THE slavery it has been present in Brazil for over 300 years and our country was built by the exploitation of these workers, whether indigenous or African. The history of slavery in Brazil is marked by the cruelty and for violence how slaves were treated. The lack of freedom itself, combined with violence, motivated their resistance.
Africans were removed from their native land (often ambushed by drug dealers) and sent to thousands from miles away to an unknown land, with a totally different language, culture and religion and were forced to abandon their culture and embrace that of your captors. Africans were brought to Brazil through overseas trafficking, if you want to know more about this subject, we recommend the following text: slave trade.
African slaves (the group on which this text is based) were used in different types of work throughout history colonial and imperial of Brazil. Slaves were used in domestic, urban work, but mainly in farming for the sugarcane cultivation and in mines in mining regions.
THE enslavement of Africans it did not happen passively, as Africans and Creoles (born in Brazil) resisted, a lot, against slavery. The purpose of this text is to narrate some of the stories of resistance of African slaves from the 16th to the 19th centuries.
Also access: Understand how ex-slaves survived after the abolition of slavery
Resistance to slavery
The best-known face of resistance to slavery was the revolts aimed at conquering freedom, especially in the 19th century, when this struggle was strengthened. Resistance to slavery, however, was not only aimed at freedom, but was frequently used as a way to correct the excesses of tyranny of masters and overseers.
Slaves organized themselves in different ways against slavery, and there were violent revolts that resulted in the murder of masters and overseers, in the leaks collective or individual, in the refusal to do the job, in the creation of hovels and quilombos etc. In the nineteenth century, many slaves began to seek authorities – such as the police – to denounce abuses committed by their masters.
The revolt of Africans on slave ships was common and, therefore, they were intensively monitored.
The first demonstration of African resistance was already manifested in their embarkation on the shipsslavers. The early days of Africans imprisoned in the tumblers they were the most dangerous for the traffickers. Therefore, the meal in the early days was deliberately distributed in smaller portions. Hunger was used as a weapon to control Africans.
The traffickers also had other slaves in their crew who were used as interpreters. Those slavesinterpreters they spoke the native languages of many African peoples and thus alerted the traffickers if they heard any rumors of revolt. The closer to the coast, the greater the possibility for the slaves to rebel.
Studies conducted by historians indicate that Africans were more resistant to slavery than Creoles, because many of the enslaved African peoples had a recent history of involvement with the war, as was the case From nagos and haussas. But it is important to say that Creoles also rebelled against slavery, despite the lower incidence.
Next, we will look at some resistance practices used by slaves in Brazil.
violent revolts
Many of the violent slave revolts resulted in the murder of their masters and overseers.
A well-known strategy of slave resistance was the violent revolts against lords, overseers and authorities in general. Bahia was one of the places where these revolts took place the most. The nineteenth century was marked by this type of revolt and examples can be cited in 1807, 1814 and 1835.
In May 1807, a plan carried out by the slaves was discovered by the authorities in Salvador. haussas. The slaves' plan was aimed at attacking Catholic churches, destroying images of Catholic saints, and dominating the city of Salvador. In 1814, insurgents gathered in a quilombo joined slaves in a region of Bahia and attacked several places, such as the Itapuã village. They were harshly repressed.
But these revolts did not only take place in Bahia, as other places in Brazil also had events of the type. In Campinas (SP), in 1832, a great slave revolt was discovered, which was organized to take place in 15 properties in the region. The slaves planned, during this revolt, to kill their masters and gain their freedom.
escapes
Leaks were also a very common form of resistance and could happen collectivelyas well could be individual. Individual escapes, however, were more complicated, because surviving alone in the bush was difficult and dangerous. The goal of many was to reach quilombos that were built in various regions of Brazil.
Escapes became very common in the nineteenth century, when slaves, realizing the strengthening of abolitionist movement, made frequent escapes, causing the imperial state to lose control over the situation. During this period, many of the slaves settled in the big cities and mingled among the large population of free, freed and enslaved blacks.
