Sertão and Sertanejo: An Interpretive Context for Canudos

Author(s): Gerald Michael Greenfield

Source: Luso-Brazilian Review, Vol. 30, No. 2, Special Issue: "The World Out of Which Canudos
Came" (Winter, 1993), pp. 35-46
Published by: University of Wisconsin Press
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Sertdoand Sertanejo:An Interpretive
Context for Canudos
Gerald Michael Greenfield

Euclides da Cunha's impressions of the army march through the backlands of

Bahia and the eventual reduction of the Canudos "rebellion"resound powerfully with
images of a strange, almost mythic environment, the sertdo,inhabited by an equally
curious people, the sertanejos,or backlanders. In a phrase subsequently widely quoted,
da Cunha spoke of the sertanejosas "the bedrock of our race," but his recognition of
this bedrock required that layers of civilization be stripped away.His spatialjourney to
Bahia became as well ajourney back through time, from the "civilized"society of Sao
Paulo and Rio deJaneiro to the "primitive"world and people of the interior. As Robert
M. Levine puts it, "terrifiedby the specter of rural revolt, da Cunha reported the events
of the Canudos conflict as a battle between the forces of civilization and darkness."'
Within Brazil Os Sertoesachieved the status of "a sacred text-leaving its interpre-
tation of Canudos, in turn, virtuallyuntouchable."2In this regard, the rich complexity
of da Cunha's epic often became distilled into a simple canon: the reciprocal rela-
tionship between the demented mysticAntonio Conselheiro and his misguided, prim-
itive backland followers. As Levine notes, not only da Cunha, but other "eyewitnesses
to the Canudos conflict shared suspicions and fears about the retrograde if not degen-
erate nature of the sertanejopopulation."3 And as a result, says Levine, "Canudos
entered the Brazilian consciousness as a fearful symbol of primitive impulses of racial-
ly mixed peasants manipulated by a false messiah."4
Thus, writing subsequently in reference to these masses, Joao Pandia Calogeras
opined:

The population of the sertdoor interior of Bahia is a mass of ignorant

folk, descendants of the early Portuguese settlers crossed with indian
and Negro stains. They adhere to a Christianity...in which Catholic
dogma is adulterated with beliefs and practices imported by the former
slavesfrom Africa.In this curious religious amalgam, gross superstitions
and downright idolatry naturallyplay a large part.5

This essential element of both contemporary and subsequent assessments of

Canudos-the stress on ignorant, superstitious, violence-prone sertanejos-provokes
questions: Why did educated Braziliansof the later nineteenth century so readily seize
upon ignorance and fanaticism as explanations for sertanejobehavior?And why did the
audiences who consumed such assessments, including government officials, members
of learned societies, and readers of major urban newspapers, so readily believe and
repeat them?

Luso-BrazilianReviewxxx, 2 0024-7413/93/035 $1.50

?1993 by the Board of Regents of the
University of Wisconsin System
36 Luso-BrazilianReview30:2

