The identity of Manaus Sailors in the world of stories read and told in the First Brazilian Republic

Abstract

The port of Manaus was restructured between 1903 and 1907 to include a modern floating anchorage with the aim of supporting the export economy, which was then focused on rubber trade, the second largest product in Brazil after coffee. The capital of Amazonas had at the time one of the main ports in the country, and the most important one in the interior of the continent. The allocation of sailors from other places and countries in this period put the ships and the city itself in the limelight of the national and international publishing market, as well as in the flow of oral narratives. Newspapers, novels and other stories allow us to question how the sailors were seen and how they came to be perceived. Orality, and the circulation of printed material are an expression of an ethos of seamanship, and also an expression of the very creation of this imaginary in terms of experience, through which we aim to understand the formation of an identity of workers in their daily life and labor.