Historians have often noted the contrast between Brazil’s peaceful solution to the problem of slavery and the violent way in which the United States resolved the question. The Brazilians abolished human bondage through parliamentary legislation that was hailed with parades in the streets; in North America abolition required a bloody civil war. Seen in this context, the Brazilian experience appears to be a striking example of self-restraint, moderation, and political compromise.
Concentration upon the peaceful nature of the 1888 settlement, however, can be misleading, for it overlooks the tensions that prevailed during the anti-slavery campaign in Brazil. As in the United States, the years of the antislavery movement in Brazil were years of crisis. A careful examination of Brazilian society in the 1880s reveals not only that abolition was a controversial issue, but that violence and the threat of violence were important ingredients in the successful effort to end slavery. Nowhere in Brazil was this turmoil more significant than in the province of São Paulo.
Until the last phase of the antislavery campaign the planters of São Paulo stood opposed to abolitionism along with their counterparts in Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. These fazendeiros of the “King Coffee” provinces, who possessed more than two-thirds of the slaves in Brazil, formed a bastion of reaction in the debates over slavery. During the 1880s São Paulo surpassed all other provinces in coffee production, and this dynamic economy placed its leaders in a strategic political position. If their resistance could be broken, abolitionism would win a crucial victory. Angered by the unyielding attitude of the São Paulo politicians, abolitionists singled out the province as the key post in the slaveholders’ perimeter of defense. As late as 1883, the Rio News reported that “in São Paulo, there is not only no enthusiasm, but there seems to be decided opposition to emancipation,” and José do Patrocínio called São Paulo “the strong fortress of heinous slavism.”1
Despite the conservatism of these planters in the face of the emancipation question, the rapid economic progress of the 1880s provided a favorable environment for abolitionist thought. Booming coffee export markets spurred the development of railroads and other business enterprises. New urban centers rose, and immigrants began to pour into the province. Capitalist development in São Paulo brought new attitudes that were antithetical to slavery. Labor became valued for its worth as a commodity rather than as a basis for social prestige. As the Paulistas calculated the profitability of slavery, they began to extol the economic merits of free labor over a slave labor system.2 Even before the 1880s a large segment of the population no longer regarded slavery as a worthwhile institution. Antislavery opinion became especially strong in the cities, where liberal ideas found more acceptance. Most of the abolitionists conducted their campaigns from the urban centers, and many fugitive slaves found asylum there through the aid of sympathetic public authorities and citizens.
The abolitionists were not the only group that helped the slaves to freedom. Sometimes the immigrants incited the spirit of liberty. The presence of these numerous free laborers in São Paulo, working side by side with the bondsmen, did much to undermine slavery. Also important were the free Negroes who empathized with their brothers in bondage, and often they escorted their own relatives to freedom. These freedmen, who had grown in number significantly in São Paulo, constituted a troublesome threat to the fazendeiros.3
A more subtle factor undermining the slaveholders’ regime was the diversity of the slave population. The great expansion of the São Paulo coffee culture was a phenomenon of the nineteenth century, so that the large majority of the slaves cultivating the land in that province had been brought there within the last sixty years before abolition. Many slaves were natives of Africa who had been transported to Brazil between the time of the promulgation of the law against the slave traffic (1831) and the period when this law became effectively enforced (after 1850). The number of slaves illegally transported from Africa rose significantly between 1845 and 1850, and this illicit traffic claimed mostly young victims; therefore, many of these slaves were still alive and working as bondsmen during the crisis of the 1880s. As the fastest growing region in Brazil in the second half of the nineteenth century, São Paulo received many of these newly imported slaves. Consequently, a large segment of the population of São Paulo in the 1880s consisted of first generation Africans or their children.4
Also a large segment of the São Paulo slave population during the 1880s had been recently transferred from the Northern provinces of Brazil. After the close of the African traffic in the 1850s Paulista planters began to purchase slaves from the North to meet their growing labor requirements. Since the slaves were no longer needed for the depressed sugar economy of the Northeast, the interprovincial traffic became extensive until legislation halted it after 1880.
As a result of the slave traffic from Africa and from Northeastern Brazil, the slave population of São Paulo contained many uprooted people, whose ties to the plantations were more tenuous than those of slaves born and raised on the same fazenda. As early as 1880 Joaquim Nabuco warned that São Paulo was “endangering its development by receiving in its bosom those elements of disorder and turmoil.”5 When extensive disorders finally broke out there, the uprooted slaves were among the first to leave the fazendas.