In framing a response to these questions, this essay argues that well in advance of
Canudos Brazilian elites had constructed and peopled a backlands world, endowing
it with the key elements that would emerge in subsequent discussions of the
Conselheiro and his adherents. This constructed world reflected dominant conceits
of modernizing Brazilian elites more than it did backlands reality. Canudos was inter-
preted through these images of sertdoand sertanejo,and expressed in a discourse
shared by "civilized"Brazilian elites.6 The content, origins, and functions of these
images form the subject of this essay.
According to Lori Madden, in Os Sertdes,Euclides da Cunha, influenced by both
positivism and the work of Nina Rodrigues, "reduced the Canudos conflict to the vio-
lent encounter of two nonsyncretic cultures: the progressive civilization of the litoral
and the backwardbarbarityof the interior."7In this he also echoed a reigning dualism
of the nineteenth century western world, civilization versus savagery. The West had
neatly compartmentalized the globe into civilized areas-essentially the old established
power centers of western Europe-and places of barbarism and savagery-largely
those areas being explored, dominated, and ultimately colonized by an expanding
Europe.
The expansion of Europe and the domination of backward peoples were accept-
ed, indeed celebrated, as both inevitable and positive. In the nineteenth century, says
Philip Darby, progress "came to be seen not only as an ethical good but as a principle
of nature-something from which no area of life or quarter of the globe would remain
immune."8 Progress was defined operationally in a broad range of areas, including a
political philosophy, liberalism; a form of government, democratic republics; and a
mode of production, free labor and the use of machines. Defined in Europe, it also
suggested the primacy of the caucasian race and temperate climates.
This dichotomous world vision placed Brazilian elites in a difficult position.
Educated through both formal schooling and personal experience to accept and
respect European culture and accomplishments, they remained painfully aware of the
developmental gulf between their country and Europe. Equally problematical was the
contrast with another new nation of the Americas, the United States, whose material
progress-including an extensive railroad network, productive farms, and burgeon-
ing industry-bespoke an energetic, enterprising people wedded to a governmental
form designed precisely to provide ample room for the expression of their yankee
ingenuity.
One response within Brazil, notesJose Murilo de Carvalho,was a series of internal
"civilizingcampaigns" or "missions,"9Including the suppression of Canudos as as one
of these missions, Murilo de Carvalho points to da Cunha's "famous phrase: 'We are
condemned to civilization. We either progress or disappear.'"'0For a significant por-
tion of the Brazilian elite, the abolition of slaveryand the replacing of the monarchy
with a republican form of government held both symbolic and real importance in mov-
ing the nation toward patterns of political and social life more consonent with the
canons of the civilized world. "Order and Progress,"the positivist slogan emblazoned
on the flag of Republican Brazil, expressed this vision, but it also implied a funda-
mental contradiction. Progress, as some of the more extreme republicans recognized,
required fundamental social, economic, and even attitudinal change. Such changes,
however, of necessity would affect existing relations of power and, hence, provoke dis-
order. In the main, Brazil'selites wanted progress without any such unsettling changes.
Greenfield 37

Their consensual assessments of the causes of Brazilian backwardness naturally gravi-

tated towardfactors more congenial to the maintenance of the patriarchalsocial order.
One such consensual point was the defective nature of the masses of Brazilianpeo-
ple, said by contemporary European science to result from the interaction of race and
environment. Da Cunha stressed the centuries of isolation and concomitant ignorance
in which the backlanders had lived: "In the rustic society of the backlands, time has
stood still; this society has not been affected by the general evolutionary movement of
the human race."Hence, too, the sertanejos lacked the intelligence to truly understand
catholicism, so that their "crude religious practices...reveal all the stigmata of their
underdeveloped mentality.""Throughout the latter decades of the nineteenth centu-
ry, whether in discussions of immigration, abolition, the crisis in Brazilian export agri-
culture, or the need to alter the nature of the existing governmental system, questions
of race, environment, and the nature of the Brazilian people invariablysurfaced. Not
surprisingly,then, the way in which Brazilian elites described, or rather interpreted the
behavior of the masses at Canudos bore the formative marks of such conceits.
Indeed, key aspects of the depiction of the backlanders at Canudos, including its
emphasis on their general ignorance, propensity for violence, and the ease with which
they could be misled, already formed part of the discursive repertoire of Brazilian
elites, and had been employed previously in discussions of backland problems. For
example, Roderic Barman points to the "contemporaryportrayalof the participants in
the Quebra-Quilo uprising [a popular protest against the introduction of the metric
system, which began in Paraiba in 1874 and spread to Pernambuco, Alagoas and Rio
Grande do Norte] as a fanatic and ignorant rabble."'2He notes the comments of a dis-
trictjudge, who saw the uprising as caused by "awild mob of ruffians, thieves, and mur-
derers, drunk with blood, plunder, and destruction who were manipulated by the cab-
inet's opponents, particularlythe ItalianJesuits... ."'
Such descriptions also figured prominantly in discourse on the Great Drought of
1877.'4During the three years that the drought ravaged the northeastern backlands,
the nature of the sertdoand its inhabitants was widely discussed.'5The views of Brazilian
scholars and scientists who engaged in debates about the drought are especially inter-
esting since they provide insights into assumptions held by some of the nation's most
highly educated individuals, all well-acquainted with the major intellectual currents of
the modem world.'6
While these eminent people disagreed as to the most effective means of avoiding
the massive problems associated with major droughts, certain areas of consensus
appeared. One involved the degree to which existing agricultural practices-the
despised rotina, had complicated matters by destroying the mata. According to the
geographer Giacomo Raja Gabaglia, the primitive practice of burning off the brush
had transformed previously fertile land into arid fields.'7 The regime of fire and the
hoe, followed "withneither rule nor law",was daily destroying what had taken nature
centuries to produce."'8The undisciplined nature of the sertanejowith regard to agri-
culture found its counterpart in the undisciplined nature of cattle-raising. Animals
were left to roam freely, and no attention was paid to developing a modern pastoral
industry.
It is important to note that this absence of discipline, a key facet of the sertanejo's
nature, was strongly associated with prevailing western thinking about "primitive"peo-
ples who, less evolved in Darwinian terms, acted more from instinct and impulse than
38 Luso-BrazilianReview30:2

