BETWEEN THE WHARF AND THE JAIL: URBAN SLAVERY IN MANAUS (1850–1888) AND THE FORMATION OF AN AMAZONIAN URBANITY

Abstract

Brazilian historiography on urban slavery has largely developed from large Atlantic cities such as Rio de Janeiro and Salvador. In this process, the Amazon has often been treated as a marginal or numerically secondary experience. This article examines urban slavery in Manaus between 1850 and 1888, arguing that a relatively smaller enslaved population, combined with the city's fluvial geography and the expansion of the rubber economy, produced a specific configuration of enslaved urbanity. Based on documentary historical research using census materials, slave registration records, police documentation, and the local press, the study relies on indicative reading and serial cross-referencing whenever the sources allow. The analysis suggests a shift in the dynamics of control: urban mobility made direct surveillance more difficult, while the slave hire and earnings system expanded the daily circulation of enslaved people. In this context, municipal policing frequently appears as a mediator between public authority and master power. Igarapés and suburban areas created possibilities of flight and social invisibility that differed from the better-studied urban settings of southeastern Brazil. Ultimately, Manaus slavery combined low levels of direct coercion with high levels of institutional discipline, anticipating post-1888 modalities of labor control.