The upheaval that rocked the São Paulo plantation society in the last years of slavery was provoked to a large extent by the radicalization of abolitionist tactics. Frustrated by political setbacks, many antislavery leaders called for a more daring approach through direct appeals to the slaves on the plantations. Their greatest disillusionment came from the passage of the Saraiva-Cotegipe Law of 1885. The outcome of more than a year of intense political debates, this legislation left many abolitionists bitterly skeptical about parliamentary solutions. Spokesmen for the slave proprietors had succeeded so well in changing the original project of emancipationist Manoel Pinto de Souza Dantas that in its final form the law was more satisfactory to them than to the abolitionists. A complete analysis is beyond the scope of this paper, but it is important to note here that the legislation included a noxious provision establishing a fine of 500 to 1000 milreis for anyone found guilty of luring away or sheltering slaves.6
Joaquim Nabuco later conjectured that the defenders of slavery would have better served their interests by accepting the Dantas plan, because their rejection of it made the abolitionists turn to the strategy of immediatism.7 Actually, the Saraiva-Cotegipe Law served only to crystallize radical abolitionist attitudes that had been developing in earlier years. Their language now became more threatening. The Gazeta da Tarde warned: “Remember that our century has sometimes demonstrated that the power is not with the legislature, nor the ministers, but with the people, who once in a while impress upon their pseudo-masters that slavery only persists while the slaves tolerate it.”8 L. Anselmo Fonseca of Bahia suggested that the slaves stage a “revolt of inertia.” He also urged the bondsmen to flee from the fazendas and declared that such behavior was in accord with the principles of the Church and the teachings of Jesus.9 Abolitionist Raúl Pompea even countenanced revolt, arguing that insurrection was consistent with human nature.10
As the abolitionists switched to more radical tactics, they also lost faith in the effectiveness of emancipation funds and prepared to take emancipation into their own hands by whisking the slaves away from their masters.11 The underground movement became most effective in São Paulo, where the radical Antônio Bento was its principal leader. By coordinating the efforts of assistants called caifazes, Bento systematized its operations.12 Affecting a long black cape and a tall black hat, Bento had a bizarre personality—religious, intense, and given to expressions of extreme indignation. Although many of his associates admired him very much, they considered him severe and cold. Bento developed the best organized underground movement in Brazil; his newspaper bitterly attacked the slaveholders as parasites and privileged aristocrats; and he himself arranged a large public display of instruments used to torture slaves in order to prove the violence of the institution. Naturally the slavocrats hated him; an abortive attempt was made on his life, and one of his caifazes was killed.13
Other abolitionists imitated Bento’s tactics. Usually working at night, they carried their appeals directly to the fazendas; sometimes they gave antislavery literature to the slaves who could read. Once, when a São Paulo planter visited his slaves who should have been at work, he found them surrounding one of their comrades who was reading aloud a speech of Senator Dantas.14 Usually in addition to distributing propaganda, the nocturnal agents counseled flight from the fazendas, and sometimes they even supplied arms to the slaves.15
The work of the abolitionists was only one aspect, however, of the dramatic developments that brought about the breakdown of slavery in São Paulo. The slaves too played an important role, for they took the initiative to flee from their masters—frequently with little or no help from abolitionists—and thus they registered their own protest against the servile institution. São Paulo had experienced slave escapes throughout the nineteenth century, but most of these incidents had only involved the efforts of individual bondsmen. Occasionally, a group of slaves would attempt to flee together, but if caught they would be paraded through the streets, whipped, or locked in irons, and the leaders of the conspiracy would face severe punishment as an example to others.16 For a long time the probability of capture and the penalty for escape remained effective deterrents against collective efforts.
In 1887 and 1888, however, the problem of mass exodus from the plantations reached crisis proportions in São Paulo. As abolitionism spread across the province, the cities became hotbeds of antislavery agitation and sanctuaries for runaway slaves, and the slave proprietors began to lose control of the situation. They could no longer keep the abolitionist “trouble-makers” off the plantations or silence the propaganda campaign. Large groups began to leave the fazendas in search of freedom. As the newspaper O Paíz put it, conditions were getting to the point that the slave who did not flee was the one who loved his master more than himself.17
Many of the escapees found employment on other plantations. In previous years planters had preferred to work with slaves, but now they were suffering from manpower deficiency at a time when the coffee economy was rapidly expanding. When abolitionist organizations offered them fugitives, they were happy to accept. It was estimated that by the time of abolition one-third of the São Paulo fazendas included fugitives among their workers.18
Many slaves fled to the cities. The runaway bondsmen especially viewed the coastal city of Santos as a promised land, because it seemed beyond the reach of the slave-chasers, and its thriving coffee export business presented numerous employment opportunities. As late as 1886 slave proprietors still had sufficient influence in the city to arrange for the return of fugitives to the fazendas.19 Under the pressure of the intensified abolitionist movement, however, resistance collapsed in Santos in 1887, and the fugitives poured in. A new shanty town rose on the hills around the city—the quilombo (community of runaway slaves) of Jabaquara, and by the end of the year more than 10,000 people had settled there under the leadership of the Negro chief, Quintino Lacerda.20
Many fugitives used the São Paulo railroad to get to Santos. Aided by abolitionist leaders and sympathetic railroad conductors, they were able to arrive at their destination with little difficulty. Abolitionists met the fugitives at the terminal and directed them to safety. As abolitionists often accosted all people of color who departed from the trains, assuming they were runaway slaves, occasionally they made embarrassing mistakes. Sometimes confused Negro freedmen were spirited away against their will.
