REGISTRO DOI: 10.70773/revistatopicos/774422277
ABSTRACT
Justification: Belém was a place where the Cabanos had the support of the poorest population and the political and administrative center of Pará, the stage for the main confrontations of the Cabanagem. Objective: To identify the mental, collective, and social representations of the inhabitants of Belém in relation to the Cabanagem rebellion, in order to understand their current social condition and interpret how the rebellion is represented in the memory of the people of Belém. Methodology: Bibliographic survey and research in the codices of the Public Archive of the State of Pará on the Cabanagem to deepen knowledge on the subject. Unstructured interviews were conducted in the Municipality of Belém. The interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed. The analysis identified the differences in the narratives of the interviewees compared to the bibliographic and documentary data, classifying the oral communications as mental or social representations. Conclusion: In Belém, mental and social representations and urban problems with socioeconomic characteristics are observed. Problems related to poverty persist and tend to worsen. Regarding the middle class, social representations demonstrate a decrease in purchasing power and involvement in struggles solely to guarantee previous achievements. In Belém, the social representations of the Cabanagem are anchored in the image of a popular movement that should not be repeated because, among other problems, there is a lack of participation and organization of social movements, resulting in labor exploitation, land grabbing, unemployment, lack of basic sanitation in peripheral neighborhoods, lack of ethics in politics, and non-compliance by the State with guarantees of the basic rights of the population.
Keywords: Social psychology. Social representation. Mental representation. Cabanagem – Brazil history. Belém municipality – Brazil. History of Pará-Brazil. Belém City (Brazil) - social aspects.
RESUMO
Justificativa: Belém foi onde os Cabanos contavam com o apoio da população mais pobre e, o centro político e administrativo do Pará, palco dos principais confrontos da Cabanagem. Objetivo: Identificar as representações mentais, coletivas e sociais dos habitantes de Belém em relação à rebelião da Cabanagem, a fim de compreender sua atual condição social e interpretar como a rebelião se representa na memória do povo de Belém. Metodologia: Levantamento bibliográfico e pesquisa nos códices do Arquivo Público do Estado do Pará sobre a Cabanagem para aprofundar o conhecimento sobre o tema. Foram realizadas entrevistas não estruturadas no Município de Belém. As entrevistas foram transcritas, codificadas e analisadas. Identificou as diferenças nas narrativas dos entrevistados em comparação com os dados bibliográficos e documentais, classificando as comunicações orais como representações mentais ou sociais. Conclusão: Em Belém, observam-se representações mentais e sociais e problemas urbanos com características socioeconômicas. Os problemas relacionados à pobreza persistem e tendem a se agravar. Em relação à classe média, as representações sociais demonstram uma diminuição do poder aquisitivo e do envolvimento em lutas apenas para garantir conquistas anteriores. Em Belém, as representações sociais da Cabanagem ancoram-se na imagem de um movimento popular que não deve ser repetido, pois, entre outros problemas, há falta de participação e organização dos movimentos sociais, resultando em exploração do trabalho, grilagem de terras, desemprego, falta de saneamento básico em bairros periféricos, falta de ética na política e descumprimento, por parte do Estado, das garantias dos direitos básicos da população.
Palavras-chave: Psicologia social. Representação social. Representação mental. Cabanagem – história do Brasil, Município de Belém – Brasil. História do Pará – Brasil Cidade de Belém (Brasil) – aspectos sociais.
1. INTRODUCTION
Representations are the figurations of the environment, which occur through symbols, values, norms, knowledge, beliefs, myths, legends, among others, that are presented in a real or ideal way through social interrelations, in such a way that it becomes ethnocentric or relativised in individual memory (Mental Representation), collective memory (Collective Representation), or social memory (Social Representation), it is created and recreated, destroyed and reconstructed, becoming concrete through communication and language.
Moscovici says that: Representations are present both in the 'world' and 'in the mind,' and they must be researched in both contexts[1]. This is the true condition for achieving an error-free analysis of representations. This is a fundamental point about representations, since the collective and/or the social are formed by individuals and their minds, and due to their dynamism, they move from Mental Representation to Collective Representation and from Collective Representation to Social Representation to Mental Representation and Mental Representation to Collective Representation, from Collective Representation to Social Representation and from Social Representation to Collective Representation, and so on.
The study of the social representation of any theme, whether historical, for example: the Cabanagem rebellion, World War II, among others, or even socio-political, allows for an understanding of the reality and way of thinking a community has about a situation. This allows us to observe its social condition, since its narratives contain reconstructions that reflect part of its worldview and its living conditions. The period of the event, or even the event itself, is irrelevant; what emerges from the narrator and their community in the reconstruction of this event is what matters. It is in this context that we can identify social problems that can be solved through truly participatory social projects, as we will come to understand the social perspective of a particular community.
