Serafina: ex-slave and sugar mill owner.
Conflict over possession of property and social hierarchies in the captaincy of Pernambuco (17th and 18th centuries)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21680/1984-817X.2025v1n01ID38133Keywords:
Pernambuco, conflito pela posse de bens, hierarquias sociaisAbstract
In Pernambuco in the late 17th century, the captive of a farm master, Serafina, later married her master. After her husband's death, she became the mistress of a sugar mill. The marriage was contested by the Court of Ecclesiastical Appeals through a complaint by her mother-in-law, who was under pressure to pay a large debt to the Benedictines of the Monastery of São Bento in the City of Paraíba, which her husband had contracted during the Dutch rule. Thus, this article seeks to analyze, amidst this imbroglio, how the complex social hierarchy provided differentiated access to the legal system, especially in a context of dispute over property. The dispute is analyzed through the action brought by the monastery for possession of the sugar mill, published in the magazine of the Public Archive of the State of Pernambuco, Jordão Emerenciano, in 1946.
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Publicadas:
CODIGO Philippino, ou, Ordenações e leis do Reino de Portugal: recopiladas por mandado d'El-Rey D. Philippe I, Livro Terceiro, Título IX, § 7. Rio de Janeiro: Typ. do Instituto Philomathico, 1870.
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REVISTA do Arquivo Público do Estado de Pernambuco Jordão Emerenciano (2° semestre). Vol. 1. Recife-PE: Secretária do Interior e Justiça, 1946.
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