from intelligence. This characteristic,furthermore, naturallyrelated to superstition and

an emphasis on magic and ritual rather than on rational thought. Thus, Guilherme
Schiich Capanema, who held an engineering degree from the Polytechncial School of
Vienna, scolded the sertanejosfor relying on divine intervention instead of on "fore-
sight, perseverance, and good sense."19Ant6nio de Mendonca, writing in the journal
of the Sociedade Auxiliadora da Industria Nacional, referred to the backlanders'
"invincibleignorance," and asserted that "theypay no heed to the counsels of science,
which they see as importunate Cassandras."20
The nature of the sertanejoalso emerged in discussions of relief. As the Imperial
government began establishing mechanisms and procedures for dealing with drought
victims, especially the retirantes(those who left their homes in search of food, water,
and shelter), concerns centered on drawing the line between benevolent charity and
the subsidizing of indolence. According to official discourse, abuse of the relief system
proved common and reflected defects of character among the backlanders. The
provincial health inspector of Pernambuco, for example, charged that retirantes fraud-
ulently obtained extra rations and then sold them "forwhatever price so as to devote
themselves to gambling and drunkenness."2'Provincialhealth officials also viewed high
levels of disease and mortality as resulting from the sertanejos'lowlevel of civilization.
Retiranteswere ignorant of the most elementary precepts of hygiene and used "sub-
stances harmful to their health."22
The threat to public order posed by masses of retirantesalso surfaced as a major
issue during the drought. In 1879, as the Imperial senate discussed a policy change that
would cut off most drought-related expenditures, concerns surfaced regarding the
probability of violence occurring if relief disappeared.23To be sure, cause for alarm
existed. In the Rio Grande do Norte town of Mossor6, in 1879, citizens barricaded
themselves inside their houses after most local government officials had fled, terror-
ized by a retiranteband that threatened to sack the town and take government sup-
plies.24Furthermore, cangaceiroslike Viriatos and Meireles, with bands reinforced by
retirantes,had been sacking towns throughout Rio Grande do Norte.25
Again, the undisciplined nature of sertanejos, whether with regard to habits of labor
or questions of public order, found an explanation in race, social class, and environ-
ment. Many writershave noted the impact of European "scientificracism"on Brazilian
racial attitudes, particularly with regard to the elite's negative stance toward the
nation's masse of slaves and miscegenated people.26 Another aspect of that racism
stressed the negative impact of the environment. European scientists like Benjamin
Kidd, for example, equated tropical peoples with an earlier stage in the evolution of
the human species.27This rationalized the vision of the "natives"of such places as Africa
and India as children who needed firm guidance from Europeans, whose colonial
endeavors essentially were fulfilling a civilizing mission.
The evidence that supported such notions of "tropical torpor" typically was the
invidious comparison between the level of civilization achieved by Europeans, as
opposed to that found in less temperate climes. And the explanation for this difference
rested to a large extent on the presumed ease of life in the tropics. Lush tropical
growth led Europeans to believe that such regions as sub-SaharanAfrica could produce
extravagantlywith little effort. That the natives of these places had fared so poorly in
terms of building on their abundant natural environment bespoke both racial and
environmental incapacity, resulting in the absence of a work ethic. In turn, "the
African's laziness was explained by two causes: the ease with which he could make a liv-
Greenfield 39

