From the second half of the nineteenth century until the 1920s, Brazilian intellectuals and, by extension, the literate population debated two opposing views of the elements constituting their society: on the one hand, the myth of the noble savage, based on the theory of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and on the other, representations of black people embodying negative traits, such as intractability, laziness, backwardness, ignorance and unreliability. Those feelings were associated with the experience of slavery, when balance and instability were constantly threatened by the possibility of conflict between the enslaved and their masters. After abolition in 1888, the negative image of blacks and pardos grew worse, as the elite feared that the former slave, once free of the master's control, would engage in criminal behaviour, putting society and its institutions at risk.  
In 1850, the Brazilian government passed a law by which land could only be legally owned if it were gained through commercial transaction or inheritance. Almost 40 years later, when slavery was finally abolished, legislation denied any kind of support to the newly freed, as the law of 1850 prevented such workers from occupying the vast swathes of available public land, thus imposing a situation of bondage and economic insecurity that would culminate in rural-tourban migration and lead to an increase in criminality and its violent repression. By the end of the nineteenth century, blackness was associated with crime, poverty, diseases and marginality (Fausto, 1984; Ribeiro, 1995).  
When the republicans replaced the monarchy in 1889, their promise of modernity and progress was inspired by the positivist philosophy. The first challenges for the new government were those of controlling and organizing society, dominated by the military and planters; solving the labour crisis created