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History, Race, and the State in the Thought of Oliveira VianaAuthor(s): Oliveira Viana and Jeffrey D. NeedellSource: The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Feb., 1995), pp. 1-30Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2516780.

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Hispanic American Historical Review

75:1

Copyright C 1995 by Duke University

Press

ccc ooL8-2168/95/$1.50

History,

Race, and the State

in the

Thought of Oliveira Viana

JEFFREY

D. NEEDELL

H

E

Brazilian ociologistand historian

OliveiraViana

(1883-1951),

correctly

labeled a racist and

proponent

of

authoritarianism,

has been

marginalized

into oblivion

in

his own country.

Yet no student of Brazil's interwar period

can

deny

Viana'scentral importance.

Moreover,Viana'swritten legacy, composed of

his analyses of Brazil and his contributions to paternalist labor legislation,

remains

influential.'

Indeed, one

can

argue,

as this essay will, that

Viana's

positions regarding

Brazil's

problematic political

realities still

dominate

much of contemporary

Brazil's political discourse.

Viana's racist historical

sociology

was fundamental to

his

condemnation of

liberal

democracy

and

his call for a nationalist

statism. Today, too many Brazilians still fear mass

The author gratefully acknowledges the support

of the American

Philosophical Society, the

Division of Sponsored Research of the

University of Florida, and

the National Endowment

for the Humanities

for part of the research on which this article

is based. The author also

thanks Mark D. Szuchman and the anonymousHAHR reviewers for their valuable criticism.

This study derives

from a paper delivered at the Latin American Studies

Association meeting,

December 1989, and

a longer piece presented at the American Historical

Association meet-

ing, December 1992.

The author is gratefulto RandalJohnson, Dain

Borges, and Robert M.

Levine for their

interest and encouragement.

i.

On Viana's marginalization, see

Jose Murilo

de Carvalho,

"A

utopia

de Oliveira

Viana,"Estudos Hist6ricos 4:7 (1991), 83.

On Viana's mportance, see Wilson Martins,

Hist6-

ria da inteligencia brasileira, vol.

6

(Sdo

Paulo:Cultrix, 978), 194,

197, 261, 396, 409, 410,

488, 489;

and

the chapter on

Viana in

idem,

The Modernist Idea:

A Critical

Survey of

Bra-

zilian Writing in the Twentieth Century (New

York:

New

York

Univ.

Press, 1970), 240-43.

See also Bolivar Lamounier,

"Formagdo

de um

pensamento politico

autorithriana

Primeira

Repuiblica,"

n Hist6ria geral da

civilizagdo

brasileira,

ed.

Boris

Fausto (Sdo Paulo:

DIFEL,

1977), t. 3, v.

2,

pp. 365-66; Vanilda Paiva, "Oliveira Viana,"Encontros com a

civilizagdo

brasileira

3 (Sept.

1978), 127-56; Jodo

Cruz

Costa,

A

History of

Ideas in

Brazil

(Berkeley:

Univ. of California

Press, 1964), 267-68.

An analytical resume of the era's trends

and re-

cent historiographyis Dain Borges,

"BrazilianSocial Thought of the

1930s,"

Luso-Brazilian

Review 32:2 (Winter 1994), 137-50.

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2

|

HAHR

I

FEBRUARY

I

JEFFREY

D.

NEEDELL

participation

in

political

life;

too

many

still

look to authoritariansolutions

for the

challenges

posed by political mobilization born of

"modernization"

and

by

an

age

of

carnivorous international

mperialism.2

Despite Viana's

continuingimportance,

he and his

work are more often

noted than known. The

reasons for

this

are, at first glance,

hard to discern;

after all, although his

origins

were

profoundly provincial, he had risen to

national prominence by his thirties. His

career as an obscure law profes-

sor and

provincial public servant was

early overshadowedby increasingly

influential writing, initially (in the

1910S

and 1920s) in the daily papers

(which maintained their

traditionalroles as intellectual

reviews for the elite

and middle

sectors),

and then in

the formof anthologies and

monographs.3

By

the

1920S, Viana had achieved preeminence as a

publicist, social

theorist, and historian. Although he

was challenged in

the 1930s, espe-

cially

for his

racial views, Viana reached

a special brilliance as an estab-

lished

intellectual

and

a respected servant of Getuilio

Vargas' successive

regimes in the era

after the Revolution of

1930. Viana served on a special

commission

to

revise the

constitution and as a

juridical consultant

to the

Ministry of Labor after

1932.

He

rose

to head the

Ministry

of Accounts

in

1939,

after

the

Vargas-led

coup establishing

the

authoritarianEstado

NOvo

(1937-1945).

Viana was

therefore

a

key

source of the

thinking

and

legis-

lation that triumphed after

the

Revolution of

1930,

which ended Brazil's

first

republican

era.

Thus, by

the

end of

his

middle

age, Viana, despite

his

personal

at-

tachment to a life of

scholarly

retirement in

a

quiet

house

in

Niteroi,

had

become

a

noted public presence, a speaker at learned and

public meetings.

He was

also a

consecrated

intellectual, a member

of both

the

established

and exclusive

Instituto Historico e

Geografico Brasiliero

(1921)

and the

Academia Brasileira de Letras

(1940).

Viana's

intellectual

importance for

the

broader

public

is

indicated

by

edition after

edition of

books

first

pub-

lished

in

the

1920s

and

1930S.

He published a

culminating synthesis as late

as

1949,

and

posthumous

publication

of

manuscriptscontinued

after

1951.

Yet a

long subsequent

period

of

relative

neglect

has

only recently

ended

with a conference

of both

old

followers and

younger

critics.

Indeed, one

of the

latter, Jose

Murilo

de

Carvalho, aptly compared

the

effort to discuss

2. The concept of "modern" s often assumed to be value-free

when actually it is pro-

foundly laden with values and associations derived from the

historical experience of the

United States, England, France, and Germany. "Modern"should

mean something contem-

porary; it really means something associatedwith the material and cultural achievements of

the most industrialized nations. Hence its placement in quotation marks in

this essay.

3. Viana discusses his beginnings as a writer in "So

a

fe

constroe,"

0

Estado (Niter6i),

Aug. i8, 1940, clipping

in

Arquivo Oliveira Viana, Niter6i (hereafter

AOV), 3981.6.


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HISTORY, RACE, AND STATE IN

OLIVEIRA

VIANA 3

Viana to Orpheus' descent into hell.4 The neglect that damned this theo-

rist and public figure for so long clearly relates to the marked shift toward

liberalism and the Left that has characterized Brazilian intellectual and

university life since the

1950s.

Interest in the unhappy success of many

of

the

ideas associated

with Viana is

undoubtedly

what has

lately

turned

attention in his direction once again, as Brazilians seek to understand the

authoritarian

era

from

which

they

are now

emerging.

This preliminary study

is

offered as part of that reexamination of

Viana's thought.5 It will attempt, first, a biographical analysis, to recover

Viana's place in his historical and intellectual context as a central figure

in

the

1920S

critique of liberalism

in

Brazil. Second, it will attempt to

show

the

significance of

race in Viana's nfluential

historical sociology,

an

analysis fundamental to understandinghis explanation of Brazil's unique

sociopolitical

dilemma. It will

conclude by analyzing

Viana's

authoritarian

political

recommendations

in

light

of that dilemma. Thus

it will

try

both to

explain Viana's importance for his contemporariesand to explore the basis

of his

legacy.

With

regard

to that

legacy,

recent

scholarship

has

generally

focused

on either

race or authoritarianism

n Viana's

writing,

or has treated them

separately.

