Prata Preta, the black leader in the Vaccine Revolt -

Prata Preta, the black leader in the Vaccine Revolt

20/11/2024

Partners • History • Racism • Public Health

By ALEXANDRE JULIETE ROSA*

Sanitation was the main justification for the destruction of the Old City in Rio de Janeiro and the expulsion of the poor population from the central areas

“No one really knows how the incident unfolded. What is certain is that at five in the morning, the soldier on duty at the police station was gagged, tied up and put in jail, in place of the prisoners, who were released. Once the police officers were disarmed, the scoundrels took possession of the sabers and revolvers and “Prata Preta”, with a sword at his belt, ordered the immediate construction of trenches in Praça da Harmonia, which was done with stones ripped from the pavement and sandbags.”[I]

This November 2024 marks one hundred and twenty years since the popular rebellion that took place in the city of Rio de Janeiro and became known as the Vaccine Revolt. The historiography dedicated to the event highlights the complexity of that period of great transformations in the then federal capital, which resulted in the expulsion of the poor population from the city center and the intensification of social and economic contradictions. Behind such actions, a type of ideological device operated as a catalyst for the endeavor: the ideology of whitening.

in your book Black on White: race and nationality in Brazilian thought, Thomas Skidmore has shown that since the late 1880s, “the ideal of whitening had coalesced around political and economic liberalism to produce a more defined national image. The popularity of whitening was not accidental, and an ingenious compromise between racist theories and the realities of Brazilian social life was possible.”[ii]

The remodeling of the city of Rio de Janeiro, which took place between 1902 and 1906, entrusted unrestrictedly to Mayor Pereira Passos, as well as the fight against epidemics [yellow fever, bubonic plague, smallpox], taken on by the young doctor Oswaldo Cruz, were the two major governmental actions of President Rodrigues Alves, who continued the café-com-leite liberalism of Campos Salles, also from São Paulo.

Urban reform and reform of customs were urgently needed to transform the country's capital into a first-world center. Sanitation and beautification were the project's motto. Rio needed to become more civilized. Sanitation was the main justification for the razing of the Old City and the expulsion of the poor population from the central areas. According to the consensus of the authorities at the time, the epidemics were directly related to the disorderly, unhealthy and overcrowded situation of the city.

Researcher Jaime Benchimol points out that among the targets of the actions, housing stood out, especially collective housing, where the poor congregated: “The doctors accused both their habits – ignorance and physical and moral filth – and the greed of the owners, who speculated with human life in small, damp, airless and lightless dwellings, which functioned as fermenters or putrefactions, releasing clouds of miasma over the city. It was the hygienists who highlighted most of the Gordian knots that the engineers would try to untie.”^[iii]

Setting the pace in the great concert of civilization, something that our neighbor Buenos Aires had already done very successfully, became an obsessive idea of our tropical elite. There was no better thermometer to indicate the country's backwardness than the opinion of foreigners, mainly Europeans, who arrived here. At best, “travelers described Rio as an exotic place, full of farms, colonial architecture, crowds of workers and black street vendors in colorful clothes amidst the lush vegetation. Most of the time, however, the predominant fear was the periodic slaughter caused by yellow fever and the contempt for the dirty and overcrowded streets, the bad taste and stench of dirt, sweat and perfume in public places.”^[iv]

Historian Nicolau Sevcenko, who dedicated a book to the Vaccine Revolt, narrates in dramatic tones what those years were like for the poor population of Rio: “The federal capital and its population were subjected, without any consultation or clarification, to an exceptional law. And there were no resources with which to react: it was to submit unconditionally to the will of the leaders. The victims are easy to identify: the entire multitude of humble people, of the most varied ethnicities, who constituted the working masses, the unemployed, the underemployed and the afflicted of all kinds. The government’s action was not only against their housing: their clothes, their belongings, their family, their neighborhood relationships, their daily lives, their habits, their animals, their means of subsistence and survival, their culture. Everything, in short, is affected by the new spatial, physical, social, ethical and cultural discipline imposed by the reformist gesture. An official, authoritarian and inescapable gesture, which was made under exceptional laws that blocked any rights or guarantees of the people affected. A brutal, disciplinary and discriminatory gesture, which clearly separated the space of privilege and the borders of exclusion and oppression.”[v]

Although the remodeling work in Rio affected a wide range of ethnicities, the central idea was to whiten the city, whiten it in order to civilize it, at least in its central area. Since whitening the population was a long-term project, the pure and simple expulsion had its more immediate advantages: “Pereira Passos also attacked some of Rio’s traditions. He prohibited the street vending of food, spitting on the floor of streetcars, the sale of milk in which cows were taken from door to door, the raising of pigs within the city limits, the display of meat outside butcher shops, the roaming of stray dogs, the neglect of painting facades, the holding of Shrovetide and unauthorized parades during Carnival, as well as a series of other “barbaric” and “uncultured” customs.[vi]

The fight against epidemic diseases was another strong point in the Rio remodeling project. When Oswaldo Cruz took over as Director General of Public Health in late 1902, the health police had already stepped up their operations against the yellow fever mosquito, in parallel actions to Pereira Passos' reforms: “Hygiene committees and medical students, divided into groups that were accompanied by Public Cleaning wagons, inspected homes in the city center and port area, frequently calling on the police to empty water tanks, manholes, drains and ditches, clear attics and basements, confiscate chickens and pigs, prescribe immediate renovations or close down unhealthy buildings.”[vii]

Oswaldo Cruz perfected the operations of the health police, using military coercion devices and legal instruments of 'persuasion'. The nomenclature of the parts of this mechanism speaks for itself: “health police”, “health stations”, “mosquito-killing brigades”, “hygiene battalions” etc. There was also an educational attempt that consisted of conveying in the official diary and in newspapers with large circulation some newsletters called “Advice to the People”.[viii]

In June 1904, Oswaldo Cruz himself formulated a bill to regulate the mandatory vaccination against smallpox. Rio de Janeiro had been devastated by an epidemic of the disease. Vaccination against smallpox was not new in Brazil. It had been practiced since the colonial period, since the viceroyalty of Dom Fernando José, and intensified with the arrival of the court of Dom João VI in 1808. It was not the vaccine as we know it today; it used the method developed by the British physician Edward Jenner, arm-to-arm vaccination, which was an improvement on the variolation technique.[ix]

However, throughout the imperial period and into the Republic, there was a lot of resistance from the population, especially from the Afro-descendant population, who had different conceptions about disease and cure in relation to smallpox. Sidney Chalhoub demonstrated, based on extensive documentation from the time, that adherence to the vaccine was extremely low: “especially from the end of the 1830s, and throughout the rest of the imperial period, doctors practically did not deal with any other subject other than trying to explain why the population was horrified by the vaccine.”

