Gilberto de Mello Freyre, Freyre also spelled Freire (born March 15, 1900, Recife, Braz.—died July 18, 1987, Recife), sociologist, considered the 20th-century pioneer in the sociology of the Brazilian northeast.
Freyre received a B.A. from Baylor University, Waco, Tex., and his M.A. from Columbia University in 1923. In 1926 he organized the first northeastern regionalist congress in Recife and published the “Regionalist Manifesto.” He was joined in this endeavour by the northeast writers Jorge de Lima, José Américo de Almeida, José Lins do Rego, and Luís Jardim, among others.
Most of Freyre’s numerous sociological essays are concerned with the socioeconomic development of the northeastern region of Brazil and the attempt to relate this pattern constructively to the Portuguese-speaking African nations. Freyre’s basic premise is that, by reason of its wide Afro-European cultural experience prior to the discovery of Brazil, the Portuguese nationality was uniquely endowed to work out in the New World a successful multicultural and multiracial society that could be imitated to advantage elsewhere.
Among Freyre’s numerous published works in Portuguese and English, the best-known is Casa-grande e senzala (1933; “The Big House and the Slave Quarters”; Eng. trans. The Masters and the Slaves), an account of the relationship between Brazil’s Portuguese colonizers and their African slaves. His other works include Sobrados e mucambos (1936; “The Rich and the Servants”; Eng. trans. The Mansions and the Shanties), Brazil: An Interpretation (1945; rev. and enlarged as New World in the Tropics, 1980), Nordeste (1937; “The Northeast”), and Ordem e progresso (1959; Order and Progress). Sobrados e mucambos traces the processes of urbanization and the decline of the rural patriarchal society in Brazil.
Freyre organized several university departments of sociology in Brazil and was the prime mover in the first Congress of Afro-Brazilian Studies in 1934. In 1949 he represented Brazil in the UN General Assembly.