The resistance of the slaves was a answer to slavery that was an institution present in the history of Brazil for over 300 years. Brazilian society was built through the use of slave, indigenous or African workers. THE slavery in Brazil it was one institutionvile and cruel who brutally exploited the work of indigenous peoples and Africans.
In the case of Africans, slavery removed them from their native land and sent them thousands of miles away to a distant land with a language, religion and cultures different from their own. It was in this context that millions of Africans were kidnapped and transported in terrible conditions to be enslaved in Brazil. If you want to know more about it, read the following text: slave trade.
Africans were used in workshousehold and urban, but, above all, they were used in Agriculture, mainly in the sugarcane cultivation and also in the mines, when metals and precious stones were discovered in Minas Gerais, Cuiabá and Goiás.
Those who believe that Africans were passively enslaved are mistaken, however, because, despite the lack of records, historians know that numerous forms of
resistanceFromslaves were developed. In this text, the focus will be on the various forms of resistance used by African slaves, throughout the 16th to the 19th centuries.Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
Accessalso: Understand how the process of abolition of slavery occurred in Brazil
Resistance to slavery
THE resistance to slavery through the revolts, as the historian João José Reis points out, it did not aim exclusively at the to end the slavery regime, but, within the daily lives of slaves, it could be used as instrumentinbargain. Thus, these slave revolts often sought to correct excesses of the masters' tyranny, reduce the level of oppression or punish excessively cruel overseers.|1|.
Many people have an image that African slaves passively accepted enslavement, but historians tell us that history was quite different and slaves organized themselves in different ways to set limits to the violence they were subjected to in their daily lives.
Among the different forms of resistance of slaves, the leaks collective, or individual, the riots against overseers and their masters (who might or might not have the murder of these), the refusal in working, the execution of work in an inadequate manner, creation of quilombos and mocambos, etc.
Resistance against slavery had already begun when Africans embarked on the shipsslavers. The risk of African uprisings on slave ships was so high that slave traders deliberately reduced food portions to reduce the chances of riots, that usually happened when the ship was close to shore.
The revolts of Africans on slave ships were so common that the traffickers had in the ship's crew. interpreters who spoke the languages of Africans and could alert in case of possibility of prisoner revolt. The revolts, however, were not limited to slave ships. Here in Brazil, numerous revolts took place, as we shall see.
Historians often point out that African slaves were more combative than Creole slaves (born in the Brazil), because many of the Africans came from peoples who had a great recent history of involvement in combat and war. This was the case for nagos and haussas. Despite this, Creole slaves also rebelled, and throughout our history there are countless examples of this.
Here are some examples of revolts throughout our history.
violent revolts
Slaves' revolts were often directed against their masters and overseers, and could even result in their death.
Among the examples of violent revolts that took place, there may be mentioned a revolt that took place in Bahia in 1807, but which was suppressed before it started. This revolt was discovered in May 1807, and the slaves who would rebel planned to take over the city of savior. Furthermore, among the slaves' plans was the attack on Catholic churches and the destruction of images of the saints.
This revolt was planned by slaves haussas who also planned to establish a leaderMuslim in the power. Also in Bahia, in 1814, another violent revolt was carried out by the Africans, in which the insurgents gathered in a quilombo, they went to the farms in the region to meet with slaves who were the waiting. Then, they started to destroy everything in their path, including a village called Itapua. They ended up being repressed later, and some of those involved were executed.
Another revolt that was being organized by the slaves, but which ended up being discovered and harshly repressed, was the one that took place in Campinas, in 1832. At the time, authorities discovered that a large slave revolt was about to take place in 15 large estates in the region. In this revolt, the slaves planned to kill their masters to gain their freedom.
escapes
Escapes were another strategy used by slaves and could be individual and collective. The individual escapes were more complicated, because the one who carried them out would only succeed if he went deep into the bush and survived there.
