Fields of Post-Abolition: Labor and
‘black’ experience among coffee
workers in Rio de Janeiro (1931-1964) 1
Campos do pós-abolição: identidades laborais e experiência “negra”
entre os trabalhadores do café no Rio de Janeiro (1931-1964)
André Cicalo*
RESUMO
ABSTRACT
Este artigo explora se e como sinais de
uma experiência afro-brasileira vieram à
tona durante a existência do SCEC, um
sindicato de carregadores e ensacadores
de café que prosperou no porto do Rio de
Janeiro entre 1931 e 1964 Apesar da forte
presença de trabalhadores afrodescendentes no SCEC, o legado negro estava em
grande parte ausente do discurso oficial
do sindicato, que, em vez disso, colocava a
ênfase na classe, no nacionalismo e em
outros valores não relacionados à cor. Esse fato não está completamente desconectado do contexto sociopolítico do Brasil
naquela época, dominado pelo sistema do
trabalhismo e pela ideologia da democracia racial. No entanto, saliento que marcadores de um “campo negro” não eram
completamente estranhos ao SCEC. Eles
ainda sobrevivem nas memórias dos ensacadores e estão refletidos nos padrões raciais que tradicionalmente caracterizaram
o cais do porto do Rio de Janeiro.
Palavras-chave: pós-abolição; sindicatos; identidade negra.
This article explores whether and how
signs of an Afro-Brazilian experience
surfaced during the life of SCEC, a trade
union of coffee carriers and packers (carregadores e ensacadores de café) that
flourished in the port of Rio de Janeiro
between 1931 and 1964. In spite of the
large presence of Afro-descendant workers at SCEC, black legacy was largely absent in the official discourse of the trade
union, which gave emphasis instead to
class, nationalism and other color-blind
values. This fact is not completely disconnected from the socio-political context of Brazil in that epoch, dominated
by the system of labor politics (trabalhismo) and the ideology of racial democracy. However, I point out that markers
of a ‘black field’ were not completely
alien to SCEC. They still survive in the
memories of ensacadores, and are reflected in the racial patterns that have traditionally characterized the docklands of
Rio de Janeiro.
Keywords: post-abolition; trade unions;
black identity.
* Marie Curie IOF Fellow, King’s College of London. London, UK. andre.cicalo@gmail.com
Revista Brasileira de História. São Paulo, v. 35, nº 69, June 2015. Available at: http://www.scielo.br/rbh
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1806-93472015v35n69006
André Cicalo
In March 1945, a reporter from the newspaper A Manhã asked dockworker João Baptista Ribeiro Fragrante his opinion about the labor legislation
promoted by Getúlio Vargas. he interviewee declared that: “before Getúlio
Vargas, workers were nothing but economic slaves who achieved their ‘Free
Birth Law’ (Lei do Ventre Livre) in 1930 and their ‘Slavery Abolition Law’
(Golden Law or Lei Áurea) … with the Constitution of 1937!” In this way,
Fragrante praised the labor rights that had been granted since the beginning
of Vargas’ rule, which started with the Revolution of 1930 and evolved into the
authoritarian and corporatist regime of Estado Novo (New State) in 1937. Only
with the system of protections established by Vargas, Fragrante clarified, would
workers achieve “stability, holidays, justice, and a limit of working hours …”.
With the previous legislation, in fact, “the proletariats did not even have the
right to a Sunday recess, and enjoyed only some limited cover against work
injuries” (“Em 1937…”, A Manhã, 1945, p.3). Fragrante was introduced as a
member of the Trade Union of Coffee Carriers and Baggers2 of Rio de Janeiro,
Sindicato dos Carregadores e Ensacadores de Café do Rio de Janeiro (SCEC), a
labor organization that existed between 1931 and 1985 in the port area of Rio
de Janeiro.3 he ensacadores, the great majority of whom were Afro-Brazilians,
unloaded coffee cargo arriving from the Southeast inland areas, processed and
mixed the raw product at the port warehouses, and stored coffee blends in big
sacks for shipping and export. hese workers were trabalhadores avulsos (casual laborers), that is, unskilled men who offered their manual work on a daily
basis at the many warehouses on the docklands, without any contract of
employment.4
he newspaper article added rich information about the interviewee’s
background. Fragrante had been born thirty-eight years earlier in the inland
state of Minas Gerais. He had arrived in Rio de Janeiro, illiterate, at the age of
sixteen, “full of hope and ambitions” (“Em 1937…”, A Manhã, 1945, p.3). In
1927, at the age of twenty, he started working as an ensacador. In 1931 he was
among the founding members of SCEC, of which he later also became secretary and president. Enthusiastic about Vargas’ labor legislation, Fragrante
stated that the Estado Novo had provided him not only with basic labor rights,
but also with the material conditions to study and become an accountant,
improving his life prospects (“Em 1937…”, A Manhã, 1945, p.3). A black and
white photo provides visual information about the interviewee: a very darkskinned man who is sitting at an office desk, finely dressed in jacket and tie.
he speaker’s reference to the Free Birth Law and the Golden Law, I admit,
2
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Fields of Post-Abolition: Labor and ‘black’ experience
particularly caught my attention due to Fragrante’s phenotypic appearance.
Sanctioned in 1871, the Free Birth Law established freedom for the offspring
of enslaved African and Afro-descendant people, while the Golden Law abolished slavery entirely in 1888. Despite this, Fragrante’s mention of slavery abolition laws was applied to the apparently color-blind field of labor. he question
remains as to whether there is anything racial or ‘black’ beneath Fragrante’s
testimony. My premise is that any racial reference would be a blatant exception
in the framework of SCEC’s public discourse. My analysis of the historical
archive of this trade union, in fact, shows that ensacadores limited their official
discourse to concepts of labor and professional unity, the Catholic faith, family,
and the nation, with no regard to any black ethno-racial and political references. Nothing at all in the union’s archive would suggest that the ensacadores
were predominantly Afro-Brazilians, aside from the good amount of old photographs that I rescued from SCEC’s dusty cupboards.
Figure 1 – João Baptista Ribeiro
Fragrante in A Manhã
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André Cicalo
Figure 2 – SCEC’s dilapidated
portrait of Getúlio Vargas
Starting from Fragrante’s newspaper interview, this article investigates
whether and how a ‘black field’, or a ‘black experience’, emerged at SCEC
under the veil of much institutional silence.5 In his study of maroon settlements (quilombos) in nineteenth century Rio de Janeiro, Flávio dos Santos
Gomes points out the presence of a ‘campo negro’ (black field). He presents
this concept as a complex and multifaceted social network that was deployed
by African and Afro-descendant people, which produced social movements,
conflicts and economic practices with different interests (1996, p.36; Cruz,
2000, p.277-278).6 I propose that, even though the presence of an AfroBrazilian experience is largely downplayed within SCEC’s official documents,
a black field still surfaces in multiple ways in the docklands in the mid-twentieth century. Firstly, a black field emerges through the demographic prevalence of black workers in the port of Rio de Janeiro and, even more consistently,
within specific trade unions. Secondly, it survives in the memory of ensacadores, in some cases openly, and in some other cases filtered through the discourse of class identity. he black field of ensacadores, as Gomes (1996)
suggests for quilombos, was certainly intersected by networks of solidarity and
conflict. Having said that, it was also influenced by the set of exclusions that
black dockworkers had to face in Brazilian society, and that were reflected in
4
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Fields of Post-Abolition: Labor and ‘black’ experience
the docklands somewhat automatically. Seen from this perspective, the presence of a black field in the docklands of Rio de Janeiro is also something that
goes beyond the official intentions of SCEC and the reflexivity of its
members.
