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  3. For years scholars have contrasted slavery in the United States and in Brazil, stimulated by the fact that racial patterns assum

For years scholars have contrasted slavery in the United States and in Brazil, stimulated by the fact that racial patterns assum

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问题     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(a situation that is fluid is likely to change)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(whole cloth: pure fabrication usually used in the phrase 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 a new field for exploitative or developmental activity. Countries seem, 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.
The author mentions intermarriage, manumission, and the shortage of skilled workers in Brazil primarily in order to establish which of the following?
选项 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.
答案C
解析 细节推断题。根据题干关键词intermarriage，manumission，the shortage of skilled workers定位到原文中的第二段第五、六、七句，这里分别提到混血种族在美国是少数，而在巴西是多数；解放时间早；技术工人短缺提供了前提条件。作者提到这个因素是为了证明一个结论，这个结论在原文第二段尾句，关键词就是consequence，原文尾句中的Brazil，a large class of，mixed race均与选项C重现。故答案为C。
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