In one of his most remembered experiments, Bartlett studied what happened when Cambridge students theatrically reproduced a story inspired by Native American culture (‘the ghost war’). Strange characteristics of the original story were altered when the story was retold. The story became conventionalised in terms of the culture in which it was transmitted. Moscovici showed a similar process in psychoanalysis. This is a process that Moscovici called ‘anchoring’. The unfamiliar becomes familiar, both in Bartlett's work and in Moscovici’s[1].
The "Cabanagem" was a revolutionary movement that took place in the Brazilian Amazon, more specifically in the Province of Pará[2]. It was an insurrection of the people of Pará against the policies of the Brazilian Empire; it was the culmination of a long series of rebellions that, for many years, shook the Province of Grão-Pará. It was a clash between two antagonistic cultures, between two different ways of thinking and feeling, which culminated in the armed struggle that, for five long years, set Pará ablaze[3].
The city of Belém was chosen for this study because it was a place where the Cabanos had a great deal of support from the poorer population, in addition to being the political and administrative centre of Pará, and the site of the main confrontations of the Cabanagem.
The objective of this research was to identify the mental, collective, and social representations of the inhabitants of Belém in relation to the Cabanagem rebellion, in order to understand their current social condition and interpret how the Cabanagem rebellion is represented in the memory of the people of Belém, in the state of Pará, Brazil. In terms of specific objectives, the aim was to learn about facts, legends, and myths, among others, narrated by the population where information about the current histories of that event is anchored, in populations of cities that had some significant role in the Cabanagem; to identify the mode of preservation, not only of the official history, but also of the forms of communication narrated by the population of Belém city involved with the Cabanagem.
It should be noted that this paper is part of a research group, conducted in various cities, where the author studied the mental and social representations of the Cabanagem revolt.
2. METHODOLOGY
Bibliographic survey and research were conducted in the codices of the Public Archive of the State of Pará regarding the Cabanagem, in order to learn about the subject. Unstructured interviews were conducted in the Municipality of Belém. Interviewees were asked to recount stories about the Cabanagem in Belém, their sources of information, etc., to understand how supporting sources directly or indirectly interfere in the construction of mental and social representations. Interviewees were asked if they had loyalist or Cabanagem ancestry, or if they were unaware of such a fact. Interviewees were invited to compare their time with that of the Cabanos, for a better understanding of the (re)construction of the history of the Cabanagem, and whether they believed in the possibility of a new Cabanagem, so that, through these answers, their social problems could be identified through the representative (re)constructions they gave to the event. The interviews were transcribed, coded, and analysed. The analysis sought to identify differences in the narratives of the interviewees compared to bibliographic and documentary data, classifying these differences in oral communication as representations, which were categorised as mental or social representations[2].
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
According to interviewee NRM-B1, the Cabanagem was a popular movement, one of the few times when we actually had the people in power. It wasn't a movement made by the elite, but a necessary and extremely important popular movement for the identification of the people of Pará.
According to YSMB-B3, it was a confrontational movement, in this case, by a population that was dissatisfied and realised they were going to lose their freedom over the land, so they stood against the Portuguese, the dictators who were going to take the land from the native people. Then, from the land emerged the movement for land ownership, a social struggle built collectively, which sought to maintain Pará's autonomy.
APNS-B5 says that “it was a revolutionary popular movement that began, I don't remember the exact date now, and more precisely in that region of Barcarena, Abaetetuba.
According to AGTS-B8, the Cabanagem was a movement that took place here in Pará; I'm not sure of the exact date, but it may have happened in the 17th or 18th century, more or less. And it was a popular movement.
JMFCJ-B-9 states that: the Cabanagem was a popular revolution, the first revolution in Brazil in which the people came to power, although only for a short time.
It is observed that for these interviewees, the Cabanagem represents a popular struggle, a social struggle that, in a way, served to give a new identity to the people of Pará. It is also noticeable that these representations depict the duality of elite versus less favoured population, Portuguese versus natives, freedom versus dependence, natural owners of the land versus "land grabbers," in addition to the anti-Portuguese sentiment present in the narratives. However, when we talk about a collective, this did not occur in a unified way, as there were several groups participating in the Cabanagem, each with its own interests; however, there was a common collective: the defence of Pará against Portuguese rule. Another fact that can be observed, and which is, in a way, obvious, is that the interviewees who tried to pinpoint the period in which the Cabanagem occurred were wrong, because they say it was between the 17th and 18th centuries, when in fact it happened at the beginning of the 19th century. However, it cannot be forgotten that when working with memory, dates and names usually have inaccuracies, and that the Cabanagem broke out in the 19th century, but there had already been conflicts since the founding of the city of Belém, such as with the indigenous peoples Guamaiba and Ajuricaba.
ASS-B10 states that: At the time, the people were dissatisfied with the imperial government, as they had recently ceased to be a colony, and the leaders of the time were not what the people expected, so all the groups came together and thought they would carry out the revolution.
