Black, Baptist, and Citizen: José de Souza Marques and His Social Trajectory between 1894 and 1945
Brazilian Protestantism; Post-abolition; Trajectory
This research traces the trajectory of José de Souza Marques between 1894 and 1945, examining his experience as a Black man seeking social affirmation in the public sphere of Rio de Janeiro. It seeks to understand how this agency was constituted at the intersection of religion, education, and race in the post-abolition period, elements that, taken together, fostered his social mobility. At the same time, the study examines the racial tensions that pervaded Protestantism, seeking to understand how Black individuals within this religious universe confronted the barriers imposed by racial hierarchies and forged their own strategies of negotiation in a society still marked by the stigmas of slavery. Accordingly, the investigation draws on ecclesiastical sources, letters, newspapers, and parish records, engaging with Italian microhistory and English social history. Marques's trajectory functions as a window onto broader historical processes, revealing the connections between individual experience and the social structures of his time. The thesis therefore seeks to analyze the history of Protestantism in Rio de Janeiro, the experiences of the Black population in the city, and the processes of citizenship construction over the first four decades of the twentieth century.