Abstracts
The article investigates a relatively unexplored in Brazilian historiography: the black associations in Rio de Janeiro in the context of the First Republic. From a broad survey of journalistic sources, it was possible to reconstruct, albeit in brief notes, the trajectory of several associations founded by blacks and dedicated to the struggles and mobilizations for rights - civil, political and social - of this population segment.
black; race; citizenship
O artigo procura investigar um tema pouco explorado na historiografia brasileira: o associativismo negro no Rio de Janeiro no contexto da Primeira República. A partir de um amplo levantamento em fontes jornalísticas, foi possível reconstituir, ainda que em breves apontamentos, a trajetória de várias agremiações fundadas por negros e dedicadas às lutas e mobilizações pelos direitos - civis, políticos e sociais - desse segmento populacional.
negro; raça; cidadania
ARTICLES
Citizenship by a thread: the black associativism in Rio de Janeiro (1888-1930)
Petrônio Domingues
Doctorate in History (USP). Professor, Universidade Federal de Sergipe (UFS). CNPq Researcher. pjdomingues@yahoo.com.br
ABSTRACT
The article investigates a relatively unexplored in Brazilian historiography: the black associations in Rio de Janeiro in the context of the First Republic. From a broad survey of journalistic sources, it was possible to reconstruct, albeit in brief notes, the trajectory of several associations founded by blacks and dedicated to the struggles and mobilizations for rights civil, political and social of this population segment.
Keywords: black; race; citizenship
In 1909, lima Barreto launched his career as a writer with the publication of the novel Recordações do escrivão Isaías Caminha. The narrative revolved around Isaías, a mulato from the interior of Brazil, who since the time of school had stood out because of his intelligence and potential. He dreamed of becoming a doctor. Through the intermediation of his uncle Valentim, he got himself a recommendation letter and, with the incentive of some meager savings from his mother, he travelled to Rio de Janeiro in pursuit of his dream. He was supposed to look for Deputy Castro, who would find him a job. Arriving in Rio, he took lodgings in Hotel Jenikalé where he met Ivã Gregoróvitch Rostóloff, a journalist from O Globo. After meeting Deputy Castro, he realized that the latter was a demagogue. What a deception. Without money or any prospect of getting a job, he received a summons to go to the police station about a theft in the hotel he was staying in. There he heard the police chief call him mulatinho. Feeling humiliated he was driven to tears. He left the hotel and went to live in a board house. He began to look for employment, but quickly realized that due to his color it would be very difficult to get on in life. He wandered through the streets of Rio in great need and had to sell his possession to eat, until he reencountered Rostóloff who, on hearing his drama was moved and found a job for him in the pressroom of O Globo. There he found an environment of mediocrity, of incompetent and unprepared journalists, but who enjoyed great prestige, while he, intelligent and educated, suffered in a subordinate position. By this time his dream of becoming a doctor was long gone and he was getting used to this as life went on, apart from the daily troubles related to his color. He was promoted to reporter by Ricardo loberant, director of the newspaper. He gained money and protection. After the initial euphoria, he became strongly melancholic. Feeling frustrated for not having been able to redeem his humble background with a university degree, he decided to abandon everything and return to his hometown and rebuild his life. Married and with the experienced of having had two children, who had died, he wrote his memoirs Recordações do escrivão Isaías Caminha (Barreto, 1956c).