This social representation highlights the issue of groups, a fact that occurred because the Cabanagem was not a unified or unanimous movement; the only common goal was the removal of the Portuguese from government. In reality, the Cabanagem rebellion was carried out by several groups, each with different interests. However, they all had one objective: to remove the Portuguese from power in the region. For example, basically the groups had the following interests: the Tapuios fought for respect, land, work, and citizenship; the indigenous people fought for the right to their own lands, against the enslavement of their tribes, which, despite the prohibition of indigenous slavery since the time of the Marquis of Pombal, still occurred, and also fought for respect for their culture and their people, against the process of detribalisation; the poor whites and landless farmers wanted land to work, the right of free production, the right to own more slaves, and citizenship; Urban whites wanted respect, work, a Brazilian government, and to satisfy their feelings of revenge against the tragedy of the ship "Brigue Palhaço," among other humiliations; White intellectuals fought for the overthrow of the Freemasons, anti-Caramuru nationalism, etc.; white deserters fought for freedom and refuge, fearing punishment; the mixed-race people (cafuzos) wanted respect, work, and land; Enslaved Black people wanted freedom, land, and respect; Enslaved Black people wanted freedom, land, and respect; freed slaves wanted work, citizenship, and land to work on; Mamelucos, curibocas, and cafuzos fought against segregation and for work and citizenship. It is worth mentioning that the Catholic clergy who sided with the Cabanagem were primarily fighting against Freemasonry and the maintenance of their status quo. Therefore, it can be stated that each group had its own particular interest, uniting for a single reason: to overthrow the Portuguese from power in the Province of Pará. In fact, many Cabano groups did not even submit to the cabano presidents.
ASS-B10 states that the Cabanagem had "brave men: Angelim, Batista Campos, Canon Batista Campos, Vinagre, and others who led the movement, which was partially victorious. However, they didn't know how to maintain power. If I'm not mistaken, a year later, they were completely overthrown and left power". Regarding the leadership of the Cabanagem.
NRM-B1 states: We know that the main leaders came from the clergy and also from the more popular middle class of Pará, in the sense that it wasn't those who held power at the time who rebelled, but rather the people without power, this marginalised middle class.
AGTS-B8 states that: this revolt was later led by three figures, Batista Campos, if I'm not mistaken, was one of them, there was another, and other leaders who took the lead.
The representations include the presence of the Catholic clergy as leaders in the Cabanagem, more precisely represented by Canon João Batista Gonçalves Campos. It is worth noting that Batista Campos was a member of the Catholic clergy and Bernardo Lobo de Souza was a Freemason. The conflict between the two led to a division of the population, where the economically disadvantaged maintained hope for the salvation of their souls through the Catholic Church, siding with Batista Campos, while the Portuguese elites and the Freemasons of the province of Pará at the time sided with the government (loyalists), since Bernardo Lobo de Souza was a Freemason and Portuguese, and each would use their influence to combat the other. However, the disputes between the Catholic clergy and Freemasonry had already existed since 14th of July, 1827, when the liberal republican Masonic press offended Bishop D. Macedo Costa, who reacted by asking Roman Catholics not to vote for any candidate from the Masonic party, which had serious consequences in the elections, since the people of the Province were predominantly Catholic. Therefore, these are long-standing disagreements between Roman Catholic Apostolic members of Pará and the Freemasons of that time. However, the presence of the clergy is striking in mental and social representations, perhaps because Catholicism is still the most predominant religion in Pará, and also because there is a neighbourhood, a square and a street in Belém named in honour of Canon Batista Campos, which is not the case with many leaders of the Cabanagem rebellion. I am unaware, even in 2026, of any street in the city of Belém named after popular Cabanagem leaders who are remembered in books or classrooms, such as Domingos Onça, Aranha, among others.
APNS-B5 makes the following reference: “I remember Marshal Hermes, who was an influential Cabano.” In this case, it is worth remembering that we are also dealing with memory, and dates and names can be confused, as in this case where the interviewee cites Marshal Hermes as a Cabano, which he was not, and much less did he participate in the fight against or in favour of the Cabanagem.
Another observed fact is that NRM-B1 refers to the middle class, which sounds like a cry for help since this "class" has been suffering greatly in recent times from economic stagnation due to various unsuccessful government plans, which are reflected in the decrease in the population's standard of living; in other words, the rich are getting richer, the poor are falling into misery, and the "middle class" is becoming increasingly impoverished.
In the representation of JMFCJ-B-9, the people came to power, but the leaders, when they came to power, always handed power over to the powerful, to the monarchy." Indeed, this used to happen, but even today there is this sell-out in the form of national funds, in the form of a high debt that the country and the states have, with many politicians who are elected and betray their parties and their electorate, among other things that are present in the memory of the more enlightened people and, consequently, figure in their mental, collective and/or social representations.
Regarding the reason for the outbreak of the Cabanagem rebellion, AGTS-B8 says: It was related to the independence of Brazil; the Portuguese were here at the time, and they were not accepting Brazil's independence; and the people, the population that lived on the outskirts, were dissatisfied with the government and took advantage of this, thus gaining support not only from people on the outskirts but also from other people who were considered important at the time.
