Afro-Brazilians

Afro-Brazilians

Notable Afro-Brazilians: Ernesto Carneiro Ribeiro • Ronaldinho • Machado de Assis Pelé • Daiane dos Santos • Lima Barreto Cruz e Souza • Nilo Peçanha • Joaquim Benedito Barbosa Gomes Benedita da Silva • Seu Jorge • Francisco Félix de Souza
Regions with significant populations
Brazil
Languages
Portuguese
Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholic; Protestant, non-religious, Kardekist, Umbanda, Candomblé
Related ethnic groups
African, Angolan, Yoruba, Igbo, Ewe, Afro-Chilean, Afro-Argentine, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Ecuadorian, Afro-Latin American, Afro-Mexican, Afro-Peruvian, Afro-Trinidadian, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Jamaicans, Afro-Costa Rican, Afro-Uruguayan, African-American

Afro-Brazilian, African-Brazilian or Black Brazilian, is the term used to racially categorize Brazilian citizens who self-reported to be of black or brown (Pardo) skin colors to the official IBGE census. As of 2005, 91 million Brazilians were included in the black and brown category.

Brazil has the largest population of black origin outside of Africa with, in 2007, 7.4% classyfing themselves as preto (black skin color) and 42.3% as pardo (brown color). The latter classification is broad and encompasses Brazilians of mixed ancestry, including mulattos and caboclos making the total 49.5%. The largest concentration of Afro-Brazilians is in the state of Bahia where over 80% of the people are descendants of Africans.

A large number of Brazilians have some African ancestry and Brazilian populations are remarkably heterogeneous. Due to intensive mixing with Europeans and Native Indians, Brazilians with African ancestors may or may not show any trace of black features.

History

Main article: History of Brazil

Brazil obtained 37% of all African slaves traded, and close to 4 million slaves were sent to this one country. Starting around 1550, the Portuguese began to trade African slaves to work the sugar plantations once the native Tupi people deteriorated. During the colonial epoch, slavery was a mainstay of the Brazilian economy, especially in mining and sugar cane production.

The Clapham Sect, a group of Victorian Evangelical politicians, campaigned during most of the 19th century for England to use its influence and power to stop the traffic of slaves to Brazil. Besides moral qualms, Brazilian slavery hampered the development of markets for British products, which was a main concern of British government and civil society. This combination led to intensive pressure from the British government for Brazil to end this practice, which it did by steps over several decades. Slavery was legally ended May 13 by the Lei Áurea ("Golden Law") of 1888.

The travel

Slave trade was a huge business that involved hundreds of ships and thousands of people in Brazil and Africa. There were officers on the coast of Africa that sold the slaves to hundreds of small regional dealers in Brazil. In 1812, half of the thirty richest merchants of Rio de Janeiro were slave traders. The profits were huge: in 1810 a slave purchased in Luanda for 70,000 réis was sold in the District of Diamantina, Minas Gerais, for up to 240,000 réis. With taxes, the state collected a year the equivalent of 18 million reais with the slave trade. In Africa, people were kidnapped as prisoners of war or offered as payment of tribute to a tribal chief. The merchants, who were black Africans too, took the slaves to the coast where they would be purchased by agents of the Portuguese slave traders. Until the early 18th century such purchases were made with smuggled gold. In 1703, Portugal banned the use of gold for this purpose. Since then, they started to use products of the colony, such as textiles, tobacco, sugar and cachaça to buy the slaves.

African disembarkments in Brazil, from 1500 to 1855
Period	1500-1700	1701-1760	1761-1829	1830-1855
Numbers	510,000	958,000	1,720,000	618,000

In Africa, about 40% of blacks died in the route between the areas of capture and the African coast. Another 15% died in the ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean between Africa and Brazil. From the Atlantic coast the journey could take from 33 to 43 days. From Moçambique it could take as many as 76 days. Once in Brazil from 10 to 12% of the slaves also died in the places where they were taken to be bought by their future masters. In consequence, only 45% of the Africans captured in Africa to become slaves in Brazil survived. Darcy Ribeiro estimated that, in this process, some 12 million Africans were captured to be brought to Brazil, even though the majority of them died before becoming slaves in the country.

Origins

The Africans brought to Brazil belonged to two major groups: the West African and the Bantu people.

