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‘Redemptive Labour’ and the Missionaries of the Alphabet

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Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series ((CIPCSS))

Abstract

Faced with the irregular and fluid nature of available labour, to which the epidemics of disease contributed greatly, the renewal and reproduction of serviçais had to be intensified and the mechanisms of its protection reinforced without openly impairing the humanitarian and civilising declarations supporting the legitimacy of Portuguese colonisation. If to this scenario we add the pressures generated by the anti-slavery campaigns of British humanitarian groups, we can frame the geographical broadening of labour recruitment undertaken by the Portuguese. However, there were even more prosaic reasons for the implantation of a system of contracted work, based on the circulation of groups of labourers through the colonies. It could result from voluntary options seeking to secure capital to meet the tax demands made by colonial administrations, or it might represent the product of several types of forced or coerced labour recruitment. It might even result because, according to Sampayo e Mello, ‘the stability of labour’ — ‘an inescapable precondition of colonial exploitation’ — had become ‘almost impossible to achieve in the regime of free contract in which the blacks so easily accept as transgress’.1

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Notes

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© 2015 Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo

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Jerónimo, M.B. (2015). ‘Redemptive Labour’ and the Missionaries of the Alphabet. In: The ‘Civilising Mission’ of Portuguese Colonialism, 1870–1930. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137355911_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137355911_4

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-67548-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-35591-1

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