ABSTRACT
A historian of the role of women must contend with the dearth of data on such fundamentals as the number of female migrants to the colony, or what proportion of the overall population was composed of females. The shortage of white women in the colony placed a premium on the eligible widow. Some white women dodged the responsibility, and were content to delegate the administration of estates or inherited properties to sons or more distant relatives. Women managed estates and properties, involving themselves in the day-to-day workings of gold mines, cattle ranches, and sugar plantations. Nuno Marques Pereira noted that women in Portugal were less tolerant towards their colored domestics than were their Brazilian counterparts, who would go so far as to condone misbehavior or conceal criminal offences committed by a slave girl. European travelers to colonial Brazil commented on the seclusion or the white woman, be she daughter or wife.
