Diseases, food, and resistance in the Bahia penitentiary, 1861-1865

Abstract

This study on prisoners' diseases and food conditions in the early days of operation of the Casa de Prisão com Trabalho (labor penitentiary) in Salvador, Bahia, analyzes prisoner strategies for obtaining medical treatment and decent food. In their resistance and struggle to achieve more breathing room within the new prison model, which authorities hoped to implement at Bahia's first penitentiary, prisoners themselves took advantage of the new official norms. Even when deprived of such basic necessities as health and food, prisoners were not passive victims of the new prison system but instead engaged actively in the construction of their own history.