O 13 de maio em Alagoas

Registros de festejos sobre a Lei Áurea nos periódicos provinciais

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to accompany the news and comments about the sanction of the Lei Áurea in periodicals of Alagoas. Our consultation material was the collection of the Hemeroteca Digital Brasileira, which has twenty-four periodicals that were in circulation on May 13, 1888 in the province. Our intention was to know the opinion of the editors about the liberation of enslaved people in the post-liberation moment, in particular, to observe the records of parties and other celebrations that took place, verifying the popular participation, both in the capital and in the other municipalities of Alagoas. It is known that there was a great celebration in the country, however, few studies record popular participation and former captives in these celebrations, as, as a rule, the documents of the time were concerned with recording the participation of the elites. The method employed was the exploratory qualitative, consisting of research, reading and analysis of journal issues. In the results, we tried to analyze how the ex-captives were represented in the periodicals that recorded the commemorations that occurred after the liberation of the enslaved in Alagoas. It is noteworthy that this presence is very small, but part of the methodological effort was precisely to find rare mentions and analyze them in the light of more contemporary bibliography.