Qualla: 1798 Revolt of the Alfaiates

1798 Revolt of the Alfaiates: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The four men who hanged in Salvador on November 8, 1799 were a tailor, a soldier, a soldier, and a master tailor. They were all Afro-Brazilian, all poor, all mixed-race - classified by colonial society as mulatto. They had tried to make Bahia into a republic where everyone was equal, where the enslaved would be freed, where the ports would be open to any nation, where race could no longer determine your station. A forty-four-line poem circulated through the streets of Salvador spreading their ideas. For two weeks, authorities tracked down forty conspirators. Within sixteen months, four were dead. Their names were João de Deus do Nascimento, Lucas Dantas d'Amorim Torres, Manuel Faustino dos Santos Lira, and Luís Gonzaga dos Virgens.

1798 Revolt of the Alfaiates: The First Brazilian Social Revolution

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Historians call it the Revolt of the Tailors, the Bahian Conspiracy, the Revolt of Buzios - or, because of the broad working-class base, the First Brazilian Social Revolution. It stood apart from the better-remembered Inconfidência Mineira of 1789, which was led by white elites a...

1798 Revolt of the Alfaiates: The Tailors' Shop as Political Space

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Salvador was the first capital of colonial Brazil and a city built on sugar, enslaved labor, and global trade. By the 1790s, Enlightenment ideas had reached the city through European books, visiting sailors, and - especially - French intermediaries. The Knights of Light, a Masoni...

1798 Revolt of the Alfaiates: The Forty-Four-Line Poem

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Francisco Moniz Barreto, a teacher and member of the Knights of Light, wrote a forty-four-line poem in support of the conspiracy's ideals - independence, equality, liberty, reason. The poem circulated quickly. Luís Gonzaga dos Virgens, a soldier, was arrested on August 22 for spr...

1798 Revolt of the Alfaiates: The Gallows and the Acquittals

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Less than two weeks after the first arrests, authorities had apprehended forty people. Thirty-six were brought to trial. Seventeen were absolved. Four received prison sentences. Eight were exiled to Africa - meaning they were shipped as unfree passengers across the Atlantic. Two ...

1798 Revolt of the Alfaiates: What Class Decided

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

"The plot and resultant repression," wrote one historian, "demonstrates the divergent goals that previously silent social groups were bringing to the foreground, and the importance of class position in determining the depth of commitment of individual insurgents." Put plainly: th...