1

Slave resistance, borders and Afro-Amazonian

spatiality (c.1850-c.1880).
1



The present article analyzes the relationship between the slaves escapes and the construction of
territoriality during the second half of the 19
th
century in the Amazonian region, which includes the
provinces of Amazonas, Para and Maranho, and what is today the Roraima and Tocantins state. In the
19
th
century, the region is characterized by a distinct geography composed by rivers and forests, and
socially marked by the presence of indigenous groups living away from the villages, indigenous and
mestizos living in the villages in freedom or in bondage, free Blacks and mulattoes, along with White
slave owners. There were also farms, mills, and different people dedicated to different activities like
collecting and preparing spices and rubber, mining and trading that could move around without settling in
a particular place. Slavery, therefore, has particular features in such environment, quite different from the
plantation system or even the mining or cattle raising regions.
First of all, it is important to understanding of spaces and territories as loci of struggles, conflicts and
solidarity among individuals or groups and, therefore, carrying close relationship between social
dynamics and the construction of spatiality, reflecting processes of cultural and political confrontations.
Secondly, it most to be clear that in the Amazon the loci is defined in close connection with the rivers, in
a region where the geography does not allow regular use of roads, the rivers are the means of
communication and transportation. The Amazon River is about 4,100 miles long, with more than 1,000
tributaries, including seven rivers that are more than 1,000 miles long, forming the largest river basin in
the world.
Afro-Amazonian maroons moved from makeshift hideouts to organized small villages, called
mocambos, that were built with the support of ties and networks involving free persons and runaways that
were essential to survive at the margins of the slave system. Runaway slaves had to elaborate tactics and
strategies to stay away from captivity that included making family arrangements that could preserve the
ties between those in freedom and those who still enslaved, or the ones hiding and those that still living in
urban areas or farms. The historical invisibility of the Afro-Amazonian is not only an academic issue, but
a social problem in Brazil. Nowadays, a few maroon villages in the region managed to resist integration,
and the descendants of African slaves continue to struggle for recognition as community and for territory
ownership.
2


Escapes and fugitives in 19
th
century Amazonas
The reasons for a slave to escape captivity can be quite diverse, running from personal reasons like
avoiding physical and sexual abuse to conquer freedom and join some loved ones already free or try to
escape to help other family members to break free as well. There were also many cases in which the
enslaved person would escape and stay away for a limited time, trying to negotiate better life conditions,
better treatment or the conditions for manumission.
The escape routes are also diverse, and could be through rural areas or the wild, as it could follow
around back alleys and roads around the towns, although it happened more often in larger urban areas. In
Amazonas, the path of men and women who escaped slavery sought either to redefine relations with their
masters or to break free from the captivity. While some managed to hide inside the town, in the slums and
shacks scattered along river shores, with the help of friends, family or some sort of ally, others followed
several directions along rivers, lakes and wetlands, they crossed forest paths and valleys, trying to get as
far as possible from those who would come after them. Alone or in small groups, some reached long
distances within the province, even crossing international borders, trying to find hideouts in the
headwaters, sometimes joining some existing group, in scarcely populated areas. As they managed to
create a safe haven and form a small community even if sometimes formed by only one family they
started to build their own territoriality.
The analysis of the provincial newspapers for that period between 1850 and 1880 pointed out that
most of the runaways were from the province of Amazonas, with a few cases from the neighboring
provinces of Para and Maranho. In the newspapers is possible to find ads published on behalf of the
slave owners that indicate that these individuals covered large distances and followed severe routes in
their escape to freedom.
The extension and complexity of the routes informed in the ads suggest the existence of a well-
constructed network developed to this end and strong knowledge about the geography of the region added
2

to the ability to overcome the challenges of such hostile environment. When the slave Gabriel fled the
province of Maranho, in December 1873, he was about 20 years old and could read and write. According
to his master, he had been hired to work in the newspaper Paiz, and there were rumors that he would head
towards the provinces of Amazonas or Par. The rumors also included the hypothesis of Gabriel taking a
ship and going to Lisbon, in Portugal, unless that is only a rumor spread intentionally". Gabriels master
suspected that the rumors about the slave fleeing to another continent had the purpose to discourage
attempts to find the slave.
3

By examining the ads for runaway slaves in Amazonas, it is noticeable the predominance of places
located along the rivers that could be freely traversed by boats or other vessels. Fugitives coming from the
province of Para, at the Atlantic shores preferred to risk running away through in interior of the country
instead of taking heading to the sea. Among the preferred routes, the Tocantins River and its tributaries
served those who escaped from the towns of Barcarena, Cachoeira do Maraj, Obidos and Belm. This
region is located at the southeastern Amazon, an area where the rain forest was not so dense, where the
economy followed the plantation system, with a large population of African slaves, employed by sugar
cane mills
4
. These mills, called engenhos in Brazil, were located along rivers, sometimes established
around villages or towns. Therefore, it is not surprising that the runaways took advantage of the rivers
system to escape and hide away forming mocambos of various sizes. It was not uncommon that a fugitive
would set off from a engenho in the province of Para heading to Amazonas and vice-versa.
On november 24, 1862, Captain Felipe Joaquim Batalha announced the escape of his slave Hilrio.
According to the slave master, both were on board of the ship "Nossa Senhora da Conceio", in the
Amazon river heading to the province of Par, when the slave escaped in So Jos do Amatary a small
settlement located on the banks of the Amazonas River and near the mouth of the Madeira River. Hilrio
was born in a place located at the shores of the river Bujaru, in the province of Para, and was described by
his master as a dark negro of thirty years old, short, slim, bearded, with perfect teeth and small feet. He
was a talker and outgoing man, despite a serious damage in his back that bowed his body, the result of a
fracture that received in the spine. The master, Captain Batatlha, was a well travelled and experienced
police officer in the region, having served at the borders between Brazil and Peru, which could explain his
concern in remarking that Hilario was "as a child of Bujaru", a slave trading area, known by the high
population of African slaves and the existence of mocambos in the region.
5
There was a great possibility
that Hilario knew the region and its inhabitants, and that he would surely find shelter and protection
among them.
6

Escapes from steamships must have been quite common. Felisberto, a slave owned by Jos Gusmo
da Silva Amaral disappeared from the steamship Amazonas, on May 17, 1875. Described by his master as
an elegantly dressed mulatto of average height and very talkative, Felisbertos escape was announced in
the newspapers for six weeks without success. In the ads, the master expressed concerns that the slave
would have gone to seek protection from his previous master.
7

