Country leagues (Brazil)

Country Portuguese leagues (: Ligas Camponesas) are a Brazilian social movement which appeared as from the decade of 1950 in the state of the Pernambouc. Its origin goes up with the old country leagues of the decade of 1940 coming from the action of the Brazilian Communist party in the campaigns. With the return of the PCB to clandestinity in 1945, the Country Leagues were abolished; some survived but without much influence. Francisco Julião appointed federal in Pernambouc, pertaining to the Brazilian Socialist party was the person in charge of the survival of the movement seeking with other deputies of the supports for the hereditary lessees very repressed by the ground great landowners. It recorded the leagues in body of notaries providing them a statute and the legal cover which they needed.

In 1954 with the factory of Galiléia sugar, town of Vitória de Santo Antão, Sociedade Agrícola E Pecuária de Plantadores de Pernambuco (SAPPP), (in French: Agricultural company and of breeding of growers of Pernambouc) had three objectives:

to help the peasants in the funerary expenses avoiding thus that they are practically buried in common graves
to provide them medical help, legal and of education
and to form a co-operative of credit to release little by little the peasants of the capacity of the big landowners.

Approximately a hundred and forty families of peasants worked in the Galileo factory under mode of Emphytéose to cultivate the ground and were to pay a fixed silver value with the owner of the ground. It should be said that the grounds of this factory were exhausted and were not appropriate any more for the culture of the Canne for sugar.

At the beginning, the SAPPP received the support of the owner of Galiléia, one offered to him even an honorary title in the movement. However other owners of the area announced to him that the movement would have goals Communiste S and thus could be dangerous. The owner of the factory gave order to immediately remove the movement threatening the peasants of expulsion and also to increase the values to be paid. The peasants decided to resist but they knew that isolated in the countryside, they would not resist a long time. They decided to seek support downtown. This support and the necessary legal cover was given to them by the deputy Francisco Julião.

January 1st, 1955. , the SAPPP started to function legally.

The preserving press quickly called the SAPPP of “league” in remembering the movements of the years 1940. In 1959, the SAPPP manages to make exproprier the factory. The movement was spread inside the state and the victory of the “galiléens” made dream with the Land reform. At the beginning of the decade of 1960, the leagues existed in 13 Brazilian states and were known inside and abroad.

The dictatorship of 1964, put a term at the dreams of the peasants because the main leaders were stopped and the savagely persecuted movement. In a certain way, one can consider that MST (Movement of the rural workers without ground) is the successor of the leagues.

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