Slave escapes in the late 19th century were also often encouraged by association members. abolitionists, who helped slaves through escape routes or sheltered them in the country's large cities. Many slaves also fled and then surrendered to the authorities and the purpose of this was to denounce abuse and mistreatment.
Also access: Learn more about the law that abolished slave labor for blacks in Brazil
Quilombos
The great symbol of the resistance of African slaves in Brazil were the quilombos. The word quilombo, in the Kimbundu dialect (spoken by the Bantu peoples), was used to refer to a militarized encampment. This type of structure emerged in Brazil in the mid-16th century and became known after the emergence of Quilombo dos Palmares.
Historian Flávio dos Santos Gomes states that the first record of quilombo in Brazil dates back to 1575, a quilombo that emerged in Bahia|1|. The quilombos, basically, were places that grouped runaway slaves from a certain region and an important feature of them is that they maintained commercial contacts with other quilombos, with indigenous peoples and even with Portuguese settlers.
Many quilombos survived on what they cultivated and what they took from the forests, but there were quilombos who organized road robberies and attacks against plantations, farms and settler villages Portuguese. Generally, they were built in places of difficult access, but there were also quilombos built in the proximity to large cities, such as the Quilombo do Buraco do Tatu, built on the outskirts of Savior.
Some famous quilombos were Quilombo of Broomsticks, QuilomboofJabaquara, Quilombo do Leblon, Quilombo of Buraco do Armadillo, but the best known was the Quilombo dos Palmares. Built in the region of the current state of Alagoas, Quilombo dos Palmares came to rely on 20 thousand inhabitants and had in Zombie your great leader.
It was attacked throughout the 17th century and resisted until 1694, when it was finally destroyed by the Portuguese. Its leader was killed in a trap in 1695. Zombie is currently considered a great name of the slave resistance in the history of our country.
Other forms of resistance
Resistance to slavery was not limited to those forms mentioned above in the text and included other more extreme measures, such as suicide it's the abortion. THE disobedience it was also an important tool used by slaves and was often used by slaves when they were extremely dissatisfied with the treatment they received.
Malês Revolt
THE Malês Revolt it took place in 1835, in the city of Salvador, Bahia, and became known as one of the greatest revolts of African slaves in the history of slavery in Brazil. As we mentioned, Bahia, in the first decades of the 19th century, was marked by violent revolts, such as those of 1807 and 1814.
The mobilization of the Hausas and Nagôs in the fight against slavery continued and religion was a very strong tool for resistance. The very name of the revolt has this relationship, since the word malê comes from imalê, a word that in the Yoruba language means “Muslim”. The slaves who mobilized during this period in Bahia, including the Malês Revolt, were Muslims.
This revolt took place on January 25, 1835 and began when Hausa and Nagô slaves, dressed in white robes, left to the streets of Salvador armed with clubs and other white weapons to fight the authorities who defended the maintenance of the slavery. The rebellious slaves fought only against the forces mobilized to fight them.
The city of Salvador at the time had about 65,000 inhabitants of which about 40% were slaves|2|. The Malês Revolt mobilized around 600 people, of which around 70 slaves died during the fighting in the streets of Salvador. The Malians were defeated and the repression against their revolt was very harsh.
Historians Lilia Schwarcz and Heloísa Starling claim that after the Malês Revolt, around 500 slaves were sentenced to death, flogging and deportation|3|. The historian Luciana Brito, in turn, alleges that the revolt started a wave of deportations between 1835 and 1836. She says that slaves involved in the revolt, Muslim slaves and even freed blacks, were deported en masse to the African continent.|4|.
|1| 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.
|2| KINGS, John Joseph. The Malês Revolt. To access, click on here.
|3| SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz and STARLING, Heloísa Murgel. Brazil: A Biography. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2015, p. 257.
|4| BRITO, Luciana. African Returnees. In.: SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz and GOMES, Flávio (eds.). Dictionary of slavery and freedom. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018, p. 386.
*Image credits: Everett Historical and Shutterstock