Exploring Afro-Brazilian discourses and silences in the specific context
of ensacadores must take into account the socio-political situation of the era
of labor politics in which SCEC was founded and developed, an era that has
been labeled trabalhismo (Gomes, 2005). Inaugurated by the regime of Vargas
in 1930 and continued under his successors until 1964, trabalhismo granted
proletariats social advantages without precedent, but also overlapped with a
phase of state corporatism (1937-1945) and overall restrictions to social and
political actions. In addition, Vargas’ regime coincided with official attempts
to downplay ethno-racial differences and inequalities. he mainstream discourse became a nationalist ideology of mestiçagem (racial mixture) and racial
democracy (referred to today as ‘myths’), and the promise that industrial development would be the solution for Brazil’s social problems. he widespread
silence on ethno-racial matters within Brazilian trade unions at the time of the
SCEC is reproduced by the paucity of studies that deal with this subject at any
stage and at any geographical scale in Brazil (Rogers, 2011, p.124). Only Cruz
(2000; 2006a), McPhee (2006a; 2006b), and few other scholars have provided
interesting insights on this subject, discussing the ‘black’ legacy among dockworkers in Rio de Janeiro in the first two decades of the twentieth century. he
number of studies that explore racial matters in trade unions drops further in
relation to the time of trabalhismo. his trend might be due to the assumption
that labor organizations, belonging more obviously to the sphere of class, have
little to say about ethno-racial questions, and even less at an historical moment
when racial democracy was normatively championed as state ideology. he
idea of trade unions as exclusively class-based, however, should be reconsidered, particularly for those labor unions in which race and ethnicity have let
a significant mark for historical and social reasons (Rogers, 2011). I propose
that, in my field of research, even silences represent a source of information,
and the underground discourse of these silences can be explored and analyzed
(Sheriff, 2001). his reasoning, however, does not suggest that the AfroBrazilian legacy at SCEC was framed in terms of underground ethno-racial
politics. he interest of these laborers, in fact, was to negotiate inclusion and
citizenship through the idea of the laborers’ proletarian nature, and an apparently color-blind concept of ‘respectability’.
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André Cicalo
his article is partly based on archival sources and engages with the existing literature about race and labor on the docks of Rio de Janeiro. A large
portion of the information used was found at SCEC’s premises, including minutes (atas) of the union’s meetings between 1931 and 1964, and 17 issues of
SCEC’s mensário, the monthly journal of the ensacadores, released between
1960 and 1961. Other data were discovered in what remains of the record
databases of members of SCEC, in addition to photographic material belonging to the organization. hese sources were found in haphazard piles at
SINTRAMAERJ, the Trade Union of General Carriers of Rio de Janeiro, which
replaced SCEC in 1985 and occupies SCEC’s premises in the port area of Rio
de Janeiro. Aside from these documents, I consulted over one hundred newspaper articles concerning dockworkers’ trade unions in Rio de Janeiro via the
Online Database (Hemeroteca) of Brazil’s National Library. Further sources
consulted were retrieved from the Public Archives of the State of Rio de Janeiro
(Aperj), where the ‘Political Police’ section holds records of the institutional
relations established between trade unions and authorities between 1927 and
1983. his pool of documents represent the basis of what I define as the official
(or institutional) discourse of SCEC. hey show how the union presented itself
to authorities, and reveal the language that the ensacadores’ leaders deployed
in their interactions with the state. he rest of the methodology used for this
research was based on interviews, participant observation and oral history
collected from elderly former SCEC members, some of whom are still linked
to SINTRAMAERJ as pensioners (aposentados).
he research was constrained due to the fact that, despite there being a
number of surviving SCEC former members available for interview, most of
these informants had joined the union towards the end of SCEC’s institutional
life, with very few having experienced the early decades of the trade union his
means that future attempts to reconstruct members’ experiences at SCEC will
have to rely on the memory of younger cohorts, some of which are descendants
of the trade union’s founders.
RACE AND ETHNICITY IN RIO DE JANEIRO’S
DOCKLANDS: AN OVERVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
In colonial Rio de Janeiro, enslaved Africans were used to perform the
heaviest and most low-status economic activities; among these, the transportation of goods and people. With the intensification of port activities in the
6
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Fields of Post-Abolition: Labor and ‘black’ experience
seventeenth century, the Governor of Rio de Janeiro, Rui Vaz Pinto, ruled that
“the loading and unloading of ships should be performed by black enslaved
people” (Lamarão, 2006, p.22). In the nineteenth century, the moving of the
Portuguese royal family to Brazil, the development of the local economy and
the boom in coffee exportation required a higher number of manual workers
in the docklands. he bags of coffee arriving from the plantations were collected across the city center by “groups of half naked and shouting black men”,
who carried the product on their heads to the warehouses (Santos in Lamarão,
2006, p.39-40).7 Farias et al. describe that many slaves-for-hire (escravos de
ganho) managed to buy their freedom by offering this kind of casual work on
the docks, and that the Mina ethnic group from West Africa enjoyed a sort of
monopoly in this field (2005, p.111-118). Towards the end of the nineteenth
century, due to the waves of European migration in Brazil and the abolition of
slavery, a number of (white) migrants started looking for employment as dockworkers in Rio de Janeiro. As a consequence, the number of white workers in
the docklands increased notably, even though this sector remained under the
control of black workers (Cruz, 2006b, p.227; 2006a, p.225).
