Prata Preta

One of the biggest urban uprisings of the beginning of the twentieth century was led by Horácio José da Silva. In the well-known Vaccine Revolt, in November 1904, the city of Rio de Janeiro was besieged by hundreds of rebels. The revolt was a protest against the public authorities’ intolerance. Known by the nickname of Prata Preta (Black Silver), Horácio was a thirty-year old dockworker and famous capoeirista. He gained “fame for his bravery and fierceness” and for being the “commander of Porto Arthur in Saúde,” a kind of last bulwark of the rebels’ resistance, between the Saúde neighborhood and modern-day Praça da Harmonia, in the city center.