ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper is to investigate how a social memory of abolition was constructed by the regional elites in Porto Alegre, during the “liberation of slaves” on the 7th of September, 1884, on the same date of national independence and almost four years before the national abolition. I argue that the regional elites had constructed an abolitionist discourse which appropriated the narratives of a glorious past of Rio-grandense libertarian traditions in order to legitimize their abolitionist strategy of conditional manumissions and to keep social control of freed people after abolition. On the other hand, this dominant narrative of abolition omitted the participation of Afro-Brazilians and black societies and produced a white invention of black freedom.