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 Cláudia da Silva Ferreira,
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 #vidasnegrasimportam.
In 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% 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 candomblé and umbanda.
Umbanda centers on the belief in spirits,
both good and evil.
Candomblé is derived from the belief systems
of a number of African ethnic groups,
particularly, the Yorubá-Fun and Bantu,
similar to the Orishas of Santeria
practiced in Cuba and other regions.
The deities of candomblé are called "Arishas".
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 they had to do so in secret,
under the guise of praying to Catholic saints,
because of the historical ties
between candomblé and catholicism.
Catholicism is also widely practiced
amongst afro-brazilians.
One afro-descendants Saint venerated in Brazil
is Escrava Anastásia,
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 forced 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 Iemanjá,
celebrated every February 2nd in Rio Vermelho.
The festival brings toghether members of several religions,
including Catholics and practitioners
of the afro-brazilian religions, candomblé and umbanda.
Iemanjá is the Arisha of the sea
and loosely corresponds to the Cuban Arisha, Iamanha.
It is custom to lay offerings for
the goddess, of flowers jewelry and food.
And of course, Brasil is famous for its Carnaval around the world.
There are celebrations across the country,
but the most famous is hosted in Rio de Janeiro,
where over 5 million people participate in
the street parties.
One key element of the Carnaval 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
trafficked to Brazil.
And the singing style derives from the traditional call-and-response style
the Africans would use to evoke their
Arishas 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
in Brazil 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 São Paulo,
is home to over 6,000 works
pertaining to a afro-brazilian history,
culture and heritage.
It seeks to celebrate the arts and accomplishments
of Africans and Afro-Brazilians,
and it´s the largest collection of artifacts of Afrcian 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 live
of afro-brazilian slave resistance fighter, Zumbi.
Famous afro-brazilians include the footballers
Pelé and Ronaldinho,
the scholar and politician, Abdias do Nascimento,
actress Suzanna Mota,
and the politician Benedita de Silva,
who became the first black woman in the Brazilian Senate.
That brings me to the
end of our video on the African Diaspora in Brazil.
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I'll see you in the next video.
[Music]