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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
This study explores the convergent ground of two separate research projects: an analysis of the role of the state of Pernambuco in the Brazilian federation between 1889 and 1937, and a forthcoming study of the Recife Law School. The first part of this presentation will discuss the definition of the political elite, describe its composition, and examine the theme of continuity and change over the period of study. The second part will focus on the Law School per se, the principal vehicle for the training of the political elite.
Pernambuco's political elite constitutes less a model for other Brazilian states than a phenomenon specific to Pernambuco's own historical role. This elite may be examined systematically, although only in the broadest sense. For one thing, its membership never remained static, but changed constantly according to the ebb and flow of political life. Relative power within an elite is not easily measurable; nor does there exist a single elite; rather, one observes a fluid set of power relationships, arrayed vertically according to levels of influence and authority, and horizontally from small urban interest nuclei through local elites to subgrous scattered across regional, economic, and social networks.
1 The data for this study has been made machine readable and been analyzed with the use of the SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, Version 5.0). Percentages refer to adjusted frequencies that omit cases with either missing data or data irrelevant to the statistical problem. For a broader view of Pernambuco’s role in the Old Republic, see Levine, Robert M., Pernambuco in the Brazilian Federation, 1889–1937, Stanford, 1978.Google Scholar
2 The Cavalcantis were direct descendants of the donatario’s nephew, Jeronymo de Albuquerque. See Félix Cavalcanti de Albuquerque Mello, Memórias de uma Cavalcanti, São Paulo, 1940.
3 Ringawa, Marcel, “An exploratory study of the elites of Pernambuco, 1879–1889,” M.A. essay, New York University, 1971, pp. 10–11.Google Scholar
4 Cavalcanti, Felix, Memórias, pp. 16–17 Google Scholar. The Cavalcanti family alone controlled four of the most important judgeships in the zona da mata as well as the position of provincial administrator of tax revenue.
5 Stein, Stanley J. and Stein, Barbara H., The Colonial Heritage of Latin America: Essays on Economic Dependence in Perspective. New York, 1970, p. 19.Google Scholar
* 35%, 12%, and 27%, respectively. Republican-era elite ties are defined as relations through first cousin (consanguinial or affinitive); Imperial ties refer to relations through first cousin or direct descendants through grandson of Imperial Senators or titleholders of barão or above.
6 Compiled from da Silva Maia, Newton, Apontimentos para a historia da Escola de Engenharia de Pernambuco, Recife, 1967, pp. 43–54.Google Scholar
7 Bottomore, T. B., Elites and Society, London, 1966, especially p. 97 Google Scholar. Thomas E. Skidmore warns of the danger of confusing elite perceptions with “Brazilian” thought. See his Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought, New York, 1974, ix.
8 Political elite members of this group, defined as those directly related to Imperial Senators or titleholders of barão or higher rank, comprised 30% of the sample up to 1911 and dropped to 19% for elite members reaching twenty years of age in 1911 and after.
9 Twenty-four percent of those politically active in 1910-11 “broke” with the state establishment, supporting Dantas Barreto’s candidacy.
10 da Costa Pôrto, José, Os tempos de Dantas Barreto, Recife, 1973, p. 14 Google Scholar.
* The single largest bloc within the first political generation attained their first significant post after the age of forty-eight; between the ages of thirty-six and forty-eight in the second generation; and before the age of thirty-six in the third.
11 Gilberto Freyre, introduction to de Albuquerque Melo, Félix Cavalcanti, Memórias de um Cavalcanti, São Paulo, 1940, p. 16.Google Scholar
l2 Armstrong, John A., The European Administrative Elite, Princeton, 1973, pp. 169 Google Scholar; pp. 161–68. Armstrong refers to 19th century France, but his remarks are appropriate for Brazil as well.
13 See Zeldin, Theodore, France: 1848–1945, Vol. I, Ambition, Love and Politics, Oxford, 1974, p. 113; 114–129.Google Scholar
l4 Pernambuco, Annaes da Cámara dos Deputados do Estado de Pernambueo, 1a sessao ordinaria da la legislatura em 1898, Recife, 1898, p. 51, (“Vencimento, ordenado e gratificacão.”)Google Scholar
15 The dominance of Recife is striking. Of the 200 members of the political elite, 72% came from the capital or used it as their political or career base. After Recife came Barreiros (4%); Caruarú and Escada (3% each); Νazaré and Goiana (2%) and a handful of different municipios, mostly with only 1 or 2 members in the elite population.
* Political office in another state (17%); a professional career in part or entirely elsewhere (about 31%, with some leeway for possible multiple responses); employment in a major interstate agency (5%); out-of-state birth; or, for the older generation political office of major importance elsewhere under the Empire.
** AWAYJOB: 62%; 22%; 16%; FOREIGN: 23%; 41%; 46%. The first comparison is statistically significant to the level of 0.0030; the second, by 0.0152.
16 CF. Zeldin, pp. 15–16.
* from 5% to 19%.
17 There are many eloquent testimonials to this fact occurring throughout the era. The year end reports of the Faculty, the Memória Históricas, are replete with appeals every year complaining of poor facilities, lack of adequate funds in all areas and general neglect by the government. The correspondence of the directors of the Faculty echo these problems also; see, de Direito do Recife, Faculdade, Documentos de sua História, (manuscript), 3 vols. (1875–1890)Google Scholar, especially vol. III (1886–1890). Much of the correspondence from the law school administration to the central government suggests that the law school faced serious financial pressure in the closing years of the Empire and received little or no help from a badly disorganized Ministry of the Empire.
18 de Figueiredo, Carlos Honório, “Memória Sôbre a Fundacão das Faculdades de Direito no Brasil,” in Revista Trimensal de Instituto Historico, Geographico e Ethnográphico do Brasil, Vol. 22, Rio de Janeiro, 1859, p. 511.Google Scholar
19 Bevilaqua, Clovis, Históriada Faculdade de Direito do Recife, Vol. 1, Recife, 1927, pp. 9–10 Google Scholar; see also Filho, Sergio Loreto, “A Faculdade de Direito do Recife,” Revista Académica da Faculdade de Direito do Recife. Vol. 32, Recife, 1924, p. 384.Google Scholar
* The Law School moved to Recife in 1854.
20 Melo, Mário, “Sintese Cronológica De Pernambuco,” in Revista do Instituto Arqueológico, Histórico e Geográfico Pernambutano, Vol. 38, Recife, 1943, pp. 96–115.Google Scholar
21 For a more detailed analysis of Pernambucano society from the years after 1870 to the end of the Empire, see Hoffnagel, Marc J., “From Monarchy to Republic in Northeast Brazil: The Case of Pernambuco, 1868–1895,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1974.Google Scholar
22 See Table III for total number of graduates from the Recife Law School.
23 interview with José Soriano de Souza Neto, July 21, 1974.
24 de Tocqueville, Alexis, Democracy in America, Vol. 1, New York, 1945, p. 285.Google Scholar
25 The educational reform act of 1911 created a national education council, which was composed of representatives from federally funded institutions of higher education. Both Recife and São Paulo were charter members of this council and exercised great influence in the decision-making process due to their long standing national prestige.
26 Dore, R.P., “The Legacy of Tokugawa Education,” in Changing Japanese Attitudes Toward Modernization (edited by Jansen, Marius B.), Princeton, 1965, pp. 99–131.Google Scholar