5 - The Abolitionist

Summary

Since her death in 1885, Floresta's biographers have consistently identified her as an abolitionist, claims which are second only to her feminist label. Roberto Seidl suggests that she should be afforded ‘o titulo incontestavel de precursora da propaganda das ideias e doutrinas abolicionistas’. Rather more emphatically, Adauto da Câmara states that Floresta deserves to be ‘inscrita no rol de Nabuco, Patrocínio, Luiz Gama, Rui, Tavares Bastos, José Bonifácio, etc.’ Seidl also observes how it is precisely through her condemnation of slavery that Floresta's name became known again in Brazil at the end of the nineteenth century when positivists reproduced anti-slavery passages from her European works, claiming her as an abolitionist, and a disciple of Positivism, long before she was heralded as Brazil's first feminist. However, it is not just her published writing which has earned Floresta the title of abolitionist. Biographers have also afforded considerable significance to the undocumented 1842 meetings, discussed on page 5 in the Introduction, at which Floresta is said to have spoken in favour of abolition. Constância Lima Duarte observes that it is this title of ‘abolicionista’, together with that of ‘defensora dos direitos das mulheres’, ‘que mais lhe granjeou estima e admiração dos estudiosos’. This chapter will look at Floresta's many varied discussions of slavery and consider whether such claims regarding her status as an abolitionist are justified.