Brazil’s late imperial capital was filled with contradiction. Rio de Janeiro displayed royal ceremony and modern ambition while remaining bound to slavery and racial hierarchy. In that city, one Black man made himself impossible to ignore. His name was Cândido da Fonseca Galvão, remembered by the title he claimed and the public presence he cultivated, Dom Obá II d’Africa.
He held no formal office and commanded no great wealth. Yet he became a recognised figure in the streets, the press, and the spaces surrounding power. As a veteran, petitioner, and writer, he treated visibility as a political tool. His life reveals how public insistence could challenge exclusion in the final decades of the Brazilian Empire.
A free man from Bahia in a slave society
Galvão was born in Lençóis, Bahia, around 1845. He lived as a free man in a country where millions remained enslaved. Accounts of his life describe him as the son of a freed African, placing him within the growing population of free people of colour who navigated opportunity alongside constant insult. Bahia, particularly, sustained strong African cultural continuities, including Yoruba language and social traditions among Africans and their descendants.
READ MORE: Ancient & Pre-Colonial Nigeria
From early on, Galvão framed his identity in ways that confronted Brazil’s racial order. He presented himself publicly as a man of African nobility, using the language of kingship and honour as a counterclaim to everyday contempt. His chosen title fused Portuguese markers of status with Yoruba political symbolism. By doing so, he asserted dignity on his own terms in a society determined to deny it.
The Paraguayan War and the meaning of service
In 1865, Brazil entered the War of the Triple Alliance, commonly known as the Paraguayan War. The conflict demanded manpower, and Black enlistment carried special meaning in a nation that still upheld slavery while calling Black men to fight.
Galvão volunteered. A widely cited account records that he brought around thirty Black men from Lençóis to enlist with an all Black Zuavo company in 1865. These units existed within a military structure shaped by racial hierarchy, yet service created claims, to recognition, to belonging, and to respect. For Galvão, military service became a foundation for later public demands.
Rio de Janeiro and politics on the street
After the war, Galvão moved to Rio de Janeiro, the imperial capital. Politics there extended far beyond parliament. Newspapers, cafés, barracks, and streets all served as arenas of power. Galvão became famous not because elites welcomed him, but because he refused to disappear.
He cultivated a striking public appearance, often described as formal and ceremonial. The presentation mattered. It announced that he expected to be seen and heard. He used letters and print culture to press demands, defending Black soldiers, veterans, and the dignity of people routinely excluded from public consideration.
The palace gate and the emperor
One of the most remarkable features of Galvão’s public life was his persistence in seeking access to Pedro II, the emperor of Brazil. A major biographical account records that Galvão attended 125 imperial audiences between 17 June 1882 and 13 December 1884.
These appearances transformed repetition into strategy. By turning up again and again, he challenged assumptions about who belonged near the symbolic centre of power. Reactions varied. Some observers mocked him, others dismissed him as inconvenient. Yet the documented pattern of access shows that he forced a connection between the palace and the streets of Rio, however limited and fragile that connection may have been.
Letters, demands, and public confrontation
Galvão’s activism relied on writing, petitioning, and direct presence. He insisted that Black soldiers had earned honour through service. He criticised racism as a public injustice rather than a private slight. At times, he defended the monarchy even while condemning the social order it protected. This tension reflected the complex strategies available to Black political actors in the late Empire, appeals to imperial authority alongside sharp critique of everyday exclusion.
Without formal office, Galvão still practised politics. He turned ceremony into a contested space and made persistence itself a form of pressure.
EXPLORE NOW: Military Era & Coups in Nigeria
Abolition, regime change, and the end of a public life
Slavery ended in Brazil in 1888, but abolition arrived without land redistribution or meaningful guarantees of equality. The monarchy fell in 1889, replaced by a republic that preserved many old hierarchies. Galvão died in Rio de Janeiro on 8 July 1890, living just long enough to witness abolition and regime change.
His death did not erase his significance. Later historians returned to him as a figure who illuminated Afro Brazilian political imagination and the ways Black citizens navigated power in a society structured against them.
Why Dom Obá still matters
Dom Obá II d’Africa matters because he shows how politics can be practised from below. He used war service, public writing, and relentless presence to challenge racial hierarchy. In a city that preferred Black silence, he made himself visible. In a nation that questioned Black dignity, he demanded recognition.
Author’s Note
Dom Obá’s life is a lesson in public insistence. By refusing to retreat, by writing, petitioning, and appearing where he was not expected, he transformed visibility into resistance. His story reminds us that dignity can be practised daily, in the open, until power is forced to acknowledge it.
References
Silva, Eduardo. Prince of the People, The Life and Times of a Brazilian Free Man of Colour. Translated by Moyra Ashford. Verso, 1993.
Kraay, Hendrik. Studies on slavery, citizenship, and military service during Brazil’s Paraguayan War, including Black Zuavo enlistment.
Encyclopedia reference entry. “Dom Obá II d’Africa,” biographical overview and key dates.
