Through crossing parochial records (baptisms, marriages and deaths) with census data (Listas Nominativas de Habitantes) and a genealogy of a master family, this article aim to deepen traditional historiographical discussions about slave's ritual kinship alliances. The article suggest that slave's compadrio relations in São José dos Pinhais (PR) was a mechanism of maintenance and enlargement of a community of negroes, pardos and white poors. However, in this area where predominated owners with few slaves, compadrio was useful to social protection and also an instrument of master control. These characteristics reinforced the mark of domination-submission, and helped to debilitate the equalitarian character also presupposed by Catholic ritual kinship, thus contributing to reproduction of social hierarchy.
Slavery; Compadrio; Social hierarchy
