ABSTRACT
We begin this chapter with an historical overview of African slavery in Brazil. Despite many forms of cultural, religious, and physical resistance, imported Africans were unable to initially defeat slavery. The church and state never opposed the enslavement of black people as they had Indigenous groups. Furthermore, society at that time believed strongly in the pseudo-scientific theories of social Darwinism, in which black people were considered socially inferior, of low intelligence, emotionally unstable, and biologically designed for subjection to whites. Beginning with whitening policies in the 1800s and through the teachings of Gilberto Freyre in the 1930s, Brazil considered itself to be a racial democracy, without any overt racist practices. By examining the painting The Redemption of Ham, we show how whitening principles permeated society. We provide data that dismantles the myth of racial democracy and underscore efforts to disrupt this status quo. We conclude the chapter with an examination of capoeira, an art form that resides at the intersection of music, dance, and Afro resistance. In the Up Close section, we introduce the Quilombo do Campinho and Abadá Capoeira as examples of African culture preservation and resistance.
