Vinicius Costa Santos was descended from the family of Joaquim, the independent cane grower who had so rejoiced when his daughter Luciana became the bride of Paulo Cavalcanti. Though Paulo’s murder had left Luciana a widow, the mother of Carlos Maria and great-grandmother of Fábio and Rodrigo had risen to become a power at the Casa Grande. The tough, uncouth Graciliano had been there, returned from the side of the rejected Januária, but by right of primogeniture, which had still been in force, Santo Tomás belonged to the infant, Carlos Maria. Graciliano had been a support to Luciana, though; and so, too, had Padre Eugênio Viana, who had instilled in Carlos Maria many of the ideas that led to his fatal involvement in a Republican revolt in 1824, during Pedro I’s reign. Subsequently jailed for five years in a Bahia fortress, Carlos Maria had died soon after his release.
As Joaquim Costa Santos had hoped, the prestige of the Costa Santos family had increased immeasurably, as had their holdings in the second valley. Vinicius Costa Santos, the grandson of one of Luciana’s three brothers, had been the most prosperous, and the most ill-starred, for never had there been such a reverse as his in the fortunes of the Costa Santoses.
In London, which Dr. Vinicius frequently visited in the late 1870s to promote his scheme, the East Pernambucan United Sugar Milling Company seemed a tempting investment indeed to those who listened to him: “Two great valleys with endless cane fields and vast lands yet to be cleared for planting. Water in abundance from the Rio Jacuribe. Easy access for a link to the railway planned from Recife to the interior.” The English engineers who visited the valley in 1878 returned home with glowing confirmation of all Vinicius Costa Santos had promised: On February 1879, the East Pernambucan United Sugar Milling Company was launched.
On September 27, 1880, at the start of the harvest, Dr. Vinicius had watched proudly as the 40-horsepower engine was started and the mill machinery shook the cavernous building. The first canes went into the long feeder trays to the rollers, crackling and crushing as they passed through the gigantic squeezers, and the first juice poured into the trough to the straining box. Exactly twenty months later, in May 1882, the engenho central was shut down, the company bankrupt.
Costa Santos had made a terrible miscalculation. There were twenty-two engenhos in the two valleys, Engenho Santo Tomás, with five thousand acres of cane fields, by far the largest (and the only engenho powered by steam). Four were in the Costa Santos family, but more than half belonged to relatives and associates of the Cavalcantis and so delivered their crops to Engenho Santo Tomás.
Dr. Vinicius had tirelessly promoted his engenho central among the plantation owners. His relations backed him, and half of the remaining eighteen senhores showed interest in a project that could free them to concentrate on extending their cane fields. Rodrigo Cavalcanti, too, seemed in favor of the proposed mill, but Dr. Vinicius had not been able to get a firm commitment from him. “It’s natural that he should hesitate,” Costa Santos told the English investors. “The senhores de engenho of Santo Tomás have been in the valley since time immemorial. However, I’m sure when Commendador Rodrigo sees how the other planters are prospering with ever-greater harvests, he’ll support our mill.” And Dr. Vinicius had given an added assurance to the Englishmen: “Besides, gentlemen, we are practically family, the Cavalcantis and the Costa Santoses.”
Rodrigo Cavalcanti had not come around, family ties notwithstanding. Not one stalk of cane from the 1880 harvest at Santo Tomás reached the engenho central, and of fourteen engenhos allied to the Cavalcantis, only two sent canes to the mill, being indebted to Dr. Vinicius for loans he’d made to them in the past. Still, Dr. Vinicius had hopes for the 1881 harvest; he had gone from planter to planter, and he had gone to Santo Tomás. “I’m very sorry, Vinicius,” Rodrigo Cavalcanti had said, “but I gave you no promise. I will not send my canes to the Englishmen.”
That the major shareholding of the East Pernambucan United Sugar Milling Company had been in foreign hands was only part of the reason for Rodrigo Cavalcanti’s refusal to support the engenho central. “To abandon our mill and send our cane to the central will be the ruin of Santo Tomás,” Rodrigo had said to Fábio, who was of mixed mind about Dr. Vinicius’s scheme. “Our plantation will be hostage to the company. I, Rodrigo Cavalcanti, will be nothing but a fornecedor!” It was Rodrigo’s belief that to be a fornecedor — a mere supplier of cane to a mill — was to be stripped of all honor and dignity.