The journey to Santos was not as easy for other fugitives. Sometimes the slaves had to leave the fazendas hastily without adequate preparation. Many were dressed only in light clothing or old rags; some were almost nude.21 Their scanty food supplies dwindling, they spent many days walking along the road with their women and children. According to a story in O Paíz, a pursued band of desperately hungry and tired fugitives hurled two children into a river because they had to be carried and were slowing down the caravan.22
Violence resulted as local authorities sent out special police forces to capture the fugitives. When such a group surprised a camp of twenty-two runaway slaves in São Paulo, five of the escapees were shot to death.23 But many fugitives possessed firearms and were prepared for encounters with their pursuers. For example, when a planter found two of his runaways hiding in a wagon at a São Paulo railroad station, he drew his revolver and ordered them to return to their quarters. But the slaves also produced revolvers and refused to go.24 The sight of so many aroused fugitives in possession of weapons alarmed even some of the abolitionists, who sent emissaries to pacify the armed escapees and direct them on their way without bloodshed.25
A major clash between armed fugitives and slave-hunters occurred in October 1887. One of Antonio Bento’s caifazes, a freedman named Pio, was leading a group of 150 runaway slaves toward Santos when he encountered a small police force near Itú.26 As the police were greatly outnumbered, and they saw that the slaves had about 40 firearms, they decided not to attempt capture. But after some confusion and shouts of “Liberty or Death!” an exchange of gunfire occurred which left one policeman dead and several from both sides wounded. Another confrontation the next day caused more bloodshed, as the fugitives badly mauled a contingent of 20 policemen. The people of Itú were so much alarmed by these clashes that the provincial government had to send a special guarded train to reestablish confidence.
Finally, a force of 40 police cavalrymen found the slave band and asked them not to go any further, indicating that a large group of thugs hired by the slaveholders were hiding in the hills ahead. A police officer sympathetic to the slaves urged Pio to turn back, but fearing deception, the freedman viciously struck down the officer and ordered his followers to continue the march. Other policemen then killed the Negro leader, but the defiant slaves moved on toward Santos, only to be cut to pieces by the ambush.27
About 40 of the original group escaped, and only half of these finally walked into Santos, where the nervous population received them cautiously. As one telegram from the city reported: “The attitude of the fugitive slaves has caused great sensation here by the presumption of an imminent massacre.”28 The explosion near Itú was followed by several other confrontations along the highways and in the quilombos, incidents involving the death of both slaves and slavehunters. Since the escapes were increasing, the prospects for more violence were ominous.29
Also disturbing to the free citizens was the rapid increase of slave insurrections in São Paulo. Actually these violent revolts had shown a dangerous increase as early as 1882, when the effects of the rising abolitionist agitation were first felt on the fazendas. At that time, the government of São Paulo took special measures to improve the effectiveness of its provincial police.30 At first the insurrections were isolated, but some feared that the conflict might expand and become a racial slaughter similar to the cataclysm of Santo Domingo. The Rio News warned: “The great danger lies more in the possibility that some slave or freedman of exceptional ability and strength of character may take the cause in hand and stir his race into general revolt.”31
The pace of revolts accelerated in São Paulo in 1887, and in some regions the uprisings involved large numbers of slaves from neighboring fazendas. From Capivary, Campinas, Amparo, Itú, Indaiatuba, Piracicaba, and other sections, reports poured in of armed uprisings.32 The most rebellious slaves attempted to assassinate the authorities on the fazendas. They usually made overseers their first victims, as these were the persons most immediately responsible for directing and disciplining the slaves. Reports of assassinated overseers multiplied in 1887 and 1888.33 In some cases the rebels tried to murder their masters. For example, slaves on the fazenda of the Baron of Serra Negra detailed a plan to revolt, kill their master, and flee en masse, but when they carried out the conspiracy, some loyal slaves defended the Baron and saved his life. Some other masters were not so fortunate.34
Christiano Ottoni had recognized the serious implications of such violent developments as early as 1884:35
What we are witnessing now has never been seen before. The few crimes of this kind, committed at long intervals, did not represent the serious characteristics which distinguish these crimes now. But besides being less frequent formerly than now, they did not offer the symptoms which we now observe. The criminal fled, or he denied the fact, or he tried to escape the penalty of the law; now, however, he murders, and he goes immediately to the authorities and delivers himself up, saying: we have committed a murder; we want to be punished. It is this which increases the gravity of the situation.
By 1887 these conditions had become even more manifest.