Many sought to reach large established quilombos. Individual escapes became a common strategy in the 19th century, as slaves' escapes were constant, they settled in big onescities – as Salvador – and passed themselves off as freedmen.
Escapes were a very common resistance strategy in the 1870s and 1880s, due to the strengthening of the abolitionist movement. the slaves felt motivated to flee and they were often from facts encouraged by other slaves who had fled or by members of abolitionist associations, which gave support to slaves who had fled.
Historian Walter Fraga states that, in the 1870s, they intensified their escapes with the aim of call the authorities to mediate conflicts with their masters. Walter Fraga cites that in these escapes the slaves “recurred to the police authorities to ask for protection in the legal disputes, prohibiting the sale […] of relatives, mediating conflicts with you and denouncing mistreatment"|2|.
The slaves who fled and moved to the cities aimed to camouflage themselves among the present black population and sought to find every kind of job that could be executed.
Also access: Learn more about the life of former slaves after the Golden Law
Quilombos
Another form of resistance from the slaves was with the formation of quilombos and mocambos. Both words come from African languages. Mocambo means “hiding place”, while quilombo was used to refer to a militarized encampment. This structure emerged in Brazil, in the mid-16th century, and became popular after the Quilombo dos Palmares.
The first registered quilombo, as stated by historian Flávio dos Santos Gomes, appeared in 1575 in Bahia|3|. In the view of the Portuguese and colonists, the quilombos were basically groupings that gathered runaway slaves. Quilombos maintained important commercial relationships with other quilombos and also with free people.
There were quilombos that survived on what was cultivated and what was removed from the forests, while others chose to survive assaults and attacks against the free population on the roads or carrying out attacks against devices. Quilombos developed in isolated places that were difficult to access, and a large part of the members of a quilombo were slaves who had escaped from the same region or from the same master.
Some prominent quilombos in the history of Brazil were the Quilombo dos Palmares, QuilomboofJabaquara, Armadillo Hole Quilombo, QuilomboofLeblon. The Quilombo dos Palmares was the largest quilombo in the history of resistance to slavery in Brazil and came to count on 20 thousand inhabitants. Attacks were carried out against this quilombo throughout the 17th century, and the last attack, carried out in 1694, put an end to this quilombo.
The quilombos caused great fear in the colonial authorities and, for this reason, they were harshly repressed. The case of Quilombo dos Palmares, again, was symbolic, because it mobilized portuguese and Dutchmen (during the period in which they settled in Pernambuco), but resisted for decades.
Other forms of resistance
The resistance of slaves against their enslavement was not only summarized in the forms addressed in the text, but also included suicides, abortions (to prevent their children from being enslaved) and the simple disobedience. In the case of disobedience, Walter Fraga mentions two cases from the late nineteenth century that are worth highlighting|4|:
At Engenho Benfica, in Bahia, Count Subaé's slaves refused to obey the foreman's orders to clean the cane plantation. The slaves refused to work for three days straight – even though they were punished with physical punishment.
At the São Bento de Inhatá mill, also in Bahia, the slaves rebelled against the overseer after he demanded that they work on Sunday (rest day). In the confusion, one of the slaves and the overseer died.
|1| KINGS, John Joseph. Slave revolts. In.: SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz and GOMES, Flávio (eds.). Dictionary of slavery and freedom. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018, p. 392.
|2| FRAGA, Walter. Crossroads of freedom: stories of slaves and freedmen in Bahia (1870-1910). Rio de Janeiro: Brazilian Civilization, 2014, p. 47.
|3| GOMES, Flávio dos Santos. Quilombos/Quilombo Remnants. In.: SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz and GOMES, Flávio (eds.). Dictionary of slavery and freedom. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018, p. 367.
|4| FRAGA, Walter. Crossroads of freedom: stories of slaves and freedmen in Bahia (1870-1910). Rio de Janeiro: Brazilian Civilization, 2014, p. 43.
By Daniel Neves
Graduated in History