Today, One Hundred & Twenty Years Ago...

   
One hundred and twenty years ago today, Princess Isabel signed into law the abolition of slavery in Brazil. Since that day, the meaning and importance of the event have been a matter of dispute in Brazil. Last year, we talked about the history of the law, and its significance in Brazil today. This year, Professor João José Reis, in an article written for Ìrohìn, a Brazilian newspaper, discusses early celebrations of the date and its importance now and then:

On May 13, 2008, one hundred and twenty years will have passed since Princess Isabel signed the decree abolishing slavery in Brazil, the last American country to do so. Abolition was not a negotiation resolved only by the parliament and the royal palace. The slaves contributed, in individual and collective struggles, towards the decline and fall of the Empire which supported slavery. The mass escapes that they undertook in the early stages of abolition defined the end of the institution. And when the slaves learned of the victory, they celebrated along with free blacks and those sympathetic to the cause. They celebrated with such enthusiasm that the authorities and former slave owners grew scared, thinking that abolition could be followed by revolution.

… In a recent lecture, [Walter Fraga Filho] discussed his new research which deals with, among other subjects, the memory of slavery and the celebrations of the 13th of May in the years that followed emancipation. He observed that the black community pledged each year to renew the celebrations and take advantage of the occasion to demand that which was not conceded to them upon abolition. He shows that little by little these commemorations were attended by fewer people, and he explains that those in power and the dominant white class searched for way so to keep people from attending these festivities…

The reader should recall that twenty years ago, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the abolition of slavery, the government and the media tried to create a moment of national pride. It was the blacks groups that ended the celebratory feeling and demanded public policies that favor blacks…

… and here we are, one hundred and twenty years following abolition and the silence has “opened its wings over us”… it is necessary to make noise, it is necessary that we do not let this date simply pass because this is a good opporunity to think about racial inequality, racism in our country, and the means that we should take to remove, as the abolitionists said, this “cancer” among us.

How do you think May 13 will remembered one hundred and twenty years from now?

The article, entitled, “Realeza portuguesa e escravidão negra” (Portuguese Royalty and Black Slavery) was published in the March 2008 issue of Ìrohìn, along with other interesting articles, and is available to read in Portuguese in the FICA-DC archives. It discusses in depth the state of Brazil upon the arrival of the Portuguese court as well as the aftermath, both violent and celebratory, of the abolition of slavery in Brazil.