Resistance is Culture

By Morgan Van Beck

As a double major in Political Science and Hispanic Studies with a minor in Latino/Latin American Studies, I thought that I had a pretty good grasp on Latin American history and culture. While this was not incorrect, I was not aware of just how complex Brazil is and how little I really knew about it. None of my Hispanic Studies classes touched upon Brazil, and aside from speaking Portuguese rather than Spanish, it has a very distinct culture and history from the rest of Latin America. What I’ve learned while living in Salvador and traveling around Bahia is that a history of repression and inequality breeds resistance, which in turn creates culture. In short, resistance is culture. 

It helps to turn back the clock to 1500 when the Portuguese first landed in Bahia and started the vicious process of colonization. This led to the forced enslavement and relocation of millions of Africans to Brazil to work on plantations and in mines (Periera 2020). Hundreds of years later, in 1888, Brazil was the last country in the western hemisphere to abolish slavery (Periera 2020). The fact that it took so long to abolish slavery shows how integral it was to the Brazilian economy and how many salves suffered. Salvador is the city in Brazil with the highest percentage of the population being Afro-Brazilian. “Bahia is a state marked by racial inequality,” but it is also marked by a strong presence of traditions of African origin (Pinho 2020, 1). While in Salvador, we saw not only this inequality, but also many cultural elements that sprouted from African traditions and were preserved as a form of resistance. 

A prime example of resistance is salve revolts and the formation of quilombos. While in Minnesota, we learned about historic slave revolts in Bahia and about the quilombo communities that were formed by escaped slaves (dos Santos 2024). Quilombos had contact with the outside world and actively traded, but they were also perfect microcosms to preserve African traditions and resist the cultural impositions of the Europeans. We visited Quilombo Kaonge while in Brazil and were able to see for ourselves how the descendants of escaped slaves maintained the traditional practices that their ancestors preserved. We had the opportunity to learn about the cough syrup and palm oil that they produce and to learn from them about the importance of resisting cultural imposition. 

Palm oil production at Quilombo Kaonge

Carnival might be Brazil’s most famous event. People around the world know what carnival is, but they don’t know where it came from. Carnival has roots in African music, dance, and performance, and when we went to the carnival museum, we learned all about the lesser-known African history (at least for people in the US) of carnival. At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, whites were threatened by African cultural elements in carnival and did their best to “civilize” carnival by emphasizing more European elements (Pinho 2020, 7). However, carnival still retains its African influence. This pattern repeats across Brazilian cultural elements. In response to repression by white elites, Afro-Brazilians resisted and preserved their African-rooted traditions while creating a rich Brazilian culture.

Casa de Cajá Candomble temple

Another example of resistance becoming culture is the practice of candomblé. Candomblé is a religion brought to Brazil by slaves from Africa. We were first introduced to it in the book Crooked Plow, where many of the characters actively practiced candomblé (Vieira Junior 2019). Honestly, I didn’t entirely understand candomblé while we were reading the book back in Minnesota, but since being here, we have had a chance to learn a lot more about the religion that is also a symbol of resistance. Rather than submit to pressure by the Catholic church, African slaves were able to preserve their rich religious history. Now, Candomblé is celebrated as part of Bahian identity. We saw statues of orishas on our ride from the airport and now, after visiting various candomblé temples and hearing lectures about it, we have come to understand just how important it is to life here. ​

Temple for Iemanjá, the candomblé orixá of the sea

Brazilian music and dance are also heavily influenced by African traditions brought by slaves and preserved as a form of resistance. Now, Afro-Brazilians honor and remember their ancestors by continuing to learn these styles of music and dance. We were lucky enough to participate in a samba class, where we immediately noticed strong African rhythms and drumming in the music. We also went to a percussion workshop with Mario Pam, who taught us that drumming and music were not only used as tools of resistance by slaves and their immediate descendants, but by modern Brazilians as well. Afro-Brazilians today are still using music to express themselves and decry the inequalities that they suffer. This means that modern culture is still being shaped by Afro-Brazilian resistance.

Like percussive music and samba dancing, capoeira is another distinctive element of Brazilian culture that has its roots in African traditions. Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art with elements of dance, music, and acrobatics. It exists today because of efforts by Afro-Brazilians to preserve and promote their culture and heritage. Before coming to Brazil, I had no clue what capoeira was, but now, I see it everywhere. We participated in two Capoeira workshops (one in Salvador and one in Lencois) and saw it performed as part of a folkloric ballet. However, its pervasiveness in culture means that we’ve also seen people doing capoeira at the beach, in parks, and in other public places. It’s just one more element of popular Brazilian culture that comes from resistance efforts by slaves and their descendants.  

​After nearly three weeks in Brazil, one of the things that I noticed the most was the prevalence of Afro-Brazilian resistance, which forms critical parts of Brazilian culture. Almost every day we saw examples of it, and they were not limited to the subjects I discussed above. We also saw Afro-Brazilian resistance in educational institutions, graffiti/street art, and so many other things. Race, inequality, and culture are all woven together into a complex knot. The oppression and inequality that Black Brazilians faced led them to create a rich culture of resistance that they are still contributing to today as inequality and racism continue to take new forms. Brazilian culture is distinctly marked by African traditions introduced by slavery, and it would not be the same without them. Therefore, to fully appreciate Brazilian culture, we need to understand its roots in African tradition and Afro-Brazilian resistance. 

Sources:
Dos Santos, Pedro. “Slave Revolts in Bahia.” YouTube. Uploaded by Pedro dos Santos, 13 February 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO_syIfkYVQ.

Pereira, Anthony. Modern Brazil a very short introduction. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2020.
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Pinho, Osmundo. “Race and Cultural Politics in Bahia.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, 2020.
 
Vieira Junior, Itamar. Crooked Plow. Verso Books, 2019. 

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Morgan Van Beck is a senior Political Science and Hispanic Studies double major with a minor in Latino/Latin American Studies. She is originally from Sartell, Minnesota. Morgan's most formative educational experience was traveling around Guatemala with the Guatemala Human Rights Commission, which inspired the theme of her senior distinguished thesis: human rights abuses in post-conflict societies. Morgan recently received a Fulbright grant to teach English in Colombia and will be moving there shortly after graduation. ​

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