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“Immigrants with Money Are No Use To Us” Race and Ethnicity in the Zona Portuária of Rio de Janeiro, 1903–1912

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Kit McPhee
Kit McPhee*
Affiliation:
Carey Baptist Grammar School, Melbourne, Australia
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Extract

On a steamy mid-summer day in December 1901, a “clearly inebriated” 105-year-old Afro-Brazilian, Rita Lobo, leaned heavily on a walking stick as she made her way up Rua General Pedra. Known to all as “Pereréca” (“frog”), not for the first time had she been the victim of cruel taunts by a group of Portuguese youths and, in particular, Luís Nascimento, the seven year-old son of a local hardware and pottery shop owner, Luís Antônio Pereira do Nascimento. That afternoon, however, Rita decided that it was time to fight back and began beating the young boy with her cane.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , April 2006 , pp. 623 - 650
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2006

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References

* “Pereréca” can also be used as a reference to a woman’s sexual parts.

1 Correio da Manha, 19 December 1901, 2. See also the Jornal do Brasil coverage from the same day, p. 3.

2 Arquivo Nacional, Rio de Janeiro. Pretórias Criminais, 8th Freguesia Santana, 1903-12 (OR 4197, 17 August 1905). Henceforth only individual case numbers will be citedGoogle Scholar.

3 Ibid.

4 The refurbishment of Rio de Janeiro under the Alves regime has been the subject of a wealth of scholarly research. See, for example, Needle, Jeffrey, “Making the Carioca Belle Ápoque Concrete: The Urban Reforms of Rio de Janeiro under Pereira Passos,” Journal of Urban History 10:4 (August 1984), pp. 383–422 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Needell, , “Rio de Janeiro at the turn of the Century: Modernization and the Parisian Ideal,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 25:1 (February 1983), pp. 83–104 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Benchimol, Jamie L., Pereira Passos: Um Haussmann Tropical (Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca Carioca, Vol. 11 1990)Google Scholar; and Meade, Teresa, Civilizing Rio: Reform and Resistance in a Brazilian City, 1889-1930 (University Park: The Pennsylvania University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

* Small open-air newsstands which also served food and alcohol.

5 As an important entrepôt for slaves destined for the great plantations of the interior, the port zone had a long reputation for criminality and immorality. As the Brazilian Vice-Roy (1769-79), Marques do Lavradio complained, the comings and goings of port district “has made people reluctant to come to their windows, and the innocent among us are being educated in things they should not.” Cited in Gerson, Brasil, História das Ruas do Rio (Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Brasiliana Editôra, 1965), pp. 203–204 Google Scholar. For more on the port renovation and health programs undertaken in the area in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries see, among others, Cruz, Maria Cecília Velasco e, Virando O Jogo: Estivadores e Carregadores no Rio de Janeiro da Primeira República (Ph.D. Dissertation, Universidade de São Paulo, 1998)Google Scholar; Bernice de Cavalcante, “ Beleza, , Limpeza, Ordem e Progresso: A Questão da Higiene na Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, Final de Secúlo XIX,” Revista Rio de Janeiro 1:1 (December 1985), pp. 95–103 Google Scholar; Cardoso, Elizabeth Dezouzart, História dos Bairros: Saúde, Gambúa e Santo Cristo (Rio de Janeiro: João Fontes Engeharia, 1987)Google Scholar; and Niemeyer, Sérgio Tadeu de, Dos Trapiches do Porto: Um Estudo Sobre a Área Portuária do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro: Secretaria Municipal de Cultura, Turismo e Esportes, 1991)Google Scholar.

6 Prado is cited in Beiguelman, Paulo, Formação do Povo no compleixo cafeeiro: Aspectos Politicos (São Paulo: University of São Paulo Press, 1997), p. 65 Google Scholar.

7 Ibid.

8 The organization of the police force in the Federal District was regulated by decrees N.1.034A (1 September 1892), N. 3.640 (14 April 1900) and N. 4.73 (5 February, 1903).