This

essay

will

bring

these

elements together again by dem-

onstrating

that Viana's racism was central

to

his

historical

analysis

and

reactionary reconstruction of Brazil's nineteenth-century monarchy, and

therefore that

his

racism was central to

the

"modern"version of that mon-

archy

he

proposed

in the

1920s-corporatism.6

4. Carvalho,

"A utopia,"82, 83. Carvalhoalso offers a recent bibliography,

97-98. The

conference for which Carvalho prepared this

paper was organized

by the Instituto de

Filo-

sofia e Ciencias Humanas

da Unicamp, Mar. 12-14, 1991. Personal

communication from

Carvalho and Lucia

Lippi Oliveira. The conference papers have since

been published as

0 pensamento de

Oliveira Viana, comp. Elide Rugai Bastos and Joao

Quartim de

Moraes

(Campinas: Unicamp,

1993).

5. This study is preliminary in the sense

that it anticipates part

of a longer one,

an

examination of Brazilian

conservative social and political thought between

1830 and

1940.

6. See, e.g., Antonio Candido, "Radicalismos,"

Estudos

Avangados

4:8

(9ggo),

17; Car-

valho, "A utopia,";

Jose Hon6rio Rodrigues, Hist6ria da hist6ria do

Brasil,

v. 2,

t.

2,

A meta-

fisica

do latifundio:

o

ultrareactionario

Oliveira Viana (Sao Paulo:

Nacional, 1988); Antonio

Paim, introduction

to PopulaQoesmeridionais

do Brasil e instituiQoespoliticas brasileiras,

by

Oliveira

Viana

([reprint ed.]

Brasilia: Camara dos

Deputados,

1982); Jarbas Medeiros,

Ideologia autoritaria

no Brasil, 1930-1945 (Rio de Janeiro:

Getulio Vargas, 1978),

155-217;

Evaldo Amaro Vieira,

Autoritarismo e

corporativismo

no

Brasil

(Sao

Paulo: Cortez, 1981).

Our

only biographical

monograph s Vasconcellos

Torres,Oliveira Viana: sua vida

e sua

posi-

Quonos

estudos

brasileiros de

sociologia (Rio

de

Janeiro:

Freitas

Bastos, 1956),

a

disciple's

hagiography. Candido alludes to the link

between race and authoritarianism, and Medei-

ros notes the theme of racism and elitism

in his r6sum6

of Viana. Two polemical pieces

also emphasize a link: see S6rgio Buarque

de Holanda, "Cultura

e politica," [ca. 1949]

in

his Tentativas de mitologia (Sao Paulo: Perspectiva,

1979), chap.

1, esp. 8-14; and Paiva,


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4

| HAHR

I

FEBRUARY

I

JEFFREY

D.

NEEDELL

The Passing of the Old Ways

Francisco Jose de Oliveira Viana was a central figure in the intellectual

generation that came of age during the Old Republic (1889-1930). As such,

his perception of the monarchy (1822-1889) was both learned and second-

hand. He was brought up among people who had known it in decline

and was schooled by intellectuals who may have helped to bury it (how-

ever much they may have come to regret the failures and corruption of

the

succeeding republican regime).

The

monarchy had emerged over

the

long rule of Dom Pedro

11

(1840-1889) as a centralized regime in which

national direction and government patronage were disputed between two

traditional

parties,

the Conservatives and the Liberals. The

party

chief-

tains were members

or representatives of

the

great planter and

merchant

families that dominatedprovincial society and the national economy.

These

statesmen

were

particularlysensitive to

the interests

of

the

provinces

most

powerful

at the

beginning

of Dom Pedro's

reign:

Rio

de

Janeiro, Bahia,

and Pernambuco, whose coffee, sugar, cotton, and less lucrative exports

were grown and harvested on large plantations worked by

African and

Afro-Braziliancaptives and

their free descendants.7

In this regime, so beholden to the social and economic traits of the colo-

nial era, nepotism, patronage, and life-tenure appointments locked

new

groups

and

recently wealthy provinces out of power.

Just as the elite

pre-

sided

over a stable neocolonial order

much like that of the old

Portuguese

colonial realm,

it

also represented

an

obstacle to

elements that increas-

ingly identified themselves with change, "modernity,"and national regen-

eration:

the

entrepreneurs

and

planters

of Sdo

Paulo,

the urban middle

sectors,

and the

technical-school graduates

n

the

army

officer

corps. Many

of these

people

would become

republicans

after

1870; many,

abolitionists

after 1879; many would become both, associatingthe political and social

"Oliveira Viana,"

who attacksViana'sracism

as pivotal

to his alleged apology

for class oppres-

sion and imperialism.

Bastos

and Moraes, 0 pensamento

de Oliveira

Viana (note 4) came

to

the author too late

for review

here.

7.

The historiography

of the monarchy

is undergoing something

of a renaissance.

The

classical

account

is JoaquimNabuco, Um

estadista do

imperio, 3 vols. (Rio

de Janeiro:Gar-

nier,

1898-99).

A r6sum6 of the

1930S analyses is Clarence

Haring, Empire

in Brazil (Cam-

bridge:

Harvard Univ. Press, 1958).The

recent harvest includes Jose

Murilo de

Carvalho,

A

construQao

da ordem

(Rio

de

Janeiro:

Campus, 1980),

and

Teatro

de sombras (Rio de Janeiro:

Vertice and IUPERJ,

1988);

Emilia Viotti da Costa,

The Brazilian

Empire: Myths and

His-

tories (Chicago:Univ. of Chicago Press, 1985); Roderick

J.

Barman,Brazil: The Forging of a

Nation

(Stanford:

StanfordUniv. Press, 1989);

and Richard Graham, Patronage

and Politics

in Nineteenth-Century

Brazil

(Stanford:

Stanford

Univ.

Press, 1990).

See also the chapters

by Bethell,

Carvalho,

Graham, and da Costa

in The

Cambridge

History of

Latin

America,

vol.

4,

C. 1870-1930,

ed. Bethell (Cambridge:

Cambridge

Univ.

Press, 1985).


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HISTORY, RACE,

AND STATE IN

OLIVEIRA

VIANA

5

traditions of the

monarchy with their own

political marginality and

the

nation's

incapacity to achieve

the Civilization and

Progress

attributed to

the liberalism of republican France

and

the United States.

A

good deal of the criticism that sapped the

prestige of the old regime

emanated from the elite's educational bastions, the

traditional aw faculties

in

Sdo

Paulo and

Recife. At the latter, German and French materialism

inspired a

generation known as the School of

Recife, and more generally

as the Generation of '70. Members of this group of

elite intellectual critics

participated

in the

struggle for abolition

(1879-1888)

and

figured among

the founders of the Republic in 1889.8

After a

decade's domestic struggle, however,

that regime emerged as

something quite unlike

the republic of their dreams. Its federalist struc-

ture

was dominated

by the state of Sdo Paulo, which turned over local

affairs to allies among the local oligarchies

dominating each state in ex-

change for acquiescence to

paulista hegemony

in

national financial

affairs

and

domestic peace.

The

contradiction between

the

1870

political

ideals of

local democracy and "modern"sociopolitical reform

and the fin-de-siecle

reality of

oligarchy, persistent backwardness,

and increased

regional

dis-

equilibrium provided the rich and humid soil

in

which the criticisms of

Viana's generation

flourished. Indeed, from

the

civil

wars

and financial

collapse of the

189os

on,

the

failures of the

present

often

suggested

the

need

for

reevaluation of the

past

and radical reform for the future.9

Oliveira Viana's

family

circumstances

may

well have

encouraged

a

par-

ticularly

sensitive

appreciation

of

this

era as one

of threatening

transition

and

decadence.

He

was born into

a

planter

family

of modest means and

8. See Nabuco, Urnestadista do

imperio,

and

Minhaformagdo

(Rio de Janeiro: Garnier,

1899); Cruz Costa, History of Ideas in Brazil; Roderick J. Barman and Jean Barman, "The

Role of the Law Graduate in the Political Elite of Imperial Brazil,"Journal of Interameri-

can Studies and World Affairs 18:4 (Nov. 1976), 723-50; Richard Graham, Britain and the

Onset of Modernization in Brazil,

1850-1914

(New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1968);

Robert E. Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery,

i85O-i888

(Berkeley: Univ. of

California Press, 1972);

da

Costa, Brazilian Empire,

and her

essay

on Brazil from

1870

to

1889 in Bethell, Cambridge History,

vol.

