ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: SLAVE LEGACIES, AMBIVALENT ...

dialogue. Vendors negotiated with the law primarily as individual citizens and
secondarily as commercial agents or workers. Republican rule cemented the
gradual shift from State regulation of street commercial activity to the monitoring
of individual behavior – a process that originated in the late slave period and came
to fruition with the hegemonic construction of republican citizenship. In the
transition to free labor, the individual took precedence over the market, as it was
political and not economic liberalism that was dramatically transforming society
with the elimination of the slave.
The regularization and enclosure of traditional outdoor markets reflected the
municipality‟s decision to do away with the “African” markets, reminiscent of the
“backward” slave period and thus incompatible with the republican ideal of “order
and progress.” Within the world of street commerce, the “black city” (cidade
negra) –characterized by the presence of African markets and black marketeers –
gradually disappeared, at least within the formal economy. 49 Several markets
operating in Rio since the early-mid nineteenth century, such as the Mercado da
Candelaria (founded in 1835), the Mercado da Praça Harmonia (1835), and the
Mercado da Glória (1840), did not disappear, but were modernized under the Passos
reforms (1902-1906). 50 Although ambulantes were not allowed to sell in these
markets, they still did, engaging in confrontations with the police. As John Cross
argues in his study of street commerce in Mexico City, “street vendors are in a
constant state of potential or actual conflict over space in a way that puts them at
49
Roberto Moura, Tia Ciata e a pequena África no Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro: FUNARTE,
1983).
50
Samuel Gorberg and Segio A. Fridman, Mercados no Rio de Janeiro, 1834-1962 (Rio de
Janeiro: S. Gorberg, 2003).
24