The problem of 'color prejudice' runs through the novel. Without resentment, lima Barreto alluded to difficulties which the Isaías faced to be recognized as intelligent and respected as a citizen. In a letter he wrote to an intellectual colleague, he confessed that he intended to show that "a boy in the conditions of Isaías, with all his abilities, could fail, not because of his intrinsic qualities, but, beaten, crushed, compressed by prejudice" (Barreto, 1956a, p.238). This approach caused discomfort in some literary critics. Veiga Miranda, for example, in an article published in São Paulo about Recordações do escrivão Isaías Caminha, reproved what he saw an exaggeration on the part of the author in dealing with "prejudice of color": "We are very far from the United State. It can even be said that a bit of mulatice (mixed blood) could even favorably influence an individual's career." lima Barreto replied in a letter dated 29 october 1917:
In relation to prejudice of color ... you say that it does not exist amongst us. There was always a petty quarrel that would become prejudice when Sr. Rio Branco attempted to make Brazil elegant. This is not proof, I know well; however, while I might not have legal evidence, I do have much to conclude with. There in São Paulo or in Campinas are there societies of men of color? They must have emerged due to some impulse in the environment because in the rest of Brazil, there are none. (Barreto, 1956b, p.24)
Lima Barreto was a well-informed Afro-Brazilian and, despite not being an activist in defense of racial causes, he knew of the existence of "societies of men of color" in São Paulo and Campinas. Certainly he was referring to various clubs, charities, civic centers, and literary associations created by blacks during the First Republic. But was he right when he stated that these societies were solely from the Afro-Paulista experience? In Rio de Janeiro, his native state, did nothing similar emerge? For decades Brazilian historians and social scientists have generally tended to agree with the writer of Vila Quilombo, in relation to the non-recognition of these forms of racial mobilization in Rio de Janeiro. This has some academic implications. Black associationalism in São Paulo has been the subject of an ever increasing amount of research. Focusing on the wide-ranging network of clubs, newspapers, educational groups, civic centers, literary associations, and charities, this research has ethnographed and unveiled the multiple sense and meanings of black associationalism in the land of the bandeirantes.
Before we turn to the facts, it is worth noting that this article is part of the current tendency of historiographical production concerned with the forms of political and cultural production in the First Republic. What is not at stake is deleting a series of experiences of the mobilization and organization of collective actors around questions of interest to them. Although it is unknown, notably due to lack of study, there was a fertile and complex movement led by workers, women, blacks, middle and working class sectors in the field of political participation, which achieved various formats. Instead of deletion, the article invests in a set of connections and proactive actions covering differentiated actors and social groups, "which demanded policies from public authorities, proposing and implementing a series of initiatives and their forms of associationalism" (Gomes; Abreu, 2009, p.4). Here associationalism is a dynamic notion involving a contradictory and conflictive process which combine resistance, assimilation, and the (re)appropriation of collective actions and organizational forms for the defense of specific interests of groups. evidentially, the integral reconstitution of the past is a 'utopia,' as Jacques le Goff has well pointed out. However, "what is more tempting than to revive what is left by traditional history in the silence of shadows?" (le Goff, 1989, pp.232-233).
MEN OF COLOR, UNITE!
At the beginning of 1888, José do Patrocínio propelled a movement which culminated in the founding of the league of Men of Color (Sociedade Liga dos Homens de Cor).
The Brazilianist Rebecca Bergstresser has shown that the association participated in racial debates which took place in the effervescent context of the collapse of the slave-holding regime; however, she does describe its level of involvement in the abolitionist campaign (Bergstresser, 1973, pp.177-188). What we know is that the week before 13 May 1888 the date of the end of captivity and the two weeks afterwards, the league of Men of Color was on a state of alert, summoning their members to meet in a general assembly to "discuss urgent business" and the "ready solution." Perhaps the 'urgent business' consisted of the new and pulsating moment of the national scenario, in the redefinition of the members, and the situation of the liberated slaves. How to represent them? How to given them agency in the exercise of citizenship and guarantee their expanded rights in the new order? In "honor of the abolition of the servile element," the league met on 14 May and its board sent a letter to the "editor in chief" of Diário de Notícias, asking him to "open a subscription in his office, open to the public, aimed at a statue of liberty."