ing because of nature's exuberance and the absence of most of the needs that the civ-
ilized world knew."28
These tenets of European tropicology merged easily with Brazilians' long-standing
belief in the abundance of their nation's resource base. This article of faith, which
dated from the early days of the colony, remained strong in the nineteenth century.
For example, the author of reports summarizing and commenting on Brazil's partici-
pation in the world exposition in Paris in 1867, averred: "Nature appears to have des-
tined Brazil to be one of the world's leading agricultural nations. Still mainly covered
by magnificent virgin forests, its soil retains its primitive fertility,that so amply and gen-
erously compensates any labor of man."2
Deeply concerned with issues of labor supply in the wake of the impending demise
of slavery,Brazilian elites enthusiastically seized upon tropical torpor in explanations
of the nation's backwardness.Its "fit"with the sertdoand the sertanejos seemed obvious.
The sertdoclearlywas a healthful land of enormous fertility,despite the scourge of cycli-
cal drought.30Indeed, according to Guilherme Schiich Capanema, drought served as
a weathering agent that further increased the land's fertility.31It was believed that even
after the most severe of droughts the lands speedily regained their productivity.32
The very fertility of the land, however, had fostered a life style among the sertanejos
that impeded material progress and civilization. In precisely those terms used by
Europeans to describe the "natives"of Africa, Brazilian elites characterized the life of
the sertaneos.They could spend their days in idleness because "the fertility of the soil
during good times maintains them with little labor."33 According to the Liberal deputa-
do Olimpio Gomes de Castro, "the lowest portion of our population ... has no needs
other than the natural ones, and those are the very ones that the climate and fertility
of the soil make easily obtainable."34The "undisciplined life" of the sertdospoken of by
Euclides da Cunha takes on particularmeaning here in terms of the discipline of work,
as do critiques of the sertanejosfor their culpability in failing to exercise the necessary
foresight and take the steps needed to assure their future.
The conceptual cluster of the abundant promise of the land, need for a work ethic,
and the possibilities of progress comprised an essential analytical element of the
Brazilianproblematique in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Reformists linked to
abolition and republicanism believed that slaverymilitated against a more generalized
work ethic. The association of manual labor with slaveryproduced an aversion to toil
on the part of the masses. At the same time, since tenets of the day emphasized free
wage labor as a touchstone of progress, the persistence of slaverylimited Brazil'smarch
toward modernity. Equallyimportant, it caused disdain for Brazilin the eyes of the civ-
ilized world. In two major agricultural congresses (one in Rio deJaneiro, the other in
Recife) convened in 1878 to consider problems plaguing export agriculture, delegates
clearly proceeded from a belief in the richness of the nation's natural resources, the
promise of abundance offered by its fertile land, and agreed on the need for a more
disciplined labor force.35
While planters saw the labor issue as susceptible to varyingspecific solutions, a com-
mon concern with the issue of labor control framed their discussion. The term "disor-
ganization of labor"gained currency in the early years of the Republic to express con-
cerns regarding the transition from slavery to free labor.36Essential conceptual ele-
ments underlying this term were disdain for the caipira,seen as an "idler,loafer, drunk-
ard [and] thief," and a fear that "the former slave would share [these] alleged charac-
teristics."37
40 Luso-BrazilianReview30:2