On August 30, 1882, on the eve of the harvest, Vinicius Costa Santos set fire to the engenho central and then hanged himself in the trees behind the steamhouse.
“The poor man, I tried my best to dissuade him,” Rodrigo was saying as he and Fábio strolled in the desolate mill yard. “I’m not against English capital, I told Dr. Vinicius. They own the railways, gasworks, ironworks. They want to build factories for textiles and other industries. Brazil needs the English. But here at Santo Tomás?”
“He knew he was right. The district needs an engenho central.”
“And I agreed with him, but I warned him, it was wrong to bring in the English. ‘Let’s put our heads together, Vinicius,’ I said. ‘We’ll work up our own plan and present it to the minister at Rio de Janeiro. I have influence at the Corte. I’ll get the loan guarantees we need.’ Did he listen?”
Fábio stopped walking. The caretaker had been told in advance of their visit and had opened the massive doors to the main building. The dimly lit interior was more desolate than the scene outside. The mill, with its great horizontal rollers, was gone, and the engines, too, most of the movable equipment sold to a central at the Bahia. The great six-hundred gallon juice tanks, the pans, the network of troughs and pipes, and a jumble of abandoned equipment remained. In the air was the smell of grease mixed with a heavy, sweet pungency.
Fábio stepped inside. “It’s a tremendous risk, Rodrigo.”
“God knows, Vinicius learned this, but it’s not the same, Fábio. Vinicius failed because he went his own way. I’ll have every planter behind me.”
“No doubt, but still — a million reis!”
Rodrigo was planning — with absolute confidence that it would pose no threat to Santo Tomás — to establish a usina, a factory able to process raw cane through every stage until there remained only pure and sparkling crystal grains of sugar. When the London company went bankrupt, Rodrigo, with no particular ambition to start a factory at the time, had bought this site. But in the past six months he had been gathering support for a usina: He was going to Rio de Janeiro in a week’s time for consultations with the minister of agriculture.
Rodrigo named four senhores de engenho, two of them Cavalcanti relatives, one his brother-in-law, Dr. Cicero de Oliveira, the mulatto husband of Virginia Cavalcanti. Dr. Cicero, whose engenho was south of Santo Tomás on the new road to Rosário, was to have joined them on this tour of the central but had to cancel, as Virginia Cavalcanti’s delivery of their fourth child was imminent. Rodrigo had been disappointed, for his brother-in-law, who had studied engineering at Edinburgh University, was a staunch supporter of the planned venture.
“Dr. Cicero and the others are willing to put up capital,” Rodrigo said, as Fábio and he walked through the deserted central. “The government will guarantee the loans we need.”
“Why not simply refurbish the central?”
“No!” Rodrigo said emphatically. “We must invest in a modern usina.”
Rodrigo’s excitement mounted as they wandered around the deserted central. “Usina Jacuribe” — he had already chosen a name for the factory — “Fábio, what an achievement! Not for you or me alone. For every Cavalcanti who lived and fought to preserve our valley. Usina Jacuribe!”
At Rosário, the former Jesuit church of Nossa Senhora do Rosário stood high on the west end of the city. The massive clay-packed walls of the lofty building were marked and weathered with age, but its handsome gabled façade recently had been restored, and the wooden shutters on its windows painted sky blue. The town had spread to the left of the ol
d church and square, along the base of a low hill and on ground that sloped gently to the east. In the center of Rosário at the Praça do Jardim, the main square, was a new church, São Pedro. The town hall and other official buildings were on a street off to the right of the main square, the rua Carlos Maria Cavalcanti — “rua Cavalcanti,” to the locals. Other streets leading from the Praça do Jardim were lined with neat rows of one-story houses, most of them white with red tile roofs.
The most inviting aspect of Rosário was the luxuriance of its setting. Tamarind, mangueiro, cashew, wild banana flourished beside cultivated groves of coffee, orange, lemon. Ancient forest giants bearded with moss towered above gardens with roses, carnations, lavender.