Sidney Chalhoub also highlighted a dimension that remained hidden in historiography for a long time and that would explain, in part, the enormous resistance of the Afro-descendant population to the mandatory law: “There is a possible explanation for the fact that the main collective revolt against 'health despotism' occurred due to the actions of the government in relation to smallpox: in addition to the technical and bureaucratic missteps of the vaccination service throughout a century of history, there were the solid black cultural roots of the vaccinophobic tradition […] The world of the 'dangerous classes' was full of cultural survivals that needed to be eradicated to make way for progress and civilization – there were reprehensible habits in the ways of living, dressing, working, having fun, healing, etc… many of them abominable because they were manifestations of the black cultural roots disseminated among the working classes”.[X]

But it wasn't just the poor population, especially those of African descent, who reacted to the vaccine. Considered one of the most brilliant minds of that time, Rui Barbosa took a radically hostile stance against the law that would make vaccination mandatory. First, to remain consistent with English liberalism, which he professed with unhealthy faith. On this point, his criticism was legally, morally and philosophically armed against the Torture Code, nickname given to the draft regulation of the law that would make vaccination and revaccination mandatory.^[xi]

Even a more balanced newspaper like News Gazette released an editorial considering the reading of such a project “deplorable”: “… and we are above suspicion to say so, since we have always followed with the greatest sympathy the efforts of the director of Public Health [Oswaldo Cruz] to modify the hygienic conditions of the city and, since, far from showing ourselves to be inimical [adverse] not to the vaccine, but to mandatory vaccination itself, we had the opportunity to point out the benefits that have resulted from this measure everywhere it has been put into practice. For us, the mandatory nature of the vaccine could not and should not be discussed on the grounds of abstract principles, nor of intransigence of school or doctrine, but on the grounds of convenience, opportunity, and practice.”[xii]

It must be acknowledged that the scientific truth about the vaccine’s effectiveness was still shaky, but the legal truth, for Rui Barbosa, was not. The law could not guarantee the State certain actions that would harm individual bodies. The future “Eagle of The Hague” then arrived at a formulation that would find resonance here in our time, during the Covid-19 epidemic: “The vaccine, however, is not harmless. There are, at least in this respect, the most serious doubts. Therefore, there is no name, in the category of crimes of power, for the recklessness, violence, tyranny that it [the power] ventures to commit, voluntarily, obstinately, to poison me, by introducing into my blood a virus, whose influence there are the most well-founded fears that it will lead to illness or death. It cannot, in the name of public health, impose suicide on the innocent.”^[xiii]

On November 10, 1904, shortly after the mandatory vaccination bill was announced, major protests began to take over the streets and central squares of Rio de Janeiro. As always happens in situations like this, the police were called to disperse the protesters, who responded by swearing and throwing stones. The following day, the leaders of the League Against Mandatory Vaccination [Senator Lauro Sodré, Congressman Barbosa Lima, and Socialist leader Vicente de Souza] organized a large rally in Largo São Francisco de Paula, defying the authorities' orders.

The problem was that the leaders of the League did not show up and some popular speakers began to stand out in the huge crowd that filled the square, giving improvised speeches that kept tempers high: “The police authorities are ordered to intervene. As soon as they approach, the police force is booed and taunted. When they try to make arrests, stone throwing and clashes begin. Faced with popular reaction, a cavalry charge is ordered against the crowd, saber in hand. The wounded begin to fall, blood stains the pavement of the streets, and the commotion becomes widespread. Shots and stones from the harassed population rain down on the police brigade. Shops, banks, bars, cafes and government offices close their doors. The popular groups disperse through the central streets: Rua do Teatro, Rua do Ouvidor, Sete de Setembro, Praça Tiradentes.

The fighting was intense; nowhere was the police able to gain control of the situation. Taking advantage of the ongoing renovations to open up Avenida Passos and Avenida Central (now Avenida Rio Branco), the locals armed themselves with stones, sticks, iron bars, blunt instruments and tools and fought with the police guards. The police, in turn, used mainly infantry troops armed with short rifles and cavalry lancers. The cornered population took refuge in the empty houses surrounding the construction sites and fled into the narrow alleys, where coordinated military action was impossible. The noise of the fighting was deafening: gunshots, shouts, the clatter of horses, shattered glass, running, boos and groans. The number of wounded grew on both sides, and at every moment new contingents of police and mutineers arrived at the scattered scene of the skirmish.”[xiv]

In the following days, the city of Rio became the scene of a true civil war. Some leaders of the League Against the Vaccine, who wanted to gain political advantage from the situation, completely lost control of the protests. An unusual event in the midst of this true people's war occurred between November 14 and 15: an attempted military insurrection, led by former lieutenant colonel Lauro Sobré and other military personnel, who had plans to overthrow the government and establish a “Second Republic”. Despite being unsuccessful and poorly organized, the military sedition raised red alert in the presidential palace.

Only with a security apparatus involving the state police, Army, Navy and National Guard were government forces able to quell the uprising. On November 16, the government suspended the decree mandating vaccination and the seditious movement gradually receded until it finally died out.

Prata Preta and the Battle of Port Arthur

With the repression of the military forces in the city's central streets and squares, part of the rebellious population rioted in some areas close to the city center, such as the Gamboa and Saúde neighborhoods. It was in this neighborhood that the revolt formed its most tenacious and fierce resistance. The government forces and the press created an impressive, fanciful image that was disproportionate to the reality of the facts. It is necessary to recover, at least in its general outlines, the amalgam of prejudices, hatred, fears and intolerance against the population that lived in that region, in order to understand the historical significance of that environment created against the rebels of Porto Arthur.

