A time -yellowable document found by Sheet In the historical archive of, exposes another perverse facet of: the use of captives to replace gentlemen and their relatives in mandatory enlistment for the Cisplatin War, which took place on the southern border of Brazil between 1825 and 1828 and killed more than 8,000 Brazilians.
The Cisplatin War was a military conflict between the Brazilian Empire and the United Provinces of Rio da Prata, for the dispute of the region where the. The battles extended for three years, causing great wear to Emperor Dom Pedro 1, to the point of being one of the main reasons for his abdication to the throne in 1831.
With a large number of desertions, the Brazilian imperial government squeezed the siege in search of soldiers to thicken its ranks in the war. For this reason, a group of farmers from the village of Cachoeira, in the then province of São Pedro do Rio Grande do Sul, sent a petition to the local chamber. In the hand -written document, Antonio José de Menezes tries to convince the authorities of the need to dismiss his and other landowners, as they had sent their enslaved and freed to the front line of the conflict.
“That the first supplicant is a subject of this empire so useful to the crown that he already, and by his partner Feliciano da Costa Leite, and for the benefit of his neighbors, paid his cost of freed men, and his slaves, he put on, and provided all the precise for war, giving them the necessary ride, and put them in the campaign,” said the farmer.
In another excerpt from the document, in a more direct request, the stanteiros (as they were called in Rio Grande do Sul) argued: “Therefore they resort to the supplicants to vv.s. As the head of the people, so that they have to pray for the supplicants to the former president of the province (…) and that the supplicant and more farmers continue in the laborious work of their arms, and guard; Away from the district where they reside, the deserters and poorly overseers will gain heat, they will join the slavery, and this village and district will be the most disgraced victim of the province. ” It is not known, by the document, if the claim was attended.
This document illustrates well what the historian Mário José Maestri Filho often says, one of the main scholars about slavery in Rio Grande do Sul. According to him, “in the 19th century, the rich and their children and grandchildren only went to the wars when they wanted.” This is because it was usual to send substitutes – primarily enslaved or free blacks – to the front line of the battles. “The practice of paying a substitute was an institution that has come since colonial times,” said Maestri Filho.
Jurandir Malerba, a historian with studies on the Brazilian Imperial Elite, said that the practice of using enslaved to replace his masters in the wars was a recurring expedient throughout the 19th century, not only in Rio Grande do Sul.
“In several skills, in different regions, even in the War of (1864-1870) used the work of ‘buying’ the release of recruitment, a child, for example, by slaves, eventually freed to die in the war instead of others,” he said.
In São Pedro do Rio Grande Province the practice was even more common, given the large number of available captives. This is because in the years preceding the Cisplatin War between 1816 and 1822, there was a great increase in the importation of enslaved to supply the intense production of beefed that moved the local economy.
According to studies conducted by historian Manolo Florentino, this soul region became at that time in one of the main destinations of the redistribution of captives landed in the port of.
When the Cisplatin War broke out in 1825, in addition to the enslaved sent by their masters to fight for the Imperial Government, many captives fled to enlist in enemy troops in exchange for freedom.
“Since the principle of conflicts in the eastern band, José Gervasio Artigas (leader of the enemy of Brazil) and his allies have recruited free blacks and mulattoes and released slaves from Spanish and Rio Grandenses,” wrote historian Gabriel Aladrén, in the academic work entitled “Experiences of Freedom in War Times.” “Indeed, the amount of escapes increased a lot in Rio Grande, especially in the southern border region.”
It was in this context that the French naturalist Augustin de Saint-Hilaire highlighted in his book “Travel to Rio Grande do Sul”: “(…) all are unanimous in stating that of the artigas soldiers, those who on all occasions showed more courage was the fled blacks; which is natural, because they fight for their own freedom.”
The participation of enslaved in the Rio Grande conflicts went beyond the Cisplatin War.
In the Farroupilha Revolution, a separatist and republican movement that fought against the imperial government, between 1835 and 1845, the troops of the rebels and militias of local farmers involved in the movement were formed, especially black, brown and caboclos.
Famously was the penultimate confrontation of this revolution on October 14, 1844, in which more than 100 black soldiers were victims of an ambush and died in the episode known as “Porongos Massacre.” As researcher Júlio José Chiavenato wrote, the use of blacks as “cannon bushing” is ancient practice, “a tradition inaugurated in the 16th century – the century of discovery.”
