Categories of differences: occupation, “race” and social condition in 19th century Brazil

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze social inequality in 19th century Brazil, using nominative lists of inhabitants produced during the 1830 decade. First I use HISCO and HISCLASS as an initial approach to social inequality in a pre-industrial non-European society. Then, I introduce a discussion about the necessity of considering other dimensions of social life to be able to build an accurate system to measure social status and social mobility in colonial and post-colonial societies. I analyze race and social condition (slave, freed and free status) as important categories in Latin American and other Portuguese colonial areas.