On February 1, 1885, the Praça Velho at the Jesuit church was the venue for a grand fair to celebrate the launching of the Associão Libertadora Rosário. At 3:00 P.M. this Sunday afternoon, several hundred citizens were in the old church to hear Dr. Fábio Cavalcanti and other dignitaries call for the freeing of Rosário’s slaves. When the formalities concluded at five, the audience streamed out to the Praça Velho to join the crowds at the fair.
The square was lined with flower-bedecked kiosks, several named for prominent figures of the abolitionist movement: Luis Gama, a leader of the São Paulo antislavery crusade years after fleeing his master to join a militia company and gaining freedom with proof of illegal enslavement; José Patrocinio, “The Black Marshal,” a militant campaigner and editor of the abolitionist Gazeta da Tarde at Rio de Janeiro; André Reboucas, a quiet, refined mulatto engineer and a favorite of Dom Pedro and Princess Isabel; the late Castro Alves, the young “poet of the slaves”; and, of course, Nabuco.
At the Nabuco kiosk, there was a brisk trade in “The Emancipator,” a hat not unlike a low bowler. “Approved by Senhor Joaquim himself,” cried a vendor. “Ah, senhores! Maravilhoso! A crown for every lover of freedom!” There were Nabuco braces, handkerchiefs, cigars, snuff, and for the ladies, the Joaquim Nabuco parasol. At the other kiosks, the scene was similar, all profits intended for the Associão Libertadora.
Fábio and his fellow committee members stopped at the kiosks to encourage participation. Rodrigo Cavalcanti’s generous donation had been acknowledged with Vivas for the commendador, but Rodrigo himself was absent. Rodrigo personally supported the freeing of Rosário’s town slaves, but as representative of the district planters, he deemed it prudent to keep a distance from the Associão. But Celso Cavalcanti was here, with two student friends, the three of them in dark frock coats, strutting behind the dignitaries with an air of exaggerated importance.
Padre Epitácio Murtinho, the curate of Rosário, was a member of the committee. The town priest, Padre José Machado, was also present as an observer, although his enthusiasm for the Associão was restrained and more typical of the position of the Church, which maintained absolute silence on the question of abolition.
After visiting the kiosks, Fábio and Celso found Renata with a group of women near an improvised bandstand where Rosário’s town band was entertaining the crowd. An area to the right of the band was open for dancing, but as yet its only occupants were a group of children, Fábio’s son among them, who were chasing one another around, their shrieks drowned by the tremendous din from the filarmônica.
“Aunt Renata, I saw you with the widow Escobar,” Celso said, when they were sitting in a “garden” near the bandstand, where tables and chairs were set out for the gentry. “I wouldn’t have believed Dona Ricardina would be first to free her slaves.”
Dona Ricardina was the widow of Manoel Escobar, a merchant who had died a year ago. Among the property Escobar bequeathed to his wife were seven slaves, three of whom were hired out by Dona Ricardina. At the church meeting, Dona Ricardina let it be known that she would voluntarily grant immediate freedom to four of her slaves and free the three laborers, too, on condition they rent their services on her behalf for one more year.
“Dona Ricardina says she wants abolition,” Renata said. “Her slaves are too much trouble without Manoel Escobar there to control them. They’re not worth the expense of keeping them.”
“Well, she’s honest enough,” Fábio said. “It makes no difference, though. Her slaves will be free — that’s what’s important.”
“And where Madame Ricardina leads, others are sure to follow!”
Fábio laughed. “Dona Ricardina has started something today.” He looked across at a table where Ricardina Escobar sat with the wives of some of Rosário’s most prominent citizens. “Those with slaves will go home tonight and talk with their husbands. They’ll fear Ricardina’s house will be closed to them.”
The widow Escobar was the daughter of an imperial ambassador and had traveled widely in Europe before marrying Manoel Escobar. It was thirty years since Dona Ricardina had been in the Paris of Louis Napoleon and Empress Eugénie, but at Rosário, where she had lived for twenty-six years, Madame Escobar, a large matron with a friendly face, kept the local senhoras in awe with tales of the French court, where she had been a belle.
“Dona Ricardina’s offer is wonderful,” Celso agreed. “And freedom for nine more will be bought by the Associão. But one hundred slaves remain. How long must they wait?”