In the first decades of the twentieth century, as a result of the industrialization process and the spread of socialist and anarchist ideas from Europe,
Brazilian workers started to organize, reacting to their extremely vulnerable
working conditions. Dockworkers, for example, had not seen their labor situation much improved since the time of slavery, and continued to be largely
oppressed by their employers’ contractual power (Batalha, 2006, p.98-99;
French, 2006). In 1903 groups of shippers founded the Union of Stevedores
(estivadores),8 while in 1905 a group of carriers founded the Society of
Resistance of Warehouse and Coffee Workers, historically and popularly
known as Resistência. A number of scholars have emphasized the strong AfroBrazilian composition of dockworkers’ trade unions (Cruz, 2000; 2006a;
Galvão, 1997; Moura, 1995; Chalhoub, 2001), and Moura is quite specific in
describing Resistência as a ‘black’ trade union (um sindicato negro) (1995,
p.71), in spite of the presence of a white minority. Data presented by Cruz of
353 membership photos of Resistência members between 1910 and 1929 show,
according to her own subjective interpretation, that 23.5 percent of members
were brancos (white-skinned), 14.2 percent were pardos (brown-skinned and/
or mixed-race), and 62.3 percent were pretos (very dark-skinned) (Cruz, 2000,
p.271). For this reason, as Galvão reminds us, the union was also known as the
Companhia dos Pretos (Black People’s Company) (1997, p.22). Roberto Moura
(1995) was probably the first scholar to insist on the Afro-Brazilian roots of
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André Cicalo
the dockworkers’ unions of Rio de Janeiro. For example, he pointed out the
significant contribution that Afro-Brazilian port workers made to the cultural
identity of the city, particularly through samba, capoeira, carnival, and the
practice of Afro-Brazilian faiths.9 Furthermore, Cruz has shown that the structure of port carriers’ work was based on terminology and organization inherited from slavery, an historical reality that was broadly racialized due to the
color and cultural specificities of the enslaved. For example, Cruz refers to the
role that a ‘captain of the troop’ (capitão da tropa) played in the coordination
of groups (troops or tropas) of casual port workers and for the negotiation of
labor with potential employers, reproducing an organization typical of the
slavery epoch (2010, p.118). Cruz also observes that the expression ‘troop of
laborers’ (trabalhadores de tropa), already used during the slavery period, was
semantically extended, and continued to be used for trade unionized cargo
workers during the first half of the twentieth century.10
Roberto Moura (1995, p.71) and Sidney Chalhoub (2001, p.91-114) have
interpreted recorded cases of conflicts between European migrants and AfroBrazilian workers in ethno-racial terms. In fact, the growing number of
European competitors between the 1870s and the 1920s seriously threatened
the control that Afro-Brazilians exerted in the least prestigious niches of the
job market (Cruz, 2006a; Farias et al., 2005, p.127). Cruz (2006a) and MacPhee
(2006a, p.647-648), without discarding completely the presence of ethno-racial
cleavages in the Resistência, have been more skeptical of this reading, while
emphasizing the shared lower status of Afro-Brazilian and European laborers
and their relatively harmonious cohabitation in port neighborhoods. Cruz’s
research, in particular, shows that European immigrants were not only accepted as members of dockworkers’ unions but they also oten occupied important administrative roles in those organizations (2006a, p.206). Cruz, in
addition, reminds us that socialist and color-blind ideals were at the basis of
the Resistência’s statute, approved in 1905, whose motto was “one for all and
all for one”, promoting the union of all workers without “distinction of nationality, color and religion” (Cruz, 2006a, p.194). Consequently, Cruz and
Albuquerque (1983, p.151) believe that conflicts in dockworkers’ trade unions
in the early twentieth century were more typically due to political rather than
ethno-racial reasons. Nonetheless, drawing on Gomes’ work (1996), Cruz defends the idea that Afro-Brazilian dockworkers established an underground
‘black field’ within the ethnically heterogeneous space of port neighborhoods.
his social and material space, in Cruz’s view, constituted a frame within which
a black identity could be preserved and developed (Cruz, 2000, p.277-278).
8
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Fields of Post-Abolition: Labor and ‘black’ experience
Expanding upon Cruz’s point, it seems that ‘black territories’ were not based
exclusively on links of solidarity but also on the disconnections and discrimination that Afro-Brazilians suffered in a white-hegemonic society. In a newspaper article dating from 1907 and quoted by Cruz, for example, a worker
complained that employers barely distinguished laborers from thieves and
vagrants, because from the employers’ perspective everybody was a “scoundrel
and nigger” (canalha e negrada). A newspaper article from 1918 also showed
a similarly racialized portrait of dockworkers, when a worker from Resistência
equated the achievements of the union’s class struggles to the abolition of
slavery, which occurred on 13 May 1888.
Before [Resistência], it was common for carriers to be beaten with a multi-tailed
whip. There was no appeal (apelação) … they hit the black [my italics] … and the
police pretended not to know … This situation was natural for many, because
their sad condition as coffee workers was a prolongation of what May 13 had
abolished. (in Cruz 2010, p.117, my translation)
Although the literature on dockworkers I have mentioned refers exclusively to Resistência and concerns the pre-Vargas era, these references represent an extremely important background for a study of SCEC’s ensacadores.
Archival material, in fact, shows that SCEC was formed, at least in part, by
defectors from Resistência, which had traditionally controlled the transportation and storage of any goods, including coffee, in the port area of Rio de
Janeiro. he same Fragrante with whom I opened this article must have been
a member of Resistência. In fact, as Fragrante himself mentioned in his interview, he had started working as an ensacador de café in Rio de Janeiro in 1927,
four years before the establishment of SCEC. he minutes of the union’s assembly also show that, at least in its initial phase, some SCEC workers kept
their membership of Resistência, an option that the directive board of ensacadores decided to ban in 1932 (atas book 1932, p.9). he atas book of 1947
(p.71) shows that Resistência made repeated use of Labor Justice (Justiça do
Trabalho) to invalidate the recognition of SCEC and to reincorporate it.
Disputes between SCEC and Resistência characterized the docklands until the
mid-1940s, primarily because Resistência could not accept losing control over
coffee processing and transportation. Such data illustrate that SCEC and
Resistência had a very similar constituency. My interpretation of 1249 photos
of SCEC members between the 1930s and 1960s reveals that pretos and mulatos, that is, dark- and brown-skinned people to whom I could subjectively
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André Cicalo
ascribe some black-African heritage, represented not less than 70 percent of
SCEC’s total collective.11
Figure 3 – Health membership card of an ensacador
Figure 4 – An ensacador displaying his old work card (libreta)
BEING A ‘RESPECTFUL’ : UNITY, CATHOLICISM AND THE
NATION IN SCEC’S OFFICIAL DISCOURSE
Cruz suggests that the Afro-Brazilian heritage and constituency of the
Resistência did not entail an ethno-racial politics of identity within the union.
As she notes,
[Resistência’s] workers were investing precisely in the breaking of racial hierarchies that [Brazilian] society aimed to preserve. They emphasized equality, and
championed the irrelevance of color, origin and religion. They created rules of
10
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Fields of Post-Abolition: Labor and ‘black’ experience
universal coexistence and praised solidarity. (in Cruz, 2006a, p.208, my
translation)
he situation I found at SCEC was very similar. No written archival sources that concern SCEC explicitly reveal the presence of a black legacy in the
trade union, and only from the set of historic and administrative photos of the
institution can we learn that SCEC was predominantly composed of black
workers. he rest of the archival sources I studied, by contrast, make reference
to a number of interests and values that clearly occupied a more central space
in the institutional identity of ensacadores. One of these values was the ideal
of professional unity,
to overcome … individual hate … which can only bring misfortune to our class
… Two people together are worthier than an individual, because both take advantage of their association … whereas people who have nobody to support them
whenever they fall down will be miserable. (atas book 1940, p.19)
he call for unity among members is found consistently in SCEC’s assembly atas and in the mensário between 1931 and 1964. To some extent, this
recalls considerations already made by Cruz about Resistência in the first two
decades of the twentieth century. In the traditional class spirit of labor organizations, SCEC’s statute of 1940 aimed to promote class solidarity and work
for the wellbeing of members and their families. his included the provision
of legal and financial assistance for workers, in addition to creating and supporting literacy courses, schools, and hospitals, and offering support for funerals and other social security needs, in conformity with law 1402/1939 (atas
book 1940, p.6-7). he objective behind these provisions was to help raise the
spiritual and material conditions of workers, who officially self-identified as a
classe of “low-status laborers” (trabalhadores humildes) (atas book 1941, p.19).
he statute of 1940, on the other hand, also established strict rules in relation
to work ethics, against unprofessional conduct and unjustified absence from
work (atas book, 1940, p.9). From the atas books, which include the 1940
statute, we also know that alcohol consumption before and during work was
particularly condemned (atas book 1947, p.73; atas book 1948, p.109).
