A-Infos (en) Italy, Umanita Nova - The Green Hell: The Cleveland Concentration Camp (1924-1926) (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe defined necropolitics as those 
policies and actions created by the state to determine which individuals 
live and which individuals die. Necropolitics establishes death zones, 
where subversive individuals, unruly bodies, and dangerous ideas are 
confined and left to die. Concentration camps and refugee camps, for 
example, are examples of necropolitics.
The Cleveland Penal Colony (Oiapoque, Brazil) operated between 1924 and 
1926, under the authoritarian government of Arthur Bernardes 
(1922-1926). During this period, Bernardes's enemies were sent there, as 
well as common prisoners arrested for theft, vagrancy, and so on. 
Anarchist workers were also sent there.

Between 1924 and 1926, approximately 1,300 people were sent to 
Cleveland. About 700 of them died. By comparison, during the 
civil-military dictatorship (1964-1985), approximately 450 people 
disappeared or were killed, according to the National Truth Commission.

The repression followed a "scale" that would lead to Cleveland: 
Bernardes' opponents were persecuted and arrested in makeshift police 
stations. They were then placed in the holds of ships that followed 
exclusive routes created for the transport of prisoners to Oiapoque. The 
holds of the ships were veritable prisons at sea, reproducing the filthy 
environments of police stations. This was only the beginning of an even 
worse future situation: Cleveland, the Green Hell.

The libertarians sent to Cleveland were: Domingos Passos, Domingos Braz 
(Italian), Pedro Augusto Motta, Nino Martins, Nicolau Paradas 
(Spanish-Galician), Thomaz Derliz Borche (Afro-Uruguayan), José Batista 
da Silva, Antônio Salgado, Fernandes Varella, Biofilo Panclastra 
(Colombian), José Nascimento Alves, Antônio da Costa, Manoel Ferreira 
Gomes (Portuguese), Pedro Carneiro, among others.

Pedro Motta, Nicolau Paradas, Nino Martins, José Maria Fernandes 
Varella, and José Alves do Nascimento died in Cleveland, or while 
attempting to escape. The anarchist Fernandes Varella even sent letters 
to the anarchist newspaper A Plebe, describing the terrible conditions 
there and his own agony. Varella died a few days after this declaration.

In Cleveland, falling ill was almost a certainty of death. Some 
testimonies claimed that doctors and nurses arbitrarily injected inmates 
with quinine. In addition to malnutrition, prisoners suffered and died 
from tuberculosis, malaria, and dysentery. The Afro-indigenous anarchist 
Domingos Passos also sent letters to the workers' press, recounting 
torture, beatings, and neglect. Domingos Passos managed to escape and 
arrive alive in Belém do Pará.

One of the survivors, the Italian anarchist Domingos Braz, described the 
types of prisoners held in Cleveland: Wretched beggars for the infamy of 
being old, disabled, rejected and derided by society, because there are 
no shelters here to take them in; countless sons of the people confused 
among the vagabonds (...) for the inconceivable crime of not having the 
resources to buy their freedom from the officers who arrested them; and 
several trade unionists and anarchists. TO THE PEOPLE. No. 245. Date: 
February 12, 1927.

In the same letter, Braz describes the deadly environment of Cleveland: 
Oiapoque is a place devoid of medical resources. Even sanitary and 
hygienic precepts are unknown. The unfortunate deportees sleep in groups 
of a hundred or more. Dirty and disgusting barracks covered with boards 
or straw on the top and sides-this is their accommodation. Marsh fever, 
dysentery, and gastroenteritis find a vast and widespread breeding 
ground in them, claiming daily victims with impunity. Added to all this 
is the poor, inadequate, and irregular diet, and, in most cases, devoid 
of any seasoning. TO THE PEOPLE. No. 245. Date: February 12, 1927.

The condemned in Cleveland were not executed immediately. They were left 
to suffer under the watchful eye of the local administration. They died 
little by little from disease, mistreatment, hunger, exhausting labor, 
and sadness.

Carlos Ferreira de Araujo Junior

REFERENCES

KARLLOS, Jr. Black Brazil Insurgent. Ed. Monstro dos Mares. 2025

MBEMBE, Achille. Necropolitics: Biopower, Soberania, State of Excess, 
Politics of Death. Translated by Renata Santini. São Paulo: N-1 
editions, 2018.

PLEBE, A. no. 245. Date: 12/02/1927.

RODRIGUES, Edgar. Companheiros. History of the Anarchist Movement in Brazil.

SAMIS, Alexandre. Clevelândia: anarchism, syndicalism and repressão 
política no Brazil.

https://umanitanova.org/linferno-verde-il-campo-di-concentramento-di-clevelandia-1924-1926/
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