Rebelião na Amazônia: Cabanagem, Raça e Cultura Popular no Norte do Brasil, 1798-1840

The Brazilian Amazon in the late 1830s witnessed one of the largest uprisings of peasants and urban poor in Brazil, known as the Cabanagem. In a unique way, rebels managed to control city councils and the provincial government for more than a year. This book compares the Cabanagem to other contemporary Latin American peasant rebellions and shows the challenges it posed to centralized power in Brazil. Drawing on primary sources, it departs from other studies and reveals that the insurgents were not seeking separation or revolutionary change. Rather, the rebels wanted to assert their vision of a newly independent nation and put an end to exploitation by a distant power. The Cabanagem is a critical moment in understanding why the Amazon came to be perceived as a land on the margins of history.