After the war in Paraguay, veterans had returned to Brazil with battlefield honors and promotions, expecting continued recognition. Instead, they found themselves neglected and humiliated. But just this past June a group of officers had founded the Clube Militar, electing as its first president Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca, who had served the duration of the war as an artilleryman. Clóvis, a member of the club, told Firmino of a forthcoming meeting at which members would vote on a petition Marshal Deodora was to present to the Crown asking that the army be relieved from slave-hunting duties.
“It’s well known: The emperor is not a military-minded man,” Clóvis said “But he’s the only ruler of Brazil. The army respects this.”
“The mass of our people love Pedro Segundo, but they don’t understand him. He stands head and shoulders above them. Pedro’s light shines dimly at the Corte, and beyond Rio de Janeiro, it’s hardly seen at all.”
“Are you a Paulista Republican now?” Clóvis asked, laughing, for he knew Firmino Dantas was a monarchist, convinced that even a bad monarchy was better for Brazil than the alternatives proposed by the Republicans.
“Not yet.”
“But you’re flirting with the ideas of those dreamers?”
“No, Clóvis. It’s young Ari down there, who assaults my ears at every opportunity.”
They had reached the edge of the high bluff. Aristides Tavares and Honôrio da Silva were below, at the white rocks that gave Itatinga its name. Aristides waved when he saw them.
Clóvis laughed again. “My Honôrio, too, tries to infect me with his ideas. Abolition? A third empire? A republic? Federation? These questions will be answered sooner than we think, cousin. And these young men will have to live with the consequences.”
Aristides Tavares often came down to the white rocks. He remembered Ulisses Tavares clutching his hand fiercely as he led him down here, and his thrill as the barão told him stories of his own grandfather, Benedito Bueno da Silva, whose canoes had traveled a thousand leagues to Cuiabá.
Hônorio Azevedo da Silva had been almost six years old when Clóvis Lima returned from Paraguay. The joy he gave his father had deepened the rift between Clóvis and Eduardo; Honôrio, quite the opposite of his older brother, had excelled at the Escola Militar in Rio de Janeiro, the twenty-two-year-old student officer today ranking among the top ten in his class. Honôrio was clearly of da Silva ancestry but for his nose, which had a pronounced ridge where it had been broken in a gunnery accident.
As the talk of their elders confirmed, both Aristides and Honôrio favored a republic. But Honôrio was also a believer in the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte, who emphasized the progress of society by scientific method and observation. At Rio de Janeiro, Comte’s positivism had an ardent apostle in Major Benjamin Constant Botelho de Magalhães, professor of mathematics at the Escola Militar, who inspired his cadets with visions of a new society organized along meticulously rational lines. Positivism’s motto — Order and Progress — appealed to young men like Honôrio da Silva, with no qualms that a scientific-minded elite directing a positivist paradise would in effect be heading a strict dictatorship.
“The monarchy has been ailing for years, Ari, and not only with the failing health of our emperor. There are thousands of civil servants at the Corte, but they’re too weak to cope with the administration of a land as vast as Brazil. We need a federal system to allow each province to progress.”
“Why do you think your Positivists will be more effective than others who’ve sought change in Brazil? Will they be any more successful than our poets who wanted a republic at Minas a century ago?”
“André Vaz da Silva was with them!” Honôrio da Silva was the great-grandson of André Vaz.
“He died in exile in Africa. Others involved in the Inconfidência lived to see Pedro the First declare the independence of Brazil.”
“Independence from Portugal, but not from the past — and not without a royal seal of approval! At the Clube Tiradentes at Rio de Janeiro, we honor our Brazilian martyr, Silva Xavier, whom the Portuguese butchered, and André Vaz and others, whom they sent to perish in exile. The cry of Tiradentes rings down through those one hundred years.”
“ ‘Libertas, quae sera tamen!’ ” Aristides responded.
“I believe we’ll soon answer that call — ‘Liberty, even though late!’”
