Saraiva, José Antônio (1823–1895)

José Antônio Saraiva (b. 1 March 1823; d. 23 July 1895), prime minister of Brazil (1880–1882, 1885). After beginning his political career in the judiciary and the provincial legislature of his native Bahia, Saraiva quickly rose to national prominence in the Liberal Party. Between 1850 and 1858 he served as president of the provinces of Piauí, Alagoas, São Paulo, and Pernambuco. In the first of these he ordered the construction of a new capital city, Teresina. In the same years he won election to the national Chamber of Deputies. His success continued in the Congress; in 1857 and in 1865 he held cabinet posts in Liberal ministries.

Saraiva's greatest fame came during his tenure as prime minister. Showing tremendous political skills, he oversaw the passage of important reform laws in both of his administrations. In 1880 he proposed an electoral reform bill that became known as the Saraiva Law after its passage the following year. By mandating direct elections for the two houses of Congress and easing income criteria for voters, this law ostensibly expanded suffrage. Its provisions dealing with how voters were to prove their qualifications were, however, restrictive. In practice, the law ensured that the wealthy and politically powerful would retain control of Brazil's electoral politics.

When Saraiva became prime minister in 1885, after the fall of the Manuel Dantas regime, he once more proposed a key reform bill. This bill was a more conservative version of Dantas's proposal to free all slaves over sixty years of age and to increase the effectiveness of the system of buying slaves' emancipation. In Saraiva's legislation, only slaves aged sixty-five or over would receive freedom immediately; those between sixty and sixty-five would have to continue in their masters' service for up to three more years. By making such concessions to slaveholding interests, Saraiva managed to have his bill passed by the Chamber of Deputies. In the partisan confusion that this reform provoked, approval by the Senate seemed in doubt. In response, Saraiva dissolved his cabinet, thus clearing the way for the Conservative Cotegipe ministry to achieve final passage of the bill, now known as the Saraiva-Cotegipe Law (Sexagenarian Law), in the Senate.

After the advent of the republic in 1889, Saraiva withdrew from politics for two years. He was elected to the new regime's first Senate in 1891, but soon resigned from office.

See alsoBrazil, Liberal Movements; Dantas, Manuel Pinto de Souza; Slave Trade, Abolition of: Brazil.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Robert E. Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 1850–1888 (1972); José Antônio Saraiva: Discursos parlamentares, edited by Álvaro Valle (1978).

Richard Graham, Patronage and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Brazil (1990).

                                   Roger A. Kittleson