Frustrated by their difficulty in preventing the spread of anarchy on the fazendas, some slave proprietors decided upon radical action. In October 1887 two hundred armed residents of Frade invaded a fazenda that had been the scene of a recent insurrection. The enraged citizens were determined to kill all the slaves, but when they arrived, they found the fazenda completely abandoned.36
The reaction of the slaveholders led to a tragic incident in Rio do Peixe. A police delegate of the municipality who sympathized with the antislavery movement was sheltering fugitives in his home. In February 1888, when many fazendas in the region were being abandoned, the angry slave proprietors decided to take action. They were led by two naturalized Brazilians, immigrants from the United States who had fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. The two incited the planters by telling them that they had “cockroach blood,” and that under such circumstances a revolution would have occurred in any other country. After the harangue a party of 140 planters broke into the delegate’s house and murdered him despite the pleas of his wife. The government of São Paulo pressed charges against those responsible for the crime, but the authorities became embarrassed when they learned that many prominent persons were among the accused. Of the twenty individuals indicted for murder all were eventually acquitted.37
In desperate efforts to impede the increasing escapes, planters tried a variety of methods, some of them resulting in comic situations. One fazendeiro in Campinas brought a lawyer to his plantation to speak to the slaves and convince them not to flee. Within a short time his fazenda was almost completely abandoned.38 Another planter tried to discourage escape by forcing his male slaves to dress like women and the female slaves like men.39
As the slave proprietors learned that they could not resist alone, they became more dependent on the public forces. At first they relied upon the capitães-do-mato, the hired slave-catchers. Since the capitães-do-mato had usually been successful in their hunts, they were paid well, but in the late 1880s their work became more difficult.40 Their activities were no longer condoned by the free masses, and especially in the cities the public became determined to hinder their work. Also, by now the problem was too big for them to handle alone ; the mass migrations from the fazendas required the assistance of larger police forces.
Realizing the potential danger as early as 1881, members of the Agriculture Club of Campinas appealed for more public forces.41 Both local and provincial police were increased in the next few years, but this was not sufficient to meet the crisis. When the flights reached flood stage in 1887, the provincial forces of São Paulo included only 530 permanent police corpsmen and 240 urban police—a force which the president of the province considered grossly inadequate for the needs.42
As the majority of the population of São Paulo now abhorred the idea of slave-capturing, the police forces sent to hunt fugitives became the object of public wrath.43 Large groups of people gathered in public places in the cities to prevent the return of fugitive slaves. For example, when a police chief arrived in Santos in 1887 to escort four fugitives back to their masters, he was rudely surprised by a crowd of angry citizens, who assaulted his force of forty policemen with clubs and stones. Finally the police chief and his contingent scurried off without the slaves.44 Many other encounters occurred between the public and the slave-chasers, clashes in which the police were jeered and stoned.45 During a day of violence in Campinas involving exchange of gunfire between citizens and police, several people were wounded, including the president of the municipal legislature. Also, much damage was done to the jailhouse and the city lights.46
In October 1887 many of the finest families in São Paulo became witnesses to the violence. The trouble began when a traditional festival at the church of São Francisco was interrupted by a large group of Negro freedmen. When one of the freedmen was arrested, a brawl broke out between the Negroes and the police, and quickly the scene of the festival became a battlefield. The Negroes, many of whom possessed firearms, were finally dispersed when a special infantry force arrived. The next day the Negroes returned while a police corps music festival was being held in the garden of the government palace. Many of the most influential people of Paulista society were present for the occasion. Suddenly, amid shouts of “Liberty or Death!” and “Death to the Slavocrats!” the Negroes surged upon the police. Panic reigned among the families in the palace garden until another special force of infantrymen arrived to repel the attackers. The tumult in the capital city deeply impressed the citizens of São Paulo with the explosiveness of the slavery question.47
More and more the crowds asserted their power against the police. Particularly bold were the large groups of free Negroes who converged upon the policemen to prevent them from reenslaving fugitives.48 In the early months of 1888 slave-catchers were forced to parade through the streets with horns and kerosene cans on their heads.49
As the inadequacy of the police efforts became more glaring each day, slave proprietors began to appeal to the army for assistance. Newspapers sympathetic to the planters cried out against the lack of military involvement in the crisis. Articles and letters appearing in the Liberal Paulistano and Novidades criticized the government for crossing its arms in the face of difficulty.50 Slavocrat politicians voiced their discontent too. While the Baron of Cotegipe grumbled about the government’s difficulty in finding authorities who would face the danger, Andrade Figueira demanded that the army be given the duties of the capitão-do-mato.51