Many slave owners suspected that their captives seek refuge in the city of Manaus, while others
believed that the province of Par, especially the city of Belm, was the favorite place for hiding. The fact
that Manaus figures as the primary site of origin and destination of the fugitives is explained by the
growing importance of the city in the last half of the 19
th
century. Amazonas had high rates of slave
population in working age (62.9%) and one of the highest percentages of captives living in urban
environment throughout the Empire (50%). The profile of the local slave, in this case, was highly urban.
8

While more than half of the province slaves in this period was living and working around Manaus, it
is highly probable that were in contact with some fugitive. Even though manual labor was not exclusively
dependent upon slave labor, testimonies of that period show that the few streets of the city and its
suburbs relied heavily on the activities of blacks and the various services performed by the enslaved
population. They were the "aguadeiros" Blacks who collected water together with the indigenous in the
springs or rivers to sell to citizens or "negros de ganho", the equivalent of jobbing slaves in the
Caribbean system
9
, house slaves, state owned slaves and those who belong to shop owners farriers,
masons, wheel wrights, shoemakers, blacksmiths. In general, those slaves enjoyed limited freedom, being
common to find them assembled in corners or plazas, chatting or trading.
10


Hiding places
The city of Manaus has its origins in the first decades of the 19
th
century, when travelers referred to a
few shacks inhabited by detribalized indigenous. The development of the rubber economy increased the
interest in the region, and around 1860s the place was already known by many as an important port with
new settlers coming to explore the new business and to build what soon became a village with European
ambitions and conflictive relations among indigenous, mestizos, White settlers from different social
3

classes and the labour force, composed mostly by African slaves and indigenous in bondage. In 1865, a
local newspaper refers to Manaus as a city:

The city of Manaus by their topographic position and as the capital of a province whose the future is
grandiose, being already sensed, need not be preconized, must necessarily be the most beautiful, rich and
important of the cities that intended in the extensive Amazon Valley and its confluent, when the growth of the
generations to come have given to their trade and industries the increasing that it is susceptible, and whose
elements the nature there sowed with prodigality, to the hand of man to take advantage
11
.

Urban growth, at this juncture, comes to mean new jobs, high demand for skilled workers, new streets
and alleys. As the economy grows Manaus started to receive boats and ships coming from the villages
from the interior of the province, and from other provinces, like: Par and Mato Grosso, also bigger
steamships coming from neighboring countries and from European cities. The definitive opening of the
Amazonas River in the late 1860s for all the "friendly countries" has attracted foreign investment and
helped to increase business activities in the region, incorporating the Amazon region to the Brazilian
Empire in a definitive way.
12

In March 1872, the provincial president Dr Jos Miranda da Silva Reis, remarked that the rapid
increasing of the population of the province was causing serious difficulties as the government struggled
to delivered justice to various part of its territory.
13
The remark reflects the demands provoked by the
influx of diverse people: slaves, freemen, detribalized indigenous in bondage, free indigenous from
various tribes, fugitives, Bolivians, Peruvians, French, Portuguese and Brazilians from northeastern
provinces shared the city producing a diversified urban culture and new territories, marked by tensions,
conflicts and networks of solidarity. The other side there was a wide range of miscegenation between
these groups that created different categories and made the urban control of the population even harder.
Population lists and the 1872 census can offer a good insight about the society in Manaus and in the
Amazonas during the period in question. The documents classified the enslaved population into racial and
colour groups, confirming the mixing between groups. This phenomenon must to be taken into
consideration when analysing the obstacles to identify runaway individuals among the free population.
While the census of 1872 for the Brazilian Empire considered only two "colors" to identify slaves:
black and pardo, the population lists by provinces more detailed offers a long list of variations in
color and race, which made possible to visualize interracial sexual contacts among every group, the long
list of classifications vary according to region, province and time.
This phenomenon is discussed by Jocelio Santos, who analysed the list of population in the province
of Piau in 1772, found nine categories of race/colour; in contrast, when examining a different source, the
books of registration the Santa Casa de Misericrdia (a Catholic institution in charge of rejected infants)
of the city of Salvador, capital of the province of Bahia, he found seven different categories for the years
1763 to 1770, and no less than thirty categories when analysed similar documentation for the years 1815
to 1824.
14
As one of the most predominant element, along with Blacks and Whites in the racial/colour
classification for Brazil during the 18
th
and 19
th
centuries is the pardo, it is important to clarify that
pardos were usually individuals of mixed race, sometimes the equivalent of mulatto (mixed of Black and
White), but in the northern provinces most probably a mix between Black, White and indigenous. Santos
explains that sometimes pardos were described as individuals of light-brown skin, and straight hair.
15

Another relevant fact is that racial and colour classifications are flexible categories that change according
to different factors, such as: the classifier, the social class of the person to be classified, the region and the
time.
16

In the same way, while the 1872 census for Manaus registered a population divided between blacks
from which 30% were enslaved and 70% free pardos from which 10% were slaves and 90% were
free. That shows that a large number of people, which could be racially associated with slavery at that
time, was actually free people, and that would make easier for these free lower class population to shelter
fugitives among them.
Another fact that contribute to make the racial/color and status identification in Manaus more difficult
is the presence of enslaved people that could be customarily identified by phenotypes as "white" and
"caboclo" (mixed of White and indigenous). These, and other intermediate categories were present in the
population lists for Manaus in 1869 and in 1873, as if follows:

Table I Colour and Status
Color Qty. (%)
Preta 145 41, 07
Parda 73 20, 67
4

Carafuza 72 20, 11
Cabocla 8 2,26
Mulata 54 15, 01
Branca 3 0, 84
Source: Lista de Matrcula dos Escravos da Comarca da Capital, 1869.

Table II Colour and Status
Color Qty. (%)
Preta 336 45,71
Mulata 159 21,63
Carafuza 136 18,50
Parda 71 9,65
Tapuia 12 1,63
Cabocla 6 0,81
Cabra 4 0,54
Fula 4 0,54
Crioula 2 0,27
Cabor 1 0,13
Not informed 4 0,54
Source: Lista de Classificao dos Escravos para Emancipao, 1873.

According to the information above, many were the "colors" that could identify an individual as a
slave in urban scenes or on the workplace or in the hours of rest and recreation. In this sense, distinguish
an enslaved person amidst the free population in racial terms was very difficult. As argued by Russell
Wood:
Endogamy based on color does not exist in Portuguese America and the impossibility of establishing a set of
objective criteria to describe the racial identity of a person is not only a legacy of the colonial
periodnowadays as a characteristic that distinguishes Brazil from British colonies and, later, the United
States
17
.