4;

and

Jeffrey

D.

Needell,

"A

Liberal Embraces

Monarchy,"The Americas

48:2

(Oct.

1991), 159-80.

9. For recent analyses of the Republic's early ideologicaland political development,

see

Jose Murilo de Carvalho, Os bestializados (Sdo Paulo:Companhia

das

Letras, 1988); idem,

A

formagdo

das almas (Sdo Paulo: Companhia das Letras,

19go);

and

Jeffrey D. Needell,

"The

Revolta Contra Vacina of 1904: The Revolt Against 'Modernization' n Belle-Epoque Rio de

Janeiro,"HAHR 67:2 (May 1987), 233-69. On the regional-federal ssues, see Joseph Love,

Rio Grande do Sul and Brazilian Regionalism, 1882-1930 (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press,

1971) and idem, Sio Paulo in the Brazilian Federation, 1889-1937 (Stanford:Stanford

Univ.

Press, 1978), as well as the companion studies of Pernambuco and Minas Gerais published

simultaneously by Robert

M. Levine and

John Wirth, respectively.

On the

ideological

crisis

of

the 1920S,

see

Peter Flynn,

Brazil: A

Political Analysis (Boulder:Westview, 1978), chap. 3;

and

Needell, "Liberal Embraces Monarchy,"174-77.


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6 | HAHR

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FEBRUARY

I

JEFFREY D. NEEDELL

some local prestige near Saquaremain the Province of Rio de Janeiro.'0

Saquarema

was

distinguished among

the

province's towns by its association

with the most intransigent faction of

the

old Conservative Party. Several of

the party's founders

had

plantation interests near the town; the party and

its

first leadership were known as the Saquaremason that account. Viana

prized his rural roots throughout his life, holding on to the family planta-

tion

long

after

coming

to live

in

Niteroi, and returning there frequently.

Abolition, of which

he

never approved in his historical analyses, was an

event

that

took place

in his

fifth year;

the decline

of

the fluminense rural

economy associated with it was the

milieu

of his childhood and youth.

The

velha provincia-seat

and

splendor of the old regime, cradle of

Brazil-

ian

coffee planting and export and the country's leading coffee producer

until 1883, Conservative bastion, rural setting for many of the monarchy's

wealthiest, most aristocratic families-had staggered into an economic

and then a

political

decline in the era

1870-1900

that was irreversible and

relatively sudden. Great landholders and proud, slaveholding planters,

many

with

imperial titles,

neoclassical

city mansions,

and

plantation great

houses boasting imported European luxuries, found themselves and

their

children reduced

to seeking

an urban

livelihood

as liberal

professionals

and

rentiers.

"

In

Viana's

case,

the relative

modesty of

the

family plantation

shortened

the

distance of decline.

Still,

his

biography suggests

the

general pattern

noted. After

his

father's death, Viana'smother moved

the

family to Niteroi

to give Viana

a

better education

in

preparationfor

an urban

profession.

They had enough money to purchase a good deal of urban real estate, as

well as to

pay for

Viana's

private schooling.

The

young man,

whose life-

long respect for

science was clear

by adolescence, chose engineering

at

the Escola

Politecnica

in

Rio,

the

sprawling

federal

capital across

Guana-

bara

Bay.

A

mishap involving

the

time of

registration changed

his life-he

arrived

too

late to

enroll

at the school

and

instead was forced to settle

for

1o.

Interview with Eunimar

Barros,

Viana's

grandniece, Feb. 5,

1991, Niter6i; see also

V. Torres, Oliveira Viana.

ii.

On the Saquaremas,

see Ilmar Rohloffde Mattos,

0

tempo saquarema (Sdo Paulo:

Huicitec, 1987). On Viana's attachment

to his fazenda, Rio Seco, Barros stated

that Viana

returned weekly. Interviews with

Barros, Feb. 5, 15, 1991. On abolition

and fluminense

decline, see, e.g., Oliveira Viana,

PopulaQoes meridionais do Brasil, 2d ed.

(Sdo Paulo: Mon-

teiro

Lobato,

1922), viii-ix.

All

subsequent

citations of

Populap.es

meridionais

refer to this

edition. Cf. Stanley J. Stein, Vassouras:

A Brazilian Coffee County,

185o-1900

(Cambridge:

Harvard Univ. Press, 1957), chaps. 1o, ii, who notes the

state's

partial

economic recovery

along other lines. On

shifts in the

elite's fortunes,

see

Jeffrey

D.

Needell,

A Tropical Belle

Epoque: Elite Culture and Society in Turn-of-the-CenturyRio

deJaneiro

(Cambridge:

Cam-

bridge

Univ.

Press, 1987), chaps.

2,

3.

An

appraisal

of the state's

political

fortunes after

1889

is Marieta de Moraes Ferreira,

ed., A Rep6blica na velha provincia (Rio

de

Janeiro:

Rio

Fundo, 1989).


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HISTORY, BACE,

AND

STATE

IN

OLIVEIRA VIANA

7

Rio's

law

faculty.'2There

he

studied

for

severalyears,

precisely

as the chal-

lenge of "modernity"and imperialismwas being engaged by

the Republic's

presiding generation of the

elite.

The

idea that Brazil was lagging behind the pioneers of Civilization

and

Progress, a key problem for the Generation

of

'70,

emerged

with

spe-

cial urgency after the civil wars, riots, and revolts were

smothered under

the paulista-led oligarchical alliances associated with the

Campos Sales

ad-

ministration of 1898-1902. The capital's elite in particular

spoke of

this

era

as one

in

which the nation could come forth in the new peace to realize its

potential

as

an

emerging great power.

The

administration of the

paulista

Francisco de Paula Rodrigues Alves, profitingfrom Campos

Sales' political

triumph and restored international credit, embarked in

1903

on an exten-

sive renovation of

the

capital, obvious symbol of the nation'spotential, and

of

its port, the country's

most

important.'3

The administrationmade such

gestures of symbolic

and

practical

"mod-

ernity" while grappling

with

the world's great powers during

what was

also

an era

of vigorous imperialism. Britain's financial, commercial,

and

diplomatic hegemony in Brazil, which predated

independence,

remained

preeminent

in

Braziliandiplomatic considerations. Indeed, Manoel

Ferraz

de Campos Sales had secured Brazil's recovery from international igno-

miny

with

a pilgrimage

to

London's

financial markets even

before taking

office.'4 Some astute members of the

elite

had

feared British

intervention

during

the

civil

wars

and financialcollapse of

the

189os;many now

saw the

United States,

which

had emerged

as a

great power by

that

decade,

as

a

new potential threat.'5

The

Baron

do Rio

Branco, Rodrigues

Alves' minister for

foreign affairs,

ably

aided

by Joaquim Nabuco,

the Brazilian ambassador

n

Washington,

successfully sought

to

link

Brazil to the United

States,

an adroit move that

not only looked beyond the old dependency on Britain

but

also strength-

12.

Interview

with

Barros,

Feb.

5, 1991.

13.

Needell, Tropical Belle Epoque, chap.

i.

14.

On

British hegemony, see

Allan

K.

Manchester, British Preeminence in Brazil, zd

ed. (New York:Octagon, 1964); and Graham,

Britain and the Onset of Modernization. On

the Campos Sales administrationand its financial

concerns, see the memoir by Tobias

Mon-

teiro,

0

presidents Campos

Salles na

Europa (Rio

de

Janeiro: Briguet, 1928), lxxxiii, i6,

and chap. 7; Manoel Ferraz de Campos Salles, Da

propaganda a presidencia (Sdo Paulo:

n. p., 1908), chap. 5.

