Tragedy or Redemption of the Mulatto

Contrasts in Cuban and Brazilian literature, c. 1830 and c. 1870

Resumo

This paper compares Brazilian and Cuban anti-slavery literature between 1830 and 1870, highlighting the use of almost-white mulatto protagonists to denounce slavery and the racial hierarchies of slaveholding societies. The analysis begins with the theoretical debate on Nation building (Smith, Brennan, and Sommer) and encompasses romantic and realist literature, demonstrating temporal and contextual differences: between 1838 and 1841, in Cuban novels, the rigid social hierarchy prevented the advancement of mulattoes; in Brazil, between 1857 and 1875, literature proposed the inclusion of these characters in the local aristocracy. Thus, Brazilian anti-slavery literature addressed the construction of national identity and partial acceptance of miscegenation in Brazil, themes later developed by Gilberto Freyre and Oracy Nogueira.