9 Bretas, Marco Luiz, A Guerra das Ruas: Povo e Polícia na Cidade do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo Nacional, 1987), p. 48 Google Scholar.

10 This was particularly the case with the rise in prostitution and illegal gambling during the early years of the republic and their association with the immigrant community. See, for example, two works by Menezes, Lená Medeiros de, Os Estrangeiros e O Comércio do Prazer nas Ruas do Rio, 1889-1930 (Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo Nacional, 1992)Google Scholar, and Indesejáveis, Os: Declassificados da Modernidade (Rio de Janeiro: EdUERJ, 1996)Google Scholar.

11 Relatório do Director Geral de Polícia Administrativa, Arquivo e Estatísťica, 1904-09. Documento Avulso, Arquivo Nacional. See also Sociedade Civil Porto, Mantendora da Guarda do Caes do : Estatutes e Instrucções da Chefatura de Polícia (Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Alba, 1927)Google Scholar, for more on the concern with delinquents and vagabonds in the port area.

12 OR 7084, 4 February 1905.

13 Vagrancy was made a criminal offence under Decree 145 (11 July 1893). Vagrants were those of any sex or age who “without the protection of family or tutor, without means of subsistence, profession or legal and honest occupation, wander the city in a state of idleness.” Those provoking the public order were also liable to be arrested. For a full copy of the decree see the dos, Colecção Leis do Brasil 1894 (Rio de Janeiro, Imprensa Nacional, 1894), p. 15 Google Scholar.

14 GIFI—Documentos de Polícia (Deportados 1909). Arquivo Nacional. Pacote 307, Caixa 6c 308.

15 OR 3256, 16 September 1904.

16 “Uma Maravilha ao Abandono,” Correlo da Manhã, 27 April 1913, p. 4.

* Small, open-air newsstands which also served food and alcohol.

17 José Rodrigues dos Santos to Pereira Passos, 11 February 1904. AGCRJ 45-4-23 (Quiosques, 1900-09).

18 Ibid.

19 OR 6030, 3 August 1907.

† Paraty is a type of Brazilian rum.

20 OR 3192, 15 April 1904.

21 OR 7340, 26 February 1908.

22 OR 8086, 24 December 1909.

23 OR 6699, 5 May 1908.

24 OR 4547, 20 October 1905.

25 OR 7951, 2 July 1910.

26 Recenseamento do Rio de Janeiro (Districto Federal) realisado em 20 de Setembro de 1906 (Rio de Janeiro: Officina da Estatistica, 1907), and the Recenseamento do Brazil (Districto Federal) realisado em 1 de Setembro de 1920 (Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, 1923).

27 As Teresa Meade has shown, for example, in the period from 1890-1906 the population of the Zona Norte and the súburbios grew by 118 and 106 per cent respectively, while that of the city centre increased by only 12 per cent. See Meade, , “Living Worse and Costing More: Resistance and Riot in Rio de Janeiro, 1890-1917,” Journal of Latin American Studies 21:9(1989), p. 253 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Hahner, June E., Poverty and Politics: The Urban Poor in Brazil, 1870-1920 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986), p. 47 Google Scholar.

29 For more on the nature and ethnicity of internal migrants into the city of Rio de Janeiro during these years see Sam Adamo, C., The Broken Promise: Race, Health and Justice in Rio de Janeiro, 1890-1940 (Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of New Mexico, 1983), pp. 23–25 Google Scholar.

30 In a racist society it is highly probable that in questions of self-identification respondents whitened themselves. Population by color distribution was absent from the censuses taken in 1906 and 1920. For more of Afro-Bahian immigration to Rio during the period see Moura, Roberto, Tia data e a Pequeña África no Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro: Coleção Biblioteca Carioca, 1995), pp. 19–44 Google Scholar.

31 Ibid., p. 37.

32 Recenseamento do Rio de Janeiro, 1906, p. 35.

33 Ibid., p. 37.

34 Backheuser, Evaristo, Habitações Populares (Relatório apresentado ao Ex. Snr. Dr. J.J. Seabra, Ministro da Justiça e Negócios Interiores, Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, 1906), p. 108 Google Scholar.