Punishments for misbehavior could range from temporary to permanent exclusion from the trade union (atas book 1940, p.9).
A further value that clearly emerges in the official discourse of SCEC is
the celebration of ensacadores’ Catholic faith. On 22 April 1956, the newspaper
A Cruz dedicated an article to the twenty-fith anniversary mass of SCEC, held
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André Cicalo
at the Church of Candelaria: “Following his religious education, the president
Waldemiro Nunes could not celebrate the silver anniversary of his institution
without addressing his gratitude to God, Who has benefited Brazil’s workers
so profoundly” (“O sindicato…”, A Cruz, 1956, p.8).
he mensário and the photographic material, in the same vein, reveal that
the trade union celebrated its foundation anniversary mass, every 20 April in
the Church of Santo Antônio dos Pobres (Saint Anthony of the Poor), while
other celebrations took place at the Church of São Jorge (Saint George), both
in the center of the city. In a document published in the mensário in 1961,
porters thanked the protection of “merciful Jesus” when the government withdrew an increase in coffee export taxation, which risked reducing the availability of work for ensacadores and might have resulted in the union’s
bankruptcy (mensário, n.6, p.2, 1961).
Even more crucially, an ideal that constantly emerged in the institutional
life of SCEC was loyalty to the nation. Most issues of the mensário, for example,
opened with the following sentence:
WE INVITE OUR COMRADES (COMPANHEIROS) TO EMBRACE NOBLE
CAMPAIGNS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. ONLY IN THIS WAY WILL WE BE
ABLE TO PRESENT OURSELVES NOBLY, CONSTITUTING A STRONG AND
RESPECTFUL CLASSE, AND FULFILLING OUR HIGHEST GOAL OF
SERVING THE BRAZILIAN NATION. (mensário, 1960 and 1961)
his emphasis on the nation is not surprising for the epoch, particularly
considering that, according to its statute, SCEC aimed:
to promote the study, coordination, protection and legal representation of the
professional category of coffee baggers … in order to collaborate with public authorities and other associations to establish professional solidarity and [the] professional category’s subordination to national interests. (statute, atas book 1940,
p.6-7, my italics)
Not by chance, the Ministry of Labor and the Political Police put the trade
unions’ meetings, elections, atas, and any other official aspects of laborers’ lives
under strict surveillance. We know, for example, that the Ministry of Labor
oten exerted the prerogative of replacing union presidents in cases of internal
conflict or suspicions of poor administration.12 In a worst-case scenario, authorities could dissolve labor organizations in the same way that they had allowed for their creation. In addition, any political activity whose ideals might
12
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Fields of Post-Abolition: Labor and ‘black’ experience
be at odds with the government was forbidden within the trade union (atas
book 1940, p.6-7). As a result, the values of SCEC during trabalhismo responded to an institutional and operative need, more than reflecting the ensacadores’
identity. he union’s boards of directors had to constantly reassure the authorities that everything about the conduct and the philosophy of the organization
was in line with national ideals. he records of the Political Police of Rio de
Janeiro (1940-1964) are full of letters sent by trade-union administrations, in
which the leaders of these organizations seemed to be trying reassuring the
authorities about their patriotism, anti-communism, institutional unity and
adherence to Catholic values. For these reasons, in order to explain the logic
of SCEC’s official discourse and identity, it is necessary to understand what is
meant by ‘nation’ during trabalhismo.
Vargas gained power with the Revolution of 1930, in a moment characterized by strong social demands and agitation, ater the First Republic had failed
to modernize the country. he spread of socialism among European immigrants, in the meantime, had raised the spirits of the proletariats, who struggled
for better labor conditions and whose strikes threatened the continuity of production and the country’s wealth. Within this context, Vargas’ plan had been
to industrialize the country, control Brazil’s oligarchical groups, repress anarchist and communist movements, and curb immigration. Vargas’ regime addressed these objectives primarily with nationalist policies, regulating social
inclusion and labor rights but also increasing state control over the labor sector. Such control became more effective with the Estado Novo, when Vargas’
government took on a dictatorial and corporatist character. he logic entailed
in trabalhismo was that workers should receive respect and be protected, but
also that they should learn discipline and work ethics in order to be considered
‘honest’ and to serve the nation (Gomes, 2005, p.239). he government saw
the lower classes as soldiers of industrialization and used a logic of social politics that was largely inspired by Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum Encyclical,
which established the rights and duties of capital and labor, and where the
concepts of religious observance and family were emphatically stated. he idea,
as Gomes suggests, was that “if it was not possible to erase poverty completely,
at least it was possible to provide the proletariats with a more human and
Christian condition, as requested by the social doctrine of the [Catholic]
Church…” (2005, p.198).
In terms of race relations, Vargas is remembered for his nationalist support
for the ideology of ‘racial democracy’ and ‘racial mixture’. hese national values
discursively downplayed the existence of racial inequalities in Brazil so to foster
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André Cicalo
national identity and pride, but also ended up disguising racial divides and
championing a romantic view of Brazil’s racial ‘harmony’ (Hasenbalg, 1979).
By the end of the nineteenth century, eugenic views had started to become
popular in Brazil. his suggests a general pessimism at that time about the presence of a large Afro-descendant population and the idea that this could be
problematic for Brazilian development. Reacting to such views, Vargas drew
on Gilberto Freyre’s positive assessment of Brazil’s multiple racial and cultural
roots as a feature of which Brazilians must be proud. At the same time as Vargas
de-penalized Afro-Brazilian religions and valued Afro-Brazilian culture as part
of national folklore, his regime constantly celebrated Brazilians as citizens of a
mixed-race and culturally syncretic country. In so doing, the regime praised
Brazil’s racial harmony and looked with skepticism at any politics that might
contradict this idea. In 1937, within the framework of corporatism that banned
all political and social organizations, Vargas dismantled Frente Negra Brasileira
(FNB),13 the first expression of black politics that had achieved formal organization in Brazil. his happened just ater FNB had reached the status of a political
party in 1936. It also happened at the time when FNB had begun to proselytize
among trade unions.14 his means that, although trabalhismo was characterized
by moments of democratic opening and contextual re-articulation of black
political action, the overall context did not encourage the development of a
political black identity within dockworkers’ trade unions in Rio de Janeiro.
