ABSTRACT
The mode of production resulting from the conquest – colonial slavery – cannot be considered a synthesis of the preexisting modes of production in Portugal and Brazil. In South America, and more precisely in Brazil, a new mode of production was created, which, when recognized in its profound implications, corroborates modern lines of research and of systematic generalization of historical materialism. The first problem encountered by scholars of colonial slavery is undoubtedly the confrontation between the Portuguese, who arrived in the territory that is today known as Brazil in the sixteenth century, and the indigenous tribes that had inhabited that same territory since time immemorial. The conclusion is therefore that, in the case of Brazil, the colonial slave mode of production cannot be explained as a synthesis of preexisting modes of production. On the contrary, colonial slavery emerged and developed in the context of a socioeconomic determinism rigorously defined in time and space.