A

critical analysis is Francisco

de Assis Barbosa, "A presidencia Campos

Sales," Luso-Brazilian Review 5:1 (June 1968), 3-26.

15. See, e.g., the

189os

correspondence of

Joaquim

Nabuco in Cartas

a amigos (Sdo

Paulo: Progreso, 1949),

vol. 1.

Cf idem, A

intervenqdo

estrangeira durante a revolta (Rio de

Janeiro: Leuzinger, 1896), 109-12,

and

Balmaceda (Rio

de

Janeiro: Leuzinger, 1895),

212-

15.

See

also

Eduardo

Prado,

A

illusdo

americana,

zd ed.

(Paris: Colin, 1895).

A r6sum6

of

the diplomatic situation

is

ably presented

in

E. BradfordBurns, The Unwritten Alliance: Rio

Branco

and

Brazilian-American Relations (New York:

Columbia Univ.

Press, 1966).


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8 | HAHR

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JEFFREY D. NEEDELL

ened Brazil's position relative to Argentina, Brazil's

traditional regional

rival. (Argentina saw its own extraordinaryeconomic success as the basis

for a hemispheric competition

with the United States.'6)The culmination

of this diplomacy was the 1906 Pan-American Conference

in

Rio,

where

Viana joined other youths

in mass

demonstrations

celebrating

the

diplo-

matic triumph.'7

If Viana's

provincial

childhood had

shown

him the

passing

of

the

society

associated with the monarchy, his youth

in

Rio allowed him to weigh the

Republic's

best

attempts

at

meeting

the

challenges

of

"modernization"

and

imperialism.

Like

many of his generation, the Republic's

first, Viana,

over

time, came to find the regime's responses

profoundly incompetent.

In

1905 he took his law degree, began teaching mathematics at

the

Colegio

Abilio in Niteroi, and apparently continued his studies privately. In

1916

he was

appointed

a law

professor

at

the Faculdade

de

Direito do

Estado

do

Rio

de

Janeiro

in

Niteroi. By

then he had established his name

as a

publi-

cist

in the dailies of

Niteroi

and Rio. In

one

of these

newspaper essays

from

the end of

this

early phase

of

his

career,

he

argued

that the nation's

ruling

elite

preferred grand

ideas rather than

engagement

with

the

specificity

of

Brazil'sproblems.

We always base ourselves on systems, theories, doctrines, established

ideas

. . .

we found all our arguments on these

theoretical materials,

without

thinking about mixing them

with the

least portion,

the

most

insignificant

trace

of

our

realities, of

the

concrete

facts of our

milieu

and of

our

life.'8

The

problems associated

with

"modernity"

and

imperialism

in

Bra-

zil

were not to

be resolved by building Parisian boulevards or informal

international relations of dependence. The Republic, with its superficial

solutions

and false

liberalism, would have to be radically reformed-and

its elites must understand the national socioeconomic reality if they would

construct

appropriate political

institutions.

By

1918,

Viana's

thinking

had

matured to

the

point

where he felt

ready to guide

the

nation toward that

construction

by providing

an

analysis

of the

realities of which he

wrote; by

providing

a

historical

sociology

of Brazil. To

grasp

the

nature

and intent

of this

step requires

an

understanding

of

the

intellectual

milieu

in

which

Viana had been

prepared.

i6. See Burns, Unwritten Alliance; Alvaro Lins, Rio-Branco, 2 vols. (Rio

de

Janeiro:

Jos6 Olympio,

1945),

vol.

i,

chap.

ii;

Carolina Nabuco,

A vida de Joaquim Nabuco (Sdo

Paulo: Nacional, 1928), pt. 4, chaps.

4-6; Thomas F. McCann, Argentina, the United States,

and the Inter-American System,

188o-1914 (Cambridge:

Harvard Univ.

Press,

1957).

17. Viana recalled the episode in his celebration of "Joaquim Nabuco," in Pequenos

estudos de psicologia social (Sdo

Paulo:Monteiro Lobato, 1921), 192-206.

i8.

Idem,

"Nacionalismoe

questdo social," n ibid., 87-98.


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HISTORY, RACE, AND STATE IN

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VIANA 9

Viana's Historical Sociology: Personal Influences

Materialism in general and scientism in particular, both strongly asso-

ciated with the Generation of

'70

and the North

Atlantic nation-states,

pervaded

the

intellectual

and

cultural

milieu

of Viana's studies. Indeed,

Viana's attraction to the certainties of science

apparently figured

in

the

education he got

in

law school, despite his failure to

matriculate

in

the

Escola Politecnica. In the first decade or so of the Republic, the scientism

and

positivism of many republican militants was a central

element

in all

educational reforms and institutions.'9

In

Viana's case, the influence of the earlier generation is clear in the

identity of two of Viana's instructors: Inocencio Serzedelo Correia and

Silvio Romero.

Correia

was a noted positivist, nationalist, and

militant-a

key figure

in

the

officers'conspiracycentral to

the

coup of

1889,

a minister

of state

with

several

portfolios

in

the dictatorialregime of Floriano Peixoto

(1891-1894),

and

Floriano's prisoner

in

1893.

He was

also

a federal

deputy

to the Constituent Congress of

1890

and several

subsequent legislatures,

and a noted orator and economic and financialthinker. He

may

well

have

served as a kind

of statesman role model,

in

that he

was

celebrated

for

his

integrity as

well as

for

his

nationalist devotion to public

affairs.

A

de-

fender of statist intervention to protect industrialization, Correia taught

Viana political economy.20

Romero, however,

was far more influential. One of the nation's two

most

prestigious literary

critics

(in

an era when literature carried

intellec-

tual

prestige

and national

significance),

a noted

exemplar

of the School of

Recife, a founder of the BrazilianAcademyof Letters, and a

ferocious,

sci-

entistic social

critic, Romero introduced

Viana to Frederic Le

Play's

school

of

post-positivist sociology,

which

was

so central to Viana's social

thinking

in

the formative

jqios.21

Like

Correia, Romero suggested

in his

personal

19.

See Robert G. Nachman, "Positivism, Modernization, and the Middle Class in Bra-

zil," HAHR 57:1 (Feb. 1977), 1-23. The transition is clear in the curricula of the Col6gio

Pedro II, premier secondary school of the Second Reign and the first years of the Old Re-

public and official model for national public schooling. See [Imperial Collegio Pedro LI]

Programa

. . .

1862, or

Plano

e program

. .

1876

(Rio de Janeiro: Nacional, i882); and

[Gymnasio Nacional] Programa de ensino . .

.1892

(Rio de Janeiro: Nacional, 1892); and

Collegio Pedro II, "Regulamento do Collegio" [i191], in Annuario do Collegio Pedro

II

...

10

anno (Rio

de

Janeiro: Revista dos Tribunaes, 1914).

2o.

See Dunshee de

Abranches,

Governos e

congresses

da

repuiblica,

os

Estados

Unidos

do

Brasil, 2 vols. (Rio de Janeiro: Abranches, 1918), 1:74-75; and Washington

Luis

Neto,

introduction to 0 problema econ6mico no Brasil, 1903, by Inocencio Serzedelo Correia

(Brasilia: Senado Federal, 1980).

21.

Silvio

Romero's great work is Hist6ria da literature brasileira, i888 (various eds.).

Viana mentions Romero's formative influence in

"Um

leplayano dissidents," Correio da

Manhi (Rio de Janeiro), Feb. 2, 1929. On Romero himself, see M.

Garcia

M6rou, El Brasil

intelectual:

impressiones y

notas literarias

(Buenos

Aires:

F.

Lajouane,

1900);

Jodo

do

Rio,


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EFFREY D. NEEDELL

style and public position a model for the young student-the integrity and

devotion of the

engage

intellectual.

