This book discusses a central feature and preoccupation of ancien régime societies which for too many years has often been dismissed by modern social historians as an irrelevant pastime of the elite. Genealogy, as the author reminds us, is often a subject of modern derision, and false genealogies have provoked sarcasm and skepticism since the brothers Grimm made a living from composing phony family trees while researching other kinds of fantasies. Cabral de Mello’s discursive and insightful book demonstrates that this was serious business in colonial Brazil, where religious orthodoxy, racial purity, and the absence of mechanic or peasant origins were measures of rank and status. Cabral de Mello meanders through the genealogies of an important Pernambucan family as he details how an embarrassing “New Christian” ancestor was sometimes deleted and sometimes transformed as family ties extended in various directions in the eighteenth century.
Written with Cabral de Mello’s usual grace, the book is important on two levels. First, while many studies have pointed out the existence and effects of racial and religious prejudice in the Iberian world, these have usually emphasized the role of official policy and sanctions through institutions such as the Inquisition. Cabral de Mello shows how the system of religious and racial distinction penetrated the whole social fabric and could serve as a mechanism of political and social control in many ways. He points out, for example, the many instances of humble persons called to testify about the origins and status of their social equals or betters and how family genealogies could be recounted in some detail by neighbors and acquaintances. He does not fail, however, to note how power and influence could be used to induce false or incomplete testimony.
Second, Cabral de Mello sets his social discussions in a political context. He recounts the very strong “New Christian” presence among Pernambuco’s original sugar aristocracy and the considerable efforts of their descendants to disguise this fact. He shows how genealogies were used in the social and political struggle underlying the War of the Mascates, and how Borges da Fonseca in Pernambuco and other genealogist-historians of eighteenth-century Brazil were involved in the codification of a particular social hierarchy created over time.
Once again, Cabral de Mello shows that important and innovative work can be done in colonial history by using traditional sources and by taking seriously the concerns and language of historical actors. By doing so he makes a contribution to the history of the Brazilian Northeast and to the social history of Latin America.