Quintino Bocaifiva, a prominent republican publicist who also had written about
the problems of Brazilian agriculture, argued that the promise of republicanism as a
political movement was modernity, "the best guarantor of the maintenance of peace
and order, for the fecund development of labor, for the creation of wealth-the moral
and material goods that together constitute the assets of a nation."3
If "organization,regeneration, and moralization"39 comprised the promise of both
abolition and republicanism, then issues of order stood at their heart. Indeed, three
specific types of order had to be maintained: the hierarchical social order, the order-
liness of labor relations, and, as a concomitant, public order. As viewed from elite per-
ceptions, the dicey aspect was precisely those negative characteristics of the national
population which made them unprepared to function in a moder, liberal society. The
Brazilianmasses were rude, ignorant, averse to work, and subject to the needs and pas-
sions of the moment. And, while modernizing elites in the city saw the nation's interi-
or as an untapped treasure trove, the very fact that it remained so undeveloped testi-
fied to the backwardnessof its people.
As with so much regarding the interior of Brazil, this treasure-trovementality rest-
ed more on imagination than on known fact. For the Brazilian elite, the interior
remained in many respects a mysterious place.4 The vogue for the incipient regional
literature of the northeast, exemplified by such figures asJose de Alencar, suggests a
certain fascination among coastal elites with their nation's remote interior.41Indeed,
just as nineteenth century European explorers and travelers reported on the strange
and exotic lands and peoples of distant lands, so too Brazilians commented on their
own nation's primitive backlands. The Revistaof the Instituto Hist6rico e Geografico
Brasileiro regularly included articles communicating that view. For example, a district
judge, reporting on a trip he made from Rio de Janeiro to Goias, spoke of the people
he observed as particularly devoted to sensuous pleasures and said their customs
showed the absence of "taste,civilization, and instruction."42
Within this context, the northeastern backlands and their inhabitants held a par-
ticularly salient position as exemplar of national problems. In part, this resulted from
the marked economic decline of the northeast and its impoverishment relative to the
southeast, a process observable throughout the century. By 1872, in terms of total
regional income, the entire northeast had about a quarter of that of the provinces of
Rio deJaneiro and Sao Paulo. By 1900, it had perhaps a sixth of their total, with the
impressive growth of S5o Paulo as a critical aspect of the northeast's slide.43The key
cities of the two regions reflected this developmental inequality. Recife, Perambuco's
capital and the emporium and administrative center for a vast northeastern "satellite
bloc,"44saw its 1872 population of 116,000 remain essentially flat throughout the
remainder of the century. The same happened in the lesser northeastern capitals of
Fortaleza, Natal, andJoao Pessoa. To be sure, Salvadorrecorded growth, from a pop-
ulation of 129,000 in 1872, to 200,000 in 1900. However, during that same period, the
population of Rio de Janeiro tripled, to reach 800,000 while that of Sao Paulo explod-
ed from 30,000 to 240,000.45
It was easy to assume, then, that the northeast, home of the sugar estates and great
planters expressed the stagnation associated with the imperial principle, whereas the
southeast, and especially Sao Paulo, represented those modem principles congenial to
a liberal republic.46Otherwise, it made no sense that "the land that gives so much to
coffee" was "niggardlywith sugar."47 Recurring droughts that brought the northeastern
Greenfield 41

backlands to the pages of southeastern newspapers, and sertanejosthemselves to the

