Brazil, almost from the moment of its inception as a European colony in 1500 until it finally abolished slavery in 1888 (the last American nation to do so), wove the strands of coerced labor, commercial capitalism, and Iberian seigneurial traditions and attitudes into a complex social fabric. This process resulted in a multiracial, stratified society profoundly influenced by the plantation system and the hierarchies of status inherent in its labor force, as well as by those derived from its juridical and religious codes. This book is an attempt to examine the historical development of that society in Bahia, a major Brazilian plantation zone, over a period of almost three hundred years. It seeks to understand the nature of Bahia's economy and society and to describe in detail the formation and operations of this slave society.

Books about “sugar and slaves” are not uncommon. One need only pick a Caribbean island, and probabilities are high that a study already exists in which sugar and slaves figure in the title or are at least the focus of attention. In Brazil, since the 1930s, books of a similar nature have been published; and many authors have adopted an interpretation in which Brazilian society essentially sprang from the sugarplantation experience. But despite the popularity of that vision, primary source materials on sugar and slavery are relatively scarce, and authors have long depended on a few colonial chroniclers or travelers from the nineteenth century in order to write about the plantation regime.