Rethinking Slavery's Abolition in Ceará Through an Engagement with maritime Marronage

Resumo

In late January 1881, a group of anti-slavery raftsmen blockaded the port of Fortaleza to slave traders declaring that enslaved persons would no longer be shipped to Brazil’s southern plantations out of Ceará’s northeastern harbor. The blockade was a decisive moment in the rising abolitionist movement in Brazil and culminated in slavery’s abolition in Ceará in 1884, four years before the national prohibition of the institution. Traditional narratives on slavery’s abolition in Ceará emphasize the development of a middle-class led, radical abolitionist movement in the province while lionizing the role played by Francisco José do Nascimento, a free man of color, in leading the raftsmen’s charge against human trafficking. Recent research on the raftsmen’s blockade highlights the role played by the formerly enslaved man José Luiz Napoleão in the anti-slavery strike. This article revisits the 1881 anti-slavery strike and places it in the context of maritime marronage in nineteenth century Brazil. By probing the long tradition of fugitive slaves using their access to the sea and their skills as sailors and boatmen to escape slavery and relocate from one province to another, this article demonstrates that the world of maritime labor provided opportunities and challenges for slave resistance, and fugitive mariners created a culture of contesting the geography of slavery in Brazil.