Hey guys, I'm Faheedah and today
we're going to be talking about
the African diaspora in Brazil
[Humming] Freedom is...
mine.
Did you know that Brazil has the biggest
African Diaspora Community
outside of Africa?
The 2010 census in Brazil
shows that for the first time,
the majority of the Brazilian population
identified as afro-descendant.
50.7% of Brazilians.
the equivalent of over
a hundred million people
self-identified as black or mixed-race.
The statistics I'm about to give you
are truly staggering.
The trans-atlantic
slave trade as we know it
began when the Portugese
completed the first
trans-atlantic voyage to Brazil in 1526.
From 1501 to 1866,
an estimated 4.9 million enslaved Africans
were trafficked to Brazil.
That's nearly 40% of all slave traded
in the trans-atlantic slave trade,
and at least four times
the number of slaves
that were trafficked
to the United States.
Brazil was last country
in the Western Hemisphere
to abolish slaver in 1888.
Slave labour was the driving force
behind several key industries in Brazil,
including sugar production,
golden diamond mining,
cofee production and agriculture.
As was the case across Latin-America,
enslaved Africans in Brazil escaped
and formed maroon settlements
called "Quilombos".
The most famous of which was
Quilombos dos Palmares,
which existed for most of
the 17th century.
It was a relatively large Quilombo,
with a population of several
thousands escaped slaves
and indigenous people,
who formed a complex
and structured society.
At its height, it had
a population of 30,000 people
and spanned over eleven villages,
occupying a landmass the size of Portugal.
The most famous afro-brazilian
slave resistance leader was Zumbi,
the last king of palmares,
who led the fierce
counter-attack against the Portuguese
forces trying to seize the Quilombo.
Although the settlement
was captured in 1695
and Zumbi was decapitated,
today he is a powerful
symbol of resistance
against slavery in Brazil
and Portuguese colonial rule.
To this day,
the descendants of Afro-Brazilians
living in Quilombo settlements
fight for the right
to their ancestral land.
In 2018, for the first time,
a Quilombo community
was given land titles,
when a community of 500 people
was formally granted
220,000 hectares
of Amazonian rainforest.
A key turning point
was the Haitian Revolution,
which ended in 1804.
Whereby the afro-descendant
population of Haiti
rebelled against the white French elites
and claimed their independence,
both from French colonial rule
and their European slave masters.
This sent shockwaves across Latin America,
which were felt as far as Brazil.
Some Afro-Brazilians even wore
portraits of Haitian revolutionary leader,
Jean Jacques Dessalines
in pendants around their necks.
However, after the collapse
of the sugar industry in Haiti,
it was Brazil that catered
to the increased demand for sugar.
Enslaved Africans continued to be imported
in large numbers to the region of Byir.
From the Haitian Revolution onwards,
slave rebellions became
more frequent and more brutal.
The largest rebellion occurred
in 1835 in Salvador,
and was known
as "The Malê Uprising."
It was orchestrated
by African-born Muslim slaves
who intended to free
all of the slaves in Bahia.
However, the rebellion was crushed
and many participants
were arrested, executed,
flogged or deported.
Relations were tense
between enslaved Africans
who had recently been imported
and the enslaved Afrio-Brazilians,
who had been born
into slavery on Brazilian soil.
The Afro-Brazilians
were comprised of blacks
and mulattoes who were mixed with the
European ancestry of their slave masters.
They were treated better,
were more likely to be emancipated,
often because they were
the slave master´s children
and had great opportunity
for social mobility
once they had been freed.
In fact, it was not uncommon for wealthy
free blacks and mulattoes in Brazil to
have slaves of their own.
It was arguably these
internal divisions that held the
enslaved population back
from staging a successful revolt.
Although Brazil gained
its independence from Portugal in 1822,
slavery wasn't formally
abolished until 1888,
when Princess Isabel of Brazil passed
the Lei Áurea,
The Golden Act.
This made Brazil the last country
in the Western Hemisphere
to abolish slavery.
The amount of slaves
that had been trafficked to Brazil
during the slavery era
meant that the Brazilian population
was now majority
black and afro-descendant.
At a time when
scientific racism was gaining popularity,
the Brazilian government tried
to whiten the country´s racial profile.
It implemented a tactical whitening,
whereby from the late 1800s
to the early 1900s,
Brazil encouraged and even subsidized
the mass influx of white
European immigrants to Brazil.
The countries with the
highest numbers settling in Brazil
were Italians, Portuguese ans Spanish.
Although this didn't eradicate
blackness from Brazil,
it reinforced the trope that whiteness
should be aspired to
and that marrying someone
whiter was an instrument of
social mobility.
In the 20th century,
the black movement in Brazil
gained momentum.
A defining moment was in 1931,
when the Frente Negra Brasileira
was formed.
the first black political party in Brazil,
organized by Arlindo Vega dos Santos.
The party put forward candidates
for political office,
run literacy classes,
health clinics and legal services
for black communities across Brazil.
They also published a newspaper called
A Voz da Raça, which circulated news about
black communities both
in Brazil and overseas.