The ads for fugitive slaves reflected the variations and the interemediate categories created to describe
people, such as: light mulatto claro, not so dark Black, fula, moreno, mulatto atapoiado (that resembles
more the indigenous phenotype), cafuzo atapoiado (that resembles more the indigenous phenotype), dark
pardo, crioulo retinto (very dark Black person locally born), mulatto alvacento (quite light), among
others. It is true that many of these denominations had only reference value for the one who emitted the
classification. Most often, by the entirely subjective nature of the expressions, the same individuals were
classified in different ways by the evaluators.
Fugitive slave Tristo, for example, was classified in the ad as pardo in ad in March of 1869, when his
master, the businessman merchant Hermenegildo Lopes Braga was still alive. Two years later, Antnio
Lopes Braga as legal representative and uncle of the deceased, placed another ad seeking for the same
slave, he used the term "mulato atapoiado"
18
.
In this context, the mixing factor cannot be disregarded. Since the colonial period, contacts between
indigenous and African resulted in mixtures as in the biological realm as in the cultural field. Africans
and Indians worked together on various activities and allied themselves with varying motivations.
Sometimes, these relationships exceeded the creation of a mocambo and made possible the consensual
unions or even legitimate marriages, even in slavery. As it shows the case of the tapuio (detribalized
indigenous) Celestino Raimundo da Silva, free, who was prosecuted in December of 1863 for trying to
kill his wife, a slave of Joo Jos Ferreira, with an ax.
19

The complex racial fabric of Amazonas, and Manaus in particular, which is predominantly multi-
ethnic during the entire slavery period but particularly during the 19
th
century when, as it was already
discussed, the region experienced a great influx of people from diverse ethnic groups allowed a fugitive
go unnoticed even when living in plain sight, especially in the case of mixed persons. During their visit to
Manaus, in 1965, the couple Agassiz had difficulty translating the phenotypic characteristics of the
5

population of Manaus. They said it was rare to find a person in Manaus that was of absolutely pure black
race and resorted to vague terms to establish the degree of blackness of the population, emphasizing the
presence of the mixed of indigenous and Africans. : "but it can be seen numerous mulatos, mamelucos, as
they call mestizos of indians and black"
20

Allied to the complex social fabric, the geographic environment, marked by innumerous rivers,
streams, springs, lakes and wetlands, many connected and surrounded by dense forest or vegetation. That
created a tight net that only locals could navigate with confidence. The multi-ethnic alliances found in the
urban environment could also be found among the populations that lived away from the busy centers, also
marked by different levels of cooperation between free, slave and fugitives. The problem can be seen in
the documentation, as police officers express despair and hopeless in their ability to apply the law and re-
capture fugitives.
As a result, the movements of slaves increasingly concerned provincial authorities. In urban areas it is
possible to depict complex strategies and practices of the population, reinvented in the everyday actions
designed to protect outlaws and fugitive slaves. In Vila Bela da Imperatriz, province of Maranho, for
example, the slave Maximiano Jos was described as tall mulatto of 30 years old, with no beard, that
worked as tailors assistant . The slave managed to escape and the authorities believed that he was living
for more than ten months in the "quarteiro do Mocambo", one of the districts of the same Vila, when
several diligences had been sent to capture him.
21
Places like the quarteiro do Mocambo constituted
the typical Black territory, as presented by Flvio Gomes: a place of conflict, solidarity and protection
that marked the slave experience.
22

Routes of escapes, gatherings and mocambos (inside and outside the urban areas) reveal planning,
efforts and networking that follow cultural logics of Africans and the people who identify similar
necessities in running away, hiding and construct other spaces of socialization and community life,
bringing together fugitives, deserters, maroons, freedmen and indigenous. As they identify common
enemies among the authorities and within the exclusionary system as well as a common target
freedom indigenous, Blacks and mixed people, cooperated in organizing escapes and reconstructing the
community life away from slavery. In the process, they established routes and defined territories in
connection to those who occupied and/or the legal authorities. However, those new spaces often kept
links with urban environment and groups, forming an extended network that remained connected and in
permanent operation, mainly by market exchange: protecting, supporting escapes, hiding information
from the authorities about routes and places of refuge, harboring deserters and fugitives.
23

The slave Maria Salome wandered through the outskirts of Manaus until being arrested for running
away in 1860
24
. In March 1864, slave owner Manoel Thomaz Pinto requested the intervention of urban
authorities of Manaus to re-capture Black slave named Isabel, who had escaped and was wandering in the
outskirts of the city
25
. It was not the first time that Colonel Manoel Pinto asked for police intervention. In
January of the same year, the same runaway had been arrested by order of the delegate of police of the
capital on her masters request.
26
These cases show eventual escapes that could or could not be permanent.
During the last decades of slavery in Brazil, great part of the work of policemen and city authorities was
to search the inner city and surrounds for runaways.
Between 1850 and early 1880s, while the number of runaways grew in the capital, the elites demand
for slave labour increased. Newspapers circulated with more and more announcing slaves for sale and
principally for rent, as it looks like a quite profitable business, given the abolition of slave trade from
Africa and internally too. Rented slaves were under the responsibility of the renters, who had the same
authority of the legal slave owner, and equally were expected to provide care, food, clothing and shelter
to the slave. The rent was paid directly to owner or, if was the case, to the agencies (typographies,
taverns and trading companies) that charged a commission to intermediate this service.
27


Rent a slave, fit for service in a family home; those who need it, should come go to this newspaper
publishing company that will be told with who to deal to this end.
28


Woman needed for housekeeping. She can be slave or freed, to work in a small family home. Whoever
fulfills these predicaments should go to the tavern at Pottery Street to arrange the deal.
29


Some slaves were not rented to work in private spaces, but in the streets. As mentioned before, the
jobbing slaves were sent to the streets with obligations and tasks defined by their owner or the master
who rented their services and were expected to certain amount of money at the end of the day, week or
month, accordingly to what was stipulated by the master. For example, industrial services (blacksmiths,
potters, dressmakers) were worth much on the market than services like carriers. The autonomy and
freedom enjoyed by slaves did not mean a less difficult life, because in some cases they had two work
shifts, one in the street and other services in the homes of their masters, especially if they were poor and
had few slaves.
30

