Based on an analysis of Black political associations in the nineteenth century, this chapter invite a more attentive observation about the possibilities for action available to free and freed Black people at that time, as well as a re-examination of conceptual categorizations that can be used to legitimize problematic discourses involving the Brazilian racial experience. Along those lines, this article is a counterpoint to established generalizations with regard to the participation of Black and poor populations in the political scene during the last decades of the nineteenth century. Such interpretations have exercised much influence over the ways in which multiple generations of historians have interpreted the trajectories of free Afro-descendants. On the basis of information uncovered about a group of Black organizations that were active in the immediate post-abolition period in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, this article aims to analyze the articulations among various efforts organized by the Afro-descendants in defense of their citizenship and status as free people.

Focusing on the life trajectory of Brazilian engineer Teodoro Sampaio, this chapter discusses the possibilities for social transformation available to men of color during and after Brazilian abolition. Sampaio lived through a time when the dismantling of slavery coincided with a racialization of social status, justified by the postulates of scientific racism. His trajectory thus illuminates how an educated son of a freed mother could make his way through a society that was reinventing socio-racial hierarchies even as slavery lost its legitimacy. This chapter aims to elucidate the intricate network of relationships and endeavors engendered by a pardo, born on a large slave property, who managed to become an engineer and manumit his three brothers, who were enslaved on the same plantation where Sampaio himself was raised free. Based on Sampaio’s autobiographical texts, books, articles, and private correspondence – as well as on what his contemporaries wrote about him – this chapter will reflect on what we can learn from Teodoro Sampaio’s life about what it meant to be a free, lettered pardo man during the dismantling of Brazilian slavery.

Based on an analysis of Black political associations in the nineteenth century, this chapter invite a more attentive observation about the possibilities for action available to free and freed Black people at that time, as well as a re-examination of conceptual categorizations that can be used to legitimize problematic discourses involving the Brazilian racial experience. Along those lines, this article is a counterpoint to established generalizations with regard to the participation of Black and poor populations in the political scene during the last decades of the nineteenth century. Such interpretations have exercised much influence over the ways in which multiple generations of historians have interpreted the trajectories of free Afro-descendants. On the basis of information uncovered about a group of Black organizations that were active in the immediate post-abolition period in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, this article aims to analyze the articulations among various efforts organized by the Afro-descendants in defense of their citizenship and status as free people.

Focusing on the life trajectory of Brazilian engineer Teodoro Sampaio, this chapter discusses the possibilities for social transformation available to men of color during and after Brazilian abolition. Sampaio lived through a time when the dismantling of slavery coincided with a racialization of social status, justified by the postulates of scientific racism. His trajectory thus illuminates how an educated son of a freed mother could make his way through a society that was reinventing socio-racial hierarchies even as slavery lost its legitimacy. This chapter aims to elucidate the intricate network of relationships and endeavors engendered by a pardo, born on a large slave property, who managed to become an engineer and manumit his three brothers, who were enslaved on the same plantation where Sampaio himself was raised free. Based on Sampaio’s autobiographical texts, books, articles, and private correspondence – as well as on what his contemporaries wrote about him – this chapter will reflect on what we can learn from Teodoro Sampaio’s life about what it meant to be a free, lettered pardo man during the dismantling of Brazilian slavery.