Afro-Brazilian Political Mobilization and the Abolition of Slavery in Rio de Janeiro, 1879-1888

FAIN: FA-57026-13

Jeffrey D. Needell
University of Florida (Gainesville, FL 32611-0001)

While the Abolitionist movement in Brazil has formed the substance of memoirs, participant histories, revisionist analyses, and, lately, subaltern and cultural studies, its essentially political nature has been poorly understood. None of the three standard monographs, published in 1966, 1971, and 1972, satisfactorily integrates the movement with the formal, elite politics of the era. Indeed, focusing upon the oppressed, upon the movement itself, and often shaped by essentially materialist interpretation, abolitionist scholarship then and over the last forty years has failed to demonstrate precisely the articulation among the Afro-Brazilian masses, the movement, and the parliamentary government of Brazil’s monarchy (1822-89). I propose to remedy this with a book concerning nineteenth-century popular political mobilization, particularly the Abolitionist movement and the role of Afro-Brazilian political agency in that struggle (1879-1888).