The interviewee is observed referring to people from the outskirts of the city participating in the Cabanagem rebellion because the Portuguese did not adhere to Brazil's independence. This interviewee lives in an area where the population suffers from a lack of public and social policies from the government. For a long time, they suffered from flooding in their homes during the rainy season when the canal on Travessa Visconde de Inhaumas overflowed, causing real chaos in their lives. Therefore, in a way, its representation contains the revolt against rulers, symbolised by the Portuguese who were the dominators at the time of the Cabanagem, but who today figure as a symbol of an authoritarianism present in all its representations. The relationship with Independence appears as the struggle for freedom, against oppression, against the situation they live in today.
Another important fact is that in the social representation of JMFCJ-B-9, the Cabanagem was "problematic, regarding how to come to power, or how to maintain power, and in terms of its objectives, whether it was a monarchist or federalist revolt, whether they wanted independence or the abolition of slavery, or whether it was a popular revolt for better living conditions for the people, the workers, the slaves, the poor whites at the time, but which remained in the imagination and memory of the people of Pará, but without us knowing what the Cabanagem actually is or was". The fact is that the Cabanagem, in a way, fought for all of this at the same time; there were diverse interests at play: the slaves for abolition, the poor whites for better conditions to produce what they wanted and not what the Portuguese wanted them to produce—something like globalisation where poorer and/or less influential countries have to produce according to the dictates of more powerful countries; the indigenous people fought to remain in their tribes without invasions; the detribalised indigenous people fought for citizenship, among various other interests at play. Therefore, there was no unanimity or clearly defined objectives in the Cabanagem. However, something united it all: the fight against a common enemy, the cause of all these evils, which for the Cabanos was the Portuguese. Another fact in this representation is that the struggle of the workers emerges, and this did not occur in this way during the Cabanagem. In the interviewee's reconstruction, the issues of economic exploitation by the capitalist model in force in Brazil, added to neo-liberal policies and the results of globalisation, give rise to unemployment, wage stagnation, misery among the less economically favoured, economic stagnation of the middle class, among others, often resulting in unsuccessful strikes and a lack of hope for change on the part of the people.
When respondents are asked to compare the situation of the poor today with that of the Cabanagem rebellion, the following representations emerge: NRM-B1 says, the environmental conditions were different, the extractive process for the excluded, the marginalised, was certainly easier than today. It seems to me that it was a little easier to hide poverty some time ago than it is today, given that society at the moment is focused on consumption, needs are increasingly requiring money in hand to acquire survival, depending less and less on the relationship with the environment, with nature, to guarantee survival. It seems that misery is more exposed today. And now I am working with the idea of proportionality of inhabitants, number of inhabitants, etc., but analysing the history of Brazil, which is a history of poverty and misery, from an economic point of view, there is no difference; it is always the exploitation of the vast majority by a small minority.
YSMB-B3 says: I see that today the difficulty in creating unity is greater; I think relationships are more fragmented, more absent. They tend towards individual or family survival, perhaps. There is little organisation, little articulation among the poor. I mean, there are a large number of poor people, but in terms of solidarity, there is no facilitation, perhaps there is even no communication, no closer relationships. Today I think it is more difficult than during the Cabanagem uprising. The very disposition, the very conjuncture, in a way, favoured the rapprochement of peoples more than today. Incredibly, it is very difficult in the case of Pará, in the case of Belém for example: the poor population comes from the interior, they are immigrants from the interior, and there are some from the city; a very large group comes with differentiated identities, each one linked to a specific city or community. Today it seems that the struggle of the poor is much more about survival. They may even organise themselves into residents' associations, organise themselves in response to a specific situation affecting them, but it seems like that issue of invasion of their land, in their identity, I think it's more difficult today than yesterday.
For APNS-B5, the poor of today are more miserable than those of that time. I think the misery is much greater. Nowadays, the main issue is the right to food, to basic needs. In the past, people ate free-range chicken; that doesn't happen anymore. Those people had stronger ideals than now; they weren't complacent.
JMFCJ-B-9 states that, the period of slavery or the colonial period was characterised as worse than the period we have today. Poverty at that time, in my opinion, had a very different aspect from today's, for the following reasons: first, they were slaves, not free people; being a poor white person at that time, which was still the slave-owning period, the imperial period, was practically being a slave, it was almost a regime of servitude. In my opinion, today people are free, and this, logically, in a legal-political aspect of not living in a slave-owning period, but at that time the Brazilian root, the trunk of Brazilian formation, strongly has the indigenous presence, and the indigenous people have a different relationship with nature. Poverty at that time was not as violent as it is today because the forest populations, the traditional populations, I think still developed some form of minimal subsistence in relation to nature, in relation to the place where they lived. Today, the poor are free, but they don't have any kind of subsistence mechanism in relation to nature, work, means of production. In this aspect, it is problematic, back then they were slaves, today they are free, but back then, in my opinion, they were able to develop a traditional way of life. Today they can't because those methods have been dismantled, they no longer exist. There are these two aspects, two different moments of poverty. You can't say that it was worse back then than it is today.
