“FORCING THESE RUDE BLACK AFRICANS TO WORK”:

LABOR, RACE, AND CITIZENSHIP IN PORTUGUESE COLONIAL LEGISLATION (1854-1928)

Abstract

Faced with the challenges and uncertainties that have involved the abolition of slavery in the Portuguese Overseas Empire in the 19th Century, there was an intense legal production to regulate the new forms of work exploitation, that would mark profoundly the social relations in the African colonies until the end of colonial domination in 1975. Beyond the discussions on the typology of labor relations, this text seeks, briefly, to analyze the Portuguese legislative production that legitimized many forms of forced labor in colonial territory. Its focus, beyond the legal provisions, is the clashes and political tensions that involved the production of the main colonial work regulations of the 19th and 20th century, that were similar to the impasses of access to the citizenship of the black workers in others post-emancipation societies.