This slim volume, one of a series on Brazilian popular movements by the same author, surveys the Cabanada of Pernambuco (1831-1835). It is based on Portuguese-language published sources and on limited archival research in Rio and Recife.
In his introduction, Freitas affirms the necessity of developing a historiography of the oppressed to counter the ideology of the dominant classes. Objectivity is not a goal: “In a society founded on class division and struggle, a disinterested, impartial, and non-partisan social science cannot exist” (p. 11). Within his Marxian framework, Freitas analyzes Pernambucan society and Brazilian politics. His interpretation is not new: members of the provincial elite initiated the revolt as a political uprising, but the impoverished, landless masses turned it into a social movement that threatened the status quo. Yet the Cabanada never became more than a jacquerie, for “the peasant masses are historically incapable of revolutionary initiatives” (p. 166). Rather than confront the central dilemma of landownership, the peasants simplistically called for the return of Pedro I to redress their grievances.
Freitas’ book is a competent and occasionally stimulating account, with the defects and virtues of histoire engagée. But the definitive history of the Cabanada, based on exhaustive archival research and dispassionate analysis, remains to be written.
