This paper addresses the place, the actions and the social insertion of Black people in the context of the forested area of Rio Grande do Sul, during the period of the First Republic. Based on the current historiographical production on the subject, and through the analysis of some situations experienced by Black men and women, which are described in criminal lawsuits filed in the Counties of Cruz Alta, Palmeira das Missões and Santo Ângelo, I seek to know and discuss the reality experienced by such populations in a region that lived, at the time, an intense settlement process.
Black people; post-Abolition; prejudices; freedom; agrarian frontier.