“Sixteen free, Celso. The Associão Libertadora Rosário is not one day old. Look around you: Do you think Rosário’s citizens would be here in their hundreds if they weren’t moved by the spirit of abolition?”
“Certainly it’s heartening here, Uncle Fábio, but in the fields just beyond Rosário?”
“Be patient, Celso. You weren’t born when the struggle for abolition began. Victory will come slowly, step by step.”
“It will take decades.”
“Yes, it may, but it will be achieved peacefully. This is preferable to the alternatives.”
Both Fábio and Celso knew the alternatives, but they did not speak of them now: In Ceará, a Brazilian underground railway was beginning to function; and at Recife, secret abolitionist societies were being created to aid runaway slaves.
As night fell, the Praça Velho was jammed with people. In the light from blazing bonfires, the more humble of Rosário’s citizens danced the sensuous batuque, while in the garden of the gentry, under gently swaying colored lanterns, the senhores and their womenfolk took turns at the waltz, the polka, and the tango.
Toward nine the indefatigable filarmônica left the bandstand to prepare for the highlight of the fair. Dr. Fábio and the committee members took their places on the platform to await the signal that would herald the climax to the celebrations. It came just after nine. The thirty men of the filarmônica struck up a Sousa march. The groups of musicians playing for the dancers at the bonfires took up the march. The church bell of Nossa Senhora do Rosário began to peal, and then a barrage of fireworks exploded, rocket after rocket bursting in the heavens above the city.
Twenty yards behind the band was a small cart decorated with flowers and drawn by a pony; standing in the cart in a white cotton robe was “Liberty” — a Tupi maiden. The girl chosen for this tableau was a pretty black-haired caboclo; the last Tupi in Rosário district had died long, long ago.
“Liberty” was followed by a crowd, mostly young men, whites, mulattoes, blacks, the sons of senhores like Rodrigo Cavalcanti — Celso was in the middle of this group — and the sons of freed black men like José Carvalho, one of Rosário’s three farriers. They were vying for the honor of moving a big cart.
Riding in the cart were thirteen slaves, eight men and five women. Four were the property of Dona Ricardina Escobar, who had been invited onto the platform by the officers of the Associão Libertadora; nine were town slaves whose masters had agreed earlier this day to the immediate purchase of their freedom for a total of 4,400 milreis.
A deafening cheer rose as the young men dragged the cart toward the platform. The joy of the crowd was nothing compared with that of the thirteen men and women in the cart. They sang. They clapped their hands. They praised Jesus Christ and Liberty. When the cart sto
pped at the platform and the slaves climbed down, the band began to play the national anthem. The church bell was rung with new vigor, and the sky was blasted with a fresh barrage of rockets.
One by one, the thirteen slaves stepped up to the platform, where Dr. Fábio Alves Cavalcanti presented them with their certificates of freedom.
It was a glorious moment at Rosário, and what made it even more so was the sight of the old pelourinho erected by Elias Souza Vanderley, a column sixteen feet high, with its iron hanging hooks rusting, its ancient mahogany surface scratched and pitted. It was still here, one hundred yards from the platform, dark and gaunt in the light from the bonfires.
On a night eight months later, seven men met in absolute secrecy in one of the narrow Dutch-style houses on the rua da Cruz, the principal street in the old quarter of Recife. They were members of the Clube do Cupim, which took its name from the cupim, the termite, and its motto, too: Destroy Without Noise.
During the past six months, this branch of the citywide club had helped ninety-seven runaway slaves, most of them from plantations beyond Recife. The club members sent agents posing as itinerant workers into the countryside to incite slaves to flee the senzalas. They provided hideaways for fugitives and guides to the coast, where the slaves were transported north by sailing barge to the free province of Ceará.
The men in the house on the rua da Cruz this night of October 2, 1885, were irate. Four days ago at Rio de Janeiro, Dom Pedro had sanctioned a new law for the liberation of elderly slaves: Those who had reached sixty, instead of being unconditionally free, were to compensate their masters with three years’ unpaid labor. Those older than sixty but not yet sixty-five were to work for free until their sixty-fifth birthday, at which time they were to be liberated. One provision in particular incensed the members of the Termite Club: aiding and abetting a runaway slave now was to be considered a felony.
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