Passage 75 (12/22)

Passage 75 (12/22)

For years scholars have contrasted slavery in the United States and in Brazil, stimulated by the fact that racial patterns assumed such different aspects in the two countries after emancipation. Brazil never developed a system of rigid segregation of the sort that replaced slavery in the United States, and its racial system was fluid because its definition of race was based as much on characteristics such as economic status as on skin color. Until recently, the most persuasive explanation for these differences was that Portuguese institutions especially the Roman Catholic church and Roman civil law , promoted recognition of the slave’s humanity. The English colonists, on the other hand, constructed their system of slavery out of whole cloth . There were simply no precedents in English common law, and separation of church and state barred Protestant clergy from the role that priests assumed in Brazil.

But the assumption that institutions alone could so powerfully affect the history of two raw and malleable frontier  countries seems, on reexamination, untenable. Recent studies focus instead on a particular set of contrasting economic circumstances and demographic profiles at significant periods in the histories of the two countries. Persons of mixed race quickly appeared in both countries. In the United States they were considered to be Black, a social definition that was feasible because they were in the minority. In Brazil, it was not feasible. Though intermarriage was illegal in both countries, the laws were unenforceable in Brazil since Whites formed a small minority in an overwhelmingly Black population. Manumission for persons of mixed race was also easier in Brazil, particularly in the nineteenth century when in the United States it was hedged about with difficulties. Furthermore, a shortage of skilled workers in Brazil provided persons of mixed race with the opportunity to learn crafts and trades, even before general emancipation, whereas in the United States entry into these occupations was blocked by Whites sufficiently numerous to fill the posts. The consequence was the development in Brazil of a large class of persons of mixed race, proficient in skilled trades and crafts, who stood waiting as a community for freed slaves to join.

There should be no illusion that Brazilian society after emancipation was color-blind. Rather, the large population of persons of mixed race produced a racial system that included a third status, a bridge between the Black caste and the White, which could be traversed by means of economic or intellectual achievement, marriage, or racial heritage. The strict and sharp line between the races so characteristic of the United States in the years immediately after emancipation was simply absent. With the possible exception of New Orleans, no special “place” developed in the United States for persons of mixed race. Sad to say, every pressure of society worked to prevent their attaining anything approximating the economic and social position available to their counterparts in Brazil.

5.     The author mentions intermarriage, manumission, and the shortage of skilled workers in Brazil primarily in order to establish which of the following?

(A) The environment in which Brazil’s racial system developed

(B) The influence of different legal and economic conditions in Brazil and the United States on the life-style of persons of mixed race

(C) The origins of Brazil’s large class of free skilled persons of mixed race

(D) The differences between treatment of slaves in Brazil and in the United States（C）

(E) The difficulties faced by persons of mixed race in the United States, as compared to those in Brazil

请教a\c怎样区别,似乎都有道理。

从原文回应上讲，a不是很精确。c对应的好象好一些，但我对origin回应consequence也有疑问？谁能给我确认一下，非常谢谢。

从句子作用上讲，我更倾向选a，那些例子是对主题的举例说明。或者是我对这种in order to 题干的理解出问题了？？谁能给我确认一下，谢谢非常。

谢谢先。

谢谢robert的解释，我自己也又想了一下。

这种in order to 对我是有难度的。中间举例承上启下，这时候选项的区别更加重要了，没有把握的时候，宁可选和文章长得更像的。至于说到文章主题，in order to 到并不一定和文章主题相联系，个人意见。

再次感谢。