From slave to doctor: Euzébio de Queiroz Coutinho Barcellos

Abstract

This article presents the results of research on the trajectories of former slaves from the extreme south of Brazil, part of a detailed examination of Pelotas society and the urban black community of Pelotas during the final decades of slavery and the First Republic. The focus is on urban workers, whether free, captive or freed, their struggles, organization and activities during the abolition campaign and the first republican period. By following the trajectories of this group, responsible for the formation of a developed black organizational network in the city, sufficient elements were found to outline the biography of some of them, of which the trajectory of Euzébio is presented here, a slave who worked in a meat-packing plant and who, upon freeing himself in the mid-1880s, sought new directions in his life, achieving the position of licensed doctor and recognition by society.