cities of the southeast, further reinforced this image.
A specific association of violence with the northeast was promoted by the incidence
of banditry, which seemed to rise dramatically through the 1870s and 1880s. The
depredations of gangs of cangaceiros, which increased especially during the dislocations
produced by drought, terrorized local government officials and were regularly men-
tioned in their correspondence with provincial presidents, who in turn passed these
concerns on to the Imperial government. The cangaceirosalso made good newspaper
copy, and some bandits became well-known figures outside the confines of the north-
eastern sertao.Particularly celebrated wasJesuino Brilhante, the scourge of Paraiba,
Ceara and Rio Grande do Norte from 1873 until his death in 1880.48Significantly,judg-
ing by the language officials used to describe them, bandits and the lower classes
shared much in common. For example, official reports typically referred to the ban-
dits as ociososwho lived without the discipline of labor, and remarked their lower class
origin and absence of education.49
In assessing these elite attitudes toward the masses and the northeast, it is impor-
tant to note a point raised by Philip Darby. He reminds us that Western superiority
involved not only positive judgements about European progress, but negative ones
regarding other parts of the world:

Europe and America's material advancement stood against Asian deca-

dence and African primitivism.Western rationalism was counterposed
to Eastern mysticism and superstition; the work ethic to native laziness
and fatalism. In, sum, the Orient was worn-out, immobile and corrupt.
Africa and its peoples were barbaric, indolent, and childlike.50

One might suggest, then, that Brazilian elites, by denigrating the Brazilian masses,
attempted to elevate themselves above the national reality to the level of civilized
Europeans. By focusing on the decadence of the northeast, southeastern elites could
conveniently ignore the degree to which their own region partook of a similar reality.
And, as the ones making these assessments,elites effectivelyexempted themselves from
judgement.
If one moves outside that elite conceptual world, it becomes clear that members
of Brazilian learned societies-at least based on their discourse on the drought-
themselves displayed two of the very qualities they found repugnant in the masses:
ignorance and superstition. They coupled an ignorance of the sertdowith a naive,
indeed almost superstitious faith in science.51In a letter to the extraordinary session
of the Polytechncial Institute convoked to devise means to combat problems of
drought, Dr. Zozino Barroso expressed his faith in the efficacy of constructing large
reservoirs. He referred to a river valley, though he could not specify its precise loca-
tion, where "the construction of a wall a few meters high would without any difficulty
create an immense area of water".52At a special meeting of the Associacao Brasileira
de Acclima:ao, possibilities presented by the so called rain tree (arvore de chuva),
which like a perpetual motion machine supposedly produced more water than it con-
sumed, received serious attention.53Ant6nio Marco de Macedo asserted that the back-
lands had such "prodigious"fertility that many times only a single good rain per year
could provide sufficient water for both successful livestock raising and for the small
42 Luso-BrazilianReview30:2