Joaquim Nabuco strongly opposed Figueira’s proposal, charging that the use of soldiers to chase slaves would dishonor their occupation. “Is there a higher profession than the profession of soldier?” asked Nabuco. “Is there a lower and more degraded profession than that of capitão do mato?”52 Nabuco had long been the principal spokesman for the legal, political approach to abolitionism, but now he accepted the radical consequences of the mass flights from the fazendas. Nabuco justified the actions of the abolitionists who encouraged the escapes by reasoning that “in the absence of law and justice it [flight] has been the only Providence of the slave in our country.” In 1887 he appealed to the government not to send the army as “bloodhounds” against the runaway slaves.53
Many members of the military corps expressed sympathy for the abolitionist movement. Some of the interest originated from Brazil’s participation in the war against Paraguay (1866-1870). About 20,000 Negro slaves were given their freedom for fighting in the war, and the experience of working with the bondsmen left many military leaders impressed with their cause. By the 1880s there were large numbers of Negroes and mulattoes in the lower ranks of the army who opposed slavery.54 In the higher echelons were many officers from the urban, antislavery groups who wanted to modernize the military, and they easily associated themselves with the abolitionist goals. Some army leaders even belonged to abolitionist clubs and spoke at antislavery meetings. Especially important at the officer level were the members of the Club Militar. Presided over by Marshal Manuel Deodoro da Fonseca and influenced by the intellectual leadership of the Positivist Benjamin Constant, this organization took a strong antislavery stand.55 In October 1887 the Military Club directed a petition to the Princess Regent requesting in the name of humanity, Christian charity, and civilization that the military not be obligated to chase fugitive slaves.56
Besides the humanitarian sentiments expressed in the petition, there were other motives that prompted the declaration. It was presented at a time of disorders on the plantations, when the question of military involvement was crucial. By speaking out early and clearly on this sensitive issue, the members of the Military Club were protecting their own interests. Since the military was being requested to intervene and stop the escapes, the Military Club sought to clarify its position before being summoned to a task which it felt was not only repugnant but also unpopular and dangerous. Thus the document reflected both humanitarian and practical concerns.
The petition represented the attitude of the Military Club and not necessarily that of the entire officer corps. Many officers who had been drawn from the rural aristocracy skirted the issue of slavery and did nothing for the abolitionist movement. Both before and after the presentation of the petition some military personnel carried out assignments to pursue fugitive slaves. In fact, after the petition was signed and delivered to the military headquarters, it was returned to Deodoro. The general headquarters justified its implicit rejection on the grounds that the Military Club had no legal existence, and that the military laws prohibited collective representations.57
Within a short time, however, the general headquarters adopted the position of the more progressive officers and the Military Club. Two factors explain the nonabolitionist military group’s decision not to pursue fugitive slaves. In the first place, these officers too came to realize that the job of slave-hunting was difficult and dangerous and that pursuing fugitive slaves did not offer the military any clear rewards. Defending an institution condemned and dying would only arouse public wrath against the army and precipitate more violence at a time when upheaval was the most threatening problem of Brazilian society. In the second place, many provincial and imperial authorities were reluctant to request the aid of the army because they feared that the issue might raise a new military question. Already relations were strained between the army officers and the Cotegipe ministry, which controlled the government, because of differences concerning the modernization of the army and navy, the role of the military in national affairs, and several complicated personal disputes. Moreover, embarrassing cases of insubordination developed in the army, as some officers and soldiers refused to obey orders from their superiors to apprehend fugitives. With such quarrels already plaguing government-military relations, the political leaders of the country could ill afford to antagonize further the abolitionist group within the military by demanding that the army pursue fugitive slaves. Consequently the group of army officers who were ambivalent about the slavery question were not strongly pressed to take action, and the abolitionist military leaders had their way. As the upheaval spread, the army refused to assume the role of the capitão-do-mato, a determination that proved a severe blow to the slaveholders’ regime.58
Anxieties increased in proportion to escapes, insurrections, and assassinations. “Brazilian society is passing through a crisis, the consequences of which no one is able to foresee,” reported the Correio Paulistano in October 1887, warning that, “these disturbances of public order cannot help but seriously prejudice commerce and industry and necessarily set back the immigration that flows to the capital city [São Paulo].”59 In many regions entire fazendas were left abandoned. An air of discouragement permeated the fazendeiro society. 60 Andrade Figueira, one of the chief spokesmen for the slaveholding interests, received many letters from frustrated Paulista planters who bemoaned the breakdown of order.61 The Baron of Cotegipe charged that the “propaganda of anarchy” and the subterranean activities of the abolitionists were bringing about the disorganization of labor.62 The troubles in São Paulo had reached crisis proportions; as one politician declared, “there is no confidence in today, or even in tomorrow.”63