The two and a half months between the flight of Itatinga’s slaves in mid-October 1887 and the end of the year were critical for the abolition movement, not only in Tiberica district, but also throughout the Black Triangle of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro. Violent confrontations like that at Tiberica railhead multiplied. There were direct attacks against town jails by freedmen and runaways seeking to release captured fugitives. Fazendas reported sieges of owners’ houses by slaves demanding freedom.
By early December 1887 in São Paulo province, the quilombo outside Santos had ten thousand fugitives; there was no estimate for the number of slaves hiding in the forests and backlands of São Paulo.
Firmino Dantas and Aristides Tavares attended a mass meeting of fazendeiros at the city of São Paulo on December 15. It was agreed that to save the 1888 harvest, the planters should offer their slaves a small wage and term contracts until December 31, 1890, after which date the slaves were to be freed.
On Christmas Day, Firmino Dantas ordered the remaining slaves at Itatinga to be assembled in front of the mansion. The twenty-three runaways recaptured in October were back at the fazenda, but there had been desertions by two smaller groups and the mandatory liberation of twenty elderly blacks and mulattoes, leaving 203 slaves from a total of 370 six months ago.
Firmino Dantas’s address to the slaves was brief and to the point: From New Year’s Day 1888, the slaves were to be given work contracts and paid a wage, the exact amount to be announced early in January. The slaves greeted the news with a joyous ovation before going to their quarters to celebrate the holiday and the promise of freedom.
By the end of the Christmas week, all but thirty-three slaves had abandoned Fazenda da Itatinga.
Late morning on a cold, dry April day the following year, Firmino Dantas and August Laubner were on the veranda outside Tiberica Station. Laubner was sixty-three, his hair and drooping whiskers snow white. A resident of Tiberica for twenty-five years now, apothecary Laubner had served several terms with the town câmara. His son, Mauricio, was wedded to the daughter of a branch of the Mendes family, which, after the da Silvas of Itatinga, was the second most powerful clan in the district.
With the collapse of slavery imminent, more and more Paulista planters saw immigrant labor as the alternative. The work contracts being offered the predominantly Italian arrivals were immeasurably more liberal than those offered to the Swiss in the 1850s. During 1887, some thirty thousand Italians had arrived in São Paulo province; within the first three months of 1888 alone, another thirty thousand had landed at Santos and ten thousand more were at sea or ready to embark for the voyage to Brazil. The São Paulo-based Sociedade Promotora de Imigracão was confident of reaching a goal of 100,000 migrants in 1888.
August Laubner had not forgotten the harshness of his early years in Brazil as a contract worker. He took a personal interest in the welfare of the new immigrants, serving as Tiberica representative of the Sociedade Promotora de Imigracão. On this morning of April 21, 1888, Firmino Dantas and Laubner were waiting for the São Paulo train, which had among its passengers a second group of Italians for Itatinga, 115 souls in all, whom Aristides Tavares had gone to the capital to recruit.
August Laubner had recently traveled in neighboring areas of Rio de Janeiro trying to interest planters in the work of the Sociedade. As Firmino Dantas and he waited for the train, Laubner spoke of this mission: “I remember particularly one old fazendeiro, Ivo Tupinambá Texeira. ‘I have nothing against immigrants,’ Ivo Tupinambá said. But our scheme to bring the beggars of Italy to Brazil? He called it a Paulista fad — a disreputable experiment that would ba
nkrupt the province’s coffers. The Italians would pick coffee for a harvest or two, then be gone — down to Uruguay or the Argentine or back to Italy and their lives of indolence. Senhor Ivo Tupinambá said it was a big mistake — as big a mistake as trying to make steady laborers of the lazy Brazilians who squat on our lands.”
As Firmino listened to August Laubner, he could see Patrizio Telleni, who had emerged as leader of the first twenty Italian families at Itatinga, standing at the wagons that had been brought to transport the new arrivals to the fazenda. He gestured with his head toward the slender, dark-featured, dark-haired man. “They worked well through the planting season, disrupted as it was. With the others Aristides is bringing, we can make something of this harvest, and God knows we need it. But I’m interested in Ivo Tupinambá’s observation about lazy Brazilians.”