The West African people (previously known as Sudanese, and without connection with Sudan) were sent in large scale to Bahia. They mostly belong to the Ga, Adangbe, Yoruba, Igbo, Fon, Ashanti, Ewe, Mandinka, and other West African groups native to Guinea, Ghana, Benin, Guinea-Bissau and Nigeria. The Bantus were brought from Angola, Congo region and Mozambique and sent in large scale to Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and the Northeastern Brazil.

The typical dress of women from Bahia has clear Muslim influences.

The blacks brought to Brazil were from different ethnicities and from different African regions. Gilberto Freyre noted the major differences between these groups. Some Sudanese peoples, such as Hausa, Fula and others were Islamic, spoke Arabic and many of them could read and write in this language. Freyre noted that many slaves were better educated than their masters, because many Muslim slaves were literate in Arabic, while many Portuguese Brazilian masters could not even read or write in Portuguese. These slaves of greater Arab and Berber influence were largely sent to Bahia. Even today the typical dress of the women from Bahia has clear Muslim influences, as the use of the Arabic turban on the head. These Muslim slaves, known as Malê in Brazil, produced one of the greatest slave revolts in the Americas, when in 1835 they tried to take the control of Salvador, Bahia. The event was known as the Malê Revolt.

Despite the large influx of Islamic slaves, most of the slaves in Brazil were brought from the Bantu regions of the Atlantic coast of Africa where today Congo and Angola are located, and also from Moçambique. In general, these people lived in tribes. The people from Congo had developed agriculture, raised livestock, domesticated animals such as goat, pig, chicken and dog and produced sculpture in wood. Some groups from Angola were nomadic and did not know agriculture.

Estimated disembarkment of Africans in Brazil from 1781 to 1855
Period	Place of arrival
	Total in Brazil	South of Bahia	Bahia	North of Bahia
Total period	2.113.900	1.314.900	409.000	390.000
1781-1785	63.100	34.800	...	28.300
1786-1790	97.800	44.800	20.300	32.700
1791-1795	125.000	47.600	34.300	43.100
1796-1800	108.700	45.100	36.200	27.400
1801-1805	117.900	50.100	36.300	31.500
1806-1810	123.500	58.300	39.100	26.100
1811-1815	139.400	78.700	36.400	24.300
1816-1820	188.300	95.700	34.300	58.300
1821-1825	181.200	120.100	23.700	37.400
1826-1830	250.200	176.100	47.900	26.200
1831-1835	93.700	57.800	16.700	19.200
1836-1840	240.600	202.800	15.800	22.000
1841-1845	120.900	90.800	21.100	9.000
1846-1850	257.500	208.900	45.000	3.600
1851-1855	6.100	3.300	1.900	900
Note: "South of Bahia" means "from Espírito Santo to Rio Grande do Sul" States; "North of Bahia" means "from Sergipe to Amapá States"

• 
  African slaves from Benguela and Congo
• 
  African slaves from Cabinda, Kilwa, Rebolo and Elmina
• 
  African slaves from Mozambique
• 
  African slaves from Benguela, Angola, Congo and Monjolo

Afro-Brazilian formation

Evolution of the Brazilian population according skin color: 1872-1991
Population growth Caucasians in white color Mixed and indigenous in black Negro in yellow Asians are very few
Percentual in overall population Caucasians in white Mixed and indigenous in yellow Negro in black Asians are very few

The growth of the African-Brazilian population was mainly due to the acquisition of new slaves from Africa. In Brazil, the black population had a negative growth. This was due to the low life expectancy of the slaves, which was around 7 years. It was also because of the imbalance between the number of men and women. The vast majority of slaves were men, black women being a minority. Slaves rarely had a family and the unions between the slaves was hampered due to incessant hours of work. Another very important factor was that black women were held by white and mixed-race men. The Portuguese colonization, largely composed of men with very few women resulted in a social context in which white men disputed indigenous or African women. According to Gilberto Freyre in colonial Brazilian society, the few African women who arrived quickly became concubines, and in some cases, officially wives of the Portuguese settlers. In large plantations of sugar cane and in the mining areas, the white master often choose the most beautiful black slaves to work inside the house. These slaves were forced to have sex with their master, producing a very large Mulato population. The English diplomat and ethnologist Richard Francis Burton wrote that "Mulatism became a necessary evil" in the captaincies in the interior of Brazil. He noticed a "strange aversion to marriage" in the 19th century Minas Gerais, arguing that the colonists preferred to have quick relationships with black slaves rather than a marriage.