6

Rental slaves, working in domestic services, as public works or in the streets had a greater opportunity
to accumulate a few coins if the payment was made directly to them instead of their owners, as between
the value previously set to be paid to the owner and the amount effective collected for the services could
give the slave a surplus known as peclio. Saving money was a fairly common practice among jobbing
slaves and was only legalized as a right by the law of September 28, 1871. The money provided many
with the possibility of living far away from the master, by renting a place of their own or for family,
allowing the slaves greater autonomy to manage their own destinies, and in the limit, buy his own
freedom
31
. The limited freedom also gave them opportunities to establish connections, sometimes even
marrying other slaves or free person, and contacts away from the eyes of the master. These connections
were necessary when the slave was planning to runaway. Moreover, living away from the master could
provide time to escape, as sometimes took days, weeks or months until the master realizes that the slave
had runaway.
Obviously, this limited independence meant also to live under greater suspicion and vulnerability. On
May 27, 1868, the Jornal do Rio Negro reported on the investigations conducted by the Chief of Police to
find the criminal who had robbed the shop of Sebastio. The slave Manoel became the main suspect,
because he had been arrested days before for entering the house of the citizen Manoel Antonio Lessa
under disguise. But the most incriminating factor for the police was fact that the slave Manoel had a
mistress residing in a "house rented for 6000 ris" located across the street from the victim. It was
difficult to believe that a jobbing slave could support a lover living in such expensive place, and that was
enough to put him in jail.
32

In Manaus, the neighborhood called Tamarac was known as a place where slaves could rent a house
or a space inside a house to live in the inner city and exercise certain level of autonomy from his/her
owner. This type of arrangement could be interesting to the masters, because it would take part of the load
of supporting the slave from his shoulder, it was also a way of diminish tensions between master and
slave. The fundamental character in this type of limited freedom is the representative of the public order
and authority. In fact, police officers and street inspectors were often called to control of the captives who
lived far from their masters and to keep the order and peace in urban space.
33

The following document shows that in 1870, the police was called to take the "necessary measures"
against a constant gathering of jobbing slaves, accused of offending the "honor of public
morality."According to the Catechista, these problems occurred any time of day or night,

mainly from 6 to 9, (slaves) gather in the ramps in front of the houses of the negotiating Antnio
Joaquim da Costa &Irmo, on the bridges, and other places. (They are) gangs of saleswomen and other
unoccupied women, which, together with sailors, and slavemen give a very sad examples of morality.
Obscene words are common in the mouths of those assemblies and can be heard by anyone that by necessity
or recreation pass through these places.
34


Notices about the period of the day or night that slaves could freely move around the city were
published in the newspapers, as well as in the municipalitys codes and rules. Substitute sub-sheriff of
Manaus, Mr. Jos Miguel de Lemos, informed citizens in May 1861 "that slaves without pass from their
masters were not allowed to walk the streets of this capital after 3 pm; neither could sailors embarked on
steamships, under the penalty of being taken into jail".
35

Strolling along the new bridges, plazas, slopes, taverns, and other places across the city, male and
female slaves sold their products, made money and recreated spatiality their own way. More than that,
they built strategies to imposed limits to the masters control and challenged values of "civilization and
progress" systematically imposed by the elites and authorities. In large measure, the prevalence of these
autonomous activities in the city may have interfered in the process of disintegration of the slavery
36
.
In January 1871, the newspaper Catechista published a note addressed to the police authorities saying
that it was very convenient that the police pay attention to cambenbes (shacks) that were rented for
slaves at streets around the cathedral and Tamarac.
37

African experiences maintained by their descendants in the Diaspora were adapted and modified in
urban environment, especially those related to habitation and housing. Inside the city of Manaus, a
neighborhood called the Coast of Africa, was an area inhabited by Black workers, some of African
origins, free and enslaved. In all places of Manaus, new cultural territories were forged and reassigned,
suggesting the presence of Black communities with practices, symbols and meanings related to African
experiences.
38

The workers of African origin who served in various public works also lived under the authoritys
suspicion. In 1861, the president of the province Manoel Clementino Carneiro da Cunha ordered the chief
of police to take measures to make sure that free Africans found wandering in the streets of the city after
eight o'clock in the evening were detained in jail till being submitted to the director of public services.
39

7

The purpose of such decision was to keep these workers under control because, in the speech of the
President, even though they were not the best workers, they supplied the demand for labour.
40

A year later, the mobility of the slaves and the ways in which slave owners should manage it were part
of the concerns of the authorities of the province.

The slaves that were found at night, from the curfew until the sunrise, without their masters, and without
a pass showing date, name of the slave and a declaration from the masters, or without lantern or torch, will be
taken into prison.
41


The norms of control were not only against African slaves and free Black workers, including
indigenous, mestizos, tapuias and and those who were part of the multifaceted ethnic universe and that
needs to be "ordained", subordinate, controlled. As a result of the tension between these groups, the city
territory acquired diverse meaning, according to the characters involved masters, authorities, slaves,
free workers, etc given place to various hiding places and a complex network of comrades, enemies and
occasional allies.
The city became, in the second half of the 19
th
century, a territory of continuous change, result of a
booming economy of rubber production and exportation. Social, economic and political changes took
place under the influence of a rise of immigration that reunited individuals from different cultures and
with various interests. In addition, the physical features associated with slavery became too broad and,
increasing the problems of identification relating color and slavery in Amazonas. In the same way, the
connections between slaves, free Africans, indigenous, tapuias, saleswomen and sailors in the urban
scene became target of the authorities suspicion.
Not coincidentally, the number of arrests indicated in the prison diaries increased between the final
years of the 1850s and early 1860s, revealing a quotidian of tensions and repression in which slaves and
free indigenous, mixed people and Africans experienced similar fate. Moreover, these groups were also
target in forced recruitment for militias, army or forced labour. In this context, escape was even more
risky and life on the run was subject to constant persecution and instabilities.
Towards the end of the century, the difficult task of controlling the labour force was worsened with
the increasing challenge of controlling a growing population of individuals considered as potential
criminals, including the deserters, fugitives, vagrants, brawlers, drunks, and those who helped runaway
slaves and fugitives. On top of that, the growing city became infested with diseases and pests, effects of
urbanization without sanitation. The panic caused by epidemics took the authorities to direct their actions
against the poorest population that were seen as carriers of the diseases like cholera, for example. The
police acted against food sellers, trying to control the quality of the food, against overpopulated areas as
a way to prevent contaminations and fire removing sick people from the urban context
42
, and also to
ensure that the movement of slaves, indigenous, free Africans, poor men, nationals and foreign migrants
in the urban environment does not turn into generalized disorder.
The biggest concern in that period was to control the movement of slaves in order to guarantee the
necessary labour force. The abolitionist campaign gained importance from 1880 in the Brazilian Empire,
influencing the society in the Amazonas as well. During this period the newspapers like the news
Abolicionista do Amazonas (the Amazonian Abolitionist) actively engaged in the campaign for abolition
of slavery, denouncing the arrest of slaves under any pretext. According to an article published in 1884,
the imprisonment of slaves in the city prison continued to be an abusive practice rather than a
correctional measure, since it keeps the individual in prison for an indefinite time simply to attend to the
slave owners request
43