For ASS-B10, the current situation of poverty is more difficult, justifying that: Back then, the poor population hardly needed money, the river was very full of fish, our local people had fish in abundance, it was enough to cultivate a plot of land, it was enough for a person to acquire and sell some products to support themselves, because there wasn't the need that modern man has today: for television, for dressing well. So, this place is a kind of bucolic paradise. So, I think the poor of that time lived better than now, because today there is unemployment. Man has lost those ethical values that we had in the past. Nowadays it's every man for himself, people do everything recklessly. Nowadays man has this daily struggle for his daily bread, and has forgotten this part of conscience, and I think conscience comes from God.
It is noticeable in these representations that issues of social organisation are very difficult, because people in less favoured economic situations, even due to the social conditions they are going through, end up fighting more for their survival, that is, for solving their most immediate problems, than for other interests. This can be observed in union assemblies, in neighbourhood community meetings, among others, which appear empty, either because they do not believe in the form of demands or in the type of social organisation, or even because with a minimum wage paid in Brazil that does not reach three hundred US dollars, and with a first-world cost of living like in Brazil, where the minimum wage is not enough to cover the basic needs of a family, such as rent, water and electricity expenses, medicines, school supplies, etc., leading the less favoured population to fight more for immediate survival interests, such as: employment, food, etc., which perhaps did not happen, according to what is observed in the representations analysed here, at the time when the Cabanagem occurred, because the less economically favoured planted and gathered their food, so immediate survival was not the immediate problem.
This situation is further aggravated in the city of Belém when populations from some inland areas of the state, due to a lack of adequate infrastructure, or even because they have been expelled from their lands, migrate to the capital in search of a better life. Many end up swelling the ranks of the unemployed, or in underemployment, in the informal market, etc., living in precarious self-built dwellings with poor-quality materials such as low-quality wood (despite Pará being an exporter), housing with few rooms and overcrowding, in peripheral neighbourhoods, and in many cases in informal settlements without infrastructure, that is, without urbanisation, without paving, open sewers, among other things, which leads them to think about their most immediate problems, such as hunger, for example.
In the AGTS-B8 Representation, this problem has always existed and continues to exist, because, according to the interviewee: History at that time, and this is not new, has always shown a separation between rich and poor, and over time, in some countries, this separation has become more pronounced than it is today. In this case, the gap between rich and poor tends to grow because we are a relatively new country compared to others. What I perceive is that poor people still live in precarious conditions, such as areas without infrastructure, sewage systems, and housing still in stilt-house style. So, there are people who still live in areas like people did two centuries ago, without the necessary infrastructure, without good food, without the basic necessities of human beings. So, at that moment, the armed revolt ended up happening because it also had the full support of a class that today we can call the bourgeoisie, a middle class, and currently there is no such union between the poor and the middle class. There are changes, but only a middle class or a wealthy person changes power; the changes don't really happen at the base, they don't reach the structure of those who need it, they continue to perpetuate themselves in power. So, the comparison I see is that today, there are still people with other needs, and no matter which government changes, it will continue to happen; no government will provide conditions for everyone to live on the same level, to end social inequalities. Some governments manage to reduce or mitigate them, but I think that even the current system of globalisation still forces more misery. Today, misery is much greater than it was centuries ago, isn't it?
It is observed that in this representation, issues related to poverty persist and tend to worsen. It is noteworthy that the interviewee resides in an area that has already suffered greatly from flooding problems; therefore, his social representation is permeated with hopelessness in the government. However, he believes that, with unity with the middle class, some change may occur. Nevertheless, the Brazilian middle class is undergoing a process of decline and is also joining the struggle to try to maintain some of its gains. It is true that the middle class in the state of Pará at the time of the Cabanagem was quite different; Batista Campos was a Canon of the Catholic Church, a politician, etc., Malcher was a wealthy landowner, colonel, and Angelim was married to a rich Portuguese widow—they stood out in history. Therefore, in this social representation, it is in this class that the hope for change lies. However, the Cabanagem was carried out by a great diversity of interests, such as the blacks fighting for freedom, the indigenous people for their lands, and the white peasants for less economic exploitation, among various other groups present. Besides those mentioned, there were many more cabano leaders, but official history has never highlighted them in this context. In schools and textbooks, only the figures of the cabano presidents appear, who did not represent the interests of all cabano groups. Therefore, it is this less favored class that should be claiming and fighting for its interests, but at the moment they are more focused on immediate issues of survival.
When seeking to understand the respondents' perception of a new Cabanagem (a historical uprising in Brazil), the answers are very rich. For example, NRM-B1 stated, september 11th was a global Cabanagem, the beginning of a global Cabanagem. It's complicated because political and ideological relations today are undergoing a process of change; paradigms are in place, growing in popularity or, at least, in reliability, and are embracing this paradigm crisis. I believe that a new Cabanagem must necessarily occur, no longer from a regional perspective, but from a global perspective. I believe we are living on this very fine line, which is dividing the mode of production, one economic model from another, which I wouldn't know how to say yet, but it's very close to that dreamed-of socialism, to that slightly smaller distribution of income, because we are experiencing the negative global effects of this neoliberal model imposed on the world economy. There is a much more evident, much more aggravated picture of poverty. Two-thirds of the world's population are excluded from the productive process, and these two-thirds, who are the majority, I believe will have the material and cultural conditions to soon promote a new revolution in interpersonal relationships, as well as in social relations of production. This Cabanagem will be worldwide.