According to Darcy Ribeiro the process of miscegenation between whites and blacks in Brazil, in contrast to an idealized racial democracy and a peaceful integration, was a process of sexual domination, in which the white man imposed an unequal relationship using violence because of his prime condition in society. As an official wife or as a concubine or subjected to a condition of sexual slave, the black woman was the responsible for the growth of the African-Brazilian population. The African-Brazilian population has grown mainly through sexual intercourse between the black female slave and the Portuguese master, what explains the high degree of European ancestry in the black Brazilian population and the high degree of African ancestry in the white population.

Historian Manolo Florentino refutes the idea that a large part of the Brazilian people is a result of the forced relationship between the rich Portuguese colonizer and the Indian or African slaves. According to him, most of the Portuguese settlers in Brazil were poor adventurers from Northern Portugal who immigrated to Brazil alone. Most of them were men (the proportion was eight or nine men for each woman) and then it was natural that they had relationship with the Indian or Black women. According to him the mixture of races in Brazil, more than a sexual domination of the rich Portuguese master over the poor slaves, was a mixture between the poor Portuguese settlers with the Indian and Black women. Then most of the Black women were not raped, but actually had a romance with the white partner.

The Brazilian population of clearer black physiognomy is more strongly present along the coast, due to the high concentration of slaves working on sugar cane plantations. Another region that had a strong presence of Africans was the mining areas in the center of Brazil. Gilberto Freyre wrote that the states with stronger African presence were Bahia and Minas Gerais. Freyre wrote, however, that there's no region in Brazil where the black people have not penetrated. Many blacks fled to the interior of Brazil and met Amerindian and Mameluco populations. Many of these acculturated blacks were accepted in these communities and taught them the Portuguese language and the European culture. In these areas the blacks were "agents for transmitting European culture" to those isolated communities in Brazil. Many blacks mixed with the Indian and caboclo women, settling in remote areas where it was usually believed that only Indians and Whites settled, such as in the Amazon Rainforest.

Conception of Black and prejudice

According to anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro:

In Brazil black is the very dark black, the mulatto is the brown and then is half white, and if the skin color is a little lighter, the person is incorporated into the white community.

In Brazil the "race" of an individual is based primarily on physical appearance, while in the United States the ancestry is more important. In Brazil the children born to a black mother and a European father who had more pronounced physical African features would be classified as black, while the children with more European features would be classified as white. In Brazil it is possible for two siblings of different colors to be classified as people of different races. With no strict criteria for racial classifications, lighter-skinned mulattoes were easily integrated into the white population, introducing a large proportion of African blood in the white Brazilian population, as well as a large proportion of European blood in the black population. In the United States, on the other hand, which had defined concepts of race, due to the one drop rule any person with any known African ancestry was automatically classified as black, regardless of skin color. Thus, many black Americans have some degree of European ancestry, while few white Americans have African ancestry. The Brazilian society is an example for geneticists argue that human races do not exist and that they are mere "social constructs". According to geneticist Sérgio Pena:

Only a few genes are responsible for someone's skin colour, which is a very poor indication of ancestry. A white person could have more African genes than a black one or vice-versa, especially in a country like Brazil.

According to the sociologist Simon Schwartzman the official figures about the size of the black population in Brazil are criticized because "(the official figures) would hide the true size of the black population in Brazil, which if defined in a similar way to what happens in the United States would reach at least 50% of the population; and they would also not measure the true size of the Amerindian population." According to Schwartzman in Brazilian society people can easily pass from a race to another. This would be the result of a prejudice of class, in which people move from one race to another as they enrich. According to this thinking, also followed by Darcy Ribeiro, in Brazil social prejudice is stronger than racial discrimination. Many black Brazilians live in poor conditions which in the popular imagination created an association of being black as a synonym for being poor. Moreover, for many decades, the Brazilian ruling classes blamed the blacks for the underdevelopment of Brazil, even encouraging the arrival of masses of European immigrants to melhorar a raça ("improve the race"). The Brazilian assimilationist society was peculiar because it expected that the black population should disappear within the white population. In this context, the black population was poor because of the "inferiority of the black race", and not because of slavery and its consequences. The poverty of many black Brazilians is due to the problem that when the slaves were freed the Brazilian government did not give them any social assistance, leaving former slaves in a condition of underemployment and vulnerable to the arbitrariness of land owners. With no lands, which in Brazil were monopolized by a small rural aristocracy, many blacks migrated to urban centers that were not prepared to receive so many people because there were few jobs available. Then a large underemployed and unemployed population was formed and many favelas appeared, today centers of crime and drug dealing.

