PHAIS Seminar Series Week 6: Professor Matthias Röhrig Assunção (History)

The PHAIS Seminar Series meets weekly in term time to discuss a paper by a visiting Philosopher, Historian, Art Historian or a member of our academic staff.

Peasant Rebellion in a Slave Society: The Balaiada in Maranhão, Brazil, 1800-1850

Professor Matthias Röhrig Assunção, University of Essex

The book identifies the reasons for the Balaiada revolt in nineteenth-century Maranhão, Brazil, analysing the special characteristics of the region that favoured the development of a relatively independent peasantry within and around the cotton plantations in an area covered by Amazonian rainforest. The “People of Colour,” as they called themselves, and enslaved workers from plantations rose against a white and conservative elite, claiming their recently granted constitutional rights or their freedom. More recently their descendants have been at the forefront in the struggle to have collective rights to land recognised. The round table will attempt to locate the findings among the wider literature about plantation slavery and its aftermath in the Americas and Atlantic rebellions in the Age of Revolutions.

https://www.academia.edu/122212302/Peasant_Rebellion_in_Slave_Society_Contents_New_Preface_for_English_ed_2024_

Biography

From 1985 to 1992 I taught History at the Latin American Institute of the FU Berlin, before coming to Essex in 1993. I have been a visiting lecturer at various Brazilian universities and am associate researcher of the Laboratory of Oral History and Image (LABHOI) and the Research Centre for Cultural History (NUPEHC), both located at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro state in Niteroi (UFF). 
Since researching for my PhD (1990) I'm interested in the history of plantation societies, in particular of Maranhão and Northern Brazil, and the political mobilisation of enslaved and free lower classes during the 19th century. Following my work on the history of capoeira  I’m trying to understand the development of combat games in the Black Atlantic, in particular in Southern Angola, as well as the formation of popular culture in Brazil. I'm currently carrying out a research project about the history of capoeira in Rio de Janeiro in the second half of the 20th century (see more at www.capoeirahistory.com).

The seminar will be delivered in person, but a Zoom link will be available for those who wish to attend remotely. Please email phaispg@essex.ac.uk to request the link.