Brazil's African Legacy
A seventeenth-century preacher and missionary, Frei Antonio Vieira, described Brazil as having “the body of America and the soul of Africa.” This
description continues, to some extent, to hold true. In Vieira’s day, Africans and their offspring – black and mulatto, slave and free – far outnumbered
Europeans in Portugal’s South American colony, Brazil. From the colony’s very beginning in the early sixteenth century (1500s), Africans made up a
huge part of Brazils population and greatly influenced its culture.
Portugal took part in the Atlantic slave trade for over 300 years. In that time an estimated total of 10 to 15 million Africans were brought to the
European colonies in the Americas. Of these, over 4 million were taken to Brazil. Even after the Atlantic slave trade to Brazil was declared illegal in
1850, contraband (illegal) ‘Black Gold’ continued to be snuck into the country.
The first Africans arrived in north-east Brazil in 1538. From the 1580s, the import of Africans to Brazil increased dramatically. By the start of the
sixteenth century (1500s), Brazil’s population of Africans already topped 20,000, with an average of 8,000 more coming each year. The conditions
and treatment of slaves during the journey across the Atlantic was inhumane and as much as half of a slave ship’s cargo would regularly die during
the ocean crossing.
Slaves were originally brought over to work on plantations growing sugar cane. A
century later, the discovery of gold increased the demand for slaves. African slaves
were also imported to work in other regions of the colony, serving as trade workers,
house hold servants, and even cattle ranchers.
At the height of the sugar boom, 40 per cent of Brazil’s slave population was
working on sugar cane plantations. It was this group that endured the most severe
and inhumane conditions, and also contributed most to the popular culture of
Brazil. A the same time, in the urban centers, a growing class of skilled black and
mulatto (mixed race) artisans (skilled workers) was well established by the 1750s.
They were working as tailors, coopers, boilermakers, joiners, ship builders,
stonemasons, blacksmiths and bakers. Many of these were freedmen.
Many believe the African culture survived in Brazil for two reasons: 1-the direct links to Africa via the slave; 2- the fact that the death rate for slaves
was so high as to require new slaves be brought over constantly. The survival of African cultural traditions in Brazil was also made possible by
communities of runaway slaves located in the more out-reach parts of the Amazon jungle. Some of these ‘Black Republics’ contained several towns,
each under the control of an African-style chieftain.
In 1850 the slave trade was officially abolished in Brazil, one of the last former European colonies in the Americas to do so. Abraham Lincoln’s
Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 added a further push to the movement and slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888.
Today, 109 years after the end of slavery in Brazil, and despite immigration, an estimated 30-40% of the Brazilian population (ie: upwards of 70
million people) is still of direct or partial African descent. African language, religion, and culture have woven itself into European and native practices
in unique ways. The African influence is seen in spectacular form in as the Congadas and Maracatus – dance re-enactments of African regal
processions – which have become such an integral part of the country’s carnival parades.