ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: SLAVE LEGACIES, AMBIVALENT MODERNITY: STREET COMMERCE AND THE TRANSITION TO FREE LABOR IN RIO DE JANEIRO, 1850-1925 Patricia Acerbi, Doctor of Philosophy, 2010 Dissertation directed by: Professor Barbara Weinstein Department of History This project is a history of street vending during the transition from enslaved to free labor in the capital of the most enduring slave society of the Americas. Street vending – long the province of African slaves and free blacks – became in these years a site of expanded (European) immigrant participation and shifting state disciplinary policies. My dissertation contends that during the gradual transition to free labor, urban policing and the judicial system in the city of Rio came to target “criminality” rather than illicit or improper vending practices. Disciplinary measures established by criminal law focused on correcting individuals who were peddlers and not inadequately regulated street commercial activity. Thus, the language of citizenship appeared in court cases to both establish and resist negative characterizations of street vendors while a gradual marginalization of street commerce occurred within the framework of citizenship building. The practice of street commerce during this transitional era reveals a historical process that produced and transformed notions of legitimate work and public order as well as the racial segmentation of the labor force. Street vending, I argue, became a strategy of subsistence among the post-abolition urban poor, who came to their own understandings of freedom, free labor, and citizenship. Elite and popular attitudes toward street vending reflected the post- abolition political economy of exclusion and inclusion, which peddlers did not experience as mutually exclusive but rather as a dialectic of an ambivalent modernity. SLAVE LEGACIES, AMBIVALENT MODERNITY: STREET COMMERCE AND THE TRANSITION TO FREE LABOR IN RIO DE JANEIRO, 1850-1925 by Patricia Acerbi Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2010 Advisory Committee: Professor Barbara Weinstein, Chair Professor Mary Kay Vaughan Associate Professor Daryle Williams Associate Professor Ada Ferrer Associate Professor Zita Nunes ©Copyright by Patricia Acerbi 2010 Para mamá y Elisabeth En memoria de mi padre ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am forever grateful to the dedicated individuals who encouraged and supported the development of this project. Unexpected twists and turns opened and shaped the trajectory of this dissertation, in the end transforming the experience into a great and invaluable revelation. The friendship and unwavering trust of Carlota Frisón-Fernández, Nancy Gallen, Alexandra Guiterman, Adriana López Sanfeliu, Berta Lozano O‟Felan, Fernando Mainguyague, Julie Ragland, Toni Vidaechea, and Marc Villanueva consistently reminded me of the importance and beauty of my adventure. The kindness and wisdom of Carlos Gallego, Claire Goldstene, Mary Junqueira, Laura Lenci, Linda Noel, Shari Orisich, and Sarah Sarzynski strengthened my passion and commitment, while Louise Kligman and my yoga practice provided the tools. In Brazil, the guidance of Sidney Chalhoub, Flávio Gomes, Keila Grinberg, Hebe Mattos, as well as the help provided by archivists and librarians stimulated my research. Jessica Graham and Ann Schneider also contributed to my very gratifying research year in Rio de Janeiro. Funding from the University of Maryland, New York University, and the Fulbright-IIE Program made it possible to research and access the seeming hidden history of street vending. Mary Kay Vaughan and Daryle Williams helped me achieve deeper understandings of socio-cultural dynamics and Rio de Janeiro history, respectively. Their vigorous support was then joined by the generosity and incisiveness of Ada Ferrer and Zita Nunes. With immense pleasure and appreciation, I thank Barbara Weinstein, whose mentorship has been a privilege and inspiration throughout the challenges and satisfactions of graduate iii school. I reserve my last words of gratitude for Jon Franklin, who unexpectedly and divinely entered the final stretch of dissertation writing, proving to be the most loving reward and companion I could ever imagine. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements……………………………………………………….…...…iii List of Tables…………………………………………...………………………...vi List of Maps………………………………………………………………...……vii List of Images…………………………………………………….………….….viii Introduction…………………………………………………………………….....1 From Ganhadores to Ambulantes: Slave Legacies and the Ambivalent Modernity of Street Commerce Chapter One…………………………………………………………………...