Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In 1858 the printers of Rio de Janeiro went on strike for a wage increase. While they considered themselves qualified craftsmen, they articulated a certain class identity and language leading to identification with the oppression suffered by all workers. This movement is considered to be the first workers' strike in Brazil, but such a view is valid only if one ignores the experience of enslaved peoples in working-class formation. Even before the printers' stoppage, the slaves of a large foundry and shipyard in Rio de Janeiro had stopped their activities in protest against punishment inflicted on their companions. Starting from the second half of the nineteenth century, breakouts, rebellions, legal actions in the courts to purchase liberty, formation of quilombos (communities of fugitive slaves), abolition movements, strikes, and associations of various kinds were just some of the combat and survival strategies around which free workers, freed slave workers, and enslaved workers shared their traditions, experiences, and common goals. In the aftermath of the Great Migration at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, white laborers, former slaves, and descendants of Africans participated in working-class uprisings with strong political reverberations, such as the 1904 Rio de Janeiro Vaccine Revolt against the compulsory vaccination campaign aimed at curbing the smallpox ... log in or subscribe to read full text