Crossing Paths at Ibicaba

Slaves, Swiss Immigrants, and Abolitionism during the Sharecroppers’ Revolt (São Paulo, 1856-1857)

Abstract

This article examines the relations between the enslaved and European immigrants in western São Paulo against the background of the 1856 Sharecroppers’ Revolt that took place in Limeira. Considered a benchmark in the history of immigration in Brazil, the uprising of Swiss colonists against the “sistema de parceria” at the Ibicaba plantation also counted on support from enslaved populations in the vicinity of the Colônia Senador Vergueiro. Erased by the historiography, the 1856 black conspiracy shows that interactions between slaves and settlers in the context of the ban on the African slave trade sparked the circulation of abolitionist ideas in Brazil. By revisiting the revolt in Limeira, this paper explores how subaltern perspectives of the Atlantic world met in Ibicaba and claims a place for black geopolitics in defining Brazilian labor history in the 1850s.