SAMBAS AND HANDCUFFS – THE REPRESSION OF SAMBAS DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (1800 – 1899). A LOOK THROUGH NATIONAL JOURNALS

Abstract

This work, inserted in a more comprehensive research on samba in the national press of the nineteenth century (1800 to 1899), seeks to investigate which elements were involved in the arrests related to the performance of samba. The methodology adopted consisted of a systematic search for the term "samba" in the Digital Newspaper Library of the National Library, followed by a process of selection and cataloguing of the results, in order to eliminate duplications and errors. After this stage, 1,088 records were obtained, of which 4.59% correspond to news that mention arrests, composing the database of this research. The scarcity of academic works that address the intersection between samba and prisons in the nineteenth century, evidenced by searches carried out in databases such as SciELO, CAPES and Google Scholar, demonstrates the relevance of this study for the construction of samba historiography. By analyzing this theme, we will contribute to a deeper understanding of the social and cultural dynamics that have shaped the history of the musical genre in Brazil. In the context of slave-owning Brazil, the cultural manifestations of the enslaved, such as samba, were viewed with suspicion, even forbidden by law in some cases by the elites and often associated with disorder and criminality. This is an important mark, as it will go through almost the entire period of the research.