A Brief History of Black Anarchism in Brazil (1900–1930)

By CARLOS JÚNIOR - carlosfajunior@gmail.com

To trace a chronological line of anarchism created/conceived by Black people in Brazil, it is necessary to establish the philosopher and writer Antônio Pedro de Figueiredo as the starting point. He was one of the first scholars in Brazil to be influenced by Proudhon. In 1840, when Proudhon declared himself an anarchist, anarchism was also born as a set of anti-authoritarian, anti-state, and anti-capitalist ideas and positions. A few years later, anarchist ideas would reach Brazil, specifically the then province of Pernambuco.

Antônio Pedro Figueiredo (1814–1859) was a philosopher, teacher, journalist, and translator born in Pernambuco. As a translator, Figueiredo published in Portuguese the works of the French philosopher Victor Cousin (1792–1867) and The Seven Strings of the Lyre, by George Sand (1804–1876). Between 1847 and 1849, the socialist and other collaborators published the magazine Progresso. Figueiredo was criticized by members of Pernambuco's elite for defending socialism. Living up to Proudhon's famous maxim that "property is theft," the socialist philosopher was one of the first socialists to criticize one of the pillars of Brazilian slaveholding society: the large landed estate system (latifúndio).

Anti-Clerical Libertarians

At the beginning of the 20th century, the anti-clerical movement was strong in Brazil. Several anti-clerical leagues and newspapers emerged, such as A Lanterna. With Ferrer's execution, anti-clerical ideas did not retreat but spread even further throughout the world. The anti-clerical movement sought to destroy or reduce the influence of the Catholic Church on human life. However, not all libertarians were atheists. The primary target was the Catholic institution.

It is likely that many libertarians were active as anti-clericals without abandoning spirituality. Many workers belonged both to labor unions and to Black brotherhoods. In the interior of São Paulo, the anarchist Armando Gomes, for example, was active both as an anarcho-syndicalist and through the Humanitarian League of Men of Color. Gomes also defended Afro-Brazilian brotherhoods and associations. Cristiano Fettermann was an anti-clerical anarchist born in Rio Grande do Sul. He was a teacher and founder of the Eliseu Reclus School in 1906. During the 1910s, Fettermann contributed anti-clerical articles to the newspaper O Exemplo (1911).

Cândido Costa was a Black anarchist worker active in Rio de Janeiro at the beginning of the 20th century and was frequently invited to workers' meetings, rallies, and lectures. The libertarian participated in the three Workers' Congresses (1906, 1913, and 1920) organized by the Brazilian Workers' Confederation (COB) in Rio de Janeiro. During the 1910s, Cândido Costa regularly gave lectures at the Rio de Janeiro Workers' Federation, the Cosmopolitan Center, the Anti-Clerical League, and at events honoring Ferrer and celebrating May Day. Cândido Costa lectured on the revolts of enslaved people that had taken place in Brazil.

The libertarian was a fervent anti-clerical activist. At one workers' event, his words provoked the anger of the Catholic workers present: A Black man climbed the school's stairs and addressed the crowd. His speech was extremely violent, attacking the Catholic Party. Deafening shouting broke out, and many individuals advanced aggressively toward the speaker, who, crushed by the crowd, fell down the stairs. Cândido Costa, the speaker's name, is a carpenter and an enthusiastic anarchist.

Teachers and Journalists

A large part of the Brazilian working class was illiterate, and libertarians saw this as a major problem. First, because there would be no audience to read anarchist publications and consequently spread libertarian ideas. Second, because, for anarchists, a lack of education left workers vulnerable to the influence of the church, the state, and capital. Anarchist pedagogy aimed to educate free individuals—that is, people free from religious influence and guided by reason and scientific thought, which was regarded as liberating.

Libertarian schools emerged in Brazil at the beginning of the 20th century. Modern School Number 1 (1912) was founded in São Paulo and directed by João Penteado, who was influenced by Ferrer's Modern School. Before that, however, the Eliseu Reclus School had already been founded in Porto Alegre in 1906. The Eliseu Reclus School had the Black Fettermann brothers—Waldomiro, Djalma, and Christiano—as teachers. Djalma Fettermann led the school for many years.

In the north of the country, the Francisco Ferrer School was founded by libertarians in Belém, the capital of Pará. It was established in the late 1910s and counted among its teachers the Black libertarians Bruno de Menezes, who was also a poet, and José da Silva Gama. Almerinda Farias Gama, José da Silva Gama's sister, also gave lectures at libertarian unions in Pará. In Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Ruy Gonçalves and the Black brothers Deoclécio and Antônio Azevedo, both libertarians, were part of the Construction Workers' School during the 1920s. In Salvador, Bahia, representatives of the Bricklayers, Carpenters, and Other Trades Union (SPCDC), all of them Black, founded the Carlos Dias School Group.

The anarchists also founded a Popular University of Free Education (1904) in Rio de Janeiro. The university had two Black professors: Pereira da Silva and Vicente de Souza. Pereira da Silva (1876–1944) was a poet, journalist, Christian socialist, and geography teacher from Paraíba. Vicente de Souza (1852–1908) was a socialist physician, abolitionist, and Brazilian professor born in Bahia.