The Saúde neighborhood was born in one of the most important locations in Rio de Janeiro at the time of colonization, forming part of the port region, next to the current neighborhoods of Gamboa and Santo Cristo and the “Valongo complex”. The occupation of that territory, according to historian Brasil Gerson, dates back to the beginning of the 18th century, when some Portuguese families acquired land and built farms and some churches.

Next to the Church of Santa Rita, the cemetery of the Pretos Novos had been built, “which disappeared in the street layouts to which the city was subjected during the viceroyalty of the Marquis of Lavradio [1769–1779], a sort of eighteenth-century Pereira Passos. A cross was erected for the souls of the slaves whose bones had remained beneath it forever, and next to it a fountain came to keep it company in 1839, with water brought from Carioca [Chafariz da Carioca] through an underground pipe.”[xv]

Another historian, José Murilo de Carvalho, tells us that the cemetery was intended for the burial of “new blacks,” that is, “slaves who died after ships entered Guanabara Bay or immediately after disembarking, before being sold. It operated from 1772 to 1830 in Valongo, a stretch of the Rio de Janeiro coastline that ran from Prainha to Gamboa. It had previously operated in Largo de Santa Rita, in the heart of the city, close to where the market for newly arrived slaves was also located. The viceroy, Marquis of Lavradio, faced with the enormous inconveniences of the original location, ordered that the market and cemetery be transferred to Valongo, an area then located outside the city limits. Valongo thus entered the city’s history as a place of horrors. There, slaves who survived the transatlantic voyage received a passport to the slave quarters. Those who did not survive had their bodies subjected to a degrading burial. For everyone, it was a grim scene of the human flesh trade. The cemetery was closed in 1830 as a result of numerous complaints from residents who had gradually settled there and the treaty to abolish the slave trade imposed by England, ratified in 1827 and coming into force three years later. In theory, if there was no more slave trade, there could be no new blacks and without them there could be no cemetery for new blacks.”[xvi]

The transfer of the slave market from Praça XV to Valongo, according to researcher Julio César Medeiros, “caused the cemetery of the Pretos Novos to be moved from Largo de Santa Rita to the street that became known as the old Rua do Cemitério, later Rua da Harmonia and, today, Rua Pedro Ernesto, still belonging to the jurisdiction of the parish of Santa Rita. It was during this period that the cemetery experienced the greatest concentration of bodies. At the end of the 18th century, the concentration of commerce in the area led to an intense population increase, causing the cemetery to be surrounded by houses. There was a population increase in the region of the Saúde, Valongo and Gamboa neighborhoods, where hills, slopes and coves were gradually occupied by residences. The area around the cemetery was taken over by houses, generally belonging to poor families who could not afford to move from the parish of Santa Rita, either because of the lack of land reclamation work or because they were poor people, especially freed blacks who needed to be close to the port and the city's commercial center in order to earn a few réis for their subsistence. In other words, the living, by force of circumstances, became neighbors of the dead.”[xvii]

What had existed only in historical accounts came to light, literally, in 1996. That year, the couple Mercedes and Petruccio dos Anjos began renovating their home, located at 36 Pedro Ernesto Street, in the Gamboa neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. To test the terrain, the workers in charge of the work dug a few holes along the house's external circulation area. As they drilled into the ground, using shovels and pickaxes, a large quantity of human bones were fragmented, mixing with the soil as the rubble was removed to the surface.

The extremely damaged bones were incorporated into the rubble accumulated around the holes that had been opened. Through emergency rescue and historical research, it was possible to identify the site as the old Cemetery of the New Blacks (1770 to 1830), a place intended for the burial of newly arrived slaves who died shortly after disembarking in Rio de Janeiro.[xviii]

In 2011, the Valongo Wharf Archaeological Site was discovered during the modernization works of the Port Region of Rio de Janeiro, due to the hosting of the 2016 Olympic Games. In March 2017, Valongo Wharf was added to the World Heritage List of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). “New Afro-Brazilian cultural expressions have made Valongo Wharf a place for memory tourism, a space for field trips for students of different school levels and a reference for religious and artistic celebrations.”[xx]

Currently, the Valongo Wharf is part of the Historical and Archaeological Circuit of the Celebration of African Heritage, which has been recovering the social memory and Afro-Brazilian culture in the port region, along with the Valongo Hanging Garden, Largo do Depósito, Pedra do Sal, José Bonifácio Cultural Center and the Pretos Novos Cemetery. The circuit, in turn, is part of the Porto Maravilha mega project, designed to recover the urban infrastructure, transport, environment and historical and cultural heritage of the Port Region, which fully encompasses the neighborhoods of Santo Cristo, Gamboa, Saúde and parts of Centro, Caju, Cidade Nova and São Cristóvão.

The population of this territory dates back, as we have said, to the 1808th and XNUMXth centuries. With the arrival of the Royal Family in XNUMX, the region became an important point for the flow of goods, especially gold from Minas Gerais and products extracted from the colony, mainly coffee. A commercial outpost of this size normally attracts many people looking for work and economic activities of various kinds. The port region was also a place where many freed slaves arrived, who found work there and felt, in a certain way, welcomed by the large presence of people of African origin.

This process intensified after the formal abolition of slavery on May 13, 1888. Some areas also began to be occupied by the population, such as the Conceição and Providência hills. The large concentration of people of African origin in the port region gave life to the culture and forms of religiosity and sociability. Commenting on the carnival festivities that took place in Praça Onze de Julho, anthropologist Artur Ramos speaks of the “conglomeration of an entire ancestral unconscious where old images of the black continent would periodically gather and be transplanted to Brazil. The black man who escaped from the sugar mills and plantations, and from the mines, and from domestic work in the cities, and from the shanty towns, and from the favelas, and from the hills, would show his folkloric unconscious in Praça Onze.”[xx]

A significant portion of the population that came to live in the port region of Rio came from Bahia. Since the time of the Empire, says Roberto Moura, the city of Rio de Janeiro has become a refuge for Bahians, “with the establishment of a small Bahian diaspora in the capital, people who would end up identifying with the new city where their descendants would live, and who in those times of transition would play a notable role in the reorganization of the popular Rio de Janeiro, around the docks and in the old houses in the center.”[xxx]

