Areia: uma “aldeia” negra paraibana de fins do século XIX e as primeiras décadas do século XX.

Abstract

We suggest a study of the city of Areia-PB in order to analyze the process of social engagement of subordinate workers (ex-slaves or not), their assemblages, struggles and possible meanings in the post-abolition. We also studied the particularities of such town, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, by exploring the conflicts and intra and extra groups solidarities, as well as those historical individuals conditions of material and symbolic life in the diverse sectors of such society. In order to do that, we analyzed a basic documentary corpus of different nature: demographic censuses (1872, 1890, 1900 and 1920), newspaper sources produced in the locus of research and criminal cases involving rural and urban workers. In the meantime, we sought to contribute to the local and paraibana historiography, as well as to overcome classical dichotomies involving studies around work worlds: slave/free employee, paid-employee/semi paid-employee and rural worker/urban worker. Thus, we outlined a set of experiences of such subordinate workers in that town.