José do Patrocínio was an elusive character. Gifted with a spirit of leadership and part of a network of alliances and negotiations, he was the pivot of a series of conflicts and controversies. Active in various areas, some simultaneously, he developed a racial rhetoric which evoked former slaves, freedmen, and "men of color" and got involved in clashes over issues such as Abolition, the Monarchy, and the Republic.
In June 1887, following the illness and journey of the emperor Pedro II for the treatment of his health in europe, his daughter Princess Isabel assumed for the third time the regency of the empire, and from then onwards speculations began about the continuity of the monarchy in Brazil in a possible Third Reign. Her father's illness got worse and Isabel sought to build a path to the throne for herself through a policy of approximation with pragmatic and moderate abolitionism. Following the signing of the Lei Áurea a measure which assured considerable popular support for the Monarchy she believed that she had guaranteed the Third Reign for herself (Daibert Jr., 2007). However, the republican movement became a dangerous enemy, which threatened to prevent her dream from becoming real. It was then that the Black Guard of the Redeemer came into play. According to emílio Rouéde, the association "organized itself to resist and not to attack." Former slave owners, not accepting Abolition without compensation for their "property," transformed themselves overnight into republicans, creating a "fund" aimed at financing the "revolution" and decided to "wage war in all the territories of the Third Reign, thereby satisfying their feeling of hatred to the Monarchy."
If the former slave owners had not appealed to revolution, declaring war outside the legal orbit on the future reign of the Holy Woman who sacrificed her throne [for] the liberation of Brazil, the freedmen would not have congregated to answer the cheers for the Republic given by their old masters, the republicans of today, with cheers for the Monarchy; and if the neo-republicans had not sworn to sacrifice lives and money for the Republic, which promised to end the despotism and the tyranny of the reigning dynasty, the new citizens would not have sworn in turn that they would have preferred one thousand times to die, defending the one who freed them, than to die in the iron chains of slavery tied to the feet of horses on the roads of the Paraíba do Sul River.
The Black Guard of the Redeemer emerged in a context of tensions, conflicts, and polarizations among the various segments disputing the complex game of political power. Among these were the 'former slave owners,' opposed to abolition without compensation and who came launch virulent criticism against the empire. There were also the republicans, whose propositions gained space in the public sphere and increasingly threatened the project of the Third Reign of Princess Isabel. Finally, there were the monarchists, whose ideas of royalty were shared by many "blacks"
There emerged a belief that the Black Guard was not a spontaneous mobilization of "freed slaves" but rather a horde of "rioters," "vagabonds" and "capoeiras" paid by the government, through João Alfredo (President of the Council of Ministers and head of the conservative cabinet), to impede the republican movement through terror. While it is true that the Black Guard carried out some attacks on republican meetings, also using violence,
For many former slaves, shielding the Monarchy, and most notably Princess Isabel, signified at the limit, guaranteeing liberty. It was not by chance that on 13 May 1888, a group of freed slaves founded in the capital a beneficent association justly denominated "D. Isabel, the Redeemer, in order to perpetuate law 3.354 [Lei Áurea], which abolished slavery," and supported the needy. Under the supposed protection of "HRH the Imperial Regent," the association established various categories of members who could receive a pension of between 10$ and 20$000. "Having such a grandiose purpose," the O Apostolo evaluated, D. Isabel, the Redeemer, "would not be considered with indifference." An omen which would be confirmed with time. Freed slaves flocked to the new association.
Provisionally, the secretariat of A. B. D. Isabel a Redemptora, as it was known in the original Portuguese, was given a room in the building of the Congregation of Portuguese Artists on 70 Rua do Regente, in the center of Rio de Janeiro. It opened daily from 4 pm to 6 pm, and meetings of the Administrative Council were held on the first and third Sunday of each month, always at mid-day. The association offered, or perhaps facilitated, access to some goods and services. As Gazeta de Notícias stated, the doctor João Antonio de oliveira Maggioli provided medical care for the "members" of Isabel, the Redeemer. For this they had to obtain "in the office the relevant form to be seen."
