A magistrate and politician from the Brazilian imperial period, born on the Itapororocas farm, in Inhabupe, State of Bahia, whose prestige as a senator reached its peak when he acquired (1868) the Diário da Bahia, a stronghold in the struggle against the conservative predominance in politics, a newspaper in which his son and Rui Barbosa debuted in the debate of ideas. He graduated from the Faculty of Law in Olinda and soon started in the magistracy and politics, always in the Liberal Party. He was provincial deputy, general deputy and president of the provinces of Alagoas and Bahia.
He was Minister of Agriculture and in the cabinet chaired by José Antônio Saraiva, he was successively Minister of Justice and of the Empire. After the deaths of Zacarias de Góis and Vasconcelos, he took his seat in the empire's senate and shared with Saraiva the leadership of the Liberal Party in his province. His great political moment was his rise to the presidency of the council of ministers (1884), when he sponsored the Law of Sexagenaires, landmark important in the abolitionist campaign, but the project was rejected in the chamber and the cabinet had to resign (1885), when he tried a new composition.
The law would be sanctioned by a third, conservative cabinet under the presidency of the Baron of Cotejipe, on September 28 of the same year, the day on which the fourth anniversary of the Law of Free belly. In the republic he was president of Banco do Brasil and held the position after its transformation into Banco da República (1892). He was the father of Rodolfo Epifânio de Sousa Dantas, politician and journalist, founder of Jornal do Brasil, and grandfather of Luís Martins de Sousa Dantas, ambassador in Paris (1920-1942) and died in the city of Rio de January.
Source: Biographies - Academic Unit of Civil Engineering / UFCG
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COSTA, Keilla Renata. "Manuel Pinto de Sousa Dantas"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/biografia/manuel-pinto-de-sousa-dantas.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.