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Saúde neighborhood was considered [by the elite, the police and the press] as one of the most feared places in Rio de Janeiro, both in terms of hygiene and security. These two vectors were constantly associated in the construction of the stigma of the dangerous classes that inhabited the city, serving as a justification for the atrocities committed against their lives. The historian Romulo Costa Mattos, in his doctoral thesis, observes that certain places such as Saúde, Gamboa, Santo Cristo and Cidade Nova “were rediscovered by the capital's newspapers as being promoters of a spectacle that, although traditionally European, was not at all desired by the Brazilian elite: the spectacle of poverty. The residents of these areas were constantly featured in news reports about barbaric crimes, domestic disputes, disagreements between neighbors, disputes between work colleagues and audacious actions by offenders who had been elevated to the status of public enemies of a city that should be, at the same time: the focus of civilization, the nucleus of modernity, the theater of power and a place of memory of the Republic.”[xxiii]

Naming the Saúde trenches “Port Arthur” was an allusion to the war that was unfolding between Russia and Japan, widely reported in newspapers at the time, whose epicenter was Port Arthur, located in the Manchuria region. For journalists and public authorities, historian Leonardo Pereira comments, “naming the Saúde barricades Port Arthur was a way of indicating that they were the manifestation of a residual revolt, which would inevitably be defeated as a result of the fall of its leaders. Although scattered reports showed that ‘even women’ were among the rebels, which indicated the varied composition of the rebel groups present there, reports of the exploits of dangerous criminals and capoeira fighters who were leading the resistance in the area gained increasing space in the pages of the press.

True dens of troublemakers – or the 'last stronghold of anarchism', as defined on 17/11/1904 by the newspaper the father –, the barricades of Saúde would thus be, in the eyes of the prejudiced educated classes, dangerous gatherings of outcasts who put their destructive rage at the service of a cause they seemed to know nothing about. Among them, the fearsome figure of Prata Preta stood out, referred to as the 'commander of Porto Arthur da Saúde'. Reports published in several newspapers helped to build a frightening profile for him. Described as 'a man of about 30 years of age, tall, with a robust build, completely beardless, Prata Preta was a black man named Horácio José da Silva. Because he had 'a reputation as a brave and quarrelsome man' – proven by his outstanding performance 'in the most dangerous points of the trenches and barricades', in which he had actively participated in the artillery against the police forces, he was 'acclaimed by his companions as the chief of the barricades and trenches on Rua da Harmonia'.

Floating through the Saúde neighborhood, Prata Preta appeared as a sort of sinister specter hovering above the resistant barricades. His arrest, which occurred on November 16, 1904, was attributed by the newspapers as an elaborate ambush set up by the police. “Since it was impossible to arrest him in the stronghold, a group of agents waited for him to go to one of the neighborhood’s cheap restaurants at lunchtime. Caught by surprise by several police officers, he allegedly still offered “tenacious resistance,” injuring two soldiers who carried out the arrest. Taken to the Central Police Department, he “did not stop protesting vehemently,” despite the many “sword bruises” he had all over his body. Considered the General Stoessel of Saúde, Horácio José da Silva lost his freedom, but consolidated a reputation that made him the perfect image of the learned fear in relation to the local protesters.”[xxiii]

One of the authorities' main concerns was the "certainty" that the Health Department rioters were part of a broad insurrectionary movement to overthrow the president, which brought together opposition politicians (Lauro Sodré, Barbosa Lima), part of the armed forces (spurred on by the insurrection at the Military School), a large portion of the city's 'disorderly' population, who had nothing to lose and were merely being 'instrumentalized' by the 'leaders' of the revolt, as well as sectors of the working class, such as the port's dockworkers – who actually participated in the riots.

What followed in the days, weeks and months after the attack on the Saúde neighborhood gives a good measure of the significance and historical meaning of the repression of the rebels. The centuries-old combination of prejudices against the enslaved population, then against the descendants of slavery and the poor population in general, the implementation of the capitalist regime at its most savage, especially during the Campos Salles and Rodrigues Alves governments, the impoverishment of large sections of the population, the brutal treatment meted out by the “public hygiene” authorities in the name of sanitizing the city [with Oswaldo Cruz at the helm], the culture of exposing the “dangerous classes”, in short, a veritable social powder keg exploded in those days of November 1904.

Once the last pockets of resistance were defeated, the entire repressive apparatus of the State entered the scene, which at that time was taking on its clearest contours and which is still present today. The republican regime perfected the practice of open and indiscriminate violence as a primary instrument of State policy. The constant decrees of a state of siege were gradually eroding the fragile and few freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of 1891. Complementary laws such as No. 947, of December 29, 12, in its section IV of Article 1902, instituted the creation of “… one or more correctional colonies for the rehabilitation, through work and instruction, of able-bodied beggars, vagabonds or vagrants, capoeira fighters and vice-ridden minors who are found and judged as such in the Federal District, including those classes defined in the Penal Code and in Decree No. 1, of July 145, 12”.

This law was widely used in the repression that followed the Vaccine Revolt. The combination of such legal provisions, supported by a large part of the conservative, racist public opinion that was complacent about the arbitrary acts committed against the dangerous classes, guided the wave of repression that followed the Revolt. One of the main measures adopted against the popular rebels was exile.

in your book Illusion Strategies, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro analyzes the issue of state repression against political and popular movements and comments precisely on the pioneering situation in relation to the Health rebels: “The fact is that banishment, confinement in penal colonies and expulsions were used indiscriminately against political dissidents and the poor population, with the distinctions between one group and the other often not being clearly seen. By making the dissatisfied disappear, there was the illusion that the ferment of revolt would be eliminated. As the revolts began to include popular groups, banishment would be an instrument to repress the lower classes, widely used in the revolt against the vaccine of 1904, in the fight against high prices and in the strikes of the 10s, in the tenente rebellions of the 20s, especially in the 1924 revolution in São Paulo.