As the philosophy of racial democracy was ubiquitous to all aspects of
social life in Brazil, it was also enmeshed within Brazil’s labor politics. Vargas
acknowledged that black workers should be given official attention as a consequence of their suffering under slavery (Castro Gomes, 2005, p.223). Some
authors have particularly explored the racial layers of trabalhismo, interpreting
Vargas’ labor politics for the lower classes as an attempt to redress the popular
and black-racialized imagery of the malandro (trickster). he malandro, as
oten represented in samba lyrics, was widely portrayed as an antithesis to work
ethics because of its association with bohemian life, petty crime and rejection
of work (Matos, 1932; Lima, 2009). Vargas’ labor politics, in other words,
would have the function of domesticating Afro-Brazilian tricksters and transforming them into “tie-wearing workers of capital” (homens de gravata e capital) (Lima, 2009, p.27) in the service of national progress. It is worth
remembering that the Estado Novo supported the diffusion of a pedagogic
samba (laborers’ samba or samba do trabalhador) that praised the values of
work and encouraged the social redemption of the malandros from “idle” subjects into “new men” (homens novos) (Maia, 2011, p.212; Matos, 1982, p.108).
14
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Fields of Post-Abolition: Labor and ‘black’ experience
If trade unions were controlled by the state and relied on state support for
social advantages and recognition, national ideals of ‘respectability’ must have
been crucial for dockworkers. In other words, incorporating the logic of racial
democracy and reproducing silences about race was also part of the game, and
might have reinforced the paucity of ethno-racial references in SCEC’s official
documents. Having said this, there is no doubt that submission to the state was
convenient for dockworkers, who gained not only ‘respectability’ but also economic prosperity during trabalhismo, In 1960, SCEC’s mensário was still celebrating that Vargas had allowed “[all] workers to occupy a prestigious place in the
economic, legal and political scenario [of Brazil]” (mensário, n.2, p.2, 1960). Due
to the favorable conditions that Vargas provided for the coffee sector, ensacadores
were able to purchase their own headquarters (sede própria) with an annexed
clinic, gather “a financial patrimony of 30,000,000 Brazilian cruzeiros” and buy a
number of estate properties. hey were also able to guarantee broad social security
and adequate medical services for union members and their families (mensário,
n.2, p.2, 1960). SCEC’s photographic archive and newspaper articles offer visual
evidence of this prosperous past, showing institutional moments of the trade
union’s life; for example, expensive ceremonies and parties attended by personalities such as Brazil’s president Eurico Gaspar Dutra, the Governor of the State of
Guanabara Carlos Lacerda, and Deputy Tenório Cavalcanti. It was during these
celebrations that finely dressed ensacadores displayed much of their wealth and
‘respectability’ to state authorities. Living proof of this success was João Fragrante,
the formerly illiterate ensacador who had ‘respectably’ turned into an accountant,
while honestly earning a living through his hard job (a rude tarefa) on the docks
(“Em 1937…”, A Manhã, 1945, p.3). Sitting at his desk and dressed in an elegant
suit, this slave descendant was interviewed by a popular newspaper, displaying
all the signs of his novel social status.
Figure 5 – A moment in SCEC’s administrative life (1960)
Revista Brasileira de História, vol. 35, no 69
15
André Cicalo
Figure 6 – The Board of Directors at ‘St. Anthony
of the Poor’ Church (1960)
Figure 7 – Ensacadores’ families welcoming
Deputy Tenório Cavalcanti at SCEC (1960)
Figure 8 – Party celebrations with members’
families at SCEC (1960)
16
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Fields of Post-Abolition: Labor and ‘black’ experience
RACE, MEMORY OF SLAVERY AND AFRO-BRAZILIAN
LEGACY AMONG DOCKWORKERS
he previous section of this article focused on the official discourse of
SCEC, as contained in the institutional documents that cast light on the trade
union’s past. he question, at this point, is whether any ‘black’ experience had
significance beyond SCEC’s institutional language. he only way to explore
this question, unfortunately, is to rely on the testimonies of the few living
veterans of the labor organization. One of the matters that I explored with my
informants was whether racial discrimination held any significance at SCEC.
[There was] nothing of that! The only thing that mattered for us was supporting
the interests of the classe … ensuring respect from all workers and being wellbehaved at work (portarmos bem no trabalho) … White, black, mulato (white and
black mixed) … once you carried coffee, it did not matter who you were outside
the docks (a sua pessoa não contava mais) … you were just a bagger (você era
saqueiro e ponto)! Everybody did the same, just a very rough job (trabalho pesado
pa’ cacete) … and we had to help each other to make the weight more bearable …
White people were a minority anyway…they had to adapt, didn’t they? (Arlindo)
he interview with Arlindo, a ninety-year-old former ensacador, is quite
typical of the interviews I carried out with other SCEC workers, independent
of their color. All the interviewees pointed out the prevalence of Afro-Brazilian
workers at SCEC as well as the presence of a white minority with whom, apparently, there was no racial conflict. he heavy pace of the job and its low
social status, in addition to its collaborative nature, must have converted
SCEC’s labor collective into a space of relative social harmony, free from ethno-racial tensions (Cruz, 2006a).
Although these testimonies downplayed ethno-racial conflict among ensacadores, race should still be explored as an analytical concept in the study of
dockworkers’ trade unions. Firstly, as Arlindo observes, white people were a
minority at SCEC and white people might have had to ‘adapt’, making concessions to a predominantly non-white collective. In other words, racial issues
among ensacadores might have been different if there had been a different
racial distribution in the workforce, or if white people had dominated the
boards of directors. his last possibility, however, was notably reduced by
SCEC’s statute (atas book 1940, p.6), according to which presidents should be
Revista Brasileira de História, vol. 35, no 69
17
André Cicalo
born in Brazil and members of the boards of directors should be Brazilian or
naturalized Brazilian (atas book 1940, p.9).
