Abstract
The article addresses the history of citizenship in nineteenth-century Brazil, from the perspective of the status of the African-born freedpersons, who were excluded from Brazilian citizenship after having been considered Portuguese subjects during the colonial period. The Brazilian constitution of 1824 recognized only Brazilian-born freedpersons as citizens. Brazil was not the only country in the Atlantic to attribute limited rights to freedpersons, nor to disciminate against Africans in favor of those born in the territory. It seems, however, to have been the only one to have left African freedpersons on a limbo between the lack of citizenship - they were not Brazilian nationals - and the lack of nationality, implying they were not treated as foreigners, because they did not enjoy protection from the political units where they were born. Through the political debate about the rights of Africans in Brazil, the article highlights the legal workings of this deliberate policy of exclusion, aimed at keeping Africans vulnerable and subject to the whim of government authorities.
Citizenship; Rights; African freedpersons; Atlantic