Regarding the 1904 rioters, the government then showed itself to be truly astonishingly severe towards the poor people of Rio de Janeiro. Without the right to any defense, without the slightest regular questioning of responsibilities, the people suspected of participating in the riots of those days began to be rounded up in large police battles. No adjustments were made based on sex or age. It was enough to be unemployed or ragged and not to prove habitual residence to be guilty. Taken aboard a Lloyd Brasileiro steamship, in whose holds the prisoners from Saúde were already in irons and subjected to whipping, they were all summarily sent to Acre. There were 334 of them who had been embarked aboard the ship Itaipava, with this fate, crowded into the basements, under the surveillance of soldiers from the 12th Infantry Battalion. For days, months, other waves of exiles went to Acre, Amazonas and other northern states.”[xxv]

In the December 27, 1904 edition, the newspaper The news brought a horrifying note about the Itaipava, the fate of the rebels and anyone else who had, by misfortune, been caught during the police repression. Under the title “It was a Dantesque dream”, the columnist describes the crossing as follows: “The Itaipava Its powerful propeller moved, noisily stirring the waters of the bay, gracefully describing a curve to head towards the bar. On board, there was complete silence; on the quarterdeck, the three officers of the 12th Infantry force, in charge of escorting the prisoners, the ship's doctor and no one else. On the bridge, the captain, giving orders in a loud voice, and on the bow, the crew, executing various maneuvers. From the holds of the ship came muffled noises, shouts, curses, blasphemies...

There, crowded together, in the greatest promiscuity, children and old people, blacks and whites, nationals and foreigners, some lying down, others standing, holding tightly, with both hands, to the spyholes, they tried to breathe, they made superhuman efforts to suck in the pure air from outside, which barely penetrated through the gaps...

No light in the basements!

The 334 condemned men, almost naked, struggled in the darkness, with the enormous rats that boldly attacked them, covering them with their teeth! The ship crossed the bar and soon a stronger breeze made it dance desperately on the back of enormous waves. From the holds, the prisoners without support rolled over each other, hurting themselves, slipping in the nauseating mud of feces and vomit. Next to the hatches, soldiers with loaded rifles pointed downwards, restrained the wretched ones with respect. Thus passed the first day, then another, days followed and the situation of the unfortunates did not change; on the contrary, their ills were aggravated by the sinister appearance of a terrible black man, Prata Preta – a true demon!

This black man, tall, muscular, strong among the strongest, soon took a certain supremacy, assuming the role of head of the holds. Armed with a thick piece of cable, he immediately began to sweat his companions in misfortune like beasts, ferociously, only abandoning them when red blood gushed from their wounds!

The first port the ship called at was Pernambuco, just to take on water and coal, since the trip was direct to Manaus. The Itaipava was cut off from land, with only the escort officers, the doctor and the captain getting off, all returning on board the same day. From this port onwards, the journey for the unfortunates was a crescendo of suffering and torture! A horrible, nauseating smell came from the holds, forcing anyone who tried to enter there to retreat. Thus, all or almost all of the prisoners fell ill, suffering from fever caused by poisoning from harmful gases...”[xxiv]

Despite a certain amount of imagination on the part of the columnist, in addition to the tendency that this same newspaper had already been demonstrating in painting Prata Preta as the worst enemy of the city of Rio de Janeiro, this report alone demonstrates the inhumane nature of the treatment given to the people who participated in the revolt.

The fate of Horácio José da Silva, known as Prata Preta, is shrouded in mystery. Even his arrival in Acre is not easy to confirm. A news item in a newspaper in Pernambuco states that the ship Itaipava arrived at the port of Recife on January 08, 1905, at 3:XNUMX p.m. The ship, according to the news item, “had on board the famous Prata Preta, one of the leaders of the Porto Arthur stronghold. We do not know why Prata Preta was released, and he was heading to Rio de Janeiro aboard the same ship, with his own ticket paid for.”[xxv]

O Correio da Manhã reported in June 1907 that Prata Preta, the commander of Porto Arthur da Saúde, had been involved in a huge fight with some soldiers from the Army's 5th Artillery Regiment. The fight had allegedly taken place at the house of a certain João Braz, during an afternoon of samba, and was a result of the men's dispute over the sympathy of a dancer.[xxviii]

The truth is that the memory of Prata Preta continued to echo in the Rio de Janeiro press throughout the first decade of the 1900s. It appears in the malicious pen of an editorial in the newspaper The Suburb, at the end of 1908, which appeals to the memory of the commander of Porto Arthur to disqualify an adversary: “By chance, Prata preta, from Saúde, Chininha, or any other scoundrel, already wields a pen and directs public opinion in Brazil. The capoeira player, we knew, handles the razor, the club, throws low blows, does all sorts of detestable things, in short,…”.[xxviii]

In 1909, in a jocular column in the humorous weekly The Degas: “Citizen Antonico was in a flustered pose, in front of Paschoal. We approached the illustrious politician, because Antonico is an old acquaintance of ours, from the time of Porto Arthur da Saúde, when he was lieutenant of the unforgettable citizen Prata Preta.”[xxix]

In a political joke in August 1909 from the newspaper The Municipality, from Vassouras: “They asked an anti-Hermist patriot: '– After all, what do you want?', to which the patriot replied: 'What do we want? We just don't want it!'. And then there you have it, if the Marshal [Hermes da Fonseca] gave up, which is not even possible, or was defeated, which will not happen, those gallant patriots would welcome even a Prata Preta as president of the Republic.”[xxx]

Prata Preta's name was not limited to Rio de Janeiro. At the end of 1904 and the beginning of the following year, his exploits were reported in newspapers all over Brazil. I will cite two examples: The first, a note from the Santa Catarina newspaper O Dia, an organ of the Republican Party of Santa Catarina, which seemed to me to be exemplary of what was reported in the national press after the collapse of the rebellion: “The troublemaker nicknamed Prata Preta, commander in chief of Porto Arthur da Saúde, was arrested.”[xxxii]

The second example, from Commerce Newspaper, from Manaus: “Don’t you want conspiracies? Give us parties. Don’t you want boos? Respect the petitions. Don’t you want a mockery of a Cardboard Port Arthur? Treat us seriously. Do you think Prata Preta is harmful? Respect the citizens. Don’t you want bullets? Give us votes. Do you want to vaccinate the people? Vaccinate their character first!”[xxxi]

It may not have been a coincidence that the largest battle of that Revolt took place in the Saúde neighborhood. Sidney Challoub described the ancestral traditions of healing against smallpox, especially the worship of Omolu, an orisha who had the power to “spread the disease and also protect against its effects.” At the time of Oswaldo Cruz’s campaign and Pereira Passos’ reforms, says the historian, “vaccination-phobes were being more persecuted than ever, especially within their own resistance communities.”[xxxii]

The last stronghold of the Saúde rebels was precisely the barricade on Rua da Harmonia, formerly Rua do Cemitério [dos Pretos Novos], today Rua Pedro Ernesto.

