I n this America," the town council of Santo Amaro declared in
1802, "the oxen that pull the ploughs . . . are slaves." The coun-
cil made this curious declaration in a petition that sought for
Brazilian farmers a privilege already enjoyed by their counterparts in Portu-
gal. There, in cases of foreclosure for debt, the law prohibited creditors from
seizing livestock on the grounds that without draft animals, a farmer could
not hope to sow his fields and pay his debts. The town council of Santo
Amar'o, in requesting that slaves also be exempt from seizure, applied the
same reasoning but adapted it to conditions in the colony. Just as European
agriculture could not forgo the use of draft animals, Bahian farmers could
not bring crops to harvest without slaves. The aldermen of Maragogipe, in
a similar petition, made the very same point: "the slaves of Brazil" should,
for all legal purposes, be regarded as "plough oxen . . . [because] they work
the earth, plant and harvest the crops, and [do] all the other services neces-
sary for the principal sustenance of the people and of the troops." ¹

Slaves in the rural Recôncavo did indeed perform all the necessary "ser-
vices" both in the cultivation of export crops and in the production of food-
stuffs for local markets. So essential was their labor to the growth and pros-
perity of the region's economy that no study can chart the changes in that
economy without giving them attention. This chapter therefore examines
the use of slave labor in the Recôncavo, focusing in particular on the pat-
terns of slaveholding and the composition of the slave population.

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