The Stevedores and the Workers' Movement in Manaus

(1899-1925)

Abstract

The article discusses the process of organization, mobilization and workers’ struggle developed by the dockers of the port of Manaus, throughout the República Velha. The theoretical focus lies on the Social History of Work and the approaches that thematized, in Brazil and in the world, worker associations, whether in its mutualist modality or in its union form. Based mainly on sources from Amazonian journalism, the various strikes triggered by the category between the years 1899 and 1925 were analyzed, seeing in them a rich and slow process of dynamization of workers' consciousness, of struggles for rights and citizenship in the country.