Prata Preta resurfaces in the 1905 Carnival

During the 1905 carnival, two of the main carnival societies in the city of Rio de Janeiro highlighted the events of November of the previous year. According to historian Eneida Moraes, from 1889 onwards, the major carnival societies began to parade on Shrove Tuesdays, the noble day of the carnival festivities: “The beauty of the floats, the floats of ideas and the floats of criticism, the luxury of the costumes, the fireworks that the clubs usually set off led to a cult among the people for carnival parades; the streets and doorsteps filled up, and the people waited three or four hours for the societies to pass by.”[xxxv]

On that Fat Tuesday of March 07, 1905, the Democratic Club announced, in its 1st Float: “The Consecration of the Democrats to the distinguished benefactor – Dr. Pereira Passos”. In the 6th Float with Costumes [Criticism Float], the theme was Portho Artur da Saúde, whose presentation in verses brought the figure of Prata Preta: “Everything is silent in the air / An ugly insect passed through / A bugle sounds, a shot groans / A Bernarda exploded. Prata Preta.” The costumes of the 'critical guard' simulate the transfer of prisoners to Acre and aspects of the capital in a State of Siege.[xxxiv]

In the description made by Morning mail, the day after the parade, we have the following image of the procession carried out by the Democrats: “Cart of Criticism: – Porto Arthur of health. A cart placed on the hill, surrounded by broken street lamps. A column of street lamps, superimposed on the cart, forms the famous Prata Preta cannon. This one (played by the hilarious Refestello) gives commands, surrounded by his comrades in arms. On the back of the cart it read – Blood Hospital. A red flag announces that the people will never surrender.”[xxxiv]

The parades of the carnival clubs were confined to the central region of the city. According to Eneida Moraes, it is difficult to reestablish the history of each of the carnival clubs, due to the almost non-existence of archives, but “one can learn about the history of the major clubs through the newspaper reports.” It is known, for example, that the three major clubs were abolitionists and republicans and had already, since the beginning of the 1880s, taken positions in the great national struggles. In the period before abolition, for example, the three major clubs – Democratic, Fenian and Lieutenant of the Devil – “bought slaves to free them and present them in their parades as an incentive, a lesson to the people.” The Tenente, Democratic and Fenian “and other carnival clubs were abolitionists, lovers of the ideals that the French Revolution brought to the world. No public event left them inactive or indifferent. They were – without exaggeration – the nation’s living forces for many, many years.”[xxxviii]

The Fenian Club, on March 07, 1905, presented in its 4th Criticism Car the theme Porto Arthur do Prata Preta: The following day, the Correio da Manhã described, with all the prejudices and stereotypes of the time, the passage of the hero of Health: “… Then came another car of criticism, the 4th, where one could see the monumental figure of a black man with big lips, in an arrogant attitude, wearing a pink shirt and slacks, holding a revolver in each hand. At his feet were a pile of bags full of supplies, paper cannons, fake bombs. It was the apotheosis of Porto Arthur do Prata Preta. From this car the following verses were distributed:

I have my strength here in Health
And the armed forces should not get involved
Because in this land no one is fooled
With Black Silver
My Port Arthur is invincible!
My people are suckers!
It's general – it looks amazing!
The Black Silver
I have warriors at my disposal,
So, nobody gets involved here,
It inspires a certain terror in everyone
The Black Silver!
Break the street lamps! Make barriers
The noble people of Carrapeta,
That none of them passes the leg
To the Black Silver!
}I'll show them what I'm worth!
You'll see that I'm not one-handed yet!
You will defeat them without having to work!
The Black Silver!
The vaccine hero mavorte,
That wants to lance everyone,
You will have to prove your strong arm
From the Black Silver!
The Thistle that is Bernarda
He says he will go like a comet
There at the Police, we'll see soon,
The Black Silver!
I will depose the President
And the power to reach the goal!
You will have everyone's support
The Black Silver!
I have my solitude in this little corner,
Cannons firing without a fuse – oh Joe Public
To the Black Silver!
I have the secret of warrior art,
I make a sword out of a pen
Brave nations tremble in fear
From the Black Silver!
That's why when there in Catete
I penetrate through a crack
He already promises you lots of money
The Black Silver.[xxxviii]

According to Eneida Moraes, the criticism floats were always a huge success and an annoyance for the authorities. In 1922, for example, a time of great political crisis, “the police began to censor criticism, even though they masked the prohibition with this warning: '... as long as they do not make allusions to the country's high-ranking personalities, especially to the candidates for the future presidency of the nation.' This is because the right to freedom of criticism has always been a scarecrow for the government in this country. But carnival societies came, through governments and even the dictatorship, to parade their criticism floats, under censorship; they still appear today.”[xxxix]

It is true that these carnival societies were still far from being truly democratic. The very origin of these associations can be traced back to the patriarchal and predominantly white elite of the time. As historian Maria Isaura Pereira de Queiroz observes, in a more critical tone than that used by Eneida Morais, these societies were created to function “as a kind of club for big merchants, bankers, professionals, and farmers, who would come there at night to chat, play cards, and discuss their problems.”[xl]

The carnival parades that the clubs held were just one part of their activities, a kind of social and cultural arm. The clubs played important political roles, such as participating in republican propaganda and the abolitionist campaign, in addition to promoting philanthropic actions, such as donating part of their profits to charitable institutions. Basically, they were run by bourgeoisie with some progressive veneer.

Women, for example, were strictly excluded from the organizational and decision-making activities of carnival clubs and societies and had a controlled participation in the processions and masked balls: “Only the parade during the afternoon, the confetti and streamer battles, some balls ‘reserved for families’, as well as watching the parades, made up the festivities that were intended for women.” There was a second carnival, or parallel carnival, at the theater balls or in the clubs themselves, which were attended by distinguished gentlemen, without the presence of their wives or family members, replaced by “actresses, for the demi mondaines, by the cocotes, who also appeared on the parade floats, dazzling, throwing kisses to the crowd.”