In this mental and social representation, the neoliberal model that oppresses the poorest is not a Brazilian model, but rather a result of the globalisation process, where the most developed countries impose their will on third-world countries. In other words, globalisation does not occur uniformly; it happens through the will of the most powerful capitalist countries, resulting in low wages for poor and middle-class workers in countries like Brazil, leading to social calamities such as endemic hunger, misery, unemployment, low wages, expensive manufactured goods, crime, diseases like tuberculosis and leprosy proliferating, as well as malnourished children, among many other serious problems.
In the interviewee's mental representation, the bombing of the Trade Center building in the USA also appears. In NRM-B1's conception, this emerges as a reaction of the poor against the rich, as a reaction to the discriminatory process of globalisation. He sees this as a reaction of the poor, hence considering it a kind of new Cabanagem.
For YSMB-B3, under the conditions that occurred, no. Now, as a social struggle, and if it identifies as a social struggle, it's possible that yes, insofar as the situation arises from social exclusion, it's no longer about land boundaries, perhaps about the issue of land control, these boundaries seem to begin to be cut or broken as the means of communication enter, changing social relations. By changing society, by changing the way of life of the population. I think that, given the characteristics, the form, and the content of how the Cabanagem uprising unfolded within the history of Pará, there wouldn't be a new Cabanagem. A social struggle might arise as a result, for example, as happened in Argentina, but that's an emergency movement, right? But it's a survival movement; you're dissatisfied and you go against the State or against the government. As for fighting against nature, as was done, I don't know, I don't think so, not really.
According to this interviewee, the Cabanagem could occur due to the great social exclusion that exists as a result of neoliberal policies which, in the case of Brazil, generates misery, unemployment, crime, among other things. Another reason for a new Cabanagem could be due to economic emergency situations like the one occurring in Argentina. However, it is noted that in this representation there is a disbelief that social organisation is possible, and this would be vital for a new revolution. It is worth remembering that this social organisation, in the sense that the interviewee refers to, did not exist in the 19th century either, when the Cabanagem rebellion took place.
For AGTS-B8, for there to be a revolt, there has to be a lot of ideological work, a lot of reading, people in the movement who understand their role in transformation. It is also necessary for intellectuals to get involved with the causes to enlighten the population, because we know that the illiteracy rate is very high, that there is a possibility of helping these people, the situation being so difficult, even if it's Christmas time, a calamity like the one happening here in the Guamá neighbourhood, and people end up becoming complacent. So, in this case, it's very difficult for us to end this situation. People are in a moment of financial crisis; there might be a change in structure, but those who can move into the middle class always forget the proposals they had before coming to power, so the situation remains the same.
In this Social Representation, three central points stand out, among others: first, the interviewee believes that a revolution can only occur if it originates from intellectuals; the fact is that the Cabanagem did indeed occur within the intellectual circles of Pará at the time. However, it gained momentum and continued on its own, so much so that the Cabano presidents were unable to make the guerrillas lay down their arms, because the diverse interests within each Cabano group became the policies and guidelines that guided the movement in question; Secondly, the high illiteracy rate in Brazil, particularly in the North and Northeast regions, leads less educated people to exchange their votes for favours, keeping old politicians in power for life without change or social transformation. This perpetuation is detrimental to the less fortunate classes. Furthermore, illiteracy becomes cyclical, as families with illiterate members generally work in low-paying jobs or for meagre wages. This results in their children, even while still school-aged, having to sell fruit, popsicles, ice cream, newspapers, and other items on the streets to help with their parents' household expenses. Consequently, they drop out of school very early, becoming part of a perpetuating cycle of poverty; Thirdly, it is clear that there is a lot of hopelessness, as they do not believe that change is possible, because a politician, even one of humble origins, upon being elected, according to the interviewee's Social Representation, moves to another social class, forgets their origins, and does nothing for those who believed in them. Of course, this is not always the case, but the interviewee, due to their worldview, ends up having this perception.
In the Social Representation of AGTS-B8, there is a reference to a calamity that was occurring in the Guamá neighbourhood. The fact is that this neighbourhood, located on the outskirts of the city of Belém in the state of Pará, has many areas of informal settlements where people live below the poverty line, without basic resources such as running water, sewage systems, or any basic sanitation. Furthermore, in December 2001 – when I contacted this interviewee – there was a fire that burned more than a hundred houses, leaving many families homeless. Having nowhere to live, they took shelter in the sports gymnasium of the Federal University of Pará, where they had to spend Christmas. It is noted that this deeply affected the interviewee, who lives in another neighbourhood, but it remained imprinted in his memory, resulting in social representations in which the event reappeared during the interview.
