History 471
History of Brazil
Midterm
Guide

The midterm will be held in class on Thursday, March 17, 2011.

The exam will be closed-book, but each student may bring in a single, 8.5x11 study sheet. The sheet may contain any information that can be fit on both sides of the study sheet. The information may be hand-written or printed. There are no limitations on font size or margins.

Students are free to study together, but the study sheet should reflect each student's own understanding of the course materials; any text on the study sheet must be in the individual student's words. The sheet must be turned in with the exam.

You are requested to sign, in your own hand, the Honor Pledge on the exam booklet.


Part I: Identifications (30% of Exam Grade)

You will be given five terms drawn from key vocabulary raised in lecture and the assigned readings. You must answer three (and no more than three) of the four options, defining the term within its proper historical context. Each answer should not exceed three sentences.

Part II: Essay (70% of Exam Grade)

1888-1889: Continuity over Change?

In analyzing the historical significance of the events of 1888-1889, historian Emília Viotti da Costa characterizes the abolition of slavery, made definitive on May 13, 1888, as a significant event in the course of Brazilian history -- "a stage in the process of the liquidation of Brazil's colonial structures." Viotti da Costa, nevertheless, maintains that "it [abolition] did not, however, mean a definitive break with the past." The "rationalization of production methods," she continued, "the improvement of living standards of rural workers, and the struggle against racial discrimination" remained unfinished historical projects --legacies of the enduring colonial system. [The Brazilian Empire, p. 171]

Viotti da Costa casts the Proclamation of the Republic in somewhat similar terms -- as a hiccup among larger patterns of continuity over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.   "1889," wrote da Costa "did not mark a significant break in the Brazilian historical process. The urban middle classes and emerging proletariat were not strong enough to undermine the power of the new rural oligarchies during the First Republic [1889-1930]...November 15 was thus a journée des dupes [figuratively: a day of false hopes] for all the other social groups who had hoped that the republic would represent a break with tradition." [The Brazilian Empire, p. 233]

Viotti da Costa's pessimism notwithstanding, the abolition of slavery and the Proclamation of the Republic reflected significant developments in Brazilian history. Over the span of eighteen months, two pillars of Luso-Brazilian society - slavery and the monarchy -- collapsed, never to return.   A vast American empire ruled by a European monarchical dynasty was transformed into a republic of "citizens" eventually led by elected officials. Constitutionalism had grown from an idea into a political practice. Slavery--the former lifeblood of the colonial economy--had ended, to be replaced by a labor market of free-wage labor. Older forms of social stratification based upon place of birth, race, and birth status became, in theory, illegal. The Brazil that D. Pedro II departed in on November 16, 1889, was hardly the same as the Brazil first encountered by his grandparents in January 1808.

Based upon a critical reading of the assigned readings, substantiate an argument that engages Viotti da Costa's assertion that the events of 1888-1889 represented continuity over change.

Your essay should establish the basic chronological sequence of events for 1888-1889, and most particularly the events surrounding summary emancipation without compensation and the overthrow of the monarchy.   The essay should identify key social actors, important economic developments, and influential cultural trends significant to understanding this brief period. It should engage historiographic debate about the destruction of slavery and the growing weakness of the empire . And, most importantly, the essay should make an argument about the significance of May 13, 1888 and November 15, 1889 within the larger context of historical change in Brazilian society from 1808 to the the early twentieth-century..

Needless to say, this midterm requires that you draw heavily upon the assigned readings.


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