Gilberto Freyre wrote that few wealthy Brazilians admit to have African ancestry. The same analysis was performed by Ribeiro, who wrote that the people of darker complexion from the dominant classes usually associate their skin color with an Indian ancestry rather than African. For the large part of Brazilian society to be associated with the condition of black is "totally undesirable" and Ribeiro wrote that "This happens in a sick society, with a distorted consciousness, where the blacks are regarded as guilty of their misery". Ribeiro believed, however, that the prejudice in Brazil, due to be primarily social, can be finished. This will happen when many black Brazilians be out of the condition of misery and take part in the consumer market. A 2007 resource found that the white workers had an average monthly income almost twice that of blacks and pardos (brown). The blacks and brown earned on average 1.8 minimum wages, while the whites had a yield of 3.4 minimum wages. Ribeiro considered that through the example of many African Americans who became wealthier, many black and mulatto Brazilians began to be pride of themselves and started to assume their blackness. According to Ribeiro, then, when black Brazilians start to be part of the wealthier classes, through social democracy, the racial democracy will be possible in Brazil.

Self-reported race in Brazil in 1835, 1940, 2000 and 2008
Year	White	Brown	Black
1835	24.4%	18.2%	51.4%
1940	64%	21%	14%
2000	53.7%	38.5%	6.2%
2008	48.8%	43.8%	6.5%

The stigma of being Black because of the unfavorable social situation of this population prevents the creation of a Black identity in Brazil: "It is not a surprise that Blacks self-report to be Pardos (brown), because the prejudice in Brazil is based on the representation, on what people think about themselves or on what others think about them. And while Blacks are disadvantaged in access to education or earning lower wages, for example, it is understandable that many people do not want to assume a Black identity" says author and historian Joel Rufino dos Santos. In the last years, however, the consequences of the "whiten ideology" on racial classifications in Brazil seem to be gradually reversed. According to a IBGE resource, from 2007 to 2008 the self-reported Pardo (brown) population increased by 3.2 million people, while 450,000 Whites and 1 million Blacks "disappeared". This phenomenon should not be attributed solely to the variation in the birth and death rates. The conception of race is a social construction and these changes may be related to the feeling of belonging to a particular ethnicity, prejudice or even a reaction to the affirmative action policies recently taken by the Brazilian Government. In fact, many of the people who used to classify themselves as Whites in previous Censuses are now reporting to be Browns. Even though the proportion of Brazilians who self-report to be Brown is growing in each Census, the self-reported Black population is not and, in fact, their proportion decreased between 2007 and 2008, from 7.2% to 6.5%. According to scholars, this is because the Black Brazilian population, because of the prejudice, is reporting to be "Brown" in the Censuses.

Violence and resistance

Slave being punished (1839)

Slavery can only be maintained through constant vigilance, frequent violence and the fear that brings the physical violence, which prevent the riots and rebellion of the slaves. Although there is a myth that the slavery in Brazil was more lenient, the reports of colonial chroniclers claim the opposite. The African slaves in Brazil have suffered various types of physical violence. Lashes on the back was the most common punishment. About 40 lashes per day was a commom punishment and they prevented the mutilation of slaves. After the violence, the wounds were washed with salt, pepper or vinegar to prevent infection. This washing was also painful. Preventive punishments were also common, as they served to frighten the slaves even if they did not "deserve" a punishment. The foreman monitored the slaves during all day, forcing them to comply with their tasks and punishing the slaves when he thought to be necessary. In 1741 the Portuguese Crown decreed that all blacks who fled to quilombos should have their back burned and marked with letter F (from fugido, escaped in Portuguese). If the slaves scaped again they should have one ear cut off and should be sentenced to death. The colonial chroniclers recorded the extreme violence and sadism of the White Brazilian women on black female slaves, usually by jealousy or to prevent a relationship between the husband and the slaves, which was very common.