Secondly, although internal relations between ensacadores were not clearly influenced by color and racial issues, this fact should not imply that workers
considered racism as something alien to their everyday lives. Most black interviewees, for example, told of the racial discrimination they had suffered away
from the docks. hese cases included experiences of being banned from elevators and swimming pools in middle-class buildings, being the only people
searched by the police on public transport, and being mistaken for muggers
on their way home. Although informants had a view of the docklands as a
non-racist space, this fact did not spare most ensacadores from having a blackracialized experience in Rio de Janeiro. his occurred even during the ideological era dominated by trabalhismo and racial democracy, when the days of
racism seemed numbered (Bastide; Fernandes, 1971).
hirdly, even assuming that ensacadores experienced the docklands as a
racially democratic place, this fact does not necessarily imply that dockworkers’ trade unions were non-racialized. In fact, the high presence of AfroBrazilians in some unions was not simply an effect of the triumphal resistance
of black workers in defending their jobs from migrants. It was also a result of
a general process of segregation, which disproportionally confined AfroBrazilians to heavy and unskilled activities, even in the docklands. he book
Um Porto para o Rio (A Port for Rio) (Turazzi, 2012), which illustrates images
of the construction of the port in the early twentieth century, reveals that the
laborers involved in the activities of landfilling the port and expanding the
docks between 1903 and 1910 were predominantly white. Similarly, interviews
with dockworkers have revealed that the numbers of black workers were traditionally lower in the Stevedores’ Union, and even lower among the
Conferentes (shipment clerks). Data relating to this point can also be visually
collected from the book Estivadores do Rio de Janeiro (Almeida, 2003). Almeida
displays the photos of 66 union presidents, from which I deduced that 50
percent of the Estivadore presidents were white. he fact of their being a larger
proportion of white dockworkers among estivadores (whose work was performed inside the ships’ holds) than among Resistência’s workers and coffee
ensacadores (whose jobs were performed outside the ships) is also observed,
but not explained, by Moura (1995, p.71). My informants from the docklands
generally ascribe this situation to the higher clustering of Portuguese and, more
marginally, Italian and Spanish dockworkers among estivadores and shipment
clerks.15 But why should white Europeans cluster more typically in certain jobs
18
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Fields of Post-Abolition: Labor and ‘black’ experience
and trade unions in the docks? To answer this question, it is important to look
at racial distribution patterns not simply as something typical of the docklands,
but as an entrenched dynamic of Brazil’s social and economic life in general.
Andrews (2004, p.143-144) defends the idea that links of solidarity based
on nationality and color might have influenced the choice of the employers –
most of them white and foreign.16 Specifically, the work of landfilling and expanding the port of Rio de Janeiro in the early twentieth century was
sub-contracted to a private British company, C.H. Walker & Cia Ltda (Turazzi,
2012), which had total control of the recruitment process. According to
Domingues (2003, p.103), the preference among employers for (white)
European workers was based on the clear tendency to identify these workers
as more skilled and familiar with tasks involving some level of technology.17
However, Domingues argues that the idea of European immigrants having
better skills than Brazilians was a myth (2003, p.91-92). In a similar vein,
Galvão (1997), who explores literacy rates among Resistência’s workers in the
first decades of the twentieth century, finds that 26 percent of European members were declared illiterate, compared to 13 percent of Brazilian pretos, 13
percent of Brazilian pardos, and 9 percent of Brazilian brancos. As a consequence of this paradox, Domingues (2003, p.121) concludes that the comparative advantages of European migrants in the job market should primarily be
explained by the persistence of eugenic and whitening ideals in Brazil.
Since the scholarship available on dockworkers in Rio de Janeiro has not
followed a comparative approach, what we lack is a reflection on pay and
prestige hierarchies among different trade unions operating in the docklands.
In this sense, the interview process with dockworkers highlighted that the tasks
carried out by the shipment clerks’ and the estivadores’ collectives (where the
number of Afro-Brazilians was lower) enjoyed higher prestige and remuneration than those performed by Resistência’s and SCEC’s workers, whose labor
was considerably heavier and involved more physical power.18 Interviewees
explained that the work of estivadores was made lighter by the use of mechanical cranes (guindastes), while the job of shipment clerks consisted of monitoring and administrative activities, a fact that required some literacy and
mathematical skills. hat said, higher pay and the type of work were not the
only factors that produced uneven racial distributions among dockworkers’
unions. In fact, both SCEC’s statute and interviews with informants revealed
that admission procedures for members traditionally favored the employment
of workers’ relatives, and that potential candidates were oten proposed from
within circles of friends and acquaintances. Some levels of uneven racial
Revista Brasileira de História, vol. 35, no 69
19
André Cicalo
distribution, consequently, were probably maintained through the embedded
racialization of workers’ social networks (among family, friends and neighbors), where specific ethno-racial groups might have been predominant. A
parallel discourse can be made in relation to the social mobility of workers
depending on their color. Galvão’s informants at Resistência, for example,
claimed that while several Portuguese people had been union members, they
tended to resign more easily as soon as better job opportunities opened up
(1997, p.49); opportunities that, for one reason or another, seemed less available to black workers or less appealing to them.
hese considerations are useful to relativize my informants’ understandings of the docklands as a space where race did not really matter. Feelings
about racial divides were probably reduced not only because some mixture was
present in all the trade unions, but also because, in the case of work surpluses,
laborers might be offered informal day labor through other unions. hese exchanges, according to informants, were particularly frequent between ensacadores, Resistência’s carriers and estivadores, where workers could even ‘rent
out’ their shits to other people in exchange for a commission.19 Finally, racial
divides within and between different trade unions were largely mystified as a
result of the shared social and cultural space in the docklands. In fact, as an
informant stated, “dockworkers played the same sambas, drank in the same
botiquins (canteens), went to the same brothels, took the same train back to
the suburbs [where most dockworkers lived]…” (Ivanil).
he black racialization of some trade unions took on sharper contours
when I asked SCEC informants why black laborers had traditionally prevailed
in their unions. Interviewees responded by saying that coffee transportation
was, originally, typically the work of enslaved people (isso vem do trabalho
escravo). Others explained that it was because they executed manual labor
(trabalho braçal), which required little or no schooling (baixa escolaridade).
Informants made their points by implying a discourse of the racialization of
poverty, the main explanation for which was embedded in the memory of
slavery. his is the case not only because the slave trade exerted a racializing
effect on Brazilian history, but also because, in the understandings of ensacadores, a black-racialized body represented the ‘ideal’ executor for heavy, physical jobs:
It might happen that a muscled white man was willing to work [as an ensacador]
… well, the man could not even unload a truck of 150 sacks! [laughs] If he could
barely take the sacks out of the truck, how could he ever transport them to the
20
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Fields of Post-Abolition: Labor and ‘black’ experience
warehouse? These [white] people did not even know how to hold the bag … so
their hands turned very soon into raw flesh. In contrast, the pretos … the preto
was very strong (era forte mesmo) … which is not a surprise since he came from
slavery … When he started working [as an ensacador], the black man already
knew the job … because he came from the plantations, from inland in the state
[of Rio de Janeiro] or from [the states of] Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo. They
all descended from slaves who lived on the plantations there. When he [the black
worker] was lazy, not even the whip worked (nem dava o chicote pra isso) … but
when he was keen on working, in that case he was an excellent laborer. (Arlindo)
Another worker reinforced similar connections between the heavy jobs
of ensacadores and the black-racializing effects of slavery:
In my time, coffee baggers earned good money since pay was proportional to production … but the job … the job really killed you! [We] black folks (a negrada)20
had to unload trucks (carretas) of 200 or more sacks of coffee, 60 kilos each … 61,
if you included the weight of the sack … Most workers were black because it was
the job of the slaves! Because, in the end, what do we [goods carriers] do if not
give continuity to what the black slave (o negro escravo) did before us? (Levy)
he presence of a ‘black field’ within dockworkers’ trade unions does not
surface exclusively through the process of color distribution and the performance of black-racialized bodies as a legacy of slavery. Roberto Moura (1995),
not by chance, has emphatically described dockworkers’ contributions to the
shaping of Afro-Brazilian culture in Rio de Janeiro through samba, carnival
and their involvement in Afro-Brazilian faiths, as has also been mentioned by
the same dockworkers (see also Arantes, 2005). Members of the Resistência
and other dockworkers’ organizations in Rio de Janeiro (including SCEC), for
example, were founders of the samba school Império Serrano, one that traditionally put some emphasis on the memory of slavery and Afro-Brazilian cultural heritage such as jongo music, Afro-Brazilian popular Catholicism and
African gods (orixás).21 In spite of this legacy, any connections between ensacadores and samba, capoeira, and carnival are strangely silenced in SCEC’s
archives, and were carefully maintained outside of the union’s official life.