The party was short-lived,
however, when in 1937
the Brazilian dictator,
Getúllio Vargas dissolved all
political parties
From the 1950s onwards,
there were a number
of black social movements in Brazil
that lobbied for black rights.
One of the most famous
was the Unified Black Movement,
also known as the MNU,
founded in 1978,
which is arguably the most influential
black organization in Brazil
in the second half of the 20th century.
Among things, the organization spoke out
against police brutality,
the oppression of black women
and discrimination against
the LGBTQ community.
In 1995, the MNU helped organize
the march for Zumbi
in the capital of Brasilia.
The event protested racism
in Brazil and also celebrated
the anniversary
of the death of Zumbi,
the slave resistance leader
who was the last king of the
Quilombo dos Palmares.
With a turnout of over
40,000 people,
it was the largest national
black demonstration in Brazil.
In recent years,
social media has played a pivotal role
in black political activism in Brazil,
particularly amongst
afro-brazilian millennials.
Social media platforms such as
YouTube Instagram
and Facebook have allowed
afro-brazilians to connect
and mobilize online.
Social media provides a forum
to discuss the collective struggle,
but crucially, it has also allowed
the dissemination
of photos and video footage
showing police brutality
against Afro-Brazilians.
one such example is the murder of
Claudia the Silva fajita who passed away
in 2014 after a police van dragged her
down the road for over a thousand feet
the grisly incident was captured on
camera and circulated on social media
sparking national outrage the black
lives matter movement in particular
gained traction with afro-brazilian
youths who coined the hashtag vidas
import them the fact an
unprecedented number of people
self-identified as black and mixed-race
in the 2010 Brazilian census shows that
Brazilians are prouder and more willing
to claim their African heritage than
ever before
however the census also brought to light
the grave disparities between the
distribution of wealth amongst white and
afro-descendant Brazilians the
socio-economic gap between white and
black Brazilians persists the 2010
census found that in major cities white
Brazilians earn 2 to 3 times more than
their black counterparts the wealthiest
strata of Brazilian society remains 82%
white and the poorest rata is 76 percent
black afro Brazilians have far less
access to quality education health care
or fair wages and they are
underrepresented in the government the
most prominent African derive religions
in Brazil are candomble a and Amanda
Amanda centers on the belief in spirits
both good and evil can delay is derived
from the belief
systems of a number of African ethnic
groups particularly Yoruba fun and Bantu
similar to the arisia of Santeria
practiced in Cuba and other regions the
deities of candomble a are called the
Orisha over time they have become
syncretized with Roman Catholic saints
this dates back to when enslaved
Africans were forbidden by the European
masters for practicing their African
religions and so had to do so in secret
under the guise of praying to Catholic
saints because of the historical ties
between kin Bombay and Catholicism
Catholicism is also widely practiced
amongst afro-brazilians
one afro-descendants Saint venerated in
Brazil is ask Rafa and Aspasia a slave
woman of African descent who is depicted
wearing a metal facemask the story goes
that her master's wife accused her of
flirting with her husband and as a
punishment force her to wear an iron
mask over her face for the rest of her
life until she died from tetanus from
the rusty metal the biggest
afro-brazilian festival is the festival
of Yemanja celebrated every february 2nd
in heal Vermeil the festival brings
together members of several religions
including Catholics and practitioners of
the afro-brazilian religions can Don
Blake and Amanda Yemanja
is the arisia of the sieve and loosely
corresponds to the Cuban or Isha
Yemaya it is custom to lay offerings for
the goddess of flowers jewelry and food
and of course resin is famous for its
carnival around Mardi Gras there are
celebrations across the country but the
most famous is hosted in Rio de Janeiro
for over 5 million people participate in
the street parties one key element of
the Carnival is the Samba music and
dance a clear vestige of African
influence in Brazilian culture the fast
footwork of Samba dancing originated in
the dancers practiced by the enslaved
Africans who were trafficked to Brazil
and the singing style is derived from
the traditional call-and-response style
the Africans would use to evoke the
orishas during religious ceremonies
another afro-brazilian style of dance is
capoeira which combines martial arts
moves with elements of dance and
acrobatics to create graceful and
flowing sequences it's originated
amongst enslaved Africans
Raziel who sought to hone their combat
skills without arousing the suspicions
of their masters in 2014 it was declared
an expression of intangible cultural
heritage by UNESCO
the afro-brazilian Museum located in San
Paolo is home to over 6,000 works
pertaining to a per bazillion history
culture and heritage it seeks to
celebrate the arts and accomplishments
of Africans and Africa's ilion's and is
the largest collection of artifacts of
African descent in Latin America black
Awareness Day has been celebrated
annually in Brazil since the Year 1960
it's held on November 20th to honor the
life of our Brazilian slave resistance
fighter zombie famous afro-brazilians
include the footballers Pele and
Ronaldinho the scholar and politician of
gs the Nascimento actresses aermotor and
the politician benedita de silva he
became the first black woman in the
Brazilian center that brings me to the
end of our video on the African Diaspora
in Brazil for more videos don't forget
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at freedom is mine official I'll see you
in the next video
[Music]