"Her Highness" was revered for the services she had done for the Brazilian nation in general, and for blacks in particular. Being a signatory of the Lei Áurea, she capitalized for herself the image of being praiseworthy, 'saint' and redeemer (Daibert Jr., 2004, pp.209-221). In the association's view, Princess Isabel was responsible for the victory of the captives and for the incorporation of the different groups in the heart of the nation. Under her protecting mantle (and in communion), whites, blacks, and Indians were welcomed. 13 May 1888 had signified the redemption of the "race stigmatized by slavery," guaranteeing the conquest of a fundamental right of citizenship: formal liberty. For the first time all Brazilians were considered equal before the law, in relation to their condition of liberty. It represented a landmark in the history of the nation, which could never be forgotten. every year A. B. D. Isabel a Redemptora "worthily" commemorated the date of the "liberation" of the slaves, investing in solemn sessions, homages to the abolitionists, ritual celebrations of "Her Highness," speeches from orators and at the end, dances. The loyalty of the members to Princess Isabel was also due to a particular vision of the monarchical regime. According to eduardo Silva, many blacks, influenced by African traditions, felt themselves to be subjects of a hereditary monarchy based on divine right, seeing the emperor Pedro II, the empress, and the Princess as sacred beings, in other words as the 'gods' of the Brazilian nation, who were to be treated with reverence and distinction.
In 1893, the A. B. D. Isabel a Redemptora appeared at a new address: a spacious house at 242 Rua do Hospício. Paradoxically, from then on its activities no longer had an impact. lacking its previous important, it nonetheless had the strength to last for more than a decade. The final report about it appeared in Jornal do Brasil, on 19 May 1902: "the day before yesterday at nine in the evening in the vast ballroom of the Associação Beneficente D. Isabel, a Redemptora, a solemn session was held to commemorate the 14th anniversary of its foundation." Presided by Pedro da Silva Monteiro, it was opened after the "brilliant ouverture played by estudantina União, which graciously gave luster to the act." Various speeches were given, with the official one being by Mario Vianna. After the session there was an "animated" dance, which ran until the early hours.
Sociedade Beneficente Estrella da Redempção was another institution of "men of color" which was born in the capital during the turbulent year of 1888. Nevertheless, the first note compiled about it and published in Gazeta de Notícias is from the following year.
Some men of color, meeting in the Sociedade Beneficente Estrella da Redempção, wanting to celebrate the birthday of the Most Serene Princess Isabel, ordered a Te-Deum laudamus to be celebrated in the church of St Joaquim, today, 2 August, at 2 pm. Preaching for the intentions of this lady will be the Rev. Monsignor luiz Raymundo da Silva Brito. The undersigning commission hereby invites the respectable public of this capital to this act of religion and tribute and the same time of gratitude, which the freed slaves pay to the exiled lady, who will always be the Redeemer of the captives. Rio de Janeiro, 29 July 1891. Commission: Marcolino da Costa Cirne, lucrécio do Nascimento, Jorge Tiberio Mariano.
Estrella da Redempção never acquired much public projection. Not very large and without future prospects, the association gradually lost its support base. The last report about it is from 1893.
