Trajetórias e memórias de famílias negras no pós-abolição: a família Baptista da Silva (c.1849-Tempo presente)

Abstract

This work intends to analyze the trajectory of the Baptista da Silva family, a black family that reached a social prestige in Porto Alegre, during the first decades of the 20th century. We will seek to present the mechanisms and sociability strategies that enabled the Baptista da Silva family to be inserted and socially affirmed, where we highlight the incursion into religious brotherhoods, a family project around education and work, as one of the main forms of social mobility. This research is structured by a considerable number of documentary sources, among which stand out the journals A Federação and O Exemplo, the latter, points out the connections of family members with the black press of Rio Grande do Sul and black protagonism that they developed from the press. In addition to problematizing the importance of the structured family as an important contribution to the construction of sociability networks in the post-abolition period, we intend to investigate the dynamics that involved the formation of this family nucleus, thus referring to a temporal setback for thinking about the family during the period of slavery. and the existing connections with the stately family. In addition, we will also count on the contribution of one of the descendants of the family, who through the memories and the family collection that keeps safeguarded, we will seek to print possibilities and questions about the paths taken by this family, in order to complexify the trajectory of its members. Thus, the study proposed here, contributes to research on black families in the period of slavery and the post-abolition period, highlighting family relationships, sociability networks, black protagonism and memory relationships, as reading keys to dimension black social experiences.