The African-Brazilians resisted against slavery during all the centuries it lasted. The most frequent form of resistance was the leak, which often led to death. These escaped slaves found other slaves, forming quilombos. Quilombos were communities composed of escaped slaves. The biggest Quilombo, Palmares had a population of about 30,000 people and resisted for 100 years, when finally succumbed to attacks by the colonists. Another form of resistance was to work slowly or to hurt animals in order to hinder the production of the master. The most notorious slave rebellion occurred in 1835, when slaves of Muslim aspirations wanted to kill many of the whites and the mulattos of Salvador, Bahia and free all slaves, founding a Republic in Bahia . As with all other rebellions, the insurgents have been repressed, killed or sold as slaves to the Caribbean.

Main Afro-Brazilian communities

As of 2007, the Brazilian Metropolitan Area with the largest percentage of people reported as of African descent was Salvador, Bahia, with 1,869,550 Pardo (brown) people (53.8%) and 990,375 Black people (28.5%). The state of Bahia has also the largest percentage of Afro-Brazilians, with 62.9% of Brown and 15.7% of Blacks.

As of 2000, the towns with the highest percentage of blacks were: Riacho Frio (PI) with 61.71%, Pugmil (TO) with 41.33% and Pedrão (BA) with 39.32%. The towns with the highest percentage of Pardos (Brown) were: Nossa Senhora das Dores (SE) with 98.16%, Santo Inácio do Piauí (PI) with 96.90% and Boa Vista do Ramos (MA) with 92.40%.

Genetic studies

Genetic origin of Brazilian population (Perc.% rounded values)
Line	Origin	Negros (Black)	Brancos (Caucasian)
Maternal (mtDNA)	Sub-Saharan Africa	85%	28%
	Europe	2.5%	39%
	Native Brazilian	12.5%	33%
Paternal (Y chromosome)	Sub-Saharan Africa	48%	2%
	Europe	50%	98%
	Native Brazilian	1.6%	0%

A recent genetic study of Afro-Brazilians made for BBC Brasil analysed the DNA of self-reported Blacks from São Paulo.

The research analyzed the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), that is present in all human beings and passed down with only minor mutations through the maternal line. The other is the Y chromosome, that is present only in males and passed down with only minor mutations through the paternal line. Both can show from what part of the world a matrilineal or patrilineal ancestor of a person came from, but one can have in mind that they are only a fraction of the human genome, and reading ancestry from Y chromosome and mtDNA only tells 1/23rd the story, since humans have 23 chromosome pairs in the cellular DNA.

Analyzing the Afro-Brazilians' Y chromosome, which comes from male ancestors through paternal line, it was concluded that half (50%) of African-Brazilian population have at least one male ancestor who came from Europe, 48% from Africa and 1.6% who was a Native American. Analyzing their mitochondrial DNA, that comes from female ancestors though maternal line, 85% of them have at least a female ancestor who came from Africa, 12.5% who was Native American and 2.5% from Europe.

The high level of European ancestry in Black Brazilians through paternal line exists because, for much of Brazil's History, there were more Caucasian males than Caucasian females. So inter-racial relationships between Caucasian males and Sub-Saharan African or Native American females were widespread.

Caucasian Brazilians and Caucasian Americans with 10% or more of Sub-Saharan African genes
Region	Perc.(%)
Brazil - Northern, Northeastern and Southeastern regions	75%
Brazil - Southern region	49%
United States	11%

Over 75% of Caucasians from North, Northeast and Southeast Brazil would have over 10% Sub-Saharan African genes, according to this particular study. Even Southern Brazil that received a large group of European immigration, 49% of the Caucasian population would have over 10% Sub-Saharan African genes, according to that study. A research showed that the average European American has approximately 10% to 12% non-White genetic material.

Thus, according to those studies, 86% of Brazilians would have at least 10% of genes that came from Africa.

As an example, one thousand individuals from Porto Alegre city, Southern Brazil, and 760 from Natal city, Northeastern Brazil, were studied in relation to 12 and 8 genetic systems, respectively. The gathered data were used to estimate quantitatively the ethnic composition of individuals from these communities. More than half of the genes present in individuals classified as Black in Porto Alegre city are of European origin, while the Whites from this city have 8% of African alleles genes.

