Dragão do Mar

Francisco José do Nascimento (April 15, 1839 – March 5, 1914), known as Dragão do Mar (Sea Dragon), was an Afro-Brazilian[1] raft fisherman (jangadeiro),[2] pilot and abolitionist figure, who in 1881 led a strike of his fellow jangadeiros in the port of Fortaleza, state of Ceará, refusing to transport enslaved black people to be sold in Rio de Janeiro and other Brazilian provinces.

Unable to raise her child, Matilde sent Nascimento to work for the Portuguese commander José Raimundo de Carvalho.

Nascimento married to Joaquina Francisca and worked at the port of Fortaleza as a pilot, driving ships to the harbor.

On August 30, 1881, the jangadeiros of Fortaleza were on strike, refusing to transport black slaves to southern Brazil.

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".