In official discourse, ensacadores had also preferred to conceal any references to Afro-Brazilian faiths, while they emphasized their lives as observant
Catholics. he data that I collected through archival research, however, show
incoherence with a statement that I constantly heard in the port area of Rio de
Janeiro: “dockworkers were all macumbeiros!” (followers of macumba, a term
Revista Brasileira de História, vol. 35, no 69
21
André Cicalo
widely used to refer to Afro-religious cults of candomblé and umbanda in Rio
de Janeiro). Ivanil and other ensacadores spent some time remembering which
candomblé and umbanda houses (casas de macumba) SCEC leaders frequented
in the areas of Jacarezinho, Nova Iguaçu, Penha and Duque de Caxias. Some
of them also mentioned how macumba played an important role during the
election process of SCEC boards of directors, where opposite factions of ensacadores competed politically for power. hese rituals, I was told, never took
place at SCEC’s headquarters and remained confined to the semi-private space
of its members’ lives. he manifestation of African spirits, on the other hand,
was not totally separate from life in the docklands.
Kiko: …When the crane started lifting a cargo of stones into the ship, a worker
went completely crazy. He screamed and panicked. He shouted out that those
stones could not leave [the docks]…they should be put back where they came
from [the land from where they had been extracted]. You had to see it to believe it...
Me: But what happened?
Kiko: He was possessed [by an orixá] (sei lá, o cara baixou alguma coisa)…
Other worker: It’s because orixás (as entidades) relate to earth, water, fire … That
one must have felt deprived of his element (sentiu que tiraram alguma coisa dele).
Me: How did the story end?
Kiko: He calmed down only when somebody called his mother, who had a terreiro (candomblé/umbanda house) somewhere…
But is it possible that nothing of the ensacadores’ macumba universe was
present at SCEC’s premises? Interestingly, when I asked dockworkers whether
any visible expression of an Afro-Brazilian religious universe had survived at
the SCEC, Ivanil looked at me with some surprise: “Is there not a Saint George
over there [pointing to the Saint George altar and statue on the third floor of
SINTRAMAERJ’s headquarters]? Isn’t that black people’s stuff? (Não tem um
São Jorge lá em cima? Aquilo não é coisa de preto?)”.
Ivanil’s reference to the Saint George altar as “black people’s stuff” exemplifies the syncretic process by which enslaved people and their descendants have used images of white saints and rituals from Catholicism to
venerate African gods (Saint Jorge is largely identified with African god
Ogum in Rio de Janeiro). Whether this cultural syncretism is the result of the
harsh repression that Afro-derived cults have suffered since colonial times,
or whether it represents a ‘black’ cultural appropriation of Catholicism, or
22
Revista Brasileira de História, vol. 35, no 69
Fields of Post-Abolition: Labor and ‘black’ experience
Figure 9 – Saint George’s niche at SCEC’s/SINTRAMAERJ’s
headquarters
more simply Afro-Catholicism, this subject is widely explored in literature
(Karasch, 2000, p.355-360; Soares, 2002) and goes far beyond the reach of
this article. A point that is quite important to stress here, instead, is that
Vargas formally removed the embargo against Afro-Brazilian faiths (law
1202/1939), basically admitting them as ingredients of national identity. In
this context, nothing should have prevented ensacadores from making their
devotion to orixás more explicit within SCEC’s spaces. It is worth mentioning, however, that such ritual freedom was not unconditional, and followers
still had to obtain expensive permits to practice their cults from the Delegacy
of Games and Costumes, at least until 1976. In addition, the granting of these
permits was never automatic, and Afro-Brazilian faiths continued to face
repression more or less implicitly. Both during and ater Vargas’ rule, in fact,
Afro-Brazilian cultural expressions were generally seen as antithetical to
modernization and public morality, or as popular folklore. Consequently, an
open display of Afro-Brazilian culture might have been counterproductive
for the ‘respectable’ image that ensacadores aimed to project of themselves
either as citizens or as state interlocutors. his trend certainly continued during the military regime (1964-1975), when, despite the end of trabalhismo,
the ideology of racial democracy continued to thrive.
Revista Brasileira de História, vol. 35, no 69
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André Cicalo
CONCLUSION: DOCKWORKERS’ POST-ABOLITION
FIELDS BETWEEN CITIZENSHIP AND EXCLUSION
he absence of Afro-Brazilian markers in SCEC’s institutional discourse
and its general confinement to the semi-private sphere of workers’ lives does
not simply reflect the irrelevance of ethno-racial matters in the docklands. It
should also be interpreted either as a result of constraints set by the state ideology of racial democracy or as a strategy of social emancipation of black proletariats. his strategy made particular sense at a time when state ideologies
claimed to be offering a valid solution for the full integration of the black
masses into the formal job market, while Afro-descendants were trying to
shake off the stigma of slavery. SCEC’s wealth and its illustrious relationships
with authorities and politicians suggest that the dream of racial equality was
affordable for ensacadores, and that displaying loyalty to the mainstream moral
system of the nation was both compulsory and convenient. For all these reasons, SCEC’s official archive may not be the most appropriate field in which
to research black experiences among coffee baggers. he archive, as I have
suggested, represents a better space to explore how ensacadores concealed and
negotiated their Afro-Brazilian heritage, in order to build and preserve an image of respectability. Seen from this angle, ensacadores’ silence on AfroBrazilian heritage might represent “simultaneously a public form of
accommodation and a private (if at the same time communal) form of resistance” (Sheriff, 2001, p.83).
Having noted the set of institutional constraints and conscious choices
that might have led ensacadores to officially downplay the Afro-Brazilian legacy, I have posited that the presence of a black field, or several black fields, at
SCEC still surfaces through the intersection of different scenarios. he first
scenario consists of the way that racial structures manifest in the docklands,
although this might sound at odds with the feeling of racial harmony that some
informants report having experienced there. However, the idea of a black field
does not simply build onto the systems of inclusion and solidarity that AfroBrazilian workers deployed within and outside the docklands. It also draws on
processes of historical exclusion, which have generally prevented certain sectors of post-abolition society from full access to socio-economic resources, and
have relegated them to lower-status jobs. he second scenario by which a black
field emerges among dockworkers concerns the explicit reference that these
workers make to the slavery past as an important framework for their jobs. I
have observed that this legacy, which is already described in the
24
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Fields of Post-Abolition: Labor and ‘black’ experience
historiography, also tends to ‘speak’ through the black-racialized body of the
ensacador, stigmatized and self-stigmatized as a ‘natural’ performer of heavy,
unskilled labor. he third scenario that reveals a black field relies on links with
Afro-Brazilian cultural heritage, in the ways that this has been preserved within
the less official spheres of SCEC workers’ lives.