Epistemologically, all these elements that characterize urban slavery in Amazonas, bring a new
problem to the local historiography, because it is no longer possible to consider the building of the city of
Manaus only as a product of the conflict between the White elite and the indigenous population and
culture without including the role of African slavery and the multi-ethnic mixed population in the social,
economic and political fabric of the region.
When the slave fled to Manaus found a city in full expansion, trading port and safe haven for many
people; through the streets, alleys and business houses circulated Portuguese, Bolivians, Peruvians,
Venezuelans, White Brazilians, mixed people of diverse origins, indigenous, and Blacks (African or
crioulos, free or enslaved), some locals, some just passing by, some outsiders looking for adventure and
easy money, others introduced as forced laborers. The complex constitution of the population was itself a
good hiding place for a fugitive.

Among the forest, headwaters and wetlands: refuge and freedom.

8

For those who chose to get away from the urban scenarios, the escape routes took them through some
of the innumerous rivers, along the forest, to hide in the woods, following different paths. To protect
themselves from the authorities, the slaves fled to the headwaters of rivers, traded with people they found
on their way, negotiated with locals and frequently changed hideout leaving only small traces of
abandoned huts to recreate refuges elsewhere crossing valleys and the Rain Forest.
In this aspect, the Amazon mocambos and quilombos were different from those from other locations
in Brazil as they did not form large and stable communities but small groups of fugitives, constantly
moving, modifying and rebuilding the communities that organized themselves based on kinship and
fellow fugitives. This itinerancy did not meant disconnection from the surrounding society, because the
contacts and the trading with the small town, villages and farms were constant. Even because the small
groups had greater mobility, facilitating dismantling of the settlement and to escape the authorities.
44

The main characteristic of these groups of runaways was the ability to remain invisible, almost
camouflaged, using the environment as their major ally. Knowledge about the environment was crucial
for the fugitives and to keep their maroon communities. The products of hunting, fishing, extraction, in
addition to agriculture and some craft were used for trading and survival in the group. Sometimes these
products were used to bribe outsiders and protect the group from potential delators. According to
Euripides Funes:

Knowing the environment was fundamental for the success of escapes, since nature became a natural
accomplice. During the rainy season, grass grows tall on the banks of lakes, forming earthen dams, clogging
wetlands that connect to other rivers, obstructing the passage and hiding paths. Settling above the rapids and
waterfalls, the maroons interposed natural obstacles between them and their pursuers.
45


On the other hand, it is important to note that many of these fugitives found favorable conditions for
the creation of communities, micro societies, self-sustaining. Through the creeks and wetlands, runaway
slaves built mocambos maroon settlements smaller than quilombos sometimes staying long enough to
develop agriculture. The economy is supplemented with the exchange of stolen objects from the masters
or with the trading the agricultural products to indigenous, deserters or others.
Following the Amazonas River, Paul Marcoy found "two elderly dark-skinned" people who lived
there in the forest for many years as runaways. According to the traveler, the Black couple had a servant,
an indigenous man, who helped them in a small vegetable garden whose surpluses were exchanged with
locals for salt, cotton, poison for hunting and fishing tools. The same traveler refers to hovel that he found
in the forest, which also had small vegetable garden and was inhabited by "three deserters (...) living in
peace and security with their pardas women of flattened noses".
46

It is no accident that more than half of the enslaved fled between the months of February and July
(57%). The escapes followed the cycles of flood and ebb of rivers. Slaves were attentive to the
movements of the rivers, when countless canals and creeks were connected, making navigation easier. It
was then during the Amazon winter that one could take the animals or canoes to escape, during the
chestnut harvest time and the seasons festivities.
47


By settling along of rivers like the Madeira River, runaways could take advantage of a great number
of lakes, populated turtles and fishes such as peixe-boi, pirarucus, tambaquis and many others. The region
was mentioned by the president of the province in his report for the year 1861, as a place of significant
economic development, attributed to the development trading of natural products and the increasing
import of genres coming from Peruvian republic in the Madeira river the trade.
48

The newspaper Jornal do Amazonas brought, in May 5, 1882, a notice about the escape of a slave
named Jorge, described as "mulatto, scarcely bearded and very talkative", property of the captain of
National Guard Pedro Antnio de Souza. Jorge fled at night, leading a small boat, from a place named
"Gavio" at the banks of the Juru River, an area of intense movement of vessels because of rubber
production
49
. Other slaves took advantage of the rivers to run away from the city of Par; Joo, age 24,
was described as mulatto, slightly curly hair, brown eyes, short beard and slim face fled together with
and Alexandrina, described as Black, age around 26-28, good figure, big dark eye, flat nose, and big
feet. Their owner suspected that the two captives decided to go "up the Amazon River.
50

Joo and Alexandrina lived in freedom for more than two years until they were captured near the
garrison of Chibar, up the Negro River. The military unit where the two fugitives were captured had
been created in January 1857 and was a place of relative prosperity in comparison to the surroundings;
many people had taken refugee there, trying to escape the cholera and yellow fever epidemics that
affected Negro River, ravaging the localities along the same river. Joo was trying to get to his homeland,
down the Negro river, however, he found the place ravaged by the epidemics and had no choice but to
follow the people who were heading to the garrison for help.
51

9

When the fugitive couple was arrested, Alexandrina stayed in the district of Chibar to be sold, and
the slave Joo was referred to the police station in the capital, remaining in custody for abouts a month. In
the prison, he met another slave named, Jos Paulino but known as Macaar, with who escaped from
prison in a green boat that they say belong to the master carpenter Funfo. Antonio Jos Pereira
Carneiro, who owned Joo, suspected that the escapees had followed "to the Negro River, or Madeira
where Jos Paulino had lived for a period, under the name of Antnio Paulino.
52

There were inumerous routes to scape slavery in the region. If fugitives sought refuge in the lakes and
tributaries of the Madeira river, they would surely find a wealthy region both by natural resources as the
increasing trade that developed through the navigation, many navigating between Brazilian provinces
such as Matto Grosso, Par and Maranho, and even crossing international borders.

Latin American Africanities in Amazon and transnational spaces.