During 1887 planters in the other important slave-holding provinces of the Central-South were not plagued by the escapes as much as those of São Paulo. In Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro the rural proprietors, with their great political and social influence, were able to maintain control of the situation until the last months before abolition. For example, Andrade Figueira reported that the planters in Rio de Janeiro succeeded in “suffocating” the movement. Besides the problem of repression, the stagnation of the coffee economy in the Paraíba Valley made it difficult for fugitives to find work in Rio de Janeiro. Also, there were fewer urban centers there than in São Paulo, and most of the cities were tightly controlled by the planters. As a result, the slaves in the province of Rio de Janeiro tried other tactics; for example, in the region of Campos they refused to work.64
By early 1888, however, the mass flights of slaves had begun to spread to the other southern provinces. Recognizing that the army would not take action, that the Cotegipe ministry was weakening, and that the planters’ repressive powers were rapidly diminishing, abolitionists brazenly carried their campaigns to the plantations. As the turbulence spread to the senzalas, and the slaves became aware of the fragility of the fazendeiros’ control, thousands of bondsmen made rapid exit. Large fazendas in the Campos region were left deserted. A quilombo was established on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Estâncias in Rio Grande do Sul were abandoned en masse, and slaves in southern Minas Gerais fled to Ouro Prêto. It seemed that all of Brazilian society might soon be subjected to the upheaval.65
Also present was an underlying fear that the violent collapse of slavery might polarize relations between the races and eventually explode the Negro powder magazine. Already in the cases of slave revolts and assassinations, dangerous confrontations between blacks and whites had materialized. It would be ominous if the Negro should begin to conceive of the situation as a battle between races. The newspaper O Paíz discussed this delicate problem when it reported that “the Army, which does not desire the smashing of the black by the white, would also not allow the black, brutalized by the horrors of slavery, to guarantee his liberty by smashing the white.”66 Extensive mixing between the races had indeed mitigated the race issue in Brazil, but the danger existed that the crisis of the 1880s might generate new tensions.
Abolitionists had long warned that the slave quarters contained the germs of revolution.67 These prophets of doom now seemed correct. Leaders from all political camps began to demand that the government not cross its arms while slavery was ended by revolution. Abolition should be achieved by a pacific solution, they insisted; the matter should not be allowed to pass into the hands of the people in revolt.68
The violent events of 1887 and early 1888 forced the leaders of Brazilian society to reconsider their positions. The progress of emancipation had been slow over the nineteenth century, but in the last year of slavery the number of manumissions increased greatly. Slave proprietors first reacted to the flights of slaves with proposals for conditional emancipation. Under these arrangements, the Negroes were to remain at work for a specified period of time, usually between one and three years, after which they would be declared totally free. The intensification of the problems convinced the planters, however, that delay would no longer be satisfactory, and by 1888 unconditional liberations clearly prevailed over conditional ones.69 Thus the pressures of the situation forced the slave proprietors to become emancipators. As one depressed planter noted, “the fazendeiros liberate their slaves by the law of necessity, and not by the law of humanity.”70
Suddenly, the political leaders who had been, in varying degrees, cautious and defensive about slavery moved over to the emancipationist camp. Among the important Paulista figures who liberated their slaves in the face of the crisis were Antônio Prado, a wealthy and powerful fazendeiro-capitalist, Morreira de Barros, spokesman for the previously intransigent slaveholders of northeastern São Paulo, and Campos Salles, one of the principal leaders of the Republican party. By 1888, all of these individuals turned to advocating immediate abolition.
In May 1888, the institution of slavery was an extremely fragile structure. Speaking in the Chamber of Deputies, Lourenço de Albuquerque observed: “Gentlemen, servile labor is definitely finished. Already slavery does not exist in the Empire; what exists is an apparition of slavery that is hindering the organization of free labor and maintaining a state of excitation that offers serious dangers.”71 In the light of these conditions, the Baron of Cotegipe described the project for the immediate extinction of slavery as “nothing more than the recognition of an already existing fact.”72 Shortly after Parliament passed the abolition law, Antônio Prado said that “if the slavery question had not been advocated by the government, the tranquility that one notices still would not reign.” Prado believed that it was necessary for the two major parties to come to terms on a policy of immediate emancipation; otherwise “abolition would have been realized exclusively by popular revolution.”73
A careful examination of the debates in the House of Deputies and the Senate in May 1888 reveals that the breakdown of order on the fazendas and the concomitant violence were the most significant factors in motivating the leaders to vote for immediate abolition.74 The planters had lost control of the situation and could no longer resist effectively. They feared that further delay of abolition might result in spreading anarchy or even social revolution—consequences which they judged far more dangerous than simple emancipation of the slaves.
Gazeta da Tarde, May 31, 1883, 1; Rio News, February 24, 1883, 2.
See, for example, Octávio Ianni, Raças e classes sociais no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1966), 75-116; Richard Graham, “Causes for the Abolition of Negro Slavery in Brazil: An Interpretive Essay,’’ HAHR, XLVI (May 1966), 123-137.
Florestan Fernandes and Roger Bastide, Relaçoes sociais entre negros e brancos em São Paulo (São Paulo, 1955), 38-54; Cidade do Rio, November 24, 1887, 1.
