Amaro Soares Quintas was born in Recife, on March 22, 1911, son of the Judge Gabriel Soares Quintas and Laura Pacheco Quintas.
Historian, lawyer, professor and writer, he was one of the most respected historians in Pernambuco and one of the best professors of history of the colleges and universities of Pernambuco.
Bachelor of Law from the Faculty of Law of Recife, he practiced law in Recife, being awarded the medal "José Paulo Cavalcanti" for having completed 60 years of registration in the Bar Association of Brazil-PE.
In addition to being a lawyer, he was also a professor of history of the Pernambuco Gymnasium and, later, its Director. He was part, among others, of the teaching body of the Faculty of Philosophy of Recife (Fafire); of the Israeli College; of the Oswaldo Cruz School; of the Catholic University of Pernambuco (Unicap), of the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) and of the Faculty of Philosophy of Campina Grande, in Paraíba.
He was never a professional politician nor a candidate to elective positions, but he held a declared political standing. He was opposed to the Vargas dictatorship (1937/1945) and was therefore persecuted.
When the National Democratic Union (UDN) was organized as an opposition party to the Estado Novo, in 1944, Amaro Quintas became a militant of the Democratic Left, presided over in Recife by Gilberto Freyre. By separating from the UDN, the Democratic Left became an autonomous party, including support for divorce in its political programme. As a practicing Catholic, Quintas did not accept this support, and hence withdrew from the party. Despite his partisan dismissal, however, he continued to defend the claims of the Brazilian left at the time, such as the state oil monopoly, agrarian reform, the fight against the Brazil-United States military agreement.
He was elected to the Pernambuco Academy of Letters, taking office on January 26, 1962, and was a partner, among other institutions, of the Historical and Geographical Archaeological Institute of Pernambuco.
He collaborated with the Recife newspapers Diario de Pernambuco and Jornal do Commercio, where he wrote several articles on history and politics.
In 1964, with the beginning of the military dictatorship and the creation of the Institutional Act No. 5 (AI-5), he was revoked for having made a conference at the Santa Isabel Theater on the subject The free determination of peoples, including in the text the subject of the free choice of political regime, which caused dissatisfaction of the military. He was not imprisoned only due to the fact he was helped and hidden by his great friend Gilberto Freyre.
He was the first director of the Department of Social History of the Joaquim Nabuco Institute of Social Research, currently Joaquim Nabuco Foundation, a position he held until 1964, when he was revoked.
Specialist in the libertarian movements of Pernambuco, Amaro Quintas is the author of several history books, especially on the Praieira Revolution, one of the subjects most studied by him.
He wrote, among others, the following works: The genesis of the republican spirit in Pernambuco and the Revolution of 1817 (1939), written as a thesis for a professor chair tender of the Pernambuco Gymnasium, a contest to which Álvaro Lins and Nilo Pereira also competed; Father Lopes Gama: politician (1958), where he studies the work of Father Carapuceiro, who criticized the sugar society of Pernambuco; Capitalism and Christianity (1960), his speech as patron for a class of the Faculty of Philosophy of Recife, where he seeks to explain convergences and divergences between communism and Christianity; The social meaning of the Praieira Revolution (1961), also presented as a tender thesis for the Pernambuco Gymnasium.
He also wrote several essays: Considerations on the Praieira Revolution (1948); News and newspaper announcements (1953); Massification and humanism (1957); Prodomes of the Mascate War (1967); Pereira da Costa and modern historiography (1967); Recife and Luís do Rego (1978).
According to historian Manoel Correia de Andrade, Amaro Quintas
... was, at the same time, a great teacher and historian, very divided between history and sociology and deeply committed, politically, to reforms in Brazilian society. He was a reformist socialist who wanted to direct Brazilian life towards reforms that liberalized our society, although he maintained a certain fidelity to the past, to traditions, especially those linked to the basic principles defended by the Catholic Church.
Amaro Quintas died in Recife on May 20, 1998.
Recife, January 26, 2006.
sources consulted
AMARO Quintas. Disponível em: <http://www.pe-az.com.br/biografias/amaro_soares-quintas.htm>. Acesso em: 30 nov. 2005.
AMARO Quintas [Foto neste texto]. Disponível em <goo.gl/Z3VA73>. Acesso em: 15 mar. 2018.
FREYRE, Fernando de Mello(Org.). Amaro Quintas: 90 anos de liberdade e de história. Recife: Fundaj, Ed. Massangana, 2002. (Documentos, 59)
SAMPAIO, Wilson Vilar. Pernambucanos que não devem ser esquecidos: Amaro Soares Quintas. Disponível em: <goo.gl/m7ewfL>. Acesso em: 29 nov. 2005.
how to quote this text
GASPAR, Lúcia. Amaro Quintas. In: PESQUISA Escolar. Recife: Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, 2006. Available from: https://pesquisaescolar.fundaj.gov.br/pt-br/artigo/amaro-quintas/. Access on: Month. day, year. (Ex.: Aug. 6, 2020).