A Black crioulo slave named Peter, carpenter officer, runaway with the mulatto atapoiado (with
indigenous features) named Aprgio, baker, using a horse and moving up Negro River, in direction to a
place called "Hespanha", located in the foreign state of New Granada (Colombia?)
53
Another slave, Luiz,
Black, 42 years old, born in Maranho, who had a big mustache and missing some front teeth, fled from
Vista Alegre in Purus river, paddling upriver embarked on a broken boat, suspected of some of the
neighboring republics: Bolivia, Venezuela or another"
54
. His master requested the police and authorities
of the borders military posts to capture the slave Luiz before he crossed the international border.
Escapes into foreign countries reveal wider network and broader strategies, being among the greatest
concerns of the Brazilian authorities at that time, as the former Spanish proclaimed the end of the slave
trade and the abolition of slavery during the first half of the 20
th
century, same going for the French
British and Dutch colonies in the Guianas. In some countries, such as Bolivia, the local authorities would
openly shelter Brazilian runaway slaves. Besides the obvious problems for Brazilian diplomacy involving
international action in defense of the property of its citizens, there was also the concern of the Brazilian
elites about the spreading of revolutionary ideas related to freedom and the end of slavery circulating
across America. Although international escapes is still a subject rarely frequented by historiography, there
are important reports about the contacts of quilombolas, mocambeiros, deserters and fugitives in the
border areas of the Amazon Caribbean, building their own territoriality in spite of international treaties.
According fo Flavio Gomes, since the seventeenth century, the colonial authorities of the captaincies
of Rio Negro and Gro-Par feared that their slaves to get in touch with information about the
revolutions that occurred in the other American colonies, in the Caribbean and Europe. Moreover,
between Cayenne and the Captaincy of Gro- Par and Rio Negro there was a constant movement of
runaway slaves and maroon communities that established relations that went beyond trading and that
ignored written agreements between colonial authorities.
55


The eastern region of Gro-Par captaincy on the border with French Guyana gave the most cause for
concern. With the help of merchants and indigenous groups, escaped slaves migrated from the Portuguese
and French sides of the border in search of freedom. () However, territorial disputes made it more and more
difficult to control and police the area.
56


Indeed, it is highly probable that the enslaved population in the Amazon region was aware of the
international political situation. The fugitives built networks that allowed the exchange of information
around the end of the traffic and abolition of slavery in the neighboring countries; there was also great
interest about slave uprisings and revolutionary movements. The networks also included commercial
exchanges between merchants, maroons, deserters, sailors and indigenous of several ethnicities in the
Brazilian Amazon and its boundaries.
57

The contact between these groups raised concerns among the Brazilian elites since colonial times. The
movement across borders, the contacts that people of color had with revolutionary ideas and deserters
groups, relations between Surinames maroon groups and communities of fugitives from Brazil meant the
possibility of rebellions in alarming dimensions. In the context of the independence of Brazil, for
example, the revolutionary experience of Haiti (when slaves took power, killed their masters and
established their own republic) disturbed the imagination of the elites, Brazilian and Portuguese. Other
slave rebellions in the Atlantic spread fear among those who depended upon slave work. Just name a few:
the revolts in Virginia (1800 and 1831) and South Carolina (1822); in Venezuela (1795); Cuba (1795 and
1812); in the British Caribbean, the rebellions of Barbados (1816), Demerara (1823) and Jamaica (1831).
In Brazil, panic spread through the cycle of revolts in Bahia and movement of Mals (1835).
58

In Amazonas, the concern about the movement of slaves, with escapes and with the contact among
runaways, deserters and criminals of all sorts, especially if examples of such rebellion occurred in the
10

border region, created a state of panic that Sidney Chalhoub called "the Whites fear"
59
, that was present
during slavery in the entire Brazilian territory. Between 1831 and 1840, revolutionary movements spread
along the Amazon basin, causing horror among the authorities and the local population. It was the
Cabanagem Revolution, an uprising of slaves, indigenous and all the subordinated groups that lived under
extreme exploitation and influenced by ideas of freedom and equality challenged the local and
imperial powers. In the 1850s the disturbing memories of the revolution and "latent or explicit anarchy"
that took over the province of Gro Par (which at that time included the provinces of Amazonas, Par
and Maranho) was often mentioned in discussions about the network among slaves, fugitives, outlaws
and indigenous, as part of the social, political and diplomatic concerns of local authorities.
60

The Cabanagem revolution certainly was fundamental experience in the lives of subsequent
generations. Only in the Comarca of the Alto Amazonas estimated the number of deaths in 60 thousand
people. Historians defend that this revolution can only be fully analysed from an international
perspective, given the fact that the movement crossed the borders of the Guianas and the Spanish South
America. The revolution increased contact and exchanges of food and weapons on commuting of borders
with English, Dutch, French and Hispanic world, and has also intensified the movement of revolutionary
ideas and practices.
61

While colonial authorities tried to repress of slave rebellions across the Atlantic, the British
abolitionist movement, especially the Anti-Slavery Society, increased its strategies in the Caribbean
towards disseminating ideas of liberation, among Blacks, moving the public opinion and hasten the end of
slavery.
62
When slavery was abolished in French Guiana, in 1848, former slaves fled into the rain forest
to re-create communities based in the African tradition; however, in order to do so, they had to establish
contact and cooperation with indigenous communities and others.
The situation in French Guiana alarmed the president of the Province of Gro-Par who requested
instructions to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the measures that should be adopted "in order to prevent
escapes of slaves in this province to Guyana where slavery was abolished." The concerns of the President
of Par and fears of the Secretariat of the Ministry were fed by the news that men coming from that
bordering countries were acting as a representative of the abolitionist societies in the French Guiana and
in British colonies were planning to enter the Brazilian territory to conduct anti-slavery propaganda.
63

