A Tale of Two Cities: Transatlantic Radicalism and the British Maritime Roots of Brazil’s Revolt of the Lash

For four days in November 1910, the Brazilian capital of Rio de Janeiro was besieged by one of the modern world’s greatest naval mutinies, as nearly 2,500 sailors, the vast majority of them Afro-Brazilian, rose up against their white officers and took command of three warships.  The rebel sailors demanded improved conditions, including an end to the widespread practice of disciplinary flogging, and threatened to shell the capital city if their demands were not met.  While the rebels’ grievances centered on the treatment of enlisted men, which had changed little in the two decades since slavery’s abolition in Brazil, the rebellion itself was more than mere response to the inhumane treatment meted out to sailors.  More than one thousand of the rebels had spent part of the previous two years in Newcastle, training to take possession of two dreadnought class battleships under construction at the shipyards of George W. Armstrong & Co. while boarding in hotels, freely interacting with other residents of the northern English port city.  Their experiences in Newcastle, and the city’s comparatively open social climate, would serve as a stimulant to revolt upon the sailors’ subsequent Brazilian homecoming.  The degree to which this was the case is indicative of the broader Atlantic roots of the 1910 revolt.