Among the Black and labor press, O Exemplo of Porto Alegre and A Voz do Trabalhador of Salvador deserve special mention. O Exemplo was founded in 1892. During the 1910s, Christiano Fettermann was one of its editors. The newspaper A Voz do Trabalhador had Eustáquio Marinho as its chief editor. The paper advocated anarchism and revolutionary syndicalism.

Writers and Poets

Literature was another important front in the libertarian struggle. Lima Barreto (1881–1922) was an anarchist writer and journalist born in Rio de Janeiro. He wrote short stories and chronicles published in the anarchist periodicals of the time. Lima Barreto was the greatest critic of the nationalism of Brazil's First Republic (1889–1930). The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma (1911) is his masterpiece, a satire of the jingoistic nationalism of the period. Racial prejudice appears as a theme in many of his short stories and chronicles. Lima Barreto struggled with alcoholism and was institutionalized several times in psychiatric hospitals to treat his addiction. His posthumous work The Cemetery of the Living was written while he was confined in an asylum.

Gilka Machado (1893–1980) was an Afro-Brazilian writer. Because of prejudice in society, she concealed her Black features with heavy light-colored makeup. She became known as the "immoral matron" because of the eroticism in her poetry. In a letter to Maria Lacerda de Moura, Gilka Machado criticized elite feminists: "When misery afflicts us, it is useless to turn to a patrician woman: she has no notion of charity (which I would call solidarity), of human duty, and only offers protection on certain days through teas, concerts, and tango performances; for them, misfortune is always a source of amusement."

The writer demonstrated an aversion to traditional politics, political parties, and patriarchal power.

Anarcho-syndicalism became the dominant tendency within workers' unions during the 1910s and 1920s. The ideas developed by Piotr Kropotkin influenced an entire generation of Brazilian libertarians. The concept of Mutual Aid challenged the notion that only the strongest survive in society. Kropotkin argued that cooperation, rather than competition, had been the fundamental factor in the evolution of civilization.

Revolutionary Syndicalists

In Rio de Janeiro, Laudelina Silva was a factory worker who decided to go on strike, along with other women workers, because of low wages, racial insults, and constant moral and sexual harassment. The Seamstresses' Union supported the decision. The owner of the workshop directed racial insults at Laudelina Silva, calling her a "lazy Black woman." The strikers were arrested and taken to the police station. A committee of women workers demanded their release. Hours later, the striking workers were freed.

Without question, the most prominent libertarian communist in Brazil was Domingos Passos, an Afro-Indigenous worker active in Rio de Janeiro. Passos was self-taught and educated himself in anarchist libraries. He took part in the 1918 Anarchist Insurrection in Rio de Janeiro. Domingos Passos emerged at a time when anarchism was losing ground to Soviet communism. The Russian Revolution (1917) and the founding of the Brazilian Communist Party (1922) led many anarchists to convert to communism. During the 1920s, Domingos Passos was the anarchist most persecuted by the police authorities.

Throughout the 1920s, the libertarian lectured at numerous workers' events. During the government of Arthur Bernardes, Domingos Passos was arrested and sent to the Clevelândia Penal Colony, a prison modeled after a concentration camp in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. Within three years, fifty percent of the colony's fifteen hundred prisoners died from disease, malnutrition, and abuse. Domingos Passos managed to escape from Clevelândia before it was too late.

In Salvador, the anarchist Eustáquio Marinho was a leading representative of revolutionary syndicalism. Marinho became an anarchist in Rio de Janeiro. He was among the strikers arrested after the 1918 Anarchist Insurrection. Around 1920, he moved to Salvador. Under his influence, the Bricklayers, Carpenters, and Other Trades Union (SPCDC) published the revolutionary syndicalist newspaper A Voz do Trabalhador for nearly two years (1920–1922). He died during the 1940s as a result of the mistreatment he suffered in the prisons of the Estado Novo (1937–1945). In Recife, in 1921, a demonstration by dockworkers ended with the death of the stevedore Pedro Lessa. The worker was wounded by the authorities and was interviewed while in the infirmary. However, the following day, Pedro Lessa died. His wake and funeral became a massive workers' demonstration.

Finally, one of the most extraordinary and least studied events in the historiography of Brazilian anarchism: the trial of José Leandro dos Santos (1924). José Leandro was a worker who participated in a dockworkers' strike at the Port of Rio de Janeiro in 1922, when he was threatened by a port guard. José Leandro responded to the guard's aggression. During the confusion that followed this initial conflict, three people were shot, including José Leandro. One guard died. José Leandro was charged with homicide and stood trial before a jury in 1924. Workers throughout the country organized campaign committees against José Leandro's imprisonment and conviction. Libertarian newspapers in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Mexico, and France expressed solidarity with José Leandro's case. In 1924, José Leandro dos Santos was unanimously acquitted. Fearing reprisals from the authorities and employers, José Leandro moved to another state and was never heard from again.

CARLOS FERREIRA DE ARAUJO JUNIOR – A historian who graduated from UEPB. He has published two books: Renego – Grito Punk (2021), about the punk scene in Paraíba, and Brasil Negro Insurgente (2025), about Black libertarians and socialists in Brazil. Since 2012, he has run a YouTube channel dedicated to the punk archive: ÔKO DO MUNDO! The author has also written the following cordel pamphlets and libertarian/decolonial zines: OBREIROS DA BORBOREMA, BRADO BRUTO, EXU MOLOTOV, PLUMA NEGRA, and ZINE AUTÔNOMO TEMPORÁRIO (ZAT).