Raça, etnia e colonialismo português na obra de Gilberto Freyre

This paper analyzes Gilberto Freyre’s intellectual and political alignment with Portugal and its colonial wars as a means of understanding his emphasis on ethnicity as a means of interpreting race relations. The article follows Freyre’s trajectory beginning with the publication of O mundo que o português criou, in 1940, through his visit of Portugal’s colonies in 1951 and his subsequent publications and newspaper columns defending Portuguese colonialism. What emerges is a picture of Freyre’s hostility to black political and cultural organization and to currents of scholarship on race, as these become increasingly incompatible with the mythology of Portuguese racial harmony.