“He was exaggerating.”
“Many agregados at Itatinga do an honest day’s work,” Firmino said, “and many don’t lift a finger. Don’t misunderstand me either, old friend: I’m all for the migration of the Italians; we need them. But what about the mass of our people?”
“With abolition, there will be greater opportunities for all.”
“So the optimists say.”
“And you’re a pessimist?”
“Perhaps ‘realistic’ is closer to the truth. Those ‘lazy Brazilians’ Ivo Tupinambá refers to? Daily their number increases as former slaves who haven’t yet found work join their ranks. Those who talk of a paradise after abolition don’t know what they’re saying. Abolition is bringing us to the edge of the cataract.”
August Laubner’s eyes widened in surprise. “You are a pessimist, Firmino. You see this change in the country in the worst possible light.”
“Let us just say ‘in the light,’” Firmino replied, warming to the discussion. “Slavery hasn’t yet been abolished, but already they’re talking about a rural democracy, about ‘redistributing existing estates.’”
“From what I’ve read, the idea is to open public lands to the poor and the former slaves.”
“Dumping-grounds for ‘lazy Brazilians!’” Firmino responded. “I know of no fazendeiro who’ll sit by and let his property be carved into little parcels to be handed out to the first takers.”
“It’s only talk, Firmino.”
“Our reformers are dazzled by the rapid advance of abolition. They don’t see old Ivo Tupinambá on his veranda with his shotgun. They may overcome his resistance to slavery with speeches and flowers, but just let them try to take one inch of his coffee groves.”
“No politician in his right mind would threaten the landowners. Emperor Pedro understands the feelings of the fazendeiros.”
“True enough. But will his successor show the same sympathy?”
“I see no reason to doubt this.”
“The princess imperial opens the Assembly on May third. I guarantee you, August, slavery will be abolished within the month. But the government can’t afford to go one step further. Most fazendeiros have had their patience tested to the limit.”
They stood up then, for they could hear the train on the outskirts of Tiberica.
“For now, my friend, there is only your Italians to welcome,” Laubner said. “One hundred fifteen men, women, and boys coming for the harvest at Itatinga.”
The locomotive steamed into town hauling eight coaches; Aristides Tavares stood on the small platform at the front of the first coach. The Italians were in the three rear coaches, many at the open windows. They were silent as the train came to a halt, but soon began a cheery exchange with Patrizio Telleni and other compatriots from Itatinga.
Aristides called out a greeting to Firmino Dantas and August Laubner as he descended the steps. “Not one hundred fifteen,” he said moments later. “One hundred seventeen, Senhor Firmino. Two more than you bargained for — twins born during the night!”
“Where?” Laubner asked, immediately concerned.
“The last coach, Senhor Laubner.”
When August was gone, Firmino asked, “Did you have a good journey?”
“Excellent, senhor.” Aristides had been away for three weeks. “The capital is in a festive mood. Everyone accepts that abolition is here.” The city of São Paulo had abolished slavery in February.
“August Laubner and I were just talking about this before you arrived.”
“It will be Brazil’s greatest hour, senhor! At last we can feel welcome among the community of respectable nations.”
“Yes, Ari, we can.”
They started walking beside the coaches. Patrizio Telleni saw them approach and shouted for the Italians to make way for the signor of Itatinga. The air was permeated with the stench of unwashed bodies.
Firmino Dantas discerned a glance of embarrassment from an old silver-haired man; an embittered stare from one much younger; a strong, protective expression on the face of a woman with her big peasant hands wrapped around a small girl; a dreamy look in the eyes of a barefoot boy.
At the last coach, August Laubner hailed them from one of the windows: “The mother should rest at my house before traveling to Itatinga.”
“Certainly, August. The infants?”
“Boys!” Laubner cried. “Two giants!” He pointed to a man standing on the train platform: “The father.”
