Um estudo enunciativo da escravidão e das relações raciais na enunciação de confederados imigrantes na região de Americana-SP

Abstract

This study proposes to examine the meanings of slavery and race relations in Brazil amid the presence of United States Confederate immigrants in the nineteenth century, drawing on the theoretical framework of the Semantics of the Event. This theory stems from a trajectory of reflection within the field of the Semantics of Enunciation, which develops a way of describing meaning that differs from formal, cognitive, or structural perspectives. We present analyses of excerpts from documents written by these Confederates, such as letters and reports, which address various aspects—from the characteristics of the Brazilian population to economic elements, with particular emphasis on agriculture. This emphasis aligned with the main economic activity carried out by Southern Americans and revealed a specific interest in enslaved labor. These accounts contributed to consolidating Brazil as a viable destination for Southerners, especially after their defeat in the Civil War in 1865, which marked the end of slavery in the United States. We thus have Americans and Brazilians, subjects who speak different languages that compose distinct enunciative spaces and who carry different histories of enunciations (and of meanings). Our aim, then, is to understand how the speakers of these documents — shaped by the meanings of the English language spoken in the United States and possibly by other languages spoken there — signify slavery in Brazil, an enunciative space constituted by the political relation between other languages such as Portuguese, Indigenous languages, and African languages spoken here, each with its own history of enunciations and, consequently, distinct meanings for slaves, slavery, and colonizers. The analyses show that, in Brazil, the Confederates did not merely adapt to a new country but actively sought to reinscribe a racially hierarchical way of life. The meanings of “slavery,” “slave,” and “negro” in their texts recall the history of colonization and enslavement in the United States, highlighting the memorable of racial discrimination centered on skin color. In this way, the study contributes to understanding how the meanings of slavery and racism shift, are resignified, and continue to operate in language, sustaining racial hierarchies that traverse different times and spaces.