In this way, the 'men of quality' frequented two types of women who could not mix: "the 'honest women' and the 'women of ill repute'. The two groups, richly costumed, were displayed to the common people in the processions, richly costumed, but in different ways; the 'honest women' protected from the public by their seclusion in the carriages, their husbands standing guard at their side. The 'women of ill repute' were displayed with great pomp and greater ostentation."[xi]

At the turn of the 19th century, this entire organization, which had the carnival clubs as its central axis, came to be considered the Great Carnival of Rio de Janeiro. It also became a great economic enterprise and a platform for the parade of distinctions and power. Prizes were offered by large commercial firms, banks and newspapers for the most beautiful parades and the best costumes at the balls, which fueled enormous rivalries between clubs and families.

Merchants and journalists were important benefactors of the Great Carnival, as there was a considerable financial return: “Fabrics, complete costumes, confetti, streamers, everything was imported from Europe; newspaper articles about the festivities, chronicles, advertising from specialized stores, everything contributed to increasing the circulation and profits of newspapers during the four days of festivities. It was not to be expected that the representatives of these two professional categories would be the main suppliers of prizes and the most interested in promoting the festivities.”[xliii]

O Correio da Manhã thus reported the entry of the Fenianos in that carnival of 1905: “A committee of members of the Club opened the procession, riding arrogant steeds pure blood. They wore blue flannel jackets, gray cashmere shorts, high polished boots, a gray beaver hat, and pearl-colored gloves with red dots. They were Mr. Alberto Teixeira, Miguel Cavanellas, Antônio Coutinho, José da Costa, Henrique Moura, and Antônio Motta.”[xiii]

In the Great Carnival, with rich and important men at its front, the poor population participated as spectators and supporters. The three major carnival associations in the city shared the love of the people among themselves: Democrats, Fenians and Lieutenants of the Devil; “the others did not trigger the same enthusiasm in the crowd, which crowded the sidewalks along the entire length of Rio Branco Avenue.”[xiv]

One of these smaller clubs, the Pródigos, also brought the image of Prata Preta in its second review car. The passage is described in the following way: News Gazette: “2nd review car: 'Porto Arthur da Saúde'. In the foreground, a trench garrisoned with artillery pieces (a street lamp on two wheels!) and boxes containing dynamite (empty codfish boxes!); the devil, in short. The young man Fellipe and, at his side, giving orders and counter-orders, the brave Prata Preta, holding a trumpet from which he produces high-pitched and shrill notes. The background was occupied by the populace armed with pikes, carbines, revolvers, spears, and revolvers, in a hellish shout, garrisoning another trench, this one, however, of larger dimensions.”[xlv]

The Grand Carnival was the final coat of paint in the process of remodeling Rio. It replaced, at least temporarily, in the central region of the city, the other carnival events that had been taking place since the time of the Empire: the Entrudo, the Ranchos and Blocos; events with a strong emphasis on African-based culture. These events gradually moved away from the central areas of the city, becoming confined to the less gentrified peripheral regions. This did not prevent small groups from gathering to celebrate the days dedicated to King Momo: “the songs, the syncopated rhythms, the dances, everything showed the Afro-Brazilian origin of what became known as the 'little carnival', which was clearly different from the way the whites played during the Grand Carnival, since dance and music were part of the African cultural heritage.”[xlv]

There was also a fundamental difference between the Great and the Little Carnival: the place occupied by women. With the modernization of the city and the displacement of the old residents from the center to Cidade Nova, the 'little carnival' took over Praça Onze de Junho. Alongside the organized groups, says Roberto Moura, "there were blocks and groups that maintained a black continuity of the old carnival. The groups with their Lapinha paraded under the window of Tia Bebiana and Tia Ciata. Dona Camem says that 'Bebiana de Iansã was a very funny Bahian woman; people, including the clubs, were obliged to go to Lapinha to greet her'. In the groups, there were processions of religious musicians and dancers, but also partygoers and democratic, who had already appeared in Bahia before, and carnival artists fought to impose the presence of black people in their forms of organization and expression on the streets of the capital."[xlv]

In 1911 the Newspapers in Brazil began to sponsor some carnival groups. This was due to the fact that they had won the right, obtained the previous year, to parade on Avenida Central, a privileged location where the parades and parades of the carnival societies took place. This permission, however, was restricted to Mondays, a less noble day of the carnival. This restriction did not prevent the groups from quickly becoming one of the great attractions of the festival; even generating some elements that would become great symbols of the samba schools: the choreography of the mestre-sala and the porta-estandarte, “the main attraction of the group, embodying the characters most prominent in the plot or in the figuration of the theme explored.”[xlviii]

The triumph of the ranchos in subsequent years meant, in the words of Eneida Moraes, the integration of the popular classes into the official carnival celebrations, but not only that: it brought with it their specific cultural complexes: “the ranchos not only walked along Avenida Rio Branco, but they did so to the sound of ‘their’ music, performing ‘their’ dance. It was a victory for the African ethnic group and also for its cultural elements.”[xlix]

The prominent appearance of Prata Preta's image at the 1905 Carnival, and the inclusion of it in the carnival floats of two of the three main carnival societies of the time, shows that his figure was not restricted to newspaper reports. Fortunately, his memory was celebrated again during the Rio Carnival in 2004, when the Cordão do Prata Preta, a carnival group from the Port Zone of Rio de Janeiro, was founded. Almost a century later, Prata Preta returned to his sacred region.

“That year [2004] was the centennial of the Vaccine Revolt, a popular uprising that had as one of its greatest leaders a black man, a stevedore and capoeira practitioner, named Horácio José da Silva, better known as Prata Preta, who ended up giving its name to the newly-born bloco. Since then, Prata Preta has been growing, inventing and reinventing itself on the streets of the port area of Rio de Janeiro. Always with themes positioned and engaged in the popular struggle, as expected, Prata Preta has already faced the gentrification of the neighborhood, the lack of funding for culture, among other attacks that the city of Rio de Janeiro has suffered in recent times. But a bloco that bears the name Prata Preta is tough! And here we are, standing for 20 years, resisting, insisting and spreading lots and lots of joy, confetti and streamers on the hills of the port area and everywhere we go. Why do they say that Prata Preta doesn’t brake?”[l]

*Alexandre Juliete Rosa He holds a master's degree in Brazilian literature from the Institute of Brazilian Studies at the University of São Paulo (IEB-USP).