The third most influential figure in Viana'syouth, Alberto Torres, fol-

lowed the same general pattern;

but

Torres

exercised his influence over

Viana after law school,

in

the

1910s,

when

Viana,

in

his thirties, had already

begun publishing essays.

Torres

was another noted republican militant

profoundly influenced by positivism, a one-time governor of the State of

Rio de Janeiro, and a Supreme

Court justice. Like Correia and Romero,

Torres distanced himself from the

oligarchical corruption triumphant

in

the

Republic after 1894. Retiring to his study, he wrote the national-

ist social and political criticism that would prove increasingly influential

posthumously, in the

1920S

and

1930S

(he died in

1917).22

Again, Torres

embodied a combination of

personal integrity, selfless public service, and

a

principal devotion to intellectual work directed toward Brazilianregen-

eration.

Something

of this is clear

in

Viana's

private correspondence

with

his

mestre

in

1915.

Your

Excellency

asks me to

help

in

"the work of

legitimizing

this

people, foreign

in

spirit and alienated

in

character, giving

it

an ideal

for direction

and

organization."

On this

score,

to

the extent

possible,

your Excellency may believe, I will act with decided enthusiasm and

sincerity.

All

depends on

the

opportunities

that are

opened

to

me

to

discuss the

nationalist program

of which

your Excellency

is

the

greatest

founder here.23

0 momento literarias (Rio de Janeiro: Garnier, 1908), 35-49; Antonio Candido,

0

mntodo

critico de Silvio Romero, 2d ed. (Sdo Paulo:

Editora

Univ. de Sdo

Paulo, 1988);

Cruz

Costa,

History of Ideas in Brazil, 187-97; Carlos

Sfissekind

de

Mendonga,

Silvio Romero: sua

formagdo

intelectual, 1851-1880

(Sdo

Paulo:

Nacional, 1938);Jos6 Verissimo, Estudos de lit-

eratura brasileira, 6 vols. (Belo Horizonte:

Itatiaia,

1977), vol. i, chap. 3, vol. 6, chap. i.

On Romero's sociology and racial thought, see

Thomas E. Skidmore, Black into White: Race

and Nationality in Brazilian Thought

(NewYork:OxfordUniv.Press,

1974),

32-37.

On the

literary milieu, see Needell, Tropical Belle

Epoque, 185-233. Jos6 Verissimo was the other

major

critic. See

Jodo Alexandre Barbosa,

A

tradipao

do

impasse (Sdo

Paulo:

Atica, 1974).

Pierre Guillaume Fr6d6ric Le Play (1806-1882) was a noted French sociologist

and

the

author

of La

constitution essentielle de

l'humanit6

and

La reforme sociale en France d~duite

de l'observation comparee des peuples europeens.

See

Michael Z.

Brooke,

Le

Play, Engineer

and Social Scientist: The Life and Work of

Frederic Le Play (Harlow: Longmans, 1970).

22.

On T6rres,

see

Barbosa

Lima

Sobrinho,

A

presenga

de

Alberto

T6rres

(Rio

de

Janeiro:

Civilizagdo

Brasileira, 1968); and the

introductions to

the

recent

editions

of

his

work

by Francisco Iglesias. See also

Dalmo

Barreto,

Alberto

TUrres:

oci6logo ejornalista (Niter6i:

Oficial, 1970), which

focuses on

Torres' influentialjournalism.

Viana notes T6rres' influence

in

his "Guiza de prefacio" to As ideas de

Alberto T6rres, 2d ed., ed. Alcides Gentil (Sao

Paulo: Nacional, 1938), iii-vi. There Viana also states that he was the Torres disciple most

often

in

disagreement with the mestre. His

respect

for T6rres is

palpable in his correspon-

dence.

See, e.g.,

F.

J. Oliveira Viana to Ex.

Sr. Dr.

A.

T6rres, draft copy, Niter6i,

1909,

AOV, 1023.1.

23. Viana to Alberto T6rres, Niter6i,

Jan. 27, 1915, uncatalogued letter, Estate of

Alberto T6rres, Itaborai.


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HISTORY, RACE, AND STATE

IN OLIVEIRA VIANA

11

Each of these three mentors

seemingly resonated

with Viana's own

temperament and ambitions. Their

example suggests

much

more of Viana's

self-concept and purpose than the more purely intellectual influences that

were to follow or the Catholicism

that remained a profoundly private part

of his life. The important elements

might be summarized easily: an intel-

lectual vocation grounded

in

scientism and devoted to national regenera-

tion,

and a career of

private study

and

publication

in

which

public

service

was secondary and subordinate to the political principles derived from the

intellectual work.24Viana might have

disagreed

with the

actual conclusions

they reached: Romero

was

devoted to democracy and adverse to authori-

tarianism, and Torres was a pioneering opponent of the ideas of racial

inequality and determinism.25YetalthoughViana'sdisagreementwith such

points

was

fundamental,

much that is essential

to

his

thought-his

scien-

tism,

his

advocacy of

state

intervention,

his

preoccupation

with

sociology

as a

key

to

public policy,

his criticism

of the Republic's oligarchies, and

his central concern with Brazil's

emergence

as a

strong nation-state-are

very much those men's legacy.

The Issue

of

Race

In none of these influences was racial determinism fundamental the way it

would be for Viana.26Beginning with his first and most celebrated mono-

graph,

Populag&es

meridionais do Brasil

(1920),

Viana

made Brazil's racial

composition

and

prospects

a

basis for

his

most

essential conclusions. He

introduced the second edition of that work

by proclaiming

that the

Afro-

Brazilian

matuto,

the rural

type

from the states of

Rio,

Minas

Gerais,

and

Sdo Paulo, was

a

type perfectly

characterized.

His

influence on

the

nation's evolu-

tion . . . is of the greatest, most accentuated, and flagrant.The present

study

is

entirely

dedicated to

him, to

the

investigation of

his

history,

to the

analysis

of his

structure,

to the definition

of

his

mentality.

In

24.

See, e.g.,

Viana

to Oswaldo

Aranha [probably Niter6i, ca.

1935], AOV,

1023.329.

25. On Romero's politics,

see the essay

by Evaristo de Moraes Filho and

the texts in

pt. i of Romero's

Realidades

e ilusoes no Brasil (1893-1913; reprint,

Petr6polis: Vozes,

1979).

On

T6rres' attitude toward race and Brazil,

see Alberto T6rres,

0

problema national

bra-

sileiro (Rio

de Janeiro: Nacional, 1914), 47-49,

59-60, 136-37,

and A

organizagdo

national

(Rio de Janeiro:

Nacional, 1914),

8i, 82-84, 197-98. It is notable,

however, that

Torres was

unable to

free himself entirely

from the racist assumptions of

his age. See Gentil, As id6as,

chap. 13.

26.

This statement must be qualified with

regard to Romero,

who was greatly preoccu-

pied with

race. Yet Skidmore

notes that however central

race and racial determinism

were

to Romero'sconcept

of Brazilian reality, Romerodid not come

to a firm conclusion

regarding

their

impact.

They

were characteristicmotifs in his work,

but

they

did not inform consistent

conclusions. Skidmore, Black

into

White, 35-37.


