“There Is No Information”: Mulatos, Pardos and Black at the University of Coimbra (1700-1771)

Abstract

In the 18th century, the statutes of the University de Coimbra did not include any impediment preventing men of color from becoming students. African descendents – usually pardos and mulatos with mixed racial origins – could and did study there, as is evident in the records of the faculties of Law, Medicine and Theology. Identifying students’ color, however, is not always easy, sometimes impossible. In fact, evidence regarding students’ color often appears for the first time in records of final examinations prior to receiving the degree. Approval in these examinations opened the doors for careers as magistrates, in the case of law students, or for continuing on to other examinations required for approval for the doctoral degree. But for some students, no grades were recorded. Instead, there is an observation next to the student’s name, stating that “there is no information.” When I was able to obtain information on students whose “performance” was described in this way, most were men of color. Reconstructing the academic trajectories of these individual students makes it possible to recognize the arguments used in assessing students of color, and the restrictions imposed on them, which affected their ability to obtain positions in powerful and prestigious institutions. In a larger sense, the stories of individual students reveal the complex subtlety of the signals used in alluding to racial origin, skin color and other physical aspects, which in conjunction with the hierarchies of Portugal’s Antigo Regime, came to weigh more and more heavily in defining social spaces and statutes. This article seeks to contribute to historiographical discussions on that subject.