region were mechanics, who sent out their slaves to do odd mechanical
jobs for the owner's profit. The best church and image painter at
Pernambuco was black. One of three commanders of the Brazilian forces
against the Dutch in the seventeenth century was Henrique Diaz, a
Negro.
All told, race prejudice, as a vast problem, was a peculiar complement
of the Anglo-Saxon new world colonies' slave problem, for in virtually
no other country has slavery ever so viciously contributed to race
discord. Brazil, then, may pride herself upon emerging from a slave
sustained society, free from the sores of a hideous race conflict.