User:Amissah Samantha/Afro-Brazilian history

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The Politics of Culture in Salvador post-Abolition is important towards understanding

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In Salvador post-abolition Brazil, there was racial and cultural segregation between the white and African communities which helped to reveal the underlying notions of power and hegemony that existed at the time. The white population had power over Salvador's slave society and assumed the economic and socio-political roles that the African black population played. Even post-abolition, the white elites with the support of the legal system and the military system were determined to make European-based culture the dominion. Despite this, alternatively, abolition provided an avenue for the black population to fully express their respective African identities as well as acknowledge and engage in a blend of all the existing African cultures. They were able to do this as they were in the majority as compared to the white population. "African" or the black population at the time in Brazil did not only characterize those who were born in Africa but also the descendants of the "African- borns" who were born in Brazil.

Due to the removal of the slave status and property requirements for the black population, it resulted in the formal equality of the white and black population. It then become crucial for the white and elite population to create different ways of postulating claims of superiority over the black population. Nevertheless, this post emancipation period emphasized a display of Afro-Bahians to express their culture in public without thinking about consequences. For instance, on the 13th of May 1888 when Princess Isabel signed the Abolition Law, there were annual celebrations of Candomblé, Maculêlê and Samba de roda. These traditions became a part of Carnival celebrations. The Embaixada Africana also become a place of perpetuating African origins during the 1890s. In order to clamp down some of these celebrations, the white elites started a campaign of civilization against barbarism using the police system to ban parades with African costumes and batuques from 1905 to 1913. The police also tried to prevent and reduce the practice of Afro-Brazilian culture like candomblé shrines and terreiros were invaded and sacred objects were confiscated. Terreiros serve as symbolic religious places for Afro-Brazilians to represent and express their respective African identities. Terreiros are simply areas that coexists as a place and the religious group it pertains to.

Capoeira was also another cultural tradition by Afro-Bahians that the white elites' tried to eradicate mainly because they occured in public spaces. Capoeira or vadiação in the 20th century could have been played anytime or anywhere especially during breaks in the workplace, in squares during the annual cycles of religious celebrations and on Sundays in popular neighborhoods. Capoeira was a male-dominated activity as it was men who took upon occupations like saliors, stevedores and porters which required great use of physical strength and they played capoeira as a break from their strenous actviites at work. Despite capoeira being male dominated, some women used capoeira as a means of resisting the police and this gender disparity made these women be seen as troublemakers rather than players in the capoeira roda.

Salvador's alter ego was also seen it the physical territories of the city itself. The cantos showed the African identity that existed heavily in Salvador. The terreiros were the physical cultural and religious spaces under the umbrella term Candomblé. Even though there was a culture blending of the different African identities that were in Salvador, the most prominent groups were the Yoruba and Fon which are Nigerian tribal groups but in Salvador they are known as Nagô and Jêje respectively. Tribal groups from Angola also constituted the Salvadorian identity as well. Because religion was a very important cultural identity of the African slaves, the practice of Candomblè quiclky became a practice of an alternative culture. Afro-Brrazilians used Candomblé as a mode of support and survival even after the post-Abolition period. As Afro-Brazilian men dominated capoeira, Afro-Brazilian women slowly became entrepreneurs in Candomblé.