Based on humorous cartoons and texts published in Rio de Janeiro magazines during the First Repubic - specially between 1898 e 1918 -, the paper analyses the place of the blacks and the idea of "national race". It discusses in what extent humor can expose mechanisms that are barely visible, reflecting racial prejudices, and can reveal new cultural traditions of African origin as well as resistance strategies. Evoking recent historiography about the period, it also demonstrates how, in the cartoon universe, the image of a "Brazilian race" based on the crossing of races was being framed. This search for a Brazilian mixed identity is renewed during the First World War, when the cartoonists insist on the representation of the decadence of the countries seen as civilized and interrogate themselves about the place of Brazil in the world.
cartoon; First Republic; black; national race; crossing of races; post-abolition of slavery; Mariner's Rebellion; First World War
