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This article analyzes the political positions of Black communities in the disputes between Republicans and monarchists over the celebrations for the end of enslavement in 1888 and 1889, in the cities of Campinas and Piracicaba. Journalistic sources revealed at least two positions. One gave full credit to abolition campaigns and popular abolitionists, while the other, sympathetic to the imperial regime, credited parliament, the imperial family and the Conservative Party. In the background of this debate was whether or not the monarchical system of government should be maintained. Black people participated in this debate, and there was support for both positions depending on the affiliation of the group. But above all, Black communities on both sides aimed to show their status as free people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the discourse of the Gazeta Nacional newspaper circulated in the city of Rio de Janeiro in the period prior to the signing of the Lei Áurea ["Golden Law"] abolishing slavery in Brazil. It considers how the publication presented the criteria for citizenship and also investigates the importance it attributed to liberalism. The newspaper was subtitled Órgão Republicano ["Republican Organ"] and relied on participation from leaders of the movement in the Court. Debates were published on different proposals for the procedure for abolishing slavery with monarchists and those defending the republic itself. Texts published in the Gazeta Nacional therefore reveal possible strategies for releasing slaves and organising the post-abolition society conceived by members of the 1870 generation. Considering newspapers' contribution to the formation of the memory of an event through serving as a space for the exercise of power, this study focuses on an object and a distinct source for an analysis of the end of the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the regulation of the Cuban labor market after slavery was abolished there in 1886, specifically with regards to the former slaves working in the sugarcane industry. The author notes that the sugar mill workers were controlled by the mill owners -- formerly slave owners -- through the means of contracts, regulated wages and a judicial campaign against vagrancy. The relationship between the workers and owners is described, and it is noted that despite being legally freed from slavery, most workers found their labor and living conditions unchanged, as they were bound to their employers by laws against vagrancy, strict regulation of wages and a lack of other options for employment.

This article reflects on the meaning that the slavery as well as his abolition have in the formation of the public-political, understanding it as the common references that regulate the social relations and the criteria of legitimization, shared by those who are perceived as members of the society. It asks for the role of the enslaved population during the building process of the references of citizenship and of the Republic during the first half of the XIX century. The slavery system inhibited the participation of the slaves in the construction of the public. Despite the resistance of this population and, after the independence, in spite of the attempts of a sector of the elite for turning them into free and equal citizens allowing their access to the space of freedom of the republic, during the process of abolition, the interests and the social and racial prejudices of the slavers had the priority, thus, prolonging the formal abolition until the middle of the century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]