SLAVE LEGACIES, AMBIVALENT MODERNITY: STREET COMMERCE AND THE TRANSITION ...

376 Pages·2010·4.99 MB·English

ABSTRACT
Title of dissertation: SLAVE LEGACIES, AMBIVALENT
MODERNITY: STREET COMMERCE AND THE
TRANSITION TO FREE LABOR IN RIO DE
JANEIRO, 1850-1925

Patricia Acerbi, Doctor of Philosophy, 2010
Dissertation directed by: Professor Barbara Weinstein
Department of History

This project is a history of street vending during the transition from
enslaved to free labor in the capital of the most enduring slave society of the
Americas. Street vending – long the province of African slaves and free blacks –
became in these years a site of expanded (European) immigrant participation and
shifting state disciplinary policies. My dissertation contends that during the
gradual transition to free labor, urban policing and the judicial system in the city
of Rio came to target “criminality” rather than illicit or improper vending
practices. Disciplinary measures established by criminal law focused on
correcting individuals who were peddlers and not inadequately regulated street
commercial activity. Thus, the language of citizenship appeared in court cases to
both establish and resist negative characterizations of street vendors while a
gradual marginalization of street commerce occurred within the framework of
citizenship building. The practice of street commerce during this transitional era
reveals a historical process that produced and transformed notions of legitimate
work and public order as well as the racial segmentation of the labor force. Street
vending, I argue, became a strategy of subsistence among the post-abolition urban
poor, who came to their own understandings of freedom, free labor, and
citizenship. Elite and popular attitudes toward street vending reflected the post-
abolition political economy of exclusion and inclusion, which peddlers did not
experience as mutually exclusive but rather as a dialectic of an ambivalent
modernity.
SLAVE LEGACIES, AMBIVALENT MODERNITY: STREET COMMERCE
AND THE TRANSITION TO FREE LABOR IN RIO DE JANEIRO, 1850-1925

by
Patricia Acerbi

Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the
University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
2010

Advisory Committee:
Professor Barbara Weinstein, Chair
Professor Mary Kay Vaughan
Associate Professor Daryle Williams
Associate Professor Ada Ferrer
Associate Professor Zita Nunes
©Copyright by
Patricia Acerbi
2010
Para mamá y Elisabeth
En memoria de mi padre

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am forever grateful to the dedicated individuals who encouraged and
supported the development of this project. Unexpected twists and turns opened
and shaped the trajectory of this dissertation, in the end transforming the
experience into a great and invaluable revelation. The friendship and unwavering
trust of Carlota Frisón-Fernández, Nancy Gallen, Alexandra Guiterman, Adriana
López Sanfeliu, Berta Lozano O‟Felan, Fernando Mainguyague, Julie Ragland,
Toni Vidaechea, and Marc Villanueva consistently reminded me of the
importance and beauty of my adventure. The kindness and wisdom of Carlos
Gallego, Claire Goldstene, Mary Junqueira, Laura Lenci, Linda Noel, Shari
Orisich, and Sarah Sarzynski strengthened my passion and commitment, while
Louise Kligman and my yoga practice provided the tools. In Brazil, the guidance
of Sidney Chalhoub, Flávio Gomes, Keila Grinberg, Hebe Mattos, as well as the
help provided by archivists and librarians stimulated my research. Jessica
Graham and Ann Schneider also contributed to my very gratifying research year
in Rio de Janeiro. Funding from the University of Maryland, New York
University, and the Fulbright-IIE Program made it possible to research and access
the seeming hidden history of street vending. Mary Kay Vaughan and Daryle
Williams helped me achieve deeper understandings of socio-cultural dynamics
and Rio de Janeiro history, respectively. Their vigorous support was then joined
by the generosity and incisiveness of Ada Ferrer and Zita Nunes. With immense
pleasure and appreciation, I thank Barbara Weinstein, whose mentorship has been
a privilege and inspiration throughout the challenges and satisfactions of graduate
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school. I reserve my last words of gratitude for Jon Franklin, who unexpectedly
and divinely entered the final stretch of dissertation writing, proving to be the
most loving reward and companion I could ever imagine.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements……………………………………………………….…...…iii

List of Tables…………………………………………...………………………...vi

List of Maps………………………………………………………………...……vii

List of Images…………………………………………………….………….….viii

Introduction…………………………………………………………………….....1
From Ganhadores to Ambulantes: Slave Legacies and the Ambivalent Modernity
of Street Commerce

Chapter One…………………………………………………………………...…29
Negros de Ganho: Africans, Brazilians, and Europeans between Slavery and
Freedom on Rio de Janeiro‟s Streets, 1850-1888

Chapter Two……………………………………………...………………………75
“Que possa cada um carregar a sua cruz:” Enslaved and Free Street Vendors in a
Policed Workplace, 1868-1888

Chapter Three……………………………………………...……………………124
Citizenship and Street Commerce Regulation in the Early Republic, 1890-1902

Chapter Four……………………………………………………………………185
Toward a “Humanitarian and Hygienic” Street Commerce: Vending Technology
and the Transition to Free Labor, 1885-1909

Chapter Five.........................................................................................................229
“Ficará o Rio Sem Ambulantes?” Street Behavior, Urban Space, and Property in
Twentieth-Century Peddling

Chapter Six…………………………………………………………………...…276
From Slave to Urban Type: The Visual and Social Histories of Street Vendors in
the Turn to Free Labor

Epilogue…………………………………………………………………...……308
Street Vendors and Unionism in the Twentieth Century

Appendices……………………………………………………………………...311

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List of Tables:

Table 1: Distribution according to Rio parishes of ganhadores and fiadores who
were businessmen (negociantes), 1879
Table 2: Nationality of ganhadores, 1880-1886
Table 3: Occupation of fiadores, 1880-1886
Table 4: Residence according to parish of ganhadores and fiadores, 1880-1886
Table 5: Vending occupations, 1868-1883
Table 6: Origins of male vendors, 1868-1883
Table 7: Reasons for arrest according to male/female, slave/free status, 1868-1883
Table 8: Arrests according to Parish correlated with slave/free status of detainee
Table 9: Age and marital status, 1898-1902
Table 10: Origin of peddlers, 1898-1902
Table 11: Skin color, 1898-1902
Table 12: Occupations, 1898-1902
Table 13: Reasons for arrest, 1898-1902

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List of Maps:
Maps 1a & 1b: Rio Parishes (freguesias), Nineteenth Century
Map 2: Rio Parishes and the Houses of Correction and Detention c.1850

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