BANCANDO A LIBERDADE, POPULARIZANDO A POLÍTICA: ABOLICIONISMO E FUNDOS LOCAIS DE EMANCIPAÇÃO NA DÉCADA DE 1880 NO BRASIL

• Main Authors: Celso Castilho, Camillia Cowling
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal da Bahia - Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais 2013-01-01
• Series: Afro-Ásia
• Online Access: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=77026210004

Situating its approach within the broader context of the abolition movement in the 1880s, this article examines local emancipation funds in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Recife as important expressions of grassroots politics. The article considers two different local funds, one created by popular initiatives in Recife, and another created by Rio's city council. The first part of the article shows that emancipation funds changed over the course of the 1880s, accompanying changes in traditional policy-making dynamics and transforming interactions between local and national spheres, as well as between grassroots groups and the elite. The second part of the article focuses on the everyday operations of the funds. By using public rituals and searching for local donors, the funds expanded their reach to social sectors previously disconnected from the political process. Rather than waiting passively to receive freedom through the funds, slaves, especially women, utilized their peculios as well as information obtained on the streets in creating innovative strategies to obtain their freedom. Emancipation funds merit attention from historians because they combined in important ways with other forms of political and social pressure such as flight from slavery and legal battles in transforming Brazilian politics in the 1880s, thus hastening the arrival of the decree abolishing slavery.