Luís Gama he was an important black personality in Brazil in the second half of the 19th century. He was a prominent journalist and slate (lawyer without training) and used his positions to denounce and fight the racism, in addition to having been a fan of the abolitionist movement, helping to free more than 500 enslaved blacks throughout his life.
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Birth
Luís Gonzaga Pinto da Gama was born in the city of Salvador, on June 21, 1830. We know very little about his childhood, and some of the information, according to most historians, may have been mystified by him. As for its origin, we know it was son of a white man and a black woman.
His father, whose name we do not know until today, was a very wealthy nobleman who belonged to one of the most traditional families in Salvador. Luís Gama's mother was supposed to be LuisaMahin, a black woman from Costa da Mina who survived as a greengrocer. She would have been quite involved with the Malês revolt and with the sabinada.
Luísa Mahin would have fled to Rio de Janeiro because of the repression installed in Bahia after the Sabinada. In Rio de Janeiro, she would have disappeared, and Luís Gama reported that he later discovered that she had been expelled from Brazil for practicing African religious rituals. Luís Gama, then, was created by father, who decided to selllink as a slave when he was 10 years old.
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Luís Gama as enslaved
Your sell into slavery by the father himself it would have happened because he had gambling debts and needed to pay them off. The enslavement of Luís Gama was illegal, but even so, he was sold and transported by boat to the Rio de Janeiro. In the capital, he would have worked in a candle shop.
Then it was resold to an ensign, who took it to the interior of São Paulo, until, finally, it was resold once more, moving to live in Sao Paulo and work on household crafts. During his captivity, he learned to read through the influence of a guest of his “owner”. After that, he decided to run away and go after the evidence of his freedom.
Luís Gama managed to prove your freedom, although we don't know how he did it. From then on, he followed his professional career and was one of the Brazil's greatest intellectuals in the second half of the 19th century.
Lília Schwarcz, Flávio Gomes and Jaime Lauriano affirm that Luís Gama's literacy, in addition to an influence from that guest, about him, it may also have been the result of the contact he had with the reading of the Qur'an with Muslim Africans in Savior. This may have created your strong bond with reading|1|.
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Professional life
After regaining his freedom, Luís Gama joined the Public Force of São Paulo and enlisted as a square. This was in 1848, and he remained in the corporation until the year 1854, when an act of insubordination forced his arrest and expulsion. During this period he exercised copyist role and he even worked in a police station office.
In 1856 he became employeepublic, going to work at the Secretary of Police, and became an influential and well-connected figure. His work with police writing demonstrated the skill he had for this craft, and so he started to produce some texts, with his only book, first troes BGetulino's urlesques, published in 1859.
From the 1860s onwards, Luís Gama began his career as journalist and became one of the great journalists in the city of São Paulo. He worked in several newspapers, such as lame devil, goat, Radical Paulistano, Correio Paulista and Polichinello. He has published articles and also acted as typographer.
Luís Gama was a defender of the republic it is a abolitionistradical, and used his position as a journalist to defend the causes in which he believed. He is credited with introducing the satirical newspaper in São Paulo, and he signed many of its articles under pseudonyms. Among the political positions of Gama, the fact that he was involved with the formation of the Partido Republicano Paulista stood out.
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advocate of abolitionism
Luís Gama was one of the greatest abolitionists of Brazil in the second half of the 19th century and used its positions and influence to defend the end of slavery and help enslaved blacks. He expressed his opposition to slavery in his journalistic articles, participated in abolitionist associations, and was an engaged figure.
Luís Gama's main form of performance was through his performance as slate, that is, how untrained lawyer academic. He even attended law classes, but he never graduated. It is believed that these classes plus the work at the police station gave him the necessary knowledge so that he could act.
He advertised his services in São Paulo newspapers, including those he wrote, and was very successful in the defense of enslaved blacks. In court, Luís Gama was successful in guaranteeing the freedom of these people by demonstrating that their enslavement was illegal under an 1831 law that prohibited the slave trade.
THE law of the free womb, approved in 1871, also reinforced Gama's role, allowing him to conquer the freedom of more than 500 people, he said. Lília Schwarcz, Flávio Gomes and Jaime Lauriano claim that his actions against slavery earned him numerous enemies and a series of threats from defenders of that institution|2|.
Death
Luís Gama died relatively young, aged just 52, in August 24, 1882, per complications caused by diabetes. His death caused quite a stir, and his funeral is said to have attracted four thousand people, which corresponded to a considerable portion of the population of São Paulo, which, at the time, had 40,000 population.
About Luís Gama's personal life, very little is known. What is known is that he married a black woman named Claudina Fortunato Sampaio and that, from that marriage, a son named Benedito was born.
Summary
Luís Gama was born free in 1830, but was sold by his father as a slave.
He regained his freedom at age 17, and began his professional career as a military man.
He was a highly successful journalist and shyster in São Paulo.
He was a defender of the republic and a radical abolitionist, becoming one of the great defenders of the cause in Brazil.
He died in 1882 due to complications caused by diabetes.
|1| GOMES, Flávio dos Santos, LAURIANO, Jaime and SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz. Encyclopedia noegra. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2021. P. 340.
|2| Idem, p. 342.
Image credits
[1] commons
By Daniel Neves Silva
History teacher