ABSTRACT
This article analyzes the forms of coercion and control of free and slaved Africans and free men in the construction of road infrastructure in the Brazilian Empire. Using the reduction of the scale of observation, this study devotes special attention to the construction of roads in the Province of Minas Gerais in order to analyze the distribution of free Africans into road works and to explore questions about identity and freedom in the nineteenth century. Literature almost always turns to railway construction and its workers. However, it has failed to study how the dynamics of the construction of bridges and roads in the countryside were structured. In Minas Gerais, the provincial power sought to segregate freemen, enslaved and free Africans, and intervene directly in labor relations. In this process, the workers have transformed values and institutional structures imposed on them, recreating and reinventing behaviors as a strategy to acquire greater bargaining power.
Keywords:
workers; coercion; road infrastructure
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