Listen to the sounds of people protesting the price of public transport. This isn’t the mass outcry that took hold of Brazil in June 2013, erupting from a price-hike for bus fares in Rio. No, we are now in the final weeks of 1879. Between December 28 and January 4, the Revolta do Vintem – or 20-buck Revolt – rattled the streets of Rio de Janeiro. The people rose up against an increase in fares for streetcars in Rio, which was Brazil’s capital city at the time. Everyone would have to pay R$20, known as one vintem, to use public transportation.
The people yelled:
“Down with the vintem!”
The tracks where streetcars used to pass by, pulled by donkeys, once lay where the bustling Urugaiana metro station now stands.
On the first day of 1880, when the price increase was meant to come into effect, a crowd of around 5,000 protestors beat the conductors, stabbed the donkeys, and even ripped the tracks out of the ground along Uruguaiana Street.
The police could not contain the protest, and the army was called into the city. The people received the soldiers with stones – and the military responded with violence. No one has determined the exact death count from that day.
The result: the Ministry yielded and the price-hike did not take effect in Rio de Janeiro.