…29 Negros de Ganho: Africans, Brazilians, and Europeans between Slavery and Freedom on Rio de Janeiro‟s Streets, 1850-1888 Chapter Two……………………………………………...………………………75 “Que possa cada um carregar a sua cruz:” Enslaved and Free Street Vendors in a Policed Workplace, 1868-1888 Chapter Three……………………………………………...……………………124 Citizenship and Street Commerce Regulation in the Early Republic, 1890-1902 Chapter Four……………………………………………………………………185 Toward a “Humanitarian and Hygienic” Street Commerce: Vending Technology and the Transition to Free Labor, 1885-1909 Chapter Five.........................................................................................................229 “Ficará o Rio Sem Ambulantes?” Street Behavior, Urban Space, and Property in Twentieth-Century Peddling Chapter Six…………………………………………………………………...…276 From Slave to Urban Type: The Visual and Social Histories of Street Vendors in the Turn to Free Labor Epilogue…………………………………………………………………...……308 Street Vendors and Unionism in the Twentieth Century Appendices……………………………………………………………………...311 v List of Tables: Table 1: Distribution according to Rio parishes of ganhadores and fiadores who were businessmen (negociantes), 1879 Table 2: Nationality of ganhadores, 1880-1886 Table 3: Occupation of fiadores, 1880-1886 Table 4: Residence according to parish of ganhadores and fiadores, 1880-1886 Table 5: Vending occupations, 1868-1883 Table 6: Origins of male vendors, 1868-1883 Table 7: Reasons for arrest according to male/female, slave/free status, 1868-1883 Table 8: Arrests according to Parish correlated with slave/free status of detainee Table 9: Age and marital status, 1898-1902 Table 10: Origin of peddlers, 1898-1902 Table 11: Skin color, 1898-1902 Table 12: Occupations, 1898-1902 Table 13: Reasons for arrest, 1898-1902 vi List of Maps: Maps 1a & 1b: Rio Parishes (freguesias), Nineteenth Century Map 2: Rio Parishes and the Houses of Correction and Detention c.1850 vii List of Images: Image 1: Henry Chamberlain, “O mascate com seus escravos” Image 2: Henry Chamberlain, “Barraca do Mercado, Largo da Lapa” Image 3: Jean-Baptiste Debret, “Tobacco Vendors” Image 4: Jean-Baptise Debret, “Chicken Vendors” Image 5: Marc Ferrez, “Chicken Vendors” Image 6: Raul Pederneiras, “O china vendedor de peixe e camarão” Image 7: Jean-Baptiste Debret, ”Vendedoras de angu” Image 8: Marc Ferrez, “Vendedor de pão” Image 9: Marc Ferrez, “Funileiro” Image 10: Marc Ferrez, “Jornaleiros” Image 11: Augusto Malta, “Quiosque” Image 12: Marc Ferrez, “Quitandeiro” Image 13: “Vendedor higiênico e humanitário” Image 14: Morris N. Kohn, “Cadeira de engraxate” Image 16: Manoel Moreira Dias, “Aparelho auxiliar para carrocinhas a mão, Illapso” 1891 Image 17: Arthur Augusto Azevedo, “Vendedor Ambulante” 1897 Image 18: Manoel Antônio Guimarães, “Vendedor Ambulante Higiênico” 1902 Image 19: Manoel Antônio Guimarães, “Vendedor Ambulante Higiênico” 1902 Image 20: Jean-Baptiste Debret, “Engenho Manual” Image 21: Antônio Jaques Junot, “Engenho Locomóvel” 1888 Image 22: “Carrinho Francês,” Comércio de pão Image 23: Marc Ferrez, “Doceiro” Image 24: Joaquim Ferreira Mendonça, “Desenho-projeto para um novo sistema de caixa para venda de doces” 1908/9 Image 25: Arthur Pythagoras Toval Conrado, Jose Werneck Massena, Manoel Jose de Lacerda, “Caixa dupla e giratória para comércio volante” 1909 Image 26: Augusto Magalhães de Barros Vasconcelos, “Frigorífico Exelsior” 1898 Image 27: Carlos Freire Vilalba Alvim, “Novo sistema de açougues volantes, Açougues Volantes - Sistema Vilalba” 1890 Image 28: Benedito Novela da Silva, “Açougue ambulante” 1891 Image 29: Pedro Antonio Fagundes, “Carros para transporte e venda de carne verde e miúdos a domicílio, Sistema Fagundes” 1891 Image 30 a/b: João Victorino de Silveira Sousa Filho, João José Lopes Júnior, “Carroças e vasilhames para a condução de caldo de cana” 1891 Image 31: Valdemanr Flohr-Matthiessen, “Vendedor Automático” 1891 Image 32: Manoel Antônio Guimarães, “Modelo de vehiculos para venda ambulante de qualquer mercadoria” 1902 Image 33: Francisco Falconi, “Carreta Yvonette” 1906 Image 34: Augusto Fernandes Carreira, “Carro vitrine” 1906 Image 35: J.E. Coelho de Magalhães, “Carro à mão com guarda-chuva para botar anúncio” 1906 Image 36: Raul Pederneiras, “Casa de cômdos” c.1924 Image 37: Augusto Malta, “Largo do Capim” viii Image 38: Augusto Malta, “Inauguration of the Municipal Market” Image 39: “Seção Bahiana,” Jornal do Brasil, 19 Janeiro 1913 Image 40: Marc Ferrez, “Vendedor de doces” Image 41: Anonymous, “Vendedor de doces no Rio, 1919” Image 42: Jean-Baptiste Debret, “Punished Fugitive Slaves Image 43: Christiano Júnior, “Vendedora com criança nas costas” Image 44: Marc Ferrez, “Vendedores” Image 45: Jean-Baptiste Debret, “Chicken vendors” Image 46: Augusto Malta, “Quiosque na Rua da Saúde” Image 47: Uknown