Paper short abstract:

Throughout the eighteenth century significant changes were introduced in the discourses of the pardos in the Portuguese America. In their petitions, they introduced new concepts, which tried to circumvent the color prejudice and to require its assimilation those which are born without blemish.

Paper long abstract:

Throughout the eighteenth century significant changes were operated in the discourses of the men called pardos about their hierarchical position in the Portuguese America. Through petitions that requested letters patent, remuneration for services rendered, honors, and privileges, the pardos introduced new concepts in the field of discourse, which tried to circumvent the color prejudice and to require their assimilation those which are born honored and without blemish. Part of these new categories was the result of transformations operated in the Atlantic world during the eighteenth century. However, the laws issued by Marquis of Pombal after 1760 were more decisive to create that discursive field. This communication, therefore, proposes that such petitions reflected, on the one hand, a significant change in the use of certain categories by the pardos as a result of those laws and, on the other hand, that this change was not political, but only aspired the possibility to change their position of the outsiders to the established under the Old Regime.