Mothers and Children

In Mothers and Children, Marília Ariza interrogates the themes of slavery, freedom, and work, challenging long-held misconceptions about Black motherhood and childhood in 19th-century Brazil.

This book examines the concept of “civil minority” during São Paulo’s emancipation and post-abolition periods, revealing the complex realities faced by marginalized and racialized families. The first section dismantles stereotypes of “maladjusted” single mothers who defied bourgeois family structures, while the second section exposes the exploitation of children subjected to harsh labor conditions despite slavery’s formal end. This book demonstrates how childhood and motherhood was not a universal experience but was shaped by class, gender, and race privilege. In this context, however, Marília Ariza recovers the agency of her subjects,while confronting the contradictions of Brazil’s slave legacy. Mothers and Children illuminates how the past continues to haunt contemporary Brazilian society—a society that aspires to modernizing ideals while remaining rooted in historical inequities.

This book is essential reading for students of Latin American history, gender history, comparative slavery, and Brazilian history.