This dissertation explores the development process of night surveillance service in Rio de Janeiro between 1885 and 1912. During that time, marked by the transition from the Empire to the Republic, the nightlife of the city suffered from mutations due to its expansion and the increasing occupation of the urban space. The patrolling police service of the night watches, paid by neighbors and merchants, which spread throughout the Atlantic world with different names since the XVIII century, was studied as an integral part in the development of modern police forces in South American and European countries. In dialog with the historiography that studies them, this dissertation aims to understand the place of the carioca night watch in the process that took place in Rio, from the analysis of police archives, press and literature. Far from being analyzed as conflicting to the process of building the state monopoly of public security forces, this analysis is intended to comprehend the night watch as a constituent part of this phenomenon in the republican period, of its ambiguities and disputes around the daily construction of authority.