The article seeks to explore the dimensions and composition of Manaus urban workers, in it's most dynamic mordernizing period (1880-1920), under the perspective of new analytical categories, specially those that connect to the ethnical distinctions at the interior of the Amazonian workplace. The starting point of the analysis it's the finding, from many documental references, with emphasys to the press, of the polarized participation of Portuguese and English within harbour labor. Shifting from harbour to city, the article approaches many ways by wich the portuguese and english communities searched to interact with the "rubber city" and its inhabitants.
labor history; working class; labor movement