35 For more on the resentment felt towards the Portuguese and their control of real estate in the city, see June Hahner, E., “Jacobinos versus Galegos: Urban Radicals versus Portuguese Immigrants in Rio de Janeiro in the 1890s,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 18:2 (1976), pp. 125–51 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Silva, Maria Manuela de Sousa, “Portugueses no Brasil: Imaginário Social e Tacticas Cotidianas, 1880-95,” Acervo 10:2 (1997), pp. 109–19 Google Scholar; and Chalhoub, Sidney, Trabalho, Lar e Botequim (Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2001), pp. 131–48 Google Scholar.

36 OR 4263, 23 December 1905.

37 OR 6946, 16 May 1908.

38 OR 4239, 12 February 1905.

39 AGCRJ 42-2-80 (Estalagens e Cortiços, 1901-05).

40 Correio da Manhã, 21 February 1906, p. 6.

41 OR 2706, 6 April 1903.

42 OR 4202, 20 December 1904.

43 Recenseamento do Brazil realisado em 1 de Setembro de 1920 (Vol.2, 1 Parte), p. 18.

44 Ibid.

45 Klein, Herbert S., “The Social and Economic Integration of Portuguese Immigrants in Brazil in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” Journal of Latin American Studies 23 (1991), p. 324 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 “Um Assassinato,” Gazeta de Noticias, 5 January 1909, p. 3.

47 OR 7740, 8 November 1910.

48 Correio da Manhã, 9 November 1910, 2. See also the Jornal do Commercio, 9 November 1910, p. 5.

* A cheap sugar-cane brandy popular in Brazil.

49 OR 5368, 3 March 1907.

50 A Razāo, 15 January 1911, p. 3.

51 Recenseamento do Brazil realisado em l de Setembro de 1920 (Vol.2, 1 Parte), p. 18.

52 A useful indication of the ratio of foreign to native-born labor in specific industries is union membership. For general city-wide figures see Maria Cecilia Velasco e Cruz, Amarelo e Negro: Matizes do Comportamento Operário na Repųblica Velha (Masters Dissertation, IUPERJ, 1981), 154-82, and Keremitsis, Eileen, The Early Industrial Worker in Rio de Janeiro (Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University 1982)Google Scholar.

53 AGCRJ (Queixas e Reclamações, 1900-13).

* During the period “Turk” was a generic name for any immigrant from the Middle East.

54 OR 8089, 27 October 1910.

55 OR 4115, 16 June 1905.

56 Keremitsis, The Early Industrial Worker, p. 49.

57 For more on the history of Afro-Brazilians involved in port labor see Cruz, , Amarelo de Negro; Marli Brito Moreira de Albuquerque, Trabalho e Conflict no Porto do Rio de Janeiro (Masters Dissertation, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 1983)Google Scholar; Galvão, Olivia Maria Rodrigues, Sociedade de Resistencia ou Companhia dos Pretas: Um Estudo de Caso entre os Arrumadores do Porto do Rio de Janeiro (Masters Dissertation, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 1994)Google Scholar;and McPhee, Kit, Standing at the Altar of the Nation: Afro-Brazilians, Immigrants and Racial Democracy in a Brazilian Port City (Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Melbourne,2004)Google Scholar.

58 Gazeta de Noticias, 18 August 1905, p. 1.

59 Ibid., p. 2.

60 Gazeta de Notícias, 2 October 1905, p. 2.

61 Strikes were outlawed by republican authorities in the penal code of December 1890—a measure directly related to a growing anxiety that new methods of labor organization introduced by European migrants would spread among native-born workers. This fear was heightened by a series of socialist congresses in the early years of the republic, including the first national gathering of workers in Rio for the Congresso Socialista Brasileira in August 1892.

62 OR 4660, 7 August 1906.

63 OR 4121, 5 August 1906