The estimated degree of admixture in persons identified as White or Mixed in Natal city is not much different. The ancestry of the total sample can be characterized as 58% White, 25% Black, and 17% Indian

• 
  Crioulo (Brazilian born) slaves
• 
  Slave women from various African regions wearing European-style hairdressing
• 
  African slaves from Monjolo, Elmina, Mozambique, Benguela e Calava

Famous African Brazilians

In 2007 BBC Brasil launched the project Raízes Afro-Brasileiras (African Brazilian Roots), in which they analyzed the genetic ancestry of nine famous Afro-Brazilians. Three tests were based on analysis of different parts of their DNA: an examination of paternal ancestry, maternal ancestry and the genomic ancestry, allowing to estimate the percentage of African, European and Amerindian genes in the composition of an individual.

Of the 9 famous Afro-Brazilians analyzed, 3 of them had more European ancestry than African one, while the other 6 people had more African ancestry, with varying degrees of European and Amerindian admixture. The African admixture varied from 19.5% in actress Ildi Silva to 99.3% in singer Milton Nascimento. The European admixture varied from 0.4% in Nascimento to 70% in Silva. The Amerindian admixture from 0.3% in Nascimento to 25.4% in soccer player Obina.

• 
  Seu Jorge is: 85.1% African, 12.9% European and 2% Amerindian
• 
  Daiane dos Santos is: 40.8% European, 39.7% African and 19.6% Amerindian
• 
  Neguinho da Beija-Flor (left) is: 67.1% European, 31.5% African and 1.4% Amerindian
• 
  Djavan is: 65% African, 30.1% European and 4.9% Amerindian
• 
  Sandra de Sá is: 96.7% African, 2.1% European and 1.1% Amerindian
• 
  Obina is: 61.4% African, 25.4% Amerindian and 13.2% European
• Milton Nascimento is: 99.3% African, 0.4% European and 0.3% Amerindian
  Milton Nascimento is: 99.3% African, 0.4% European and 0.3% Amerindian

Media

Afro-Brazilians have a low representation in the Brazilian media. Blacks are under-represented in telenovelas, which have the largest audience of Brazilian television. The Brazilian soap operas, as well as throughout Latin America, are accused of hiding the black and Indian population and to make almost entirely white casts, usually as upper middle-class people. Brazil produces soap operas since the 1960s, but it was only in 1996 that a black actress, Taís Araújo, was the protagonist of a telenovela, the role of the famous slave Chica da Silva. In 2002, Araujo was protagonist of another soap, being the only African-Brazilian actress to have a more prominent role in a TV production of Brazil. The black actors in Brazil are required to follow stereotypes usually as subordinate and submissive roles, as maids, drivers, servants, bodyguards, and poor favelados. Joel Zito Araújo wrote the book A Negação do Brasil (in English: The Denial of Brazil) which talks about how Brazilian TV tries to hide its black population. Araújo analyzed Brazilian soap operas from 1964 to 1997 and only 4 black families were represented as being of middle-class. Black women usually appear under strong sexual connotation and sensuality. Black men usually appear as rascals or criminals. Another common stereotype is of the "old mammies". In 1970, in the soap "A Cabana do Pai Tomás" (based on American novel Uncle Tom's Cabin) a white actor, Sérgio Cardoso, played Thomas, who was a black man in the book. The actor had to paint his body in black to "look black". The choice of a white actor to play a black character caused major protests in Brazil. In 1986 a white actress, Lucélia Santos, played a slave in the soap A Escrava Isaura. In 1975 the telenovela Gabriela was produced and it was based on a book by Jorge Amado, who described Gabriela, the main character, as a black woman. But to play Gabriela on television Rede Globo choose a non-black actress, Sônia Braga. The producer claimed he "did not find any talented black actress" for the role of Gabriela. In 2001 Rede Globo produced Porto dos Milagres, also based on a book by Jorge Amado. In the book Amado described a Bahia full of blacks. In the Rede Globo's soap opera, on the other hand, almost all the cast was white.

In the fashion world African-Brazilians are also poorly represented. In Brazil there is a clear predominance of models from the South of Brazil, mostly of European descent. Many black models complained of the difficulty of finding work in the fashion world in Brazil. This reflects a Caucasian standard of beauty demanded by the media. To change this trend, the Black Movement of Brazil entered in court against the fashion show, where almost all the models were whites. In a fashion show during São Paulo Fashion Week in January 2008, of the 344 models only eight (2.3% of total) were blacks. The Brazilian Prosecutor had to force the fashion show to contract black models and demanded that during São Paulo Fashion Week 2009, at least 10% of the models should be "Blacks, African-descendants or Indians", under penalty of fine of 250,000 reais if the condition was not fulfilled.