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JEFFREY D. NEEDELL

this book, I reveal faults, accentuate

defects, demonstrate

lines

of

in-

feriority and destroy, with a certain frankness, numberless illusions of

ours regarding ourselves, regardingour capacities as a people.27

Viana himself

would later disclaim the centrality of some details of his

racial analyses, yet the thrust of them remained.28 t remained pivotal in

his most influential books-the first few of which established his repu-

tation and

his

decisive stature

in the

intellectual and political milieu of

the

192os:

Populag&es

meridionais, Pequenos

estudos de

psicologia social

(1921),

and

Evolugiio

do povo

brasileiro 1923).29 Although

0

idealism

na

evolugiio

political do Imperio

e

da

Repu'blica 1922),

0

ocaso

do im-

perio 1926), 0 idealism da

constituigiio

(1927),

and

Problernas a politica

objective

(1930),

which were specifically political ratherthan social analy-

ses,

obscure this

racial preoccupation in his basic

work,

Viana himself

stated that his

political works

necessarily presumed

the earlier

conclusions

about

Brazilian

society (in

which his

racial

analysis

was

basic).30

Part

of

the reason Viana

began

with a racial

focus

was his

commitment

to

sociological

and historical

analysis

as the

necessary prelude to political

conclusions. He

completed

his

introduction to

Populag&es

meridionais by

stating:

The problem of our salvation must be resolved by other criteria than

those heretofore dominant. From

now on,

we must

grapple

with

facts

and not

hypotheses,

realities

and

not

fictions,

and

by

a force of heroic

will,

renew

our

ideas,

remake our

culture,

retrain our

character.

This

work of retraining, which

is

also a work of

organization

and

construction,

we

can only undertake and

conclude successfully,

if we

apply

to ourselves

the

nosce

te

ipsum

of the ancients and

subject

our

people

to a cold and severe

analysis of

its

composition, its structure,

the

particular

tendencies of its

mentality

and its character.3'

Thus, as his mentors Romero and Torres had, Viana sought to move be-

yond

the

political

facades

to

the

social realities of

his

country.

There

he

was forced to confront the nation's

racial complexity.

27. Viana,

Populag6es

meridionais, v-vi. On the ethnology of the matuto, see chap.

6.

28.

Viana

argued

that his claims for the

significance

of

Georges

Vacher de

Lapouge's

Homo

europeus among

the

pioneers

of

Sdo Paulo were

hypothetical

and that their

impor-

tance was

exaggerated by

critics' bad faith.

Viana,

preface,

Evolugdo

do

povo brasileiro, 2d

ed.

(Sdo

Paulo:

Nacional, 1933), 1-14.

29.

See

Populaq6es

meridionais; Pequenos estudos,

pt.

2;

and

Evolugdo

do

povo,

pt.

2,

the

central portion

of his

analysis.

It is

notable that

Evolugdo

do povo was initially published

as a preface to the census of

1920

by the Biblioteca do Minist6rio da Agricultura.

30. E.g.,

in Problemas da

political objective (Sdo

Paulo:

Nacional, 1930), Viana cites

Populaqoes

meridionais frequently, particularly in political conclusions derived from the

social and ethnic

analysis central

to

the book. Cf.

0

ocaso do imperio, 2d ed. (Sdo Paulo:

Melhoramento, 1938), 6-7.

31.

Populaq6es

meridionais,

xii.


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HISTORY, RACE, AND STATE IN OLIVEIRA

VIANA 13

Viana'smentors bequeathed

him

different lessons about race. Romero,

as Thomas Skidmore has noted, pointed to miscegenation as a central

reality.32Although he valued Afro-Brazilian culture and contributions,

Romero accepted the racism common in

European thinking of the time

and

presumed

racial

inequality.33Torres,

writing

at a later

time,

was able to

take

advantage of

the

beginning of the

shift in

scholarly racial assumptions

associated

with Franz

Boas.34

He

gave

his

social analysis

a

more

opti-

mistic tone than Romero's by rejecting

scientific racism.

While Romero

argued that

the

formation of

Brazil's racial

identity through a process of

"whitening" would take centuries, Torres rejected race as an obstacle to

national formation and progress by

attacking the presumption of African

racial inferiority, and thereby the notion of Brazil's African legacy as an

impediment.35

Viana accepted the dominant scientific racism of his era-despite

Torres'

influence-but with greater optimism

than was common. He pos-

ited that the pernicious racial heritage of Africawould be overcome rela-

tively

fast

by "whitening," speeded, first,

by

the natural weakness and

greater mortality of blacks and mulattoes;

second, by increased European

immigration;

and

third, by the sexual selection

imposed by

white

men.36

Critics have attacked the basis for his beliefs

about Africans and

Afro-

Brazilians since the

1930s,

attributing it to outdated, late nineteenth-

century, post-positivist anthropology

and

sociology.37

Yet

such critics may

be

indulging

in

anachronism. Scientific racist

thought

had

only

been chal-

lenged, not overcome, as late

as

1911,

when

Boas,

who had first

sparred

with racial determinism

in

1894,

finally offered a

more developed version

32. Skidmore,

Black into White,

32-37.

33

Ibid.

34.

For Torres and the Boas school,

see ibid., 118.

T6rres

cited Boas' conclusions

on

the impact

of

environment

on somatic

characteristics

(see Viana,

0

problema nacional,

49),

doubtless a reference to Boas' study of U.S. immigrants,Changes in the Bodily Form of De-

scendants of Immigrants

(Washington,

D.C.:

GPO,

1911).

See also

George

W. Stocking, Jr.,

ed.,

The

Shaping

of American

Anthropology,

1883-1911

(New York: Basic Books,

1974),

189-giff;

and Michael Banton, Racial

Theories

(Cambridge:Cambridge

Univ.

Press, 1987),

79.

On T6rres' ideas on

race, see Gentil, As

ideas.

35.

See

Skidmore,

Black into

White, 32-37,

118-28. Skidmore's

conclusions

about

T6rres' impact

on

racism (p. 123)

are clearly

more sanguine than

mine.

36. See

Evolugdo

do povo,

4th

ed., pt. 2,

chap. 1, esp. 153-56,

158, 183.

See also Viana,

Raga

e

assimilagdo,

2d ed. (Sdo

Paulo: Nacional, 1934),

chap. 6.

37.

For

the

quarrel between

Viana, Roquette Pinto,

and Artur

Ramos regarding

Afro-

Brazilians, see

Raga

e

assimilagdo,

182-99.

Viana

privately

dismissed

Gilberto Freyre's

ridicule

and

exaggeration

of his conclusions

as scandalousbad

faith. See

Viana to [Augusto

Schmidt], Rio de Janeiro [Jan.

1934],

AOV,

1023.33.

Skidmore notes that after Freyre's de-

rision and the increasing

popularity

of the cultural explanation

for racial differences,

Viana

never published

the

works on race

that

he

had announced

in

the early 1930s.

Black into

White, 278-79,

n.

88. Over

time,

criticism

of

Viana

on

racial

and other

grounds

mounted,

coming

to include Astrojildo Pereira

(1929), S6rgio

Buarque de Holanda

(1940s),

Dante

Moreira Leite

(1954),

and Nelson Werneck Sodr6 (196os).


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JEFFREY D. NEEDELL

of the cultural

explanation of

human differences with which he is

generally

associated.38

ndeed, Viana was far from alone in his racial

analysis, and as

late as

the 1930s could refute

cultural explanations of racial differences, as

well as

archaeological defenses of

African civilizations, with citations from

respectable sources dating from the

foregoing decade.39

Thus the oft-repeated argument

that Viana'sracism was

obsolete

in

the

1930S

is

debatable. The racismestablished in prestigious

European circles

by

1goo

endured

into

the

interwar

period,

and

with it

Viana's

unhappy

con-

clusions. In Brazil, the pioneer of "scientific"

Afro-Brazilian study, Nina

Rodrigues, accepted such theories; it was

Torres

and a few

others, notably

Edgar Roquette Pinto, who

stood alone against the

generally accepted

racism in the

1920S.