The phenomenon of a circulation of ideas and experiences related to slaves resistance movements and
armed revolts was called the African boomerang by Linebaugh
64
. The propagation of anti-slavery ideas
involved priests, sailors and people from different classes and ethnic identity was intensified after the
1850s.
Although this papers aim does not include a full discussion about the anti-slavery international
network and how it has influenced Brazilian abolition, it is important to remind that those actions and
ideas were present in the Amazon. The international abolitionist campaign added to the fear of
connections among the fugitives, indigenous peoples and maroons of the Guianas, generating panic into
the elites and provincial authorities of the region. The movements of fugitives with routes heading into
foreign territories, reveal detailed planning of escapes and knowledge of consistent networks of social
relations not only among slaves, but also with detribalised indigenous from different countries, foreign
traders (mainly Bolivians, Peruvians, Colombians and Venezuelans), deserters, sailors, and other free
people. These connections were at the margins of the political system, taking advantage of its flaws and
linking people that were excluded from the political game. It also created personal or communal
definitions of freedom, as well as territorial limits and the notions of identity, belonging and property, and
trespassed the social borders and the politically established territorial borders.
In April of 1854, amidst the general fear of slave rebellions, a slave of Colonel Manoel Thomaz Pinto
spread among the inhabitants of Manaus a tale about a group of indigenous and Blacks, dressed in black
uniforms, armed with sticks and knives, hidden in the road that linked the city to the neibouring town of
Cachoeira Grande, city limits. According to the author of the rumors, the group of rebels was awaiting
the right moment to invade the capital. The news quickly spread panic to the point that many families got
ready to flee the city. The National Guard was mobilized to investigate and to deal with the matter, just to
find out that it was just a fib.
65

Evidences of inter-ethnic contacts that reinforce the existence of a historical process of
communication and cultural exchange across borders and status in Amazonas can be found in the
newspapers and government reports and correspondence. Along the month of May of 1860, multiple
correspondences between the president of the province and the military commander at the banks of the
Rio Branco river (that connects with the British Guyana) refers to the presence of Blacks from Demerara
making entrenchments in the Amazonas village of Pirarara. What seemed more alarming to the
commander was the cooperation between local indigenous and those Black foreigners that, according
him, threaten the military unit located at the border between the two countries. The president of the
11

province advised the commander to negotiate with the leaders of the group of the indigenous and the
Blacks to drive them to withdraw from such offensive attitude.
66

Years before, in 1841, Brazilian diplomat Duarte da Ponte Ribeiro, complained to the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs about the reluctance of Congress and the Government of Bolivia in return the slaves to
Brazilian owners, claiming that that government intended to "populate the desert provinces of Mojos and
Chequitos" with the Brazilian runaways. Almost twenty years later, in 1859, Duarte Ribeiro saw as
useless the Brazilian efforts to sign agreement for the return of runaway slaves in the treaties aimed to
setting the frontiers between the two countries. In his opinion:

Even if it was agreed with the Government of Bolivia, it would never happen, as it was never realized in
any of the republics that have agreed with the Empire (in such matter). Slavery was abolished there since the
birth of the Republic; its Constitution gives freedom to any slave who set foot on Bolivian territory; and the
Criminal Code in force penalizes whoever deliver, or sent to other Government or private individual, a
refugee slave in Bolivia with four years in prison.
67


In Peru the situation was similar. The imperial government of Brazil struggled with the problem of
extradition of criminals and runaway slaves. Besides, the fragility (or even absence) of agreements on
frontiers demarcation kept the region instable and governments prone to international disputes over
borders. The controversies both in relation to limits as to the restitution of deserters and slaves created an
expectation of distrust among governments on both sides; however, from the point of view of fugitives,
the borders present real possibilities of finding safe haven cross the limits
68
.

Conclusion

Amidst the forest, lakes, headwaters, tributaries, rivers, creeks, settlements, villages and inside the
cities, runaways and maroons built and shared their experiences on captivity and forms of resistance. The
multi-faced society and the complex geographic territory generated another culture, founded in the ethnic
exchanges and the struggle for freedom.
In Manaus, many fugitives found hiding places in alleys, along multiethnic creeks and outskirts
shacks. They could hide themselves in plain sight, taking advantage of the process of urban change and
population increase, also of the heavy traffic of vessels, goods and obviously experiences among the
lower classes by the rivers of the Amazon.
This way, through multiple and different trajectories, the fugitives were eventually extend the margins
of autonomy and freedom that escapes gave them. The constant migration resulting built other borders,
occupied and controlled by maroon groups.
The escapes generated fear among the authorities and masters, who were afraid of the emergence of
articulated insurrections among blacks, Indians and other "criminals". The flow and movement of ideas
were happening in these networks and exchanges, in the canoes that penetrated the Amazonian
hinterlands in search of refuge.


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1
My thanks to the history teacher Felipe Cabral Cavalcante for the informal english translation. Special
thanks to historian Elaine Rocha for reviewing this article in English and for critical suggestions to the
original text in Portuguese.
2
In Amazonas, the maroon communities suffer from a profound social invisibility. The notorious
argument of the meaninglessness of slavery and diminished presence of Africans in the times of
colonization in the region come to reinforce what Alfredo Wagner Berno de Almeida (ALMEIDA, 2010,
p.12) called"ethnographic disempowerment and illegitimacy".
3
Comrcio do Amazonas, 11/01/1874. The newspapers of the Amazons, in this period, have only 4 pages,
in view of the extreme precariousness of the printers of the time. The ads of slaves and other
advertisements leaks were published on page 4.
4
Vicente Salles, O negro no Par, sob o regime da escravido. (Belm, Instituto de Artes do Par, 2005).
5
Estrella do Amazonas, 26/11/1862.
6
About Felipe Joaquim Batalha see (BASTOS, 2008, p.15). Informations about Bujaru see (BEZERRA
NETO, 2002, pp.222-228).
7
Commrcio do Amazonas, 24/06/1875.
8
MARCONDES, 2005, p.87.
9
Jobbing slaves were slaves who lived independently in the town or cities, renting his or her services as
carriers, cooks, wet nurses, working in construction or selling goods, among other jobs, paying rent to
their owners in regular basis.
10
Studys on slavery and urban labor, see: Leila Mezan Algranti, O feitor ausente:estudo sobre a
escravido urbana no Rio de Janeiro (Petrpolis, Editora Vozes,1988); Jos Maia Bezerra
Neto,Mercado, conflitos e controle social. Aspectos da escravido urbana em Belm (1860-1888),
Histria & Perspectivas, n. 41 (2009); Marcus J. M. de Carvalho, Recife: Controles e contras-te (1822-
1856), in Maria Anglica Soller & Maria Izilda Mattos (orgs.), A cidade em debate: Belm, Recife, Rio
de Janeiro, So Paulo, Santos, Uberlndia, Curitiba, Porto Alegre (So Paulo, Editora Olho dgua, 1999,
pp. 75-108); Sidney Chalhoub, Medo branco de almas negras: escravos, libertos e republicanos na
cidade do Rio, Revista Brasileira de Histria, v.8, n.16 (1988), pp. 83-105; Roberto Guedes Ferreira,
Autonomia escrava e (des)governo senhorial na cidade do Rio de Janeiro da primeira metade do sculo
XIX, in Manolo Florentino (org.), Trfico, cativeiro e liberdade (Rio de Janeiro, sculos XVII-XIX) (Rio
de Janeiro, Civilizao Brasileira, 200, pp. 229-84).
11
O Catechista, 01/04/1865
12
GREGRIO, 2009, p.185-212
13
Rapport to the Provincial Legislative Assembly of Amazonas in the first session of the 11
th
Legislature
on March 25, 1872 by the president of the province, Mr. exmo. General Phd. Jos Miranda da Silva Reis,
(Manaus, Typography Gregorio Jos de Moraes, 1872), p. 6.
14
Jocelio Teles dos Santos, De pardos disfarados a brancos pouco claros: classificaes raciais no
Brasil dos sculos XVIII e XIX, Afro-Asia, 2005, v.32, pp 115-37.
14


