Francisco José do Nascimento

Francisco José do Nascimento was born in Canoa Quebrada. He was known as "Chico da Matilde", after his mother, Matilde da Conceição. His father died when he was eight years old. Unable to raise her child, Matilde sent Francisco to work for the Portuguese commander José Raimundo de Carvalho.[2] He learned to read and write and worked at the commander's sailboat "Tubarão" until he was 20 years old. Francisco married to Joaquina Francisca and worked at the port of Fortaleza as a pilot, driving ships to the harbor.

The state of Ceará was struck by a severe drought in 1877–78. Several landowners rushed to sell their slaves to the southern port of Rio de Janeiro. In the state, there was a strong abolitionist movement, led by white intellectuals. Francisco, a mulatto, distraught with his role in the slavery, associated with the abolitionists. On August 30, 1881, the harbor workers of Fortaleza were on strike, refusing to transport black slaves to the southern Brazil.[3] The port authority fired Francisco and other harbor workers. Nevertheless, the state of Ceará abolished slavery in 1884, four years before the rest of Brazil.[4] Francisco was celebrated and invited to visit Rio de Janeiro. There he was received as a hero by the local abolitionists; the writer Aluísio de Azevedo was the first to refer to him as "Dragão do Mar.[5]

Francisco José do Nascimento died in 1914, in Fortaleza.

The Dragão do Mar Center of Art and Culture, founded in 1999 in Fortaleza, was named after him.

In 2017, Francisco's name was written into the "Book of Steel" in the Tancredo Neves Pantheon of the Fatherland and Freedom, in Brasília.[6]