Espousing the republican campaign, which gained increasing numbers of adepts and sympathisers from various social and ethnic groups from all over Brazil (Bergstresser, 1973, pp.165-166), the Republican Club of Men of Color sponsored receptions, conferences, and assemblies, and participated in propaganda and agitation activities. Its main leader Anacleto de Freitas (with the nickname "black youth") articulated ideas of liberty, race, and citizenship, believing that the Republic would eliminate "castes" and "color" distinctions. Adopting the currency of "liberty, equality, and fraternity" in their program, the association involved itself in the commemorative festivities of the centenary of the French Revolution of 14 July 1889. At 11 in the morning there was a march which led by a band went through various streets in the center of Rio de Janeiro, saluting the press and the French consulate. After the march, there was a "formal talk" in the building of the Brazilian Congress. A large number of citizens turned up. lopes Trovão opened the session, giving a speech celebrating the "grandiose date." Quintino Bocaiuva spoke afterwards, giving a "contagious" speech. other orators took to the podium, including Anacleto de Freitas, in the name of the Republican Club of Men of Color. everything went normally until at 2.30 pm the event ended and some people left the building shouting "long live the republic." Then a group which was on the street, perhaps linked to the Black Guard, reacted with "cheers for the monarchy and punches for the republicans." Spirits were exalted and the atmosphere was warlike. The police intervened and managed to disperse the adversaries, who went in different directions. However, when lopes Trovão and a "large number" of students headed towards Rua do ouvidor, they ran into "poor people, armed with clubs, who again erupted with cheers for the monarchy and punches for the republicans." Reaching the streets of Uruguaiana and Gonçalves Dias, a generalized conflict broke out with clubs, stones, and ever revolver shots resulting in various casualties. Among them Pedro Justo de Souza, Brazilian, 24 years of age, single, employed in the confectionary ship on Rua estácio de Sá and living at 72 largo do Catumbi. Pedro told the police that he was part of the "Black Guard, and that he was coming with some of his companions along Rua do ouvidor and cheering the monarchy, when he was attacked by students and clerks who fired some revolver shots against them, and in this act he received the wound he has."
This and other related episodes suggest how the "men of color" participated in the heated political debates in the capital, sometimes united, sometimes apart, sometimes on opposite sides. They were not a monolithic block, but a fluid arena, plural and multifaceted, calibrated by different political and cultural experiences, perspectives of citizenship and narratives of equality. Rather than a rhetorical game, their convictions were defended forcefully or with the blow of a club , which sometimes resulted in exchanges of barbs, fights, aggressions, and bodily injuries. At that time the republican campaign was winning the streets, squares, cafés, the press, and the parliament.
The directorate of the Republican Club of Men of Color hereby appeals to the electorate of republican men of color to vote for candidates of the party who were elected in a prior scrutiny.We must not retreat from this government,which in the Chamber of Deputies says that the movement has to be exterminated, a movement which is almost a national aspiration today; we have to show we are men for the struggle, whether through the ballot box, through words, or even through force! We need to repel this calumny, because we have been called speculators, spiteful, and in short threatened by this aulic government. We have to prove to this copper government that we do not fear threats, we are not speculators, and we want to good of our country! We need to stand firm against this rampant thuggery, who will appear on the day of the elections to threaten and frighten us so that we do not vote; on this day we all have to be there, whether voters or not, to repel these notorious disturbers of the public order; we have to show this government that there is still in this great Brazilian land men who die for a cause! our party will take no serious impulse while it does not enter into action. on this day we must be decided on everything and we will not fall back before the blade and the club of the capoeira, because our patriotic slogan will be win or die! Therefore to your posts! To the ballots! Forward patriots and we will win our holy and just cause!!!
The republicans of color were called on to appear at the ballot on 6 July, to support their "fellow republicans" in the primary election which would indicate the names of the candidates for the senate elections marked for 4 August. They were not to be intimidated by the threats of the monarchist government. Rather, to the contrary, they were to enforce their ideals, even if it were necessary to face "the bade and the club of the capoeira" and to "die for the cause." However, republicans of color could not always publically demonstrate. on 24 September, Deocleciano Martyr, one of the founders of the Republican Club of Men of Color, sought out the Diário do Commercio to denounce that when he had tried to hold a meeting in largo de São Francisco de Paula, in the center of Rio de Janeiro, he had received an anonymous letter, containing threats to his life, "if the announced resolution is put into effect. Sr. Deocleciano told us that he attributed these letters to the police, who while not forbidding him from holding the announced meeting, were setting a trap."
After a long journey trodden by tortuous paths and permeated by ambivalences , the republic was established in Brazil on 15 November 1889 by means of a military coup which overthrew Pedro II.