15
Idem.
16
Elaine Rocha, Racism in novels, a comparative study of Brazilian and South African Cultural History,
(New Castle, Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2010).
17
RUSSEL-WOOD, 2005, p.49
18
O Catechista, 14/03/1869; O AMAZONAS, 3/09/1870
19
Oficial letter n. 778 of the Police Department of Amazonas in 24 of December, 1863 to the provincial
president Dr. Sinval Odorico de Moura. Book n. 05 of the Police Department in 1863.
20
AGASSIZ, 1975, p. 230 e 270
21
Office of Police Station of Vila Bela da Imperatriz of November 3, 1862 to the Chief of Police of the
Province Dr. Caetano Estelita Cavalcante Pessoa. Book of official letters Department of Police, 1862.
Public Archive of the State of Amazonas.
22
GOMES, 2006, p. 233
23
GOMES, 2005; FUNES, 1996
24
Estrella do Amazonas, 19/09/1860
25
O Catechista,26/03/1864
26
O Catechista, 30/01/1864
27
SOARES, 1988, p.137
28
Estrella do Amazonas, 06/04/1861
29
Estrella do Amazonas, 27/10/1858).
30
SOARES, op.cit...
31
REIS, 1989, p.17
32
Jornal do Rio Negro, 27/03/1868
33
SANTOS, 2006, p.148-151
34
O Catechista, 16/07/1870.
35
Estrella do Amazonas, 01/06/1861
36
MACHADO, 1988, p.149
37
It is interesting note that the name given to two places rented by slaves makes reference to a location in
the interior of Angola, called Cambembe, "the banks of the Cuanza river and PundoAndongo,ancient
capital of the Kingdom of Ndongo". Besides mean, also, salariaedemployeds who worked with the slaves
(REGINALDO, 2005, p.49); About the possibility of another meaning for the word Cambembe, see:
(AULETE, 1925) Available in: http://www.auletedigital.com.br
38
About the presence of free Africans in Amazonas (SAMPAIO, 2005).
39
Estrella do Amazonas, 26/10/1861
40
Report presented to the legislative assembly of the province of Amazonas by exm.o senr. dr.
Clementino Manoel Carneiro da Cunha, president of the same province, in ordinary session of May 3,
1862, (Par, Typ Frederico Carlos Rhossard, 1862), p.20
41
Estrella do Amazonas, 8/02/1862.
42
The hygienic measures to prevent Cholera adopted by the province stated that the police should ensure
the "cleanliness and neatness of the streets, examining the food substances that are sold not excepting the
drinks, because it everywhere, and always the merchants of edible, speculate with public needs, selling
genres corrupted" and, not least, "order to do fumigation in prisons, hospitals and other places, where
there are gatherings and people that living in damp and poorly ventilated places. See: (CANAVARRO,
1862, p. 10).
43
Abolicionista, 05/05/1884
44
GOMES, 2006, p. 290
45
FUNES, 2009, p.150
46
MARCOY, 2006, 107-119
47
FUNES, op.cit..
48
Relatorio addressed to the Provincial Legislative Assemblea Amazon in the opening of the 2nd
ordinary session of the 5th legislature on May 3, 1861 by the president of the province, the exm.o senr. dr.
Clementino Manoel Carneiro da Cunha. Manos, Typ Francisco Jos da Silva Ramos, [1861]
49
Jornal do Amazonas, 05/05/1882
50
Estrella do Amazonas, 16/04/1856
51
Estrella do Amazonas, 04/03/1857
52
Estrella do Amazonas 22/05/1858. The Macaar nickname, may refer to a city in East Timor, called
Pante Makasar, which literally means "bridge of macassares" because of the port traders of this locality of
Asian east, inhabited by Islamized peoples. This place was colonized by the Portuguese since the first half
of the sixteenth century,forming part of a set of Timor islands with strategic importance on the trade
15


routes and shipping of spices and slaves, along with its economic importance as a source of rich
sandalwood. See: (LOUREIRO, 2001, pp. 143-155).
53
Estrella do Amazonas, 03/03/1858
54
Dirio do Amazonas, 14/08/1873
55
GOMES, 1996
56
Flvio Gomes, A safe haven: runaway slaves, mocambos, and borders in colonial Amazonia,
Brazil. Hispanic American Historical Review, v. 82(3), 2002, p. 478-9.
57
BEZERRA-NETO, 2001
58
About some of these rebellions see the following works: (GENOVESE, 1983); (COSTA, 1998).
59
CHALHOUB, 1988
60
Relatorio that then to Mr. Hon. president of the province of Para, and because of the circular of 11
March 1848, made on the state of the province of Amazonas, after her installation, and having taken
possession of his 1 president, snr exm.o . Joo Baptista Figueiredo Tenreiro Aranha. (Manaus, Amazon
Typ M. of S. Ramos), 1852. p.6
61
RICCI, 2008, p.91; HARRIS, 2010
62
PARRON, 2011.
63
Public Archives of Par State Secretariat of the Presidency Fund of the Provence. Box 79, Year: 1841-
1849. Offices on the question of territorial limits, January 16, 1849.
64
Linebaugh 1983
65
Estrella do Amazonas, 21/04/1854
66
Estrella do Amazonas, 05/05/1860
67
Pasta A-73. Instructions Duarte da Ponte Ribeiro for negotiating a Treaty of Limits of the Empire of
Brazil to the Bolivian Republic. Diplomatic Mission of the Republic of Bolivia, 1860, p.13. Archive of
Brazilian Boundary Demarcation Commission. Belm do Par. See also: Folder A-63. Information to my
successor on the state of political relations of Peru and Bolivia with Brazil regarding boundaries, river
navigation, commerce, etc. Lima, 9 July 1841. Duarte da Ponte Ribeiro, pp. 12-13. Belm do Par.
68
BASTOS, 2006