The story in brief
Porto Alegre, 1864. A butcher who supposedly left for Montevideo. A shopkeeper who never comes back from a dinner. In José Ramos’s house on the Rua do Arvoredo, the police find out what happened to them. A forged receipt, two juries, a city in uproar. And, in the century that followed, a legend no paper of 1864 confirms. An account of real crimes, without violent detail.
The chapters
-
Chapter 1 · 4 min · Free
Gone to Montevideo
For more than a century, Porto Alegre has told the same story about a house on the Rua do Arvoredo. Almost no one has read what the papers of 1864 say.
Sources: Criminal case no. 1070 (1864), transcribed by the Arquivo Histórico do RS (1993); O Mercantil and Deutsche Zeitung, April 1864
-
Chapter 2 · 4 min · Free
The Search
The police enter a house on the Rua do Arvoredo looking for a man in debt. The next day, the whole city is in the street.
Sources: O Mercantil, 19 to 26 April 1864; Deutsche Zeitung, April 1864; Criminal case no. 1070 (1864)
-
Chapter 3 · 5 min
The Receipt
A signed paper was supposed to clear José Ramos. Two experts take a close look at the signature.
Sources: Criminal case no. 1070 (1864): the handwriting examination, the interrogations and the jury; Almanaque Literário e Estatístico do Rio Grande do Sul for 1897
-
Chapter 4 · 4 min
How a Legend Is Born
No paper of 1864 confirms the legend. Even so, it has lasted more than a century. Someone kept on writing it.
Sources: O Diógenes, 24 April 1864; Achylles Porto Alegre, História popular de Porto Alegre (1940); Cláudio Pereira Elmir (2004, 2005 and 2009); Sandra Jatahy Pesavento (2008)
-
Chapter 5 · 4 min
The Greatest Crime on Earth
In 1996, the author of a history book claimed to have seen the papers that proved the legend. A historian spent years looking for them.
Sources: Décio Freitas, O maior crime da Terra (1996); Cláudio Pereira Elmir, A história devorada (2003 and 2004); Cristina Fuentes Hamerski (FURG, 2010); Cláudio Elmir and Paulo Moreira, Odiosos homicídios (2010)
What you’ll be able to tell
This story belongs to the journey “Legend and Record”. By the end of it, you can tell what the legend made up and what the documents prove, case by case.
Stories in this journey
- Jack the Ripper: The Five Women of Whitechapel
- H. H. Holmes: The Castle the Papers Built
- Rua do Arvoredo: The Sausage Legend of Porto Alegre
- Elizabeth Báthory: The Countess and the Blood Legend
Sources
- Criminal case no. 1070 (1864), transcribed in Os crimes da Rua do Arvoredo (Arquivo Histórico do RS, 1993)
- O Mercantil, O Diógenes and Deutsche Zeitung (April 1864)
- Cláudio Pereira Elmir, A história devorada (2004)
- Cristina Fuentes Hamerski (FURG, 2010)
- Sandra Jatahy Pesavento (2008)