Notes

[I] Port Arthur. the mallet. Rio de Janeiro, August 18, 1928, p. 07. Link:

https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/docreader.aspx?bib=116300&pasta=ano%20190&pesq=&pagfis=66909

[ii] Thomas Skidmore. Black on White: race and nationality in Brazilian thought. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1976, p. 154.

[iii] Jaime Larry Benchimol. “Urban Reform and the Vaccine Revolt in the City of Rio de Janeiro.” In: Jorge Ferreira and Lucilia Delgado (Orgs.). Republican Brazil: the time of oligarchic liberalism. Rio de Janeiro: Brazilian Civilization, 2018, p. 221

[iv] Jeffrey Needell. Tropical Belle Époque: Elite Society and Culture in Rio de Janeiro at the Turn of the Century. New York: Routledge, 1993, p.

[v] Nikolay Sevcenko. The vaccine revolt: insane minds in rebellious bodies. New York: Routledge, 1993, p.

[vi] Jeffrey Needell. Op cit., p. 57. My emphasis.

[vii] Jaime Benchimol. Op cit., p. 253.

[viii] A typical example of these bulletins can be read in the article Means of avoiding yellow fever, from the April 28, 1903 edition of Correio da Manhã. Links:

https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/DocReader.aspx?bib=089842_01&pagfis=3726

[ix] About the smallpox vaccine and its history, see the book by Tânia Maria Fernandes. Smallpox Vaccine: Science, Technique and the Power of Men – 1808-1920. Rio de Janeiro: Editora FIOCRUZ, 2010. Available for download from the link:

https://books.scielo.org/id/pd6q9/pdf/fernandes-9786557080955.pdf

[X] Sidney Chalhoub. Feverish city: slums and epidemics in the imperial court. New York: Routledge, 1996, pp. 113 and 180-1.

[xi] Through this link you can access the full text of the regulation, published in the newspaper The news, on November 10, 1904.

https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/DocReader.aspx?bib=830380&pesq=%22Prata%20preta%22&pasta=ano%20190&hf=memoria.bn.gov.br&pagfis=11295

Even those who participated in the group of notables invited to the discussions in Congress found the criminal provisions provided for in the draft regulation of the law to be excessive. This is shown, for example, by an investigation carried out by the newspaper The news, November 12, 1904. Link to access the article:

https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/docreader.aspx?bib=830380&pasta=ano%20190&pesq=&pagfis=11303

An article in the November 12 edition – “Mandatory Vaccination” – written by physician and federal deputy Brício Filho is quite illustrative of the “doubts” that hung in the air regarding the vaccine. It is also important to take into account that Brício Filho was part of the opposition wing to President Rodrigues Alves and, therefore, against the mandatory vaccination project. Link to access the article:

https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/docreader.aspx?bib=089842_01&pasta=ano%20190&pesq=&pagfis=7181

[xii] News Gazette. “The regulation of the vaccine”. Rio de Janeiro, November 10, 1904, p. 1. Link:

https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/docreader.aspx?bib=103730_04&pasta=ano%20190&pesq=&pagfis=8706

[xiii] Quoted in R. Magalhães Junior. Rui, the man and the myth. Rio de Janeiro: Brazilian Civilization, 1965, p. 242.

[xiv] Nikolay Sevcenko. Op cit., p. 18-9.

[xv] Brazil Gerson. History of the Streets of Rio de Janeiro. New York: Oxford University Press, 1954, p. 147.

[xvi] José Murilo de Carvalho. Excerpt from the “Preface” to the book On the surface of the Earth: the cemetery of the new blacks in Rio de Janeiro, by Julio Cesar de Medeiros. London: Garamond Publishing, 2011.

[xvii] Julio Cesar Medeiros. The two pieces of evidence: the implications of the rediscovery of the New Blacks Cemetery. Journal of the General Archives of the City of Rio de Janeiro, n.8, 2014, p. 336-7.

[xviii] Lilia Cheuiche Machado. Pretos Novos Cemetery Site: biocultural analysis. Interpreting human bones and teeth. Bulletin of the Brazilian Institute of Archaeology (IAB), No. 12, 2006.

[xx] In the Valongo region, a past that remains to this day. Valongo Magazine, nº 12. Available at: http://portal.iphan.gov.br

[xx] Arthur Ramos. Black folklore in Brazil. Sao Paulo: Brazilian Student House, 1954, p. 38.

[xxx] Roberto Moura. Aunt Ciata and Little Africa in Rio de Janeiro. New York: Routledge, 1983, p. 28.

[xxiii] Romulo Costa Mattos. For the poor! Campaigns for the construction of public housing and the discourse on favelas in the First Republic. Doctoral thesis. Niterói: UFF, 2008, p. 12.

[xxiii] Leonardo Pereira. The barricades of health. New York: Perseu Abramo Foundation Publishing House, 2002, pp. 75–77.

[xxv] Paul Sergio Pinheiro. Illusion Strategies. New York: Routledge, 1991, pp. 88–90.

[xxiv] The exiles of Acre. The news. Rio de Janeiro, December 27, 1904, p. 3. Link:

https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/docreader.aspx?bib=830380&pasta=ano%20190&pesq=&pagfis=11445

[xxv] Small Newspaper. Recife, January 9, 1905, p. 2. Link:

https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/docreader.aspx?bib=800643&pasta=ano%20190&pesq=&pagfis=7753

[xxviii] Correio da Manhã. Scenes of Vandalism. The 'Prata Preta' of Health. Rio de Janeiro, June 12, 1907. Link:

https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/docreader.aspx?bib=089842_01&pasta=ano%20190&pesq=&pagfis=13606

[xxviii] In favor of an accused. The Suburb. Rio de Janeiro, December 12, 1908. Link:

https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/docreader.aspx?bib=818747&pasta=ano%20190&pesq=&pagfis=216

[xxix] District Policy. The Degas. Rio de Janeiro, January 09, 1909, p. 25. Link:

https://memoria.bn.gov.br/DocReader/docreader.aspx?bib=785555&pasta=ano%20190&pesq=&pagfis=819