Abolition of slavery[edit]
According to Petrônio Domingues, by 1887 the slave struggles pointed to a real possibility of widespread insurrection. On 23 October, in São Paulo, for instance, there were violent confrontations between the police and rioting Blacks, who chanted "long life freedom" and "death to the slaveowners".[57]:73 The president of the province, Rodrigues Alves, reported the situation as following:
The massive flight of slaves from several fazendas threatens, in some places in the province, public order, alarming the proprietaries and the productive classes.[57]:74
Uprisings erupted in Itu, Campinas, Indaiatuba, Amparo, Piracicaba and Capivari; ten thousand fugitive slaves grouped in Santos. Flights were happening in daylight, guns were spotted among the fugitives, who, instead of hiding from police, seemed ready to engage in confrontation.
It was as a response to such situation that, on 13 May 1888, slavery was abolished, as a means to restore order and the control of the ruling class,[57]:76 in a situation in which the slave system was almost completely disorganised.
As an abolitionist newspaper, O Rebate, put it, ten years later,
Had the slaves not fled en masse from the plantations, rebelling against their masters ... Had they not, more than 20,000 of them, gone to the famous quilombo of Jabaquara (out of Santos, itself a center of abolitionist agitation), then maybe they would still be slaves today ... Slavery ended because slaves no longer wanted to be slaves, because slaves rebelled against their masters and against the law that enslaved them ... The law of 13 May was nothing more than the legal recognition – so as not to discredit public authority – of an act that had already been accomplished by the mass revolt of slaves.[57]:77
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