those of fearful authorities and masters in what they referred to as 'Haitianism' (Mattoso, 1969; Tavares, 1975; Reis and Gomes, 2009, pp. 284-313).  
Throughout the process of Portuguese decolonization in Brazil, the exacerbated anticolonial discourse came to somehow serve black rebellion. The patriotic propaganda insisted on the metaphor of slavery in order to represent the ties linking Brazil and Portugal: Brazil was Portugal's 'slave' while independence 'would free' Brazilians from its Portuguese 'shackles'. In some cases, the enslaved translated the white men's words into their own cause, particularly crioulo slaves more influenced by national culture and patriotic discourse. In 1821, in Itu, São Paulo, a rumour spread among the enslaved that Lisbon had announced an end to slavery, but that Brazilian slave masters and authorities insisted on maintaining the regime. In 1822 - the year in which Brazil proclaimed its separation from Portugal - an insurrection occurred in the town of Serra, in Espírito Santo, when a slave invited others to listen to a priest proclaiming their freedom, 'and everyone appeared at the mass carrying fire arms and sticks' (Ricci, 1993, pp. 222-226, 258; Almada, 1984, p. 166).  
Among political shifts, the most significant for slave rebels were the long abolitionist trajectory, from the laws prohibiting the slave trade to those which reformed slavery, and the memorable campaigns in the 1880s, the final decade of the regime. Enslaved people made an active contribution to the collapse and extinction of Brazilian slavery. Their visions of freedom often clashed with the gradualist vision of official abolitionism, as they made their own, often radical reading of conditions threatening the survival of the system.