The Netto Question (') was the largest

collective action Collective action refers to action taken together Advocacy group, by a group of people whose goal is to enhance their condition and achieve a common objective. It is a term that has formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences ...

for the liberation of slaves in the Americas. The lawsuit is related to the liberation of 217 slaves in Brazilian lands in the

1870s The 1870s (pronounced "eighteen-seventies") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1870, and ended on December 31, 1879. The trends of the previous decade continued into this one, as great new empires, imperialism and m ...

Background

Manoel Joaquim Ferreira Netto, a Portuguese nobleman with many possessions in Brazil, stated in his will that after his death, all his slaves should be freed, what at the time was called "''post-mortem manumission''". His death occurred on April 5, 1868, but his request, made in his will, was not fulfilled. The black lawyer and abolitionist

Luís Gama Luís Gonzaga Pinto da Gama (21 June 1830 – 24 August 1882) was a Brazilian lawyer, abolitionist, orator, journalist and writer, and the Patron of the abolition of slavery in Brazil. Born to a free black mother and a white father, he was nevert ...

read a newspaper article in June 1869 that reported the legal dispute of Ferreira Netto's relatives over the patriarch's estate, and became interested in the slaves' situation. Gama discovered that all the captives were still in the same situation as prior to Ferreira Netto's death.

The judicial action

After a

petition A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication. In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to an officia ...

in the Santos court about the situation of the captives and the confirmation by third parties that the slaves were still in the service of the heirs and former partners, the lawyer brought an action in the Brazilian courts to have the right expressed in Ferreira Netto's will fully enforced, and conducted a background survey on each of the 217 slaves. In defense, Ferreira Netto's heirs hired the jurist, abolitionist and poet

José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva (; 13 June 17636 April 1838) was a Brazilian statesman, naturalist, mineralist, professor and poet, born in Santos, São Paulo, then part of the Portuguese Empire. He was one of the most important mentors ...

, known as "The Younger", to represent their rights in the lawsuit filed by

. In the middle of the lawsuit, Gama was appointed, by the judge, as

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

of the "" (, "those being freed", was how Luís Gama referred to the slaves; he never used the word "slave"). Under the allegation that the heirs were committing a crime by enslaving people already declared free, Gama obtained success with the Santos forum, when the judge determined the liberation of all the slaves. Through a delaying tactic by José Bonifácio, the case went to another legal instance and thus the release of the victims was postponed. In these instances, the was ruled in favor of Gama. In 1872, the action reached the Supreme Court of Justice (), in Rio de Janeiro. At this court, the action was represented by the lawyer, journalist and politician , since the STJ did not accept the work of Gama outside of the São Paulo jurisdiction. However, the final argument was prepared by Luís Gama.

Conclusions

The ministers of the STJ accepted the thesis of Luís Gama/Saldanha Marinho, with reservations, when the full freedom of the captives could only happen 12 years after the drafting of the will. The will was drawn up in 1866. In other words, the captives had to provide forced services for Ferreira Netto's heirs until 1878, when they would finally be free.

Freedom

Luís Gama considered the "conditional freedom" as a defeat, but abolitionists celebrated it as a victory, because never in the history of Brazil had there been a collective freedom of this size. IN addition, there were no records in the history of the continent of a similar action with a higher number than the "''Netto Question''". The final result was little reported in the country, because most of the Brazilian press was linked to the slaveholding landowners, so they feared that the repercussion could generate new lawsuits. Total freedom only occurred in 1878, at the end of the deadline set by the STJ; however, of the 217 slaves, only 130 remained alive to enjoy the freedom won, exactly a decade before the

abolition of slavery in Brazil Slavery in Brazil began long before the first Portuguese settlement. Later, colonists were heavily dependent on indigenous labor during the initial phases of settlement to maintain the subsistence economy, and natives were often captured by ...

. Due to José Bonifácio's actions in favor of the slave-owning family, the friendship between him and Luís Gama was broken.

Historical research

The documentation referring to the Netto Question was recovered in the 21st century by historian Bruno Rodrigues de Lima, who earned his doctorate in History and Theory of Law from the

Max Planck Institute The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...

. The process document, with more than a thousand handwritten pages, is stored in the

Brazilian National Archives The National Archives of Brazil (, AN) were created in 1838 as the Imperial Public Archives. The Archives were renamed in 1911, and are located in Rio de Janeiro. The National Archives of Brazil is the Brazilian institution responsible for the ma ...

and was copied by Bruno to be studied in Germany, where he had to decipher the various handwritings.

References