The Dark Side of Municipal Power: Forced Labor and Curfew in 19th Century Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

For more than half of the nineteenth century, covering much of the imperial period, nights in the city of Rio de Janeiro were almost uninterruptedly under curfew. This article analyzes the implementation of this measure in the context of the city’s social and legal history during the period. Its main focus will be the 1825 Edict, which established the so-called “Toque de Aragão,” the municipal ordinance named after the Police Superintendent of Rio de Janeiro, who was responsible for ordering severe restrictions on the freedom of movement of people at night, as well as for preventing or hindering the assembly of certain groups of residents of that city, investigating its causes and effects. The designation of the night as a legal category and, in effect, a separate jurisdiction, was related to the control of workers and, in particular, to the evolution of the panorama of forced labor in the most populous and politically significant city of the newly independent Brazil.