In this panorama, registers of other associations of "Men of Color" can be found. on 27 July 1888, Gazeta da Tarde announced the formation of the Grêmio Literário Treze de Maio (13 May literary Club), a "club to discuss science and letters."
At the beginning of 1909, the lawyer and politician Monteiro lopes launched his candidacy for deputy in the First District of the Federal Capital. In the elections of 30 January he was victorious at the ballot boxes, but due to his color his mandate was questioned. This had a wide impact and the "Men of Color" from various parts of the country mobilized in solidarity with Monteiro lopes. Telegrams and letters were sent to the responsible authorities, legal action taken, public acts convened, and meetings held with state political leaders to ask for support for the recognition of the Afro-Brazilian politician's right to take his seat. The racial mobilization had an effect and on 1 May he was finally seated as a federal deputy. In a surprising manner Monteiro lopes became an icon of the blacks, in other words a symbol of the struggle for equality, rights, and citizenship. However, his mandate was short, since the Afro-Brazilian politician died on 13 December 1910.
On 12 May 1921, A Noite reported that the Association of Men of Color had prepared a special program to commemorate the ending of slavery in Brazil. There was a mass in the Church of Nossa Senhora do Rosário e São Benedito, visits to the tombs of abolitionists, the opening of the "social pavilion" of the association on 445 Rua 1º de Março, in the center of Rio de Janeiro, while at night activities ended with a solemn session at 53 Visconde do Rio Branco.
A year later, Centro Patriótico Treze de Maio (13 May Patriotic Center) was created, based on 41 Rua Sacadura Cabral. Based on what was announced by A Noite, we know that on 13 May 1929, the second board of the association assumed their positions, consisting of the following: President, Irenio Ribeiro da Costa; Vice-President, Reynaldo Pereira; 1st Secretary, Rimus Prazeres; 2nd Secretary, Procópio Abedé; Treasurer, Miguel Manhães Barreto; legal Representative, Semião Prazeres, and official orator, João Pereira. The ceremony of taking office was "solemn" and was watched by a "numerous audience," including representatives of the Municipal Council, notably the intendente Philadelpho Pereira de Almeida, worker associations, and the press. Various orators spoke. At the end, "there were dances which went on till late at night."
MOVING BEYOND AFRO-PAULISTA ASSOCIATIONALISM
Much research has been done on black associationalism in the state of São Paulo during the First Republic. In Rio de Janeiro this question has not appeared on the agenda of historians. What is the reason for this? It is difficult to give a secure and definitive answer for this, though it is worth trying to understand this absence. lima Barreto was not the only one to believe that "societies of men of color" of the Paulista type did not emerge in Rio de Janeiro, or even in the rest of Brazil. Respected social scientists, although producing particular narratives, shared to an extent the impression of the writer of "Vila Quilombo". In 1939, Arthur Ramos published The Negro in Brazil in the United States, which in 1956 was translated and published in Brazil as O negro na civilização brasileira. The doctor and anthropologist from Alagoas argued in this book that the black had become part of social and family life in Brazil after the abolition of slavery. Blacks and whites collaborated in the common work of building "our nationality." Political rights were equal, though there still existed demands of an economic, social, and cultural nature, which had diverse aspects, depending on the regions of the country. According to Ramos, the "impregnation of the black" occurred in the coastal zone which extended from Rio de Janeiro to the Northeast, in such a way that there the color line was attenuated, "almost non-existent" and the "problem of the black" was the same "problem of poor classes, with a low cultural level." In the states of São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, the black felt like an oppressed minority." According to Ramos, it is principally in São Paulo, an industrialized state, where the color line assumed more intense aspects. The black was not well received in the "white community" and although there was no separation in the legal sphere, the "prejudice of color" had established itself in public opinion. It was this reason that in São Paulo, blacks had "enlisted in associations" aimed at the "affirmation of their social and political rights in equal conditions with whites." What did not have a "significance in other states" flourished in São Paulo as a "logical consequence of the color prejudices forming there." Arthur Ramos' explanation can be summarized as follows: it was in the South and in the state of São Paulo above all, in which blacks were a minority and were not accepted by whites where organizations in favor of rights for blacks emerged after the ending of slavery. In Rio de Janeiro as well as in espírito Santo and the entire Northeast blacks were not a minority and were relatively assimilated in the social life of the state (Ramos, 1971, pp.190191). As they did not suffer a specific problem, there was no need to create organizations aimed at specific demands.