Religion

Afro-Brazilian girls during a Candomblé ceremony.

Main articles: Religion in Brazil and African diasporic religions

Most Afro-Brazilians are Christians, mainly Catholics. Afro-Brazilian religions such as Candomblé and Umbanda have many followers, mainly Afro-Brazilians. They are concentrated mainly in large urban centers such as Salvador de Bahia, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Brasília, São Luís. In addition to Candomblé which is closer to the original West African religions, there is also Umbanda which blends Catholic and Kardecist Spiritism beliefs with African beliefs. Candomblé, Batuque, Xango and Tambor de Mina were originally brought by black slaves shipped from Africa to Brazil.

These black slaves would summon their gods, called Orixas, Vodous or Inkices with chants and dances they had brought from Africa. These religions have been persecuted in the past, mainly due to Catholic influence. However, Brazilian government has legalized them. In current practice, Umbanda followers leave offerings of food, candles and flowers in public places for the spirits. The Candomblé terreiros are more hidden from general view, except in famous festivals such as Iemanjá Festival and the Waters of Oxalá in the Northeast.

From Bahia northwards there is also different practices such as Catimbo, Jurema with heavy, though not necessarily original, indigenous elements. All over the country, but mainly in the Amazon rainforest, there are remnanst of the original Indian population still practicing their original traditions.

Cuisine

Main article: Cuisine of Brazil

Feijoada

The cuisine created by the Afro-Brazilians has a wide variety of foods. In the State of Bahia, an exquisite cuisine evolved when cooks improvised on African, American-Indian, and traditional Portuguese dishes using locally available ingredients. Typical dishes include Vatapá and Moqueca, both with seafood and dendê palm oil (Portuguese: Azeite de Dendê). This heavy oil extracted from the fruits of an African palm tree is one of the basic ingredients in Bahian or Afro-Brazilian cuisine, adding a wonderful flavor and bright orange color to foods. There is no equivalent substitute, but it is available in markets specializing in Brazilian or African imports.

Feijoada is the national dish of Brazil (for over 300 years). It is basically a mixture of black beans, pork and farofa (lighly roasted coarse cassava manioc flour). It started as a Portuguese dish that the African slaves built upon, made out of cheap ingredients: pork ears, feet and tail, beans and manioc flour. It has been adopted by all the other cultural regions, and there are hundreds of ways to make it.

Capoeira

Capoeira

Main article: Capoeira

Capoeira is a martial art developed initially by African slaves that came predominantly from Angola or Mozambique to Brazil, starting in the colonial period. It is marked by deft, tricky movements often played on the ground or completely inverted. It also has a strong acrobatic component in some versions and is always played with music. Recently, the art has been popularized by the addition of Capoeira performed in various computer games and movies, and Capoeira music has been featured in modern pop music (see Capoeira in popular culture).

Music

Main article: Music of Brazil

The music created by Afro-Brazilians is a mixture of Portuguese, Amerindian, and African music, making a wide variety of styles. Brazil is well known for the rhythmic liveliness of its music as in its Samba dance music. This is largely because Brazilian slave owners allowed their slaves to continue their heritage of playing drums (unlike U.S. slave owners who feared use of the drum for communications).

Literature

Afro-Brazilian literature has existed in Brazil since the mid-19th century with the publication of Maria Firmina dos Reis's novel Ursula in 1859. Yet, Afro-Brazilian literature did not gain national prominence in Brazil until the 1970s with the revival of Black Consciousness politics known as the Movimento Negro.

See also

• Ethnic groups in Brazil
• Batuque
• Candomblé
• Kalunga
• Liberated Africans in Nigeria
• Macumba
• Quimbanda
• Racial democracy
• Umbanda
• Helvécio Martins
• List of Brazilians of Black African descent
• Tambor de Mina
• Chica da Silva (person)

Further reading

• Ankerl, Guy. Coexisting Contemporary Civilizations: Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western. 2000, Geneva. INUPRESS, ISBN 2881550045. Pp. 187-210.

External links

• Portal Afro Template:Pt icon
• Afro Brazilian Connection