Tag: revolt

Reflexões de Salvador: Friday, August 8, 2025

On Thursday, August 7, 2025, my wife and I arrived in Salvador, Bahia. I went there to study Afro-Brazilian history and culture generally and to augment my knowledge of Capoeira specifically. While I had been to Brazil prior to this trip, this was my first trip to Bahia and my wife’s first trip to Brazil.

Our agenda was, over the next seven days, to visit several museums and cultural sites. Additionally, I hoped to have the opportunity to visit the academies of several mestres to deepen my knowledge of the movement, music, philosophy, and history of Capoeira.

Friday, August 8, 2025

Casa das Histórias de Salvador
Our first museum excursion in Salvador was to the Casa das Histórias de Salvador to see an exhibit on the Malê Revolt. The museum contained exhibits on the history of Salvador, from colonial times to now. Herein, the history of Afro-Brazilians in shaping the city and its culture were indelible.

One of the highlights of the museum was a film on the Orixá tradition, specifically the various religious festivals that take place in Salvador. This film was colorful and celebratory, highlighting the female orixá and their significance to life and community.

The top floor contained the exhibit about the Malê Revolt, a rebellion that was staged in Salvador in 1835, and was initiated, primarily, by muslims who were members of the Hausa ethnic group. In some ways, the exhibit was as much about the history of the revolt as it was a space for artists to reflect on the meaning and symbolism of the revolt itself. Historical events provide ways to examine key cultural themes and ideas, particularly those which are illuminated by the incident itself. To this end, there was a timeline of the revolt, along with other elements about its historical impact, (some of which were shared in other parts of the museum). However, most of the pieces were creative interpretations of Afro-Brazilian resistance and resilience.

There was also some brief discussion about the role of Islam during the revolt. This included references to the use of talismans containing Quranic verses, the use of Arabic script in the rebels’ communications, and so forth.

Overall, the exhibit was a good reminder of the intimate relationship between oppression and revolt–that the former almost always engenders the latter. Further, it demonstrated the ways in which African people sought to adapt their cultural knowledges to resist European domination. Lastly, it expressed the unfinished nature of this and many other struggles focused on the redemption of the African world.

Monumento Arena da Capoeira
As we were riding in an Uber the day before, we happened to notice a very large collection of sculptures situated around a large sphere representing Capoeira. Thus, after visiting the Mercado Modelo on Friday, we paid a visit to this space–which is just across from the market.

Completed in 2024, the Monumento Arena da Capoeira is a large spherical object encircled by statues of eight Capoeira masters: Mestre Besouro, Mestre Bimba, Mestre Caicara, Mestre Canjinquinha, Mestre Gato Preto, Mestre Noronha, Mestre Pastinha, and Mestre Waldemar. At its center is an elevated, circular platform featuring statues of two additional masters, Mestre Aberre and Mestre Totonho, playing Capoeira. It is a beautiful monument and a fitting homage to the legacy of these great teachers.

Visiting the Whitney Plantation

My wife and I recently visited the Whitney Plantation. It is about 40 minutes west of the New Orleans. While we have visited Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, as well as the African Burial Ground in New York, this was our first visit to a plantation.

We learned that the Whitney Plantation was founded by a German immigrant who later became assimilated into the surrounding French Creole culture. In the 18th Century, his and his family’s fortunes were made off of indigo. Once this crop ceased to be viable, they transitioned to sugar. Both crops were profoundly dangerous to the enslaved Africans whose forced labor they exploited. As in other parts of the Americas, those who worked in the cane fields had short, miserable lives of about 7 to 8 years.

When touring the plantation you can learn how the plantation functioned as an economic engine. It was highly regimented with ringing bells to signal shift changes and a 24-hour labor force. While I am familiar with the labor dynamics of cotton plantations, sugar plantations were quite different in terms of the nature, structure, and hazards of the work which our ancestors were compelled to do.

Even after the end of legalized slavery, the brutal exploitation of African labor continued as a type of neo-slavery, a practice that was given legal sanction via laws which both restricted the movement of newly freed Africans/Blacks, mandated their employment on the local plantations where they were previously enslaved, and assigned convict labor to the cane fields.

Today, the Whitney functions as a museum and a research site. Several of the structures from the 18th and 19th Century have been preserved there. There are also structures from surrounding areas that have been transported to the site for preservation. You can even see the large iron vats that were used to process sugar. Various memorials and monuments have been erected to tell the story of the 500 Africans who were enslaved there. These monuments were very moving.

One monument details the Africans who were sold when two brothers, who owned the site parted company over 200 years ago. Each of the Africans who were sold in this “transaction” are listed. Another set of monuments lists the names of each African who has been identified as having been enslaved on the Whitney Plantation. You can see various names that indicate their place of origin (i.e., the Senegambia or Congo) or their ethnicity (i.e. Bambara, Congo, Igbo, and so on). Some African names are also visible. I noted a number of popular West African names like Mamadou and Boubacar, as well as various Akan and Ewe, as Kofi, Kwaku, and Aba. They also shared accounts of the savage violence that our ancestors were subject to.

There was a memorial to the Africans who took part in the 1811 German Coast Revolt who were later executed, and another to the many children who died on the plantation. We were so moved by the latter two, that Safia suggested that we do a libation in their honor, which we did—one near each memorial.

It was a moving experience, one which reminds me of the importance of study and reflection upon our past, and determination in our efforts to create, as Maulana Karenga says, “the world that we want and deserve to live in.”