JMFCJ-B-9 says that, about another Cabanagem, I don't believe so. It's even interesting, the Cabanagem was a revolution that affected the entire state, not just Belém. Today, it seems that the movement in Pará, something that affected the entire state, is the separation of the state. Today, it seems that the demand, the struggle for better conditions, still follows a political path, an attempt to walk a political path that goes in several directions, from separating the state to changing political leaders, but I don't see any prospect of a new Cabanagem. In my opinion, the State is stronger today than it was back then; civil society provides greater support for the State, ideologically speaking, and there is no room for a new Cabanagem. I think the prime example is the landless movement, not that they wanted to stage a new Cabanagem, but the landless movement fights for a different development model. Of course, they carry out a new agrarian reform in Brazil, they fight for a new development model, and they are violently repressed ideologically by society. In general, there is a great deal of resistance to these types of movements. I believe that a new Cabanagem is not possible today.
This mental and social representation shows that there is a certain lack of support for popular movements from society in general. What still emerges as a movement with greater support is the division of the state of Pará into three states: Pará, Carajás, and Tapajós, because various political and economic interests converge. There is also the presence of a stronger State, better at its ideological discourse, better armed, which nevertheless represses those who go against its interests, as occurred in El Dourado dos Carajás, where the repressive State killed and wounded several members of the landless movement who were protesting at the S-curve, and this always figures in the Social Representations of the interviewees when they refer to agrarian reform, a reform that in the State of Pará was and is one of the bloodiest scenarios.
For APNS-B5, another Cabanagem would not be possible; people have changed a lot, they don't have a fighting spirit, despite the politicking that existed. This revolution thing doesn't work anymore.
It is observed, therefore, that the lack of organisation is present through the population's accommodation, seeking peace, which is more prevalent, especially in Brazil where violence and crime prevail, and a civil war appears in this testimony as something that would exacerbate this violence; therefore, the people become complacent.
According to ASS-B10, for another Cabanagem to happen, a saviour of the nation needs to appear, but nowadays that's difficult. But if someone with that ideal existed, someone willing to do good... All the values of that era that I've seen had self-interest behind them. I wish a saviour of the nation would appear, you know? But unfortunately, I'm losing hope.
The lack of hope in political ethics, the lack of leadership, the feeling of doing things for the group and not for oneself, the lack of hope in change through truly social public policies, are present in this representation, becoming a major social problem when people have already lost, or are losing, hope in change. This can lead to a society that is uncommitted to its own nation.
It is therefore noticeable that the Cabanagem, in these Mental and Social Representations, is anchored as a popular movement, but one that could not happen again because, among other problems, there is a lack of participation and organisation of social movements, making them mostly weak and without effective action, relying on old political discourses. This disbelief is present in all interviewees, which becomes a major problem, because change only happens with popular organisation, and if this does not occur, the powerful become increasingly stronger, resulting in the exploitation of labour, land grabbing, unemployment, lack of basic sanitation in peripheral neighbourhoods, lack of ethics in politics, and therefore, non-compliance by the State with the most basic rights of the population. It is necessary to strengthen community movements, movements that demand the basic rights of needy children and women, the right to food, free public health, education, culture, life, and ultimately the right to happiness.
Of those interviewed in the city of Belém, only 16.66% declared themselves descendants of the Cabanos, and in these cases it may be related to ideology; 16.66% did not declare their descent and 66.67% declared that they did not know or were not descendants of either the Cabanos or the Legalists, no interviewee declared themselves a descendant of the Loyalists.
The dissemination of information about the Cabanagem rebellion at the time it occurred was carried out by the loyalists through official letters to commanders, who then passed the information on to their subordinates. However, the cabano leaders, when communicating with the vast majority of their commanders, faced significant problems, as many of these commanders came from the poorest social strata, where illiteracy was widespread. Therefore, the cabano leaders used proclamations read in public squares; in other situations, they used direct communication or messengers, and in many cases, the interpretations of the message differed from the intended context of the Cabano leader. Furthermore, due to the size of the state of Pará, which at the time was larger than it is today, many cities dominated by the cabanos did not receive these proclamations, and the commanders and subordinates ended up making decisions that, combined with the diverse and divergent interests involved in the Cabanagem, ultimately diverged from the leaders' ideas.
When analysing the dissemination of information about the Cabanagem rebellion in the city of Belém today, it is observed that, regarding the sources of information about the Cabanagem rebellion, 33.33% of those interviewed said they obtained their knowledge through reading, 33.33% by listening to other people such as neighbours, colleagues, among others, and 33.33% at school.