Only with

Gilberto Freyre's Casa grande e senzala

(1933; translated as The Masters

and the Slaves, 1946) was something like

a

generally accepted challenge to scientific racism

launched in Brazil-

and

Freyre's own

analysis

was

hardly free of racism.40

Race

and Brazil's

Peculiar Historical Burdens

Leaving

aside, then,

the issue of race in

regard

to Viana's ntellectual con-

text and relative

timeliness,

the

focus turns to his

particular

use of race. In

Viana's

work,

like

that of many

post-1870

Brazilian

thinkers,

the

question

of race

was

pivotal

because

he

accepted

the

idea that African influence

was

demographically

and

socially

central to Brazilian

history.4'

For

Viana, given

the racist

assumptions

of African

inferiority

and

mulatto

degeneracy, the conclusions to

be drawn

from black

centrality

in

Brazilian

society

were

singular. First,

the

work of

Brazilian

civilization

and nation

building

had to

be understood as

the

labor of

Europeans

and

their

purebred descendants,

with

only

a few

notable

exceptions

(who

were

mixed-race descendants

inclined

toward

their

European

heritage).

Sec-

ond,

the

inherent

weakness of

people

of mixed

race

would lead to

the

38. See Stocking, Shaping of American Anthropology, 19o-91, 219-21.

39. See

Raga

e

assimilagio,

esp. 195-206, where Viana cites Pitirim A. Sorokin

(1928),

Ellsworth Huntington

(1923, 1927),

Octave Fr6d6ric Francois Meynier

(1921),

Maurice

Dela-

fosse (1928), and Augustus Henry Keane (1920) on racial differences and African civilization

in his support.

40.

On Brazilian trends, see Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, 57,

118-23,

185-98,

200-203;

cf. Nancy Leys Stepan, The Hour of Eugenics: Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin

America

(Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1991), 36-39, 44, 46-55, 153-69. On the heyday of European

scientific racism, see Banton, Racial Theories, 78; and Eric J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Em-

pire, 1875-1914 (New

York:

Vintage, 1989), 32, 252-54.

On

Freyre's explicit

ambivalence

regarding cultural explanations

of racial

differences, see Casa-grande

e

senzala:

formagdo

da

familia brasileira sob

o

regimen de economia patriarchal (Rio

de

Janeiro:

Schmidt, 1933),

321,

n.

2.

Freyre, moreover,

had the notable

advantage

of

studying

with Boas

in

1921-22.

41.

Evolugdo

do

povo, 149-51.


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HISTORY, RACE, AND STATE

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15

survival

of

those with a greater

number of European traits and the effec-

tive integration of these superior

types into the European-descent group.

Viana made this point carefully in his

fundamentalwork,

Popula &es

meri-

dionais, as he set up the historical ethnology basic to his oeuvre.

All of the historical evolution of

our collective mentality has been noth-

ing else but the continuous

molding, through known processes of social

logic, of the ethnically inferior

elements of the popular masses to the

Aryan morality, the Aryanmentality, that is, to the spirit and character

of the white race.

Superior mixed-bloods, those who triumph or

rise

in

our milieu

.

.

.

do not do so as such, that is, as mixed bloods, by

an

affirmation of their mixed-blood

mentality.

. . .

They only ascend

when they transform hemselves

and lose their [hybrid] characteristics,

when they abandon being

psychologically mixed-bloods: because they

Aryanize.

Inferior mixed-bloods-those who, by virtue of atavistic regres-

sions, are incapable of ascent and lack the desire to work out this

ascent-these remain

within

their mixed-race

type.

In

the

composi-

tion

of

our collective character,

they enter,

but

only

as a

repellent

and

troublesome force. Never,

however,

as a force

applied

to a

superior

function: as an element of

synthesis, coordination,

direction.

That superior function falls to the pure Aryans with the help of

the already Aryanized superior

mixed-bloods.

It is

these who, possess-

ing the apparatusof education and

discipline, dominate this inchoate,

pullulating

mob of inferior

mixed-bloods and, maintaining

it

by social

and

legal repression

within the norms

of

Aryan morality, slowly

assimi-

late it to the mentality of the white

race.42

A

third conclusion was that

Afro-Brazilians,essentially inferior, would

forcibly

diminish

to extinction

in the

inevitable conflicts with

superior

groups

of

European

descent or recent

immigrant origin. It was

this

pro-

cess, which Viana felt was occurring at a relatively rapid rate, that would

provide

a racial

basis

suitable

for Brazil's

emergence

as a

competitive

nation-state.

The

alternative

was

sobering: citing Lapouge

in reference

to

the

colonial roots

of Brazil's

miscegenation

and

European

racial

hegemony,

Viana noted:

Any

variation

in

the

quality

of these

component

elements-the

pre-

domination of

such and such a

race,

of

such and such a social

type-

could have

seriously

altered

our

destiny.

From

the

predomination

of

the

Negro

and

of

the

mixed-blood

in

the

ruling

class of Haiti

derives

its present disorder.43

42.

Populaq6es

meridionais,

121-22.

See

also chaps. 4-6, 10-12;

and

Evolugdo

do

povo,

pt. 2, chaps. 13-16.

43.

Populaq6es

meridionais,

120-21. This process of "whitening"

was the burden

of


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16

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A

fourth point to be made

was that the

historical incapacity of the

nation's majority and the vast size of the country predisposed Brazil to

an

authoritarian, centralized political

solution imposed by an enlightened,

patriotic

elite.

This

elite

authoritarianism,

this statism

alone had created

and

preserved the nation

in

the

past

and still

embodied the best resolution

of Brazil's dilemma for the

present

and the near

future.

Indeed,

Brazil

had no

alternative-the state had made the nation; the

state alone could

preserve

it.

The vast perspective of our

national public powers was

not formed ...

by

the slow and profound

action

of

historical agents, which imposed

their creation and enduring quality as the basic condition of collective

survival. It was

organized

as

such,

on the

contrary, only as the result

of

a

grand ideal-the

ideal of a small

minority of great men.

. . .

The

great syncretizing movement

. . .

developed

in

our people .

. .

the

consciousness of

the

omnipotence of State

power....

That

great move-

ment, however, did not lay

foundations, it

has

not had the

time-given

the

deficiency among us of factors of collective

integration-morally to

found in the

people

the

perfect and clear consciousness of its national

unity and

the

prophetic sentiment of a

high historical destiny. ...

That

. . .

will

only

be

realized

by

the

slow and continuous action of the

State-a sovereign, incomparable, centralized, unitary State capable

of

imposing

itself over

all

of the

country by

the

fascinating prestige

of

a

great

national mission.4

Race, the

Monarchy,

and

the

Nation's History

These four

conclusions

profit

from

explication.

Viana

argued

that the his-

torical elite credited with successes in

colonial

pioneering

and

planting

were

racially superior, "Aryan"

ypes.

Such

men, along

with

other Euro-

pean strains, had laid the nation'sfoundations;their descendants, eugeni-

cally

selected and tested

generation by generation,

continually appeared

in the

nation's

elite.45

Those

who mixed

racially

generally

reverted to the

inferior racial

type, although

enough European

blood

might

favor an as-

similation toward

European

traits.46

As

his

opponents

liked

to

note,

Viana

chap. 6 and of

Evolugiio

do

povo,

pt. 2. On Africanracial nferiority, see

Populaqoes

meridio-

nais, 154-55. The reference to Haiti carriedweight among Viana'scontemporariesbecause

the black republic

was under

U.S. occupation at the time, garrisoned by Marines following

armed intervention

after the violent

overthrow and mob dismemberment of Haiti's

president

in

1915.

The U.S. occupation continued until

1934.

44.

Ibid.,

315.

45. Ibid.,

103-10. See also

"O

eugenismo paulista," Correio

Paulistano (Sdo

Paulo),

Mar.5, 1927; and

Evolugdo

do

povo,

126-35.

46.

Populaqoes

meridionais,

115-22.


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HISTORY, RACE, AND STATE IN OLIVEIRA VIANA

17

himself

(like

Nina

Rodrigues) was perceived to

be

mulatto.