Antônio Gomes de Azevedo Sampaio, Abolicionismo: Considerações geraes do movimento anti-escravista e sua história limitada a Jacarehy (São Paulo, 1890), 55.
Annaes da Câmara dos Srs. Deputados (São Paulo, 1880) V, 35.
A detailed description of the provisions of the law can be found in the appendix of Maurílio Gouveia, História da escravidão (Rio de Janeiro, 1955). Also see José Maria Vaz Pinto Coelho, Legislação Servil—Lei N. 3270 de 28 de setembro de 1885 (Rio de Janeiro, n.d.).
Gazeta da Tarde, June 7, 1886, 1.
ibid., August 13, 1885, 1.
Luiz Anselmo da Fonseca, A escravidão, o clero e o abolicionismo (Bahia, 1887), 645.
Evaristo de Moraes, A campanha abolicionista (1879-1888) (Rio de Janeiro, 1924), 263-264.
Joaquim Nabuco, Minha formação (São Paulo, 1934), 195; O Paíz, October 18, 1887, 1.
The caifazes represented diverse occupations—merchants, journalists, notaries, farmers, coachmen, and common laborers. Each caifaz had a particular responsibility such as to spread propaganda among the slaves, to direct fugitives to safe locations, or to conceal them in their homes.
A Redempção, January 27, 1887, 1-2. For more information on Bento see: Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico de São Paulo, XIX, 1914, 635-636; São Paulo e a sua evolução: Conferências realisados no Centro Paulista em 1926 (Rio de Janeiro, 1927), 33-35; Antônio Manuel Bueno de Andrada, “Depoimento de uma Testemunha,’’ Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico de São Paulo, XXXVI (1939), 210-225; José Maria dos Santos, Os republicanos paulistas e a abolição (São Paulo, 1942), 179; Afonso Schmidt, A marcha; romance da abolição (São Paulo, 1941), 290; Renée Thiollier, Um grande chefe abolicionista: Antônio Bento (1932).
Rio News, October 15, 1887, 3.
Cidade do Rio, November 24, 1887, 1.
ibid., October 11, 1887, 1; Gazeta da Tarde, October 5, 1882, 1.
O Paíz, October 24, 1887, 1.
Bueno de Andrada, “Depoimento de uma testemunha,” 217.
Gazeta da Tarde, November 22, 1886, 1; November 26, 1886, 1.
Tobias do Rêgo Monteiro, Pesquisas e depoimentos para a história (Rio de Janeiro, 1913), 169; “Quilombolas e Jabaquara,’’ in O Estado de São Paulo, June 24, 1956; Annaes da Câmara (São Paulo, 1888), I, 51-52; Diário de Santos, May 16, 1888, 1.
Cidade do Bio, January 11, 1888, 2.
O Paiz, November 23, 1887, 1.
Rio News, August 24, 1887, 4.
ibid., November 5, 1887, 3.
Cidade do Rio, October 27, 1887.
Among the runaway slaves were the wife and children of the freedman Pio.
Doctors who performed an autopsy on Pio claimed that he had not had anything to eat for three days before his fatal encounter with the police. Many others in the fugitive group were also desperately hungry, having nothing but a few pieces of palmito (palm heart) during the trip.
O Paíz, October 18 to October 22, 1887; Diário de Santos, October 21, 1887 and October 25, 1887; Correio Paulistano, October 27, 1887, 1; Bueno de Andrada, “Depoimento de uma testamunha,” 224; Maria dos Santos, Os republicanos paulistas e a abolição, 265-267; Relatório apresentado—Illm. e Exm. Snr. Dr. Francisco de P. Rodrigues Alves, Presidente da Província de São Paulo pelo Chefe de Polícia Interino o Juiz de Direito Salvador Antônio Muniz Barreto de Aragão (São Paulo, 1887), 6.
Relatório . . . pelo Chefe de Polícia Interino, 19. In November 1887 the people of Itú became especially apprehensive about reports of assault and robbery practiced by wandering bands of fugitive slaves.
Gazeta da Tarde, November 10, 1882, 1; December 29, 1882, 1; Rio News, January 5, 1883, 2.
Rio News, January 5, 1883, 2.
Diário de Santos, October 28, 1887, 2; Relátorio . . . pelo Chefe de Polícia Interino, 9; Correio Paulistano, October 19, 1887, 1.
A Redempção, January 27, 1887, 3; Relatório . . . pelo Chefe de Polícia Interino, 11-12; Gazeta da Tarde, July 29, 1886, 1; Adelino R. Ricciardi, “Parnaíba, o pioneiro da imigração,’’ Revista do Arquivo Municipal de São Paulo, IV, No. 44 (1938), 138.
Relatório apresentado à Assembléa Legislativa Provincial de São Paulo pelo Presidente da Província Exm. Snr. Francisco de Paula Rodrigues Alves no Dia 10 de janeiro de 1888 (São Paulo, 1888), 8; Francisco José de Oliveira Vianna, O occaso do império (São Paulo, 1925), 72.
