Labour cultures and pilots association in Manaus and Belém (late XIXth)

Abstract

The river stretch between Belém and Manaus for many years was traversed by native communities and their navigation practices. The pilot is still today the sailor who guides and/or pilots ships of different drafts. From the capitalist push in the region, potentialized by the expansion of steam navigation, the need to compose crews with experienced pilots forced shipowners and commanders to negotiate with inhabitants and their work cultures. In the final years of the nineteenth century, with a greater nautical and port movement, shipping companies began to question the control of these professionals on the labor market and the direction of ships. In the advent of the Republic, the provisional government established a series of criteria that deprive the attention of these sailors. The associative process of the
pilots of Manaus and Belém is based on the strength of tradition and the history of solidarity, the revelation of obstacles, political leaders and other social sectors. It was those elements that reinforced the defense of an associativism that went beyond the boundaries delimited by the federation.