Os Quebra-Quilos : uma análise documental acerca do advento de um movimento popular no nordeste brasileiro, em particular nas Alagoas, durante o II reinado

Abstract

The actual work has the purpose of analyzing the advent of the Quebra-Quilos Revolt in Alagoas, its developments, and consequences. For this, however, it is necessary, at first, to elucidate the differences between revolt and revolution, in addition to exposing the origin of this popular movement, the main triggering factors, and how it propagated. The revolt began when on October 31, 1874, merchants from the village of Fagundes, in Campina Grande, Paraíba, revolted and destroyed the new instruments for weights and measures of the decimal metric system. Formed largely by peasants, they resorted to violence to protest against the increase and creation of new taxes, the high prices of goods, the forced implementation of the new metric system, the fear of being called up for the army, and the arrest of important clerics. Called "Quebra-Quilos", this revolt extended from Paraíba to Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte, and, finally, Alagoas before being repressed by provincial and imperial authorities.