Capitão do Mato

views updated

Capitão do Mato

Capitão do Mato, literally, bush captain. During slavery in Brazil, bush captains were recruited from among the free population, usually mulattoes. Their job was similar to that of "patrollers" in the U.S. South: bush captains were contracted by plantation owners to hunt down and return escaped slaves. In the sugar areas of the North and Northeast they were used to locate quilombos, maroon communities of fugitives. Bush captains became infamous for their brutal tactics.

See alsoSlavery: Brazil .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mary C. Karasch, Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1850 (1987).

Additional Bibliography

Gomes, Flávio dos Santos. Histórias de quilombolas: Mocambos e comunidades de senzalas no Rio de Janeiro, século XIX. Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo Nacional, 1995.

Nishida, Mieko. Slavery and Identity: Ethnicity, Gender, and Race in Salvador, Brazil, 1808–1888. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003.

                                          Kim D. Butler

About this article

Capitão do Mato

Updated About encyclopedia.com content Print Article