The Brazilian sociologist and Congressman Gilberto Freyre (1900–87) was one of his country’s most influential thinkers, particularly in terms of race, during the first half of the 20th century. Freyre was the leader of a group of writers who endorsed his “Manifesto Regionalista” [see doc. no. 1074787] and his retrospective review 25 years later [doc. no. 1110808].
In 1933 Freyre achieved international recognition for his great work Casa-Grande & Senzala (The Masters and the Slaves), the first in a series of three volumes that included Sobrados e mucambos [The Mansions and the Shanties] (1936) and Ordem e Progresso [Order and Progress] (1957). The trilogy is a study of races and cultures in Brazil since the colonial period and their evolution into a “racial democracy.” Freyre thus ponders the Afro-Brazilian heritage and describes Brazil in terms of its conciliatory nature. This same idea has been addressed by other Latin American writers, such as the Mexican José Vasconcelos in his La raza cósmica [The Cosmic Race] in 1925, and the Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz in Contrapunteo cubano de tabaco y azúcar [Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar] in 1940. Freyre’s version of these narratives introduces the idea of “luso-tropicalismo” [Portuguese tropicalism], a theory which posits miscegenation as a positive force in Brazil’s development. In Freyre’s opinion this is reflected in terms of inter-American relations and the search for unifying categories based on socio-cultural factors. For further information on this subject, see also by Freyre “Interamericanismo” [doc. no. 807911] and “A propósito da política cultural do Brasil na América” [doc. no. 807856].
This text was originally published in French in 1963 as a report on Freyre, the writer from Pernambuco, and his international career. It originally appeared as the introductory essay in a special issue on Latin America published in Diogène magazine (no. 43, Paris, UNESCO, July-September 1963, pp. 3-23). The Portuguese version that was published in Brazil appeared in Estudos Universitários magazine (vol. 6, no. 1, January-March 1966, pp. 5-21). The text included here is a revised version that was published posthumously in 2006.