November 8, 1799, four poor free colored men were hanged at Piedade square, Salvador. They had been convicted of conspiracy against the Portuguese Crown. Thanks to a report by a Carmelite friar, José do Monte Carmelo, who heard the confessions of the four convicts, we know about the last moments of those four men. His report deals with two different issues regarding the 1798 Conspiracy in Bahia. One is the position of a Christian regarding opposing forces: reason/revelation, freedom/despotism, nature/civilization, moral/politics, and enlightenment/darkness. The other one is that, in addition to the drama presented by the hanging of four men, who publicly repented for listening to the ideas of freedom and equality, the Carmelite friar also reported that those men were not the only ones who were guilty of the said events afore done. He further suggests the local authorities had not been fair, implying that there could have been people from higher social positions involved in the conspiracy. This is the subject of this paper.
conspiracy; punishment; Carmelite friar; Bahia; XVIII century.