From Slave Rebels to Strikebreakers: The Quilombo of Jabaquara and the Problem of Citizenship in Late-Nineteenth-Century Brazil

Conviviality through Time in Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and Río de la Plata

“…Along the same lines, Maria Helena Machado analyses the establishment of two maroon communities within the limits of Santos, São Paulo: Jabaquara and Pai Felipe (Machado 2006). The author contends that these quilombos were organized in cooperation: they were a result of both the creativity of slaves and the manipulation of local bosses, who used the maroons as a source of cheap labour and political strategy.…”

On Allotopia: The Spatial Accumulation of Difference in Bixiga (São Paulo, Brazil)

“…Various traders collaborated with the runaway slaves, taking advantage of their cheap workforce and products, but the Quilombo attracted free persons of all classes, including White intellectuals, lawyers, and coffee brokers who were deeply involved in the political and commercial life of the colonial city (M. S. De Castro, 2008). The Quilombolas joined the city's informal sector in many ways, largely out of necessity, performing menial or informal services to earn a precarious living, as an early demonstration of the interdependency of formal and informal economy (Machado, 2006). According to Mesquita, Restivo, and D'Ambrosio (2011), Quilombolas' fugitive slave children, known as Negrinhos do Bixiga, maintained wide-ranging relations between the Quilombo Saracura and the city, taking profit of the chaos and congestion at the marketplaces-where it was almost impossible to distinguish slaves, ex-slaves or fugitives-to sell cheap products.…”

“…S. De Castro, 2008). The Quilombolas joined the city’s informal sector in many ways, largely out of necessity, performing menial or informal services to earn a precarious living, as an early demonstration of the interdependency of formal and informal economy (Machado, 2006). According to Mesquita, Restivo, and D’Ambrosio (2011), Quilombolas ’ fugitive slave children, known as Negrinhos do Bixiga , maintained wide-ranging relations between the Quilombo Saracura and the city, taking profit of the chaos and congestion at the marketplaces—where it was almost impossible to distinguish slaves, ex-slaves or fugitives—to sell cheap products.…”

“…Still and all, exploitation persisted under different forms. The Golden Law in fact implied that “there was no longer any space to speak of slaves, whether as barbarous peoples in need of civilisation or as obstacles in the nation’s path” (Machado, 2006, p. 270). Colonial São Paulo’s entrenched poverty of rights imbued the city’s 20th-century unequal citizenship rights and the Black population would remain stigmatized and excluded in numerous ways up to today (Andrews, 1991).…”

O abolicionismo como movimento social

“…Pioneiras nessa direção são Bergstresser (1973), que mapeou associações e eventos abolicionistas na Corte, nos anos 1880, e Machado (1994), que rastreou mobilização de base e articulações antiescravistas no interior de São Paulo na mesma época. Essa trilha se alargou na virada na primeira década deste sé-culo, com pesquisas que historiam manifestações abolicionistas em espaços públicos em Porto Alegre, Salvador, Recife, São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro (Kittleson, 2005;Graden, 2006;Castilho, 2008;Albuquerque, 2009;Machado 2006Machado , 2009Silva, 2003) e que evidenciaram mobilização mais volumosa do que se supunha e com significativo apoio social, de atores sociais muito variados. Entretanto, são trabalhos restritos à esfera local e que não conectam a mobilização à dinâ-mica político-institucional.…”