There are interesting testimonies, such as that of JMFCJ-B9, who in his final remarks says: “I believe the following: The Cabanagem, in my opinion, was a fundamental historical moment in the history of Pará. Some people in Pará have studied the phenomenon historically, what the Cabanagem is, but it seems there is a great concern in perpetuating the myth of the Cabanagem, and we don't really know what the Cabanagem is. For us, the Cabanagem is the monument designed by Oscar Niemeyer and that museum. Why isn't there investment in disseminating information about the Cabanagem, in making the Cabanagem visible, the actual history of the Cabanagem? We only know about the Cabanagem monument, about the inventions of the mayor who calls himself a Cabano, and to this day we don't know why”.
Many representations are like this, firstly because until the mid-20th century, the Cabanagem rebellion was taught in schools according to the standard passed down by the loyalist governments of the mid-19th century, where the Cabanos were seen as bandits, wrongdoers, ruthless, murderers, among other adjectives, with a sense of what is bad for the people. Of course, this was part of the ideological game where attempts are made to keep the population away from any ideas of revolt movements against the governments or dominant elites. After that, the memory of the Cabanos was rescued, albeit very timidly, so much so that at the end of the 20th century, the mortal remains of the Cabano presidents were sought and a Memorial of the Cabanagem was built where their remains, medals, swords, and other items were deposited, and a neighbourhood called Cabanagem was created in Belém. However, the Memorial of the Cabanagem was closed, vandals broke in, stole relics, and even played football with the skull of one of the heroes, violating the memory of Pará's history. It seems that the monument was created to promote some politicians of the time of its construction and that they did not maintain the work. Furthermore, only the Mayor of Belém from 1997-2005 attempted to promote the Cabanagem through newspaper articles, contests on themes related to the Cabanagem, and by self-declaring himself a "Cabano mayor" due to being elected under the guise of governing for the people, intending to govern primarily for the poor.
It should be noted that textbooks do not explore the Cabanagem theme in depth; the written works, for the most part, are repetitions of the 19th-century work of Antonio Raiol, who, incidentally, was a legalistic author whose father was killed in the Cabanagem invasion in Vigia. This lack of information means that social representations in Belém do not adhere to facts, legends, and other sources, as is the case in the city of Acará, which claims to be the birthplace of the Cabanagem, the city of Vigia, which claims to be the epicenter of the Cabanagem, or Cametá, which claims to have never suffered a Cabanagem invasion and to have resisted all invasions until the end, which is now known to be not the case.
4. CONCLUSIONS
In Belém, the representations reflect several urban problems with socio-economic characteristics, such as: the lack of social organisation, resulting from the lack of financial resources, leading the peripheral population to fight more for their survival than for the interests of the social groups to which they belong, resulting in empty popular assemblies; The minimum wage in Brazil currently does not reach three hundred US dollars, and Belém has a very high cost of living, leading the poorest population to feel humiliated and powerless in the face of their economic and financial situation; The issue of the lack of adequate infrastructure in the interior of the State results in rural exodus, increasing the number of unemployed or underemployed people in the State capital, a large number of precarious residences self-built with low quality materials and, with few rooms and many inhabitants; Peripheral neighbourhoods with disorderly invasions and no infrastructure.
It is observed that issues linked to poverty are perpetuated and tend to worsen. As for the middle class, it can be seen in the Social Representations in Belém that they are experiencing a decrease in purchasing power and are taking part in struggles just to guarantee some of their previous achievements. This is the result of the neoliberal process that oppresses the poorest, resulting from the process of globalisation in which rich countries impose their will on third world countries, that is, globalisation does not occur with uniformity, it occurs through the will of the most developed countries, resulting in a wage squeeze for poor and middle-class workers in countries like Brazil, leading to social calamities, such as: endemic hunger, poverty, unemployment, low wages, extremely expensive national products, crime, diseases such as tuberculosis and leprosy proliferating, in addition to child malnutrition and other serious problems.
In Belém, Cabanagem is anchored as a popular movement that could not occur again, as, among several problems, there is a lack of participation and organisation of social movements, resulting in the exploitation of labour, land grabbing, unemployment, lack of basic sanitation in peripheral neighbourhoods, lack of ethics in politics and failure by the State to guarantee the most basic rights of the population.
REFERENCES
Farr, Robert M. Representações Sociais: A teoria e sua história. In.: Guareschi, Pedrinho, Jovchelovitch, Sandra (orgs). Textos em Representação Social. 3 ed. Petropólis : Vozes, 1997. p. 31-59.
Guedes, Aureliano da Silva. As Fontes de Informação Significantes Para a Construção da Representação Mental e Social da Cabanagem no Estado do Pará (Brasil). Porto-Portugal : Universidade do Porto-Flup; Universidade de Aveiro, 2011. [Tese Doutoral].
Silveira, Ítala Bezerra da. Cabanagem: uma luta perdida. Belém: Secretaria de Estado da Cultura, 1994. (Anteriormente publicada como dissertação de mestrado de política da UFMG).
Author 1. Paediatric dentist, Bachelor's degree in Chemistry, Professor at the Federal University of Pará/Director of the Faculty of Chemistry at the Ananindeua Campus, PhD and Postdoc in ICPD by FLUP/University of Porto (Portugal). E-mail: [email protected]. E-mail: [email protected]