History - Slavery |
Text from 'Capoeira is...' by Sylvia Bazzarelli
"I was brought here in 1572. To this new land recently named Brasil. The Portuguese captured me in Aruanda by the port of Luanda in Angola, Africa. I was chained and separated from my family. I felt helpless.
I was taken to Tumbeiros, ships which transported people like me, enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the northeast of Brasil. We came from different parts of Africa. We could not communicate as we all spoke different languages. We were taken to the basements of the Portuguese ships. We were kept there for months.
I felt misplaced and angry"
Some of us died during this agonising journey. Some of us rebelled. Some of us got killed.
Tumbeiros ... these floating tombs were crowded with us. Hundreds of us side by side breathing each others sadness, despair and anger. I could hear many unknown languages, which sounded foreign, however with incredible familiarity as they all meant the same. Freedom..... |
In 1500 the Portuguese the explorer Cabral claimed the land that came to be known as Brasil for the Portuguese crown. Shortly after that the Portuguese started to take captive Africans to Brasil to work as slaves.
Some of the people were captured directly by the Portuguese, others were captured in the interior of Africa and traded for European goods at ports like Luanda in Angola.
The middle passage was the name given to the journey across the Atlantic. It was a brutal experience. Enslaved Africans were packed into tight spaces and given barely enough food and water to stay alive. It is estimated that: nearly six million Africans were forced to make the journey in around 54,000 voyages, a minimum of 10% of the captives died en route rising to 30% on a bad voyage.
plan to show how captives could be 'packed' in two tiers on to a vessel for the crossing
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"And so we arrived in Brasil. The land of natives who were already dying and being killed before us, Africans had arrived.
There we were sold, branded and taken to farms and sugar plantations. We were kept separate in slave quarters called Senzalas.
We could not communicate as we all came from different villages and had different ways of living and speaking in our homeland, Africa.
The Portuguese forced us to learn their language. We had our spiritual belief and religion based on nature; however we were prohibited to worship our Gods. We then disguised our Gods as catholic Gods.
And we began to create good out of bad. We began to organize in spite of all odds. We began to share our common knowledge and prepare for freeing ourselves from the restraining condition.
We sung to lift our spirits but also to communicate in code. We showed weakness in order to deceive the Portuguese master. We pretended to be worshiping their gods as we were singing and dancing to our African Gods. And then we began to draw our history in this lavish green and promising land called Brasil..."
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When the Portuguese first arrived in Brasil they tried to make the existing Indian inhabitants work as slaves, but the indigenous population died in huge numbers mainly due to differences their immune systems and so Africans were brought to work instead.
The enslaved Africans were forced to work extremely hard without wages, mainly on plantations producing sugar, tea and coffee. They were also expected to grow much of the food they ate, and punishments were frequent and often very cruel.
Some Africans worked as skilled craftsmen or domestic staff, building much of the original infrastructure in Brasil.
The profits made from the global trade of sugar, tea and coffee were a major driving force behind the European economies, including Britain, who also became heavily involved in the trade. For centuries the profits from the slave trade provided money for the development of the Western Europe and America
Part of the Africans resistance to the condition of slavery was maintaining religious and traditions to stay spiritually free and culturally separate from the masters. Capoeira was part of this resistance, as well as originally being a direct means of fighting the masters.
picture shows workers on a sugar cane plantation
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