Nada mais sublime que a liberdade: o processo de abolição da escravidão na Parahyba do Norte (1870-1888)

Abstract

This study was developed by the Graduate Program in History with specialization in History and Historical Culture and the search line in History and Rationalities objected as the process which ended slavery in Brazil and more specifically in the province of North Parahyba from the actions of abolitionists, politicians and enslaved people. The cutting time corresponds to the last decades of the XIX century (1870-1888), because at that time the slavery crisis deepened. So we rely on the theoretical contributions of Social History with the considerations of E. P. Thompson, more specifically the concept of experience. The methodology used to achieve the goals was basically discoursed analysis and microhistory. The centuries of slavery were responsible for forging a slave Political Culture able to influence from everyday actions between free and poor, especially with regard to conservative positioning by the political elite, even actions of judges and landowners. We used a diversified documentary corpus that includes: newspapers, correspondence of classification boards, the provincial presidents reporting, freedom and other actions. Our research analyzes three segments that complement each other as follows: a) The acting of the abolitionists, their speeches and actions with the creation of abolitionism and newspaper associations; b) The positioning of two political representatives of the province on slavery to the debate on chinese immigration led by Manoel Pedro Cardoso Vieira with "separate vote" to the project Saraiva-Cotegipe Law of Souza Carvalho Viscount; and c) The resistance of enslaved people through the actions of freedom. Among the results we see that even the province with a small number of slaves there was strong opposition to the end of slavery.