Patrizio Telleni was standing close by and summoned the man. The Italian was huge, over six feet tall. “Pietro Angelucci,” he said, when Telleni asked his name. He took off his misshapen felt hat. “Good day, signors,” he greeted the two da Silvas.
“Welcome to Tiberica, Pietro Angelucci,” Firmino said. “There will be a good home for you at Itatinga.”
“God bless you, signor.”
“You are the one who has His greatest blessing this day. Two boys — Brazilians — blessed to be born on the eve of our liberation!”
On May 13, 1888, ten days after the opening of Parliament by Princess Isabel acting as regent for Dom Pedro, who was still in Europe, an Act abolishing slavery in Brazil completed its passage through both Houses.
The news of “The Golden Law” was flashed by telegraph from one end of the country to the other, from Rosário in Pernambuco to Tiberica in São Paulo.
Clóvis Lima da Silva cursed to himself as gusts of driving rain lashed him, streaming down his rubber poncho, splattering the mud around his boots. His flesh was covered with insect bites; one arm ached from rheumatic pain; he had not had a decent meal in days. After three weeks on the march through Mato Grosso in August 1889, Colonel Clóvis Lima’s column had every appearance of a force in retreat, an impression heightened as their commander stood observing a section of wagons and guns mired down along a jungle trail.
In January 1889, Paraguay and Bolivia had appeared to be on the brink of war over a territorial dispute involving part of the Chaco region, and Marshal Manuel Deodoro da Fonseca and several Rio de Janeiro units, Clóvis Lima’s among them, were ordered to the garrison town of Corumbá to reinforce the post and act as observers. Almost one thousand miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro, Corumbá overlooked the Rio Paraguay, which formed the border between Bolivia and Brazil. On this occasion, Paraguayan and Bolivian tempers had cooled. For the soldiers of Rio de Janeiro, though, eight months in Mato Grosso had raised a fever against the Frock Coats responsible for sending them to the far west.
When the recall came three weeks ago, Clóvis Lima’s column had been sent back overland toward São Paulo, following trails that often ran beside or crossed rivers along which Benedito Bueno da Silva had made his marvelous voyages to Cuiabá. But there was nothing glorious in this trek back to the Corte through what the soldiers called simply, “inferno.” For several hundred miles beyond Corumbá, at the edge of the Pantanal, the column had slogged through swampland infested with caiman and vipers, then struggled across patches of bone-shaking stony countryside, through palm forests, and into thick jungle like that in which the column was now bogged down, not far from the border between Mato Grosso and São Paulo province.
Embittered by these privations, one of Clóvis Lima’s officers had remarked during the previous night’s halt, “I can see them now, those damn Frock Coats taking the air along the rua do Ouvidor. ‘Go, brave patriots! Serve Brazil with honor,’ the bastards said, knowing we were bound by oath to obey.”
“There are going to be a few scores to settle at the Corte,” Clóvis Lima had responded.
“Right, Colonel! This time our smart politicians have gone too far.”
The fifteen months since the freeing of the slaves had been a period of mounting uncertainty throughout the country. Denied compensation by the government, several former slave owners joined the ranks of the Republicans, but the majority simply withdrew their support from the monarchy. Thousands of slaves returned to their plantation barracks, accepting whatever wage was offered them, and even more joined the ranks of millions of indigent Brazilians, finding themselves with even fewer rights than were theirs before abolition.
The emperor had returned to Rio de Janeiro from Europe in August 1888. His health had improved, but not to the extent that he could take rigorous control of a deteriorating situation around him. There was now little question in the minds of his subjects that Pedro was approaching the end of his reign.
Republican propagandists alarmed the populace with tales that Isabel’s husband, the comte d’Eu was scheming to be the power behind the Brazilian throne.
There were now some 250 Republican clubs — the most influential, Clube Tiradentes among them, in the southern coffee provinces — and more than seventy inflammatory Republican newspapers and pamphlets. But, for all the fervor they generated, the Republicans still fared hopelessly in elections.
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