Rio News, June 24, 1884, 3. Ottoni later argued that the law passed by Parliament in 1886 prohibiting the penalty of whipping did much to undermine the planters’ authority and increase the incidence of escapes and revolts. See C. B. Ottoni, Autobiographia de C. B. Ottoni (Rio de Janeiro, 1908), 342.
O Paíz, October 25, 1887, 1.
Relatório do Chefe de Polícia Interino, Dr. Salvador A. Muniz Barreto de Aragão, 27 de abril, 1888, 8 ; O Paíz, February 15, 1888, 1; March 3, 1888, 1; Rio News, February 24, 1888, 3-4; July 15, 1888.
A Redempção, April 28, 1887, 3.
ibid., July 28, 1887, 3.
Emília Viotti da Costa, Da senzala à Colônia (São Paulo, 1966), 312.
Nícia Vilela Luz, “A administração provincial de São Paulo em face do movimento abolicionista,” Revista de Administração, VIII (December 1948), 95.
Relatório apresentado a Assembléa Legislativa ... 10 de janeiro de 1888, 22-23.
O Paíz, October 21, 1887, 1.
João Dornas Filho, A escravidão no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1939), 186.
O Paíz, January 23, 1888, 1; Relatório . . . pelo Chefe de Polícia Interino, 7.
O Paíz, January 24, 1888, 1.
Relatório . . . pelo Chefe de Polícia Interino, 6; Ricciardi, “Parnaiba, o pioneiro da imigração,” 180-181.
Relatório . . . pelo Chefe de Polícia Interino, 7; Bueno de Andrada, “Depoimento de uma testemunha,” 217-219.
Rio News, March 5, 1888, 3.
Reported in Correio Paulistano, November 11, 1887, 1; Novidades, April 26, 1888, 2-3.
Fuga de escravos em campinas: Discursos pronunciados no Senado pelo Exm. Sr. Barão de Cotegipe (Rio de Janeiro, 1887), 16; Cidade do Rio, October 9, 1887, 2.
Annaes da Câmara (1887), V, 350.
O Paíz. See the issues of October 18, 19, 21, and 23, 1887.
Percy Alvin Martin, “Slavery and Abolition in Brazil,” HAHR, XIII (May 1933), 174.
On Benjamin Constant’s antislavery stand, see Ivan Monteiro de Barros Lins, Três abolicionistas esquecidos (Rio de Janeiro, 1938), 13-17.
Cidade do Rio, October 27, 1887, 2.
Correio Paulistano, November 6, 1887, 1 ; Rio News, June 15, 1887, 2 ; December 24, 1887, 3; Fonseca, A escravidão, 569-570.
Osório Duque-Estrada, A abolição (esbôço histórico) 1831-1888 (Rio de Janeiro, 1918), 205-209, 225-226; Nelson Werneck Sodré, História militar do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1965), 158; Charles Willis Simmons, Marshal Deodoro and the Fall of Dom Pedro II (Durham, 1966), 77-94; Maria dos Santos, Os republicanos, 264-268; Ottoni, Autobiographia, 346; Rio News, August 15, 1887, 2.
Correio Paulistano, October 28, 1887, 1.
Joaquim Floriano de Godoy, O elemento servil e as câmaras municipaes da Província de São Paulo (Rio de Janeiro, 1887), 31.
Annaes da Câmara (São Paulo, 1888), I, 52.
Fuga de escravos, 4-5.
The words of Senator Floriano de Godoy are quoted in Sampaio, Abolicionismo, 50.
Fonseca, A escravidão, 603; O Paíz, October 15, 1887, 1.
Moraes, A campanha, 249-307; Duque-Estrada, A abolição, 102 ; Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Capitalismo e escravidão: O negro na sociedade do Rio Grande do Sul (São Paulo, 1962), 258; Oliam José, Abolição em Minas (Belo Horizonte, 1962), 94-99.
Quoted in Moraes, A campanha, 314.
Gazeta da Tarde, January 15, 1881, 1.
See the speech by Rodrigo Silva, the Minister of Agriculture in Annaes da Câmara (São Paulo, 1888), I, 56.
Rio News, February 15, 1888; Novidades, April 26, 1888, 2-3; Relatório apresentado . . . no Dia 10 de janeiro de 1888, 15.
O abolicionismo perante a história ou o diálogo das três províncias (Rio de Janeiro, 1888), 118.
Annaes da Câmara (São Paulo, 1888), I, 20.
ibid., 34.
Nazareth Prado (ed.), Antônio Prado no império e na república: Seus discursos e actos colligidos e apresentados por sua filha (Bio de Janeiro, 1929), 23-25.
See especially the discussions of May 7 to May 13.
Author notes
The author is Assistant Professor of History at Denison University.