Ramos' explanation served as the foundation for subsequent research, including US scholars (see Frazier, 1942, p.294; Morse, 1953), and was complemented by the arguments of luiz de Aguiar Costa Pinto in his 1952 book O negro no Rio de Janeiro. "To study black associations in Rio de Janeiro" the Bahian sociologist argued , "we must initially make a distinct between two types of institution: those we call a) traditional and those we call b) the new type." Throughout the phase between the end of the abolitionist movements and the third decade of the twentieth century, the associational life of blacks in Rio de Janeiro occurred within the traditional framework, "without great alterations in function or structure." According to Costa Pinto, in this period the associational spirit of "Men of Color" was almost exclusively revealed in the religious field, especially "Afro-Brazilian religions." Alongside these religious associations, notably Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário e de São Benedito dos Homens Pretos and macumba, the blacks of Rio de Janeiro had associated in "recreational groups, such as congadas, ranchos, samba schools, or in sports, such as Capoeira de Angola." The new type of black associations were born after the 1930 Revolution and their history was linked to the structural changes of Brazilian society. According to Costa Pinto, they translated the "living and contemporary history of aspirations, struggles, problems, of feeling, thinking, and acting as Brazilians, socially, culturally, and nationally Brazilians, ethnically blacks." In this phase, of notable importance were the Teatro Experimental do Negro (TeN), created in 1944, the Union of Men of Color (Uagacê) and, on a lesser scale, the Cultural Union of Men of Color. While in the first phase, black associations in Rio de Janeiro had assumed recreational or religious forms, highlighting the contribution of the African to aesthetics, to music, to choreography, to mysticism, in short to the culture of Brazilian folk, in the second phase the associations assumed a nationalist nature, though one with demands, like a pressure group.
Arthur Ramos and Costa Pinto's explanations were accepted and adopted by historians and social scientists without being problematized or nuanced for decades.
Therefore, it is needless to say that Arthur Ramos e Costa Pinto were wrong. In Rio de Janeiro there flourished a black associationalism with racial foundations in various aspects similar to the Paulista one during the First Republic, in such a way that there the freed slaves and their descendants created groups, both of a recreational and religious character, as well as a political and social one. Rhetoric of racial equality was articulated in the wake of collective actions of mutual aid, in platforms in the field of rights and citizenship, in negotiations for social, political, and cultural demands, for interventions in the formal structure of power, in short in the ambit of dreams and expectations of social inclusion, recognition, and full participation in national life. In addition to the ranchos, jongos, maltas, brotherhoods, macumbas, the black Cariocas developed, if not embraced, other modes of agency and sociability. In relation to the conclusion of this article, all that is left is to recognize the prerogative of e. P. Thompson that "historical knowledge is, due to its nature, provisional and incomplete (but not for this reason untrue), selective (but not for this reason untrue), limited and defined by the questions put to the evidence (and the concepts which inform these questions)." each researcher can ask new questions of the historic evidence, or "can uncover new levels of evidence. In this way, "history" (when examined as a product of historic investigation) is modified, and should be modified, with the concerns of each generation." (Thompson, 1981, pp.49-51).
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Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
24 July 2014 -
Date of issue
June 2014
History
-
Received
31 Mar 2011 -
Accepted
17 May 2014