At the institutional level, dockworkers’ links with slavery history and
Afro-Brazilian legacy emerged in Fragrante’s newspaper interview, although
any possible ethno-racial content there appears somewhat ambiguous and is
reframed in class terms. Fragrante, as I have pointed out, de-racialized his
testimony by arguing that Vargas’ labor legislation had abolished workers’ slavery.22 However, a number of features tend to racialize his testimony. Firstly,
the interviewee made an extremely accurate reference to slavery mitigation
and abolition laws (the Free of Birth Law and the Golden Law), something that
white workers might not have cited with the same emphasis. Secondly, some
ethno-racial content in the newspaper article was automatically displayed by
the phenotype of the interviewee, independent of his elegant outfit and further
evidence of his improved social status. Finally, Afro-Brazilian legacy emerges
through the ethno-racial constituency of the overall labor collective that
Fragrante represented: a constituency whose prevalent Afro-Brazilian character was presumably known to A Manhã’s readership in 1945. In general, the
impression is that scars from a rather close and familiar slave past, as well as
echoes of post-abolition struggles, still filter through Fragrante’s discourse,
where class and race necessarily appear as superposed and entangled spheres.
Fragrante, consequently, was more than just a lower-class worker who showed
his gratitude to trabalhismo. He was also a voice of post-abolition society. his
could be understood as an historical ground crossed by discourses, negotiated
meanings and silences, through which black proletariats have strategically
looked for citizenship and longed for effective inclusion.
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NOTES
The work leading to this article has received funding from the People Program (Marie
Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007–2013)
under REA grant agreement no. PIOF-GA-2012-327465.
1
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27
André Cicalo
I could not find a better translation of ensacador into the English language. This term in
Portuguese refers to workers who stored food and other goods into bags/sacks for distribution on the market.
2
Sindicato dos Carregadores e Ensacadores de Café do Rio de Janeiro. In the text, I simplify
the original ‘SCECRJ’ into ‘SCEC’. The trade union changed its name to Sindicato dos
Carregadores e Ensacadores de Café da Guanabara in 1960, when the federal capital was
transferred to Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro became the capital of the small state of Guanabara (1960-1975). It finally changed into the Sindicato dos Carregadores e Ensacadores de
Café do Estado do Rio de Janeiro in 1975.
3
Although coffee carrying was an important task of coffee dockworkers, SCEC workers
used the term ensacador/es more often than carregador/es.
4
For similar considerations about silence on ethno-racial matters in official discourse see
McPhee (2006b, 175) and Cruz (2006a).
5
6
Cruz, before me, found the concept of a ‘black field’ useful to analyze black ethno-racial
legacy in Rio de Janeiro’s docklands in the first two decades of the twentieth century.
Cruz, citing a document of 1853, mentions that, before abolition, most of the transportation of coffee between warehouses was done by black slaves-for-hire, who walked in a
queue (enfilarados) and were directed by a captain (2010, p.118). See also Farias et al.
(2005, p.115).
7
Although this term is often used generically for dockworkers, the specialty of the estivadores was organizing cargos inside the ship’s hold.
8
9
See also Líbano (1994) and Arantes (2005, p.107-127).
An article on the first page of the newspaper A Noite (“Matou…”, 1931, p.1) comments
on the murder of a capitão da tropa at SCEC. The work of the captain was carried out by
the trade union ‘fiscal’ (superintendent), terminology still used today, while the tropas were transformed into professional categories of workers (classes or proletariado).
10
This percentage does not suggest that the rest of the workers were ‘white’. The remaining
30 percent includes a small percentage of non-white workers about whose black-African
ancestry I felt unsure. There is no information about the year in which the membership
forms were filled out. However, the date of workers’ admission in the trade union appears
in some of the forms, ranging from 1931 to the early 1960s.
11
12
For an example, see the atas book 1941, p.18-19.
13
Brazilian Black Front.
14
During Italian military campaigns in Abyssinia, FNB exhorted “black stevedores of Rio
de Janeiro, Santos and Bahia to boycott the export of any war resources that could be employed against their threatened [black] brothers” (A Manhã, 1935, p.7).
This impact of ‘nationality’, I observe, had the implicit effect of altering the ‘racial’ distribution in certain labor unions or job sectors. However, with the implementation of immigration restriction laws in the early 1930s, this impact probably tended to decrease.
15
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Fields of Post-Abolition: Labor and ‘black’ experience
16
In Sao Paulo, according to Domingues (2003, p.118), 75 percent of employers were Italian.
For a similar point away from the docklands see Terra (2012). The author explains how
since the mid-nineteenth century, European immigrants tended to monopolize mechanized transport of people, while enslaved people and freemen remained disproportionally
segregated in physical jobs of general transportation as carregadores.
17
18
See also Andrews (2004, p.143-144).
19
This system was called ‘cavalo’ (literally, horse).
The frequent use of this term among ensacadores is interesting, conserving the presence
of about 20-25 percent of white people among this labor category.
20
For a sample of lyrics by Resistência and Império Serrano’s leader, Aniceto da Império,
see http://letras.mus.br/aniceto-do-imperio/ (last accessed 17 Oct. 2014).
21
22
This testimony finds a parallel in relatively recent interviews carried out with slave descendants in Brazil’s rural Southeast (see Gomes; Mattos, 1998, p.7-12; and Rios; Mattos,
2005, p.248). These interviews show that slave descendants ascribe real abolition to Getúlio Vargas, meaning that the law of 1888 had not done enough to convert enslaved and
slave-descendant people into full citizens.
Article received on January 20, 2015. Approved on March 6, 2015.
Revista Brasileira de História, vol. 35, no 69
29
Erratum - Fields of Post-Abolition: Labor and ‘black’ experience
among coffee workers in Rio de Janeiro (1931-1964)
No artigo “Fields of Post-Abolition: Labor and ‘black’ experience
among coffee workers in Rio de Janeiro (1931-1964)” publicado no
periódico Revista Brasileira de História, vol. 35, n. 69, edição em
inglês, na p. 27 do artigo, onde se lia:
“1. The work leading to this article has received funding from the
People Program (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s
Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007–2013) under REA grant
agreement no. PIOF-GA-2012-327465.”
leia-se:
“1. The research leading to these results has received funding from
the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European
Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under
grant agreement n° PIOF-2012-327465. It is made clear that the
work presented reflects only the author’s views and the European
Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information
contained therein.”
Revista Brasileira de História. São Paulo, v. 35, nº 69, June 2015. Available at: http://www.scielo.br/rbh
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1806-93472015v35n69006e