If

this

is

so,

he

must have explained his

own position to himself in that fashion.47

Viana's prediction of a

relatively rapid "whitening"stemmed from his

study of census data and

prevalent notions of miscegenation

and genetic

degeneration. The census material demonstrated a progressive

"whiten-

ing," which Viana took as confirmationof the accepted idea that mulattoes'

reproduction was naturally inferior and that blacks, as a

weaker race,

were losing to their naturalsuperiors in the struggle for life that

the era's

Social

Darwinism

assumed.

Viana

predicted

the extinction

or

absorption

of

people

of

African

descent within

a few

generations.48

It was in

this perceived context that Viana understood the

mission, past

and present, of the

European-descent elites. Elitism was not unusual in

the

post-positivist milieu of the

era, especially given

the manifest failure of

Brazilian democracy under

the

Old

Republic.49Elitism, moreover,

found

fertile

ground

in Brazil's

political

traditions,

both those Viana

emphasized

and

those

that

subsequent research

has

verified.

Furthermore,

other critics

of the

Republic attempted to

understand the failures of its ideals

through

analysis

of the national

context,

of

Brazil's

"reality,"by

which

they

meant

its

socioeconomic problems.50What distinguishes Viana's

elitism and

con-

textual analysis is that Viana

appealed

to

history.

He

sought grounds

for

his political criticism not

only

in the

contemporary realities

behind the

47.

I

have never encountered a statement by Viana regarding his

own racial identity.

Viana was identified as

mestizo

(in the sense of mixed African and European descent) by

Gilberto Freyre in Sobrados e mucambos: decadencia do patriarchado rural no Brasil

(Sdo

Paulo: Nacional, 1936), 372; and described as

um

mulato

r6seo

by

Jos6

Hon6rio Rodrigues,

who knew him as a youth, in Hist6ria da hist6ria, v. 2., t. 2, p. 1

and passim. See also

Holanda, "Cultura e politica,"

12;

and Nelson Werneck Sodr6,

A

ideologia

do colonialismo

(Rio de Janeiro:

Civilizagdo

Brasileira, 1965), 195-96.

I

suspect that many

Americans might

find that Viana's photographs suggest nothing particularly African. The

whole issue

raises

interesting questions about Braziliansensitivities to the appearance and importance of African

descent.

48.

Populaqbes

meridionais,

115-16,

119;

Evolugdo

do povo, 170-71,

176-go.

See also

Viana'scomments on the methodological problenuitica of the census in

"Raga

e pesquizas es-

tatisticas," Correio Paulistano, Sept. 25, 1926. On "whitening,"Viana, and

Social Darwinism,

cf.

Skidmore, Politics in Brazil,

51-52,

64-69,

199-203. On the issue

of

degeneration,

see

Dain Borges, "'Puffy, Ugly, Slothful,

and Inert':

Degeneration

in Brazilian Social

Thought,

188o-1940,"

Journal

of

Latin American Studies

25:2 (1993), 235-56.

49.

On

this post-positivist milieu,

see

general

remarksof Nicolau

Sevcenko,

A

literature

como

missao (Sao

Paulo:

Brasiliense, 1983), 148-49;

and

Nachman,

"Positivism,

Moderniza-

tion,

and

the Middle Class."

Viana's

frequent

citation of

Vilfredo

Pareto is also notable.

50.

See the celebrated

essay by

Gilberto

Amado,

"As

instituig6es

politicas

e

o

meio

social no Brasil,"and the other essays collected in A margemda hist6ria da repuiblica,comp.

Vicente

Licinio

Cardoso (1924; 2d ed., Brasilia:Univ. of Brasilia, 1981); as well as Amado's

memoir, Minhaformacao no Recife (Rio de Janeiro:Jos6 Olympio, 1955),

118-28;

and Silvio

Romero's "Discurso de

recepgco

[do Euclides da Cunha],"Revista da Academia

Brasileira

de Letras

2

(1911), 469

and

passim.

Cf. Cruz

Costa, History of

Ideas in

Brazil, 261-71.


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facade of political institutions but

in the

past

realities

of the

country. More-

over, he claimed that this, the only usefulway to understand

contemporary

predicaments, also pointed to contemporary solutions. It is indicative that

Viana emphasized the primacy of history on the first page of his first book,

in explaining his choice of field.

I undertook ... a work, aridat times, at times full of

ineffable enchant-

ment: to investigate in the dust of our past the seeds of

our present

ideas,

the

first

dawn of

our national psyche. The past lives

in

us, latent,

obscure,

in the cells

of our subconscious. It is it which directs us

still

today

with its

invisible,

but inevitable and fatal

influence.5'

The great weight of Viana's social analysis of race in Brazilian history

was balanced by his political analysis of the state's historical

role and the

associated

issue

of the failure of liberalism. For Viana, the racial weakness

of the Brazilian

people required

the

strong hand of

an

enlightened,

self-

less elite. Brutish, lacking the capacity for political

participation, socially

and economically dependent, naturallypredisposed to follow their

patrno,

Brazilians

had

neither the

genetic capability nor

the

historical

tradition

necessary for liberal democracy. The latter depended on superior racial

stock, enlightened public opinion, a tradition of local political

participa-

tion; in sum, the heritage organically created in the specific historical

contexts of

England

and

the

United States.52

Brazil's tradition had

been

rural

patriarchy

and racial

hierarchy, barely

soldered

together across

the vast

half-continentby

the

colonial

government

of the

Portuguese

crown.

Indeed,

for

Viana,

the

great political

solution

to

the

perennial dilemma of social chaos and national dismemberment lay

with the

crown-specifically, Brazil's nineteenth-century monarchy. The

Republic, through

the

devolution

of

power to the state oligarchies and

the

broadcast

fantasy

of

liberal

democracy,

continued to risk a hard-won

social order and national unity. This crisis, palpable by the

1920S,

was a

result of

the

elites' bewitchment

with

ideologies born of others'

historical

experiences;

it

could only be resolved by seeking Brazilian solutions

de-

rived

organically

from Brazilian

political experience.

In

the

preface

to

his

most

focused attack on elite

liberalism,

Viana

put

it this

way:

Of the

democratic constructions

raised on our soil

.

.

.

none

really

succeeded

in

surviving

in

their

original

form: all were

condemned

to

51. PopulaQbes

meridionais,

i.

Note that both

this and Viana'ssecond major

monograph,

Evolugdo do povo, are conceived in terms of historical, positivist analysis: both move from

social

and racial to

political

themes

and develop each theme historically;

both culminate

in

the celebration of the state.

52.

Populaqoes

meridionais, chaps. 6, 7, 9, 11,

12-17; cf. "O papel

dos

governos

fortes

no regime

presidential," in Pequenos

estudos; Problemas

da politica objective,

chaps. 4-6;

or, finally,

"Opiniaoe governo,"

in

0

idealism da

constituigdo.


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HISTORY,

RACE, AND STATE IN OLIVEIRA VIANA

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failure. One

searches, however, for

the

cause

of

this

failure-and

one

sees

that it

is

exactly

in

that none of these

constructions was

built on

foundations rising out of the soil of our living reality-of our social

reality-of our national reality.

This national reality teaches us

much. Among the matters

taught is

this:

that,

yesterday as today, the problem of democracy in

Brazil has

been

poorly stated,

and this

because it has been stated

in

the

English

manner, the French manner, the

American manner; but never in the

Brazilian manner.53

In

Viana's

view, the monarchy had successfully suppressed

the threat

to unity posed

by selfish local elite interests while creating and

maintaining

the social order. Viana made his argument best, perhaps, in a discussion in

which he

identified the monarchy

in

Brazilian history with the institution

of

the state itself, and defined the

state/monarchy's role.

Because of the absence, in the

history of our national

formation,

of

effective

agents

of

social integration

and

political integration at the mo-

ment of

independence,

the

principalproblem of

our

organization

is

...

on

the

one side-a

problem of

authority

and

discipline;

on

the

other-

a

problem of concentration and unity.

A

problem, as one sees, of the

building and the frameworkof the

nation: one treats of giving our nat

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