STEIN,
SLAVE life on the average Vassouras plantation of approximately eighty to one hundred slaves was regulated by the needs of coffee agriculture, the maintenance of sede and senzallas, and the processing of coffee and subsistence food-stuffs. Since the supply of slaves was never adequate for the needs of the plantation either in its period of growth, prosperity, or decline, the slaves' work day was a long one begun before dawn and often ending many hours after the abrupt sunset of the Parahyba plateau. 1
Cooks arose before sunup to light fires beneath iron cauldrons; soon the smell of coffee, molasses, and boiled corn meal floated from the outdoor shed. The sun had not yet appeared when the overseer or one of his Negro drivers 2 strode to a
corner of the terreiro and reached for the tongue of a wide-mouthed bell. The tolling of the cast-iron bell, or sometimes a blast from a cowhorn or the beat of a drum, reverberated across the terreiro and entered the tiny cubicles of slave couples and the separated, crowded tarimbas, or dormitories, of unmarried slaves. Awakening from their five- to eight-hour slumber, they dragged themselves from beds of planks softened with woven fiber mats; field hands reached for hoes and bill-hooks lying under the eaves. At the large faucet near the senzallas, they splashed water over their heads and faces,
162: moistening and rubbing arms, legs, and ankles. Tardy slaves might appear at the door of senzallas muttering the slave-composed jongo which mocked the overseer ringing the bell:
That devil of a bembo taunted me
No time to button my shirt, that devil of a bembo.
Now, as the terreiro slowly filled with slaves, some standing in line and others squatting, 3 awaiting the morning reza or prayer, the senhor appeared on the veranda of the main house. "One slave recited the reza which the others repeated," recalled an ex-slave. Hats were removed and there was heard
a "Praised-be-Our-Master-Jesus-Christ" to which some slaves repeated a blurred "Our-Master-Jesus-Christ," others an abbreviated "Kist." 4 From the master on the veranda came the reply: "May-He-always-be-praised." The overseer called
the roll; if a slave did not respond after two calls, the overseer hustled into the senzallas to get him or her. When orders for the day had been given, directing the various gangs to work on certain coffee-covered hills, slaves and drivers shuffled to the nearby slave kitchen for coffee and corn bread.
The first signs of dawn brightened the sky as slaves separated to their work. A few went into the main house; most merely placed the long hoe handles on their shoulders and, old and young, men and women, moved off to the almost year- round job of weeding with drivers following to check stragglers. Mothers bore nursing youngsters in small woven baskets (jacás) on their backs or carried them astraddle one hip. Those from four to seven trudged with their mothers, those from nine to fifteen close by. If coffee hills to be worked were far from the
main buildings, food for the two meals furnished in the field went along--either in a two-team ox-cart which slaves called a maxambomba, or in iron kettles swinging on long sticks, or in wicker baskets or two-eared wooden pans (gamellas) on long
boards carried on male slaves' shoulders. A few slaves carried their own supplementary articles of food in small cloth bags. Scattered throughout the field were shelters of four posts
163: and a grass roof. Here, at the foot of the hills where coffee trees marched up steep slopes, the field slaves split into smaller gangs. Old men and women formed a gang working close to the rancho; women formed another; the men or young bucks (rapaziada nova), a third. Leaving the moleques and little girls to play near the cook and assistants in the rancho, they began the day's work. As the sun grew stronger, men removed their shirts; hoes rose and fell slowly as slaves inched up the steep slopes. Under the gang labor system of corte e beirada used in
weeding, the best hands were spread out on the flanks, cortador and contra-cortador on one, beirador and contra-beirador on the other. These four lead-row men were faster working pace-setters, serving as examples for slower workers sandwiched between them. When a coffee row (carreira) ended abruptly due to a fold in the slope, the slave now without a row shouted
to his overseer "Throw another row for the middle" or "We need another row"; a feitor passed on the information to the flanking lead-row man who moved into the next row giving the slave who had first shouted a new row to hoe. Thus lead-
row men always boxed-in the weeding gang.
Slave gangs often worked within singing distance of each other and to give rhythm to their hoe strokes and pass comment on the circumscribed world in which they lived and worked-- their own foibles, and those of their master, overseers, and slave drivers--the master-singer (mestre cantor) of one gang would break into the first "verse" of a song in riddle form, a jongo. His gang would chorus the second line of the verse, then weed rhythmically while the master-singer of the nearby gang tried to decipher (desafiar) the riddle presented. An ex-slave, still known for his skill at making jongos, informed that "Mestre tapped the ground with his hoe, others listened while he sang. Then they replied." He added that if the singing was not good the day's work went badly. Jongos sung in African tongues were called quimzumba; those in Portuguese, more common as older Africans diminished in the labor force, visaría. Stopping
here and there to "give a lick" (lambada) of the lash to slow slaves, two slave drivers usually supervised the gangs by criss-crossing the vertical coffee rows on the slope and shouting
164: "Come on, come on"; but if surveillance slackened, gang laborers seized the chance to slow down while men and women slaves lighted pipes or leaned on their hoes momentarily to wipe sweat away. To rationalize their desire to resist the slave drivers' whips and shouts, a story developed that an older, slower slave should never be passed in his coffee row. For the aged slave could throw his belt ahead into the younger man's row and the youngster would be bitten by a snake when he reached the belt. The overseer or the master himself, in white clothes and riding boots, might ride through the groves for a quick look. Alert slaves, feigning to peer at the hot sun, "spiced their words" to comment in a loud voice "Look at that red-hot sun" or intermixed African words common to slave
vocabulary with Portuguese as in "Ngoma is on the way" to warn their fellow slaves (parceiros), who quickly set to work industriously. When the driver noted the approaching planter, he commanded the gang "Give praise," to which slaves stood erect, eager for the brief respite, removed their hats or touched
hands to forehead, and responded "Vas Christo." Closing the ritual greeting, the senhor too removed his hat, spoke his "May He always be praised" and rode on. Immediately the industrious pace slackened. 5
To shouts of "lunch, lunch" or more horn blasts coming from the rancho around 10 A.M., slave parceiros and drivers descended. At the shaded rancho they filed past the cook and his assistants, extending bowls or cuías of gourds split in
two. On more prosperous fazendas, slaves might have tin plates. Into these food was piled; drivers and a respected or favored slave would eat to one side while the rest sat or sprawled on the ground. Mothers used the rest to nurse their babies. A half hour later the turma was ordered back to the sun-baked
hillsides. At one P.M. came a short break for coffee to which slaves often added the second half of the corn meal cake served at lunch. On cold or wet days, small cups of cachaça distilled from the plantation's sugar cane replaced coffee. Some ex-slaves
164: reported that fazendeiros often ordered drivers to deliver the cachaça to the slaves in a cup while they worked, to eliminate a break. Janta or supper came at four P.M. and work was resumed until nightfall when to drivers' shouts of "Let's quit" (vamos largar o serviç;o) the slave gangs tramped back to the sede.
Zaluar, the romantic Portuguese who visited Vassouras, wrote of the return from the fields: "The solemn evening hour. From afar, the fazenda's bell tolls Ave-Maria. (From hilltops fall the gray shadows of night while a few stars begin to flicker in the
sky). . . From the hill descend the taciturn driver and in front, the slaves, as they return home." Once more the slaves lined up for rollcall on the terreiro where the field hands encountered their slave companions who worked at the plantation center (sede). 6
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