In 1889, a conflict arose between the decadent and ruined rural aristocracy following the liberation of slaves and a new class of wealthy individuals, comprised of entrepreneurs emerging from the republican industrial class, interested in free labor.

In the city of Ouro Negro, in the interior of São Paulo state, the conservative, aristocratic, and monarchist Almeida Santos family, which traditionally dominated the region, began to lose ground to the Lobo Ferraz family, representing the nascent progressive and republican bourgeoisie.