And, the learned referred to the "proverbial"healthfulness

plantings of the sertanejos.54
of the sertdo,though data indicate the pervasivepresence of misery and disease.55
In a similar fashion, a focus on backlands violence discursively obscured the vio-
lence that existed throughout Brazilian society, including that embedded in its labor
and class relations. So, too, an emphasis on the retrograde nature of backlands Brazil,
that well-remarked contrast between civilized coast and barabarous sertdo,served to
mask the backwardness-including inadequate sanitary,health, and educational infra-
structure-of urban Brazil.56
Another functional aspect of the elite's power to define the nature of civilized and
uncivilized behavior emerges in the way it sanctioned the use of a level of force and
violence in the reduction of Canudos that by other standards easily could be seen as
excessive and barbaric. According to one dominant strain in social darwinism, great
nations were the product of great people. Analogously, it was in the nature of civilized
people to behave in a civilized fashion; the behavior of barbarous peoples, of course,
emanated from their barbarous nature. And, as FrancisJennings observes, "civilized
war is the kind wefight against them...,whereas savage war is the kind that they fight
against us."57Hence, the jagunfos fought savagely, while the government troops
engaged in civilized combat.
In a penetrating analysis of Brazilian society, Roberto da Matta has suggested the
existence of "paradigmaticsocial characters or personages" that define "a certain way
of being and belonging to Brazilian society."58 A perusal of late nineteenth century dis-
course clearly indicates that elites established a very limited range of "being and
belonging" for the masses. The "worthy"or "deserving"poor knew their place and
behaved with appropriate resignation and humility. They merited a charitable
response in time of need, and might be uplifted under the tutelage of an enlightened
state. The shiftless elements among the masses, the ociososand vagabundos,were prone
to violence and debauchery. They required a firmer hand and the discipline that came
from regular, supervised labor. Missing, of course, was the possibility of the masses
independently making rational choices.
To the civilized coastal dweller of Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo, such concepts
defined the nature of the backlands and its people. Given prevailing social class atti-
tudes, the specific images of the northeast backlands, and an already established vocab-
ulary for describing popular movements as threatening and anarchic, could the peo-
ple who flocked to Canudos be anything other than rude, ignorant, superstitious mass-
es caught in the grip of a charismaticfanatic? Sertanejos acting in this fashion could only
be perceived as the antithesis of civilized society-the order and progress promised by
republican Brazil.59In moving against Canudos, the government was not only protect-
ing itself against a perceived threat to the Republic. It was also insisting on definitions
of civilization and progress congenial to the self-image-and self-interest-of
Brazilian elites.

NOTES

'RobertM.Levine,ValeofTears.Revisiting
theCanudosMassacre in Northeastern
Brazil,1893-1897
(Berkelyand London:Universityof CaliforniaPress,1992),p. 4. CharlesA. Hale ["Politicaland
SocialIdeasin LatinAmerica,1870-1930,"in LeslieBethell,ed., TheCambridge HistoryofLatin
America,v. V (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1986), pp. 367-441, especiallyp. 403],
Greenfield 43

observesthatthe fallof AntonioConselheiro's backlandsredoubtrepresented"the'firstassault'in

a long struggle,'the inevitablecrushingof the weakracesby the strong,'a process...daCunha
equatedwiththe marchof civilization."
2Bethell, The Cambridge
History,p. 526.
3RobertM. Levine,"'MudHutJerusalem':CanudosRevisited,"HispanicAmerican Historical
Review[hereafterHAHR]68:3 (Aug.1988),p. 547.
4Levine,"MudHutJerusalem," p. 527.
5AHistoryofBrazil,trans.and ed. byPercyAlvinMartin(NewYork:Russelland Russell,1963),
p. 300.Thisaccountappearsundera headingentitled"Fanaticism in the Sertao."
6SincenineteenthcenturyBrazilianselaboratedtheirideaswithinan inheritedset of social
andintellectualunderstandings, a comprehensive responseto thisquestionwouldinvolveissuesof
hierarchyin Brazilas evidencedin the longerhistoricalrecordof elite attitudestowardthe mass-
es. Forexample,Laurade Melloe Souzahas discussedthe implicationsof the termsvadioand
vadiagem as appliedto the freepoorpopulation,notingtheirchangingdefinitionsin relationships
to the laborneeds of the miningeconomyof MinasGerais.
7LoriMadden,"Evolution of the CanudosMovement:An Evaluationof
in the Interpretations
the SocialSciences,"Luso-Brazilian Review,28:1(Summer,1991),p. 60.
8Philip Darby, ThreeFaces of Imperialism.British and AmericanApproachesto Asia and Africa
1870-1970(NewHavenand London:YaleUniversityPress,1987).
9Jos6Murilode Carvalho,"Brazil1870-1914-The Force of Tradition,"JournalofLatin
American 24 (quincentennary
Studies, supplement,1992),pp. 145-162,p. 148.
"Brazil1870-1914,"p. 149.
'"Carvalho,
"Euclides da Cunha, Rebellionin theBacklands(Os sert6es),trans. by Samuel Putnam (Chicago:
Universityof ChicagoPress,1944), pp. 111-12. WalniceNogueiraGalvao["UmaAusencia,"in
RobertoSchwarz,org., Ospobres na literatura
brasileira
(SaoPaulo:Brasiliense,1983),p. 52.] points
to this aspectof da Cunha'sanalysis:"opobre 6 um retardatario(de tresseculos,diz ele varias
vezes)."Hale ["Politicaland SocialIdeas,"p. 409] observesthat "theracialand environmental
determinisminherentin socialthoughtfrom 1890to 1914sharpenedand solidifieda diagnosis
of LatinAmericanpoliticswhichhadbeen developingsinceat leastthe 1840s."
'2Roderick Barman,'The BrazilianPeasantryReexamined:The Implicationsof the Quebra-
QuiloRevolt,1874-1875,"HAHR57:3 (Aug.,1977),p. 406.
'3Barman, 'The BrazilianPeasantry", p. 407.See alsoGeraldoIrineoJoffily,"OQuebra-Quilo.
A Revoltados Matutoscontraos Doutores(1874),"RevistadeHist6ria,Sao Paulo,54 (July-Sept.,
1976), pp. 69-145. The massesmisledby a religousfigurealsowouldbe positedin accountsof
PadreCiceroand the "miracle" atJoaseiro.See Ralphdella Cava,MiracleatJoaseiro (NewYork:
ColumbiaUniversityPress,1970).
'4Historiesof this droughtfocus mainlyon Ceara.See RogerL. Cunniff,TheGreatDrought:
Northeast Brazil,1877-1889 (Ph. D. diss., Universityof Texas, Austin, 1970), and Rodolpho
Theophilo, Hist6riada seccado Ceara(1877 a 1880) (Fortaleza:Typ. do Libertador, 1883).
'5SeeGeraldMichaelGreenfield,'The GreatDroughtandEliteDiscoursein ImperialBrazil,"
HAHR72:3 (Aug.1992),pp. 375-400.
6Thesepeopleusuallywereassociatedwithsuchsignificantlearnedsocietiesand associations
as the InstitutoHist6ricoe GeograficoBrasileiro,the Sociedadede AcclimacaoBrasileira,the
Sociedade Auxiliadorade IndustriaNacional, and the Imperial Instituto Fluminense de
Agricultura.
'7GiacomoRaja Gabaglia,Ensaiossobrealguns melhoramentos
tendentesd prosperidade
da provincia
do Cearai(RiodeJaneiro:Typ.Nacional,1877),p. 8. Thisbook is a collectionof newspaperarti-
cles originallywrittenin 1860by Gabagliaafterhe servedon a commissionof engineersand nat-
uralistsestablishedbythe Imperialgovernmentin 1856to investigateconditionsin the northeast.
See Joaquim Alves, Hist6riado Ceard.Hist6riadas secas(SeculosXVIIa XIX) (Fortaleza: Edic6es do
Institutodo Ceara,1953),p. 150. Cunniff[TheGreatDrought,p. 70] observesthatGabaglia"felt
that the attitudesand inertiaof backlanderswere more responsiblefor their problemsthan
44 Luso-Brazilian
Review30:2

droughts." Tellingly, according to Cunniff (p. 69), Gabaglia's opinions "eventuallywere to carry
the most weight."
'8Gabaglia,Ensaios,p. 11.
'9Jomaldo Comirdo,23 Oct. 1877.
20"ASecca Actual," O Auxiliadorda IndustriaNacional 11 (Nov. 1877), p. 538.
2'Dr.Pedro d'Attahyde Lobo Moscozo to Adolpho de Barros, President of Pernambuco, 12
July 1878, Arquivo Piblico do Estado de Pernambuco, Safide Pfiblica, p. 4.
'Quote is from Ceara, RelatoriodoPresidentedaJunta deHygiene...apresentado ao governoem 1879,
annexed to Relat6riodