Legacy of the Lash

On November 22, 1910, shouting out “End the chibata!” and “Long live liberty!” Brazilian sailors staged one of the most impressive naval revolts of the twentieth century (p. 197). For four days, some 2,000 men took command of four battleships, two of which were sophisticated dreadnoughts recently purchased from England by the Brazilian government. These men managed to skillfully maneuver these vessels on the coast of Rio de Janeiro, which was then the capital of the country, and threatened to destroy the city if their demands were not met. Their leaders were André Avelino, Francisco Dias Martins, Manuel Gregório do Nascimento, and João Cândido Felisberto—the last of whom, the most notorious of the group, was also known as the Black Admiral.This book by Zachary R. Morgan tells the story of the event, which became known as the Revolt of the Lash (Revolta da Chibata). The book, which is very well written and based on extensive documentary research, portrays the existence of a strict social and racial hierarchy in Brazil, thus adding to countless studies that, for the past several decades, have challenged the still-quite-persistent idea that the country is an example of racial harmony. Traditionally, blacks were an absolute majority among the sailors in Brazil, while all the officers came from wealthier families. With the decline of slavery and the progressive deconstruction of the slave masters' power, the elites associated with the state entrusted certain institutions with disciplinary control of the black population. Among such institutions, the navy assumed a position of great prominence and expanded the scope of its long-standing mission to incorporate the poor black population into state control.According to the author, the exemplary and ritualized punishment of whipping, which was typical of the slave system, was not only maintained but also intensified in the navy after slavery's abolition in 1888, despite constitutional guarantees and successive legal impediments against this practice. The idea that sailors could only be disciplined through physical coercion was incontrovertible among the officers. The exhausting pace of work and the compulsory forms of recruitment also brought the experience of sailors closer to captivity. Thus the rebels of 1910 were not using mere rhetorical artifice when railing in their manifesto against “slavery as practiced in the Brazilian Navy” (p. 20). Inspired by Orlando Patterson, Morgan advocates the adoption of a more comprehensive idea of slavery, understood as a process of uprooting, violent domination, and dishonor that radiates beyond its formal extinction.Interestingly, the author notes that while the movement had its roots in slavery, its outbreak was modern. The Revolt of the Lash was a response to the violence involved in the renovation of the capital city, which was remodeled at the expense of the black population's marginalization (which led to the beginning of the slums in Rio de Janeiro). Popular dissatisfaction was increasing; because of their social and racial condition, sailors were affected likewise. The precarity of naval service was also a result of the ongoing exclusion. In this context, in 1909 hundreds of black sailors were sent to Newcastle, England, in order to undergo training to man the new vessels just acquired from a local company. This experience was crucial. The city's antiracist atmosphere, the ebullience of the local labor movement, and the better conditions of the English sailors evidenced, like never before, the anachronism of the practice of whipping in the Brazilian navy, not to mention the possibility of better living conditions in general. The sailors' aspirations changed as they acquired the skills to fight for them.Morgan broadly reviews the historiography pertinent to the revolt, identifying tendencies and limitations such as the attempt by military historians to undermine the memory of the movement. He convincingly states that the revolt may be better understood within the context of Atlantic slavery (p. 9). However, in view of this assertion, recent works on slavery in Brazil and its ties with the Atlantic world should have been included. Most of his references to this field do not go beyond the 1990s. Additionally, while several pages are dedicated to comparing the navy with the army, exposing important differences between the institutions, Morgan does not provide an interpretation of these differences. If readers seek a good answer as to why the navy, unlike the army, was so caught up in slavery's past, they will not find one. Nevertheless, none of this discredits the contributions of the book, which by adopting a transnational and long-term perspective has the merit of breaking the boundaries that limit the understanding of phenomena such as the revolt. The work coherently integrates the imperial and republican periods, in addition to the pre- and postabolition contexts of slavery in Brazil. At the same time, Morgan situates the revolt in the international processes of the African diaspora and the struggle of workers in the Atlantic

Economic history · Navy · Political science · Population · Power (physics) · Racial hierarchy · Racism · Sociology · State (computer science) · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Demography · History · Law