Criados de servir: estratégias de sobrevivência na cidade do Rio Grande (1880-1894)

Abstract

his dissertation investigates the work of servants in the city of Rio Grande during the years between 1880 and 1894. To fulfill the objectives of this analysis and to understand the control mechanisms over those workers, the sources were diverse, having the Rules of Leasing the Service of Servants and Wet Nurses and the Record Book of Servants Conduct and Wet Nurses as the main sources. This regulation was a way of controlling the life and the work of servants, in effect in the city of Rio Grande from 1887 to 1890 and from 1893 to 1894. The control has become intense during the time of Abolition, because the main target was the black population coming from slavery and its descendants. But the servants resisted the work discipline. Regarding the worker s struggles by freedom and work dignity, the mentioned sources together with newspaper articles allowed the observation of an interruption in the policy of disciplining imposed by the regulation, targeted to domestic sector workers. This interruption happened due to an attempt to organize the servants to work for black people against the use of a service regulation that hurt the right to freedom acquired with the law of May 13th, 1888. It was observed that those fights of servants to work and for the remaining black workers by the right to freedom in the immediate post-abolition, generated a feeling of belonging to the color