Caetana Says No
Women's Stories from a Brazilian Slave Society

This 2002 book presents the account of two nineteenth-century Brazilian women struggle to lead a life on their own terms.

Sandra Lauderdale Graham (Author)

9780521893534, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 5 September 2002

208 pages, 15 b/w illus. 2 maps 3 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.2 cm, 0.29 kg

"Lauderdale Graham should be commended for bringing to the attention of English-speaking readers such rich and thought-provoking details of nineteenth-century Brazilian slave society and culture." American Historical Review

This 2002 book presents the true and dramatic accounts of two nineteenth-century Brazilian women - one young and born a slave, the other old and from an illustrious planter family - and how each sought to retain control of their lives: the slave woman struggling to avoid an unwanted husband; the woman of privilege assuming a patriarch's role to endow a family of her former slaves with the means for a free life. But these women's stories cannot be told without also recalling how their decisions drew them ever more firmly into the orbits of the worldly and influential men who exercised power in their lives. These are stories with a twist: in this society of radically skewed power, Lauderdale Graham reveals that more choices existed for all sides than we first imagine. Through these small histories she casts new light on larger meanings of slave and free, female and male.

Part I. The First Story: Caetana Says No: Patriarchy Confounded
Part II. The Second Story: Inacia Wills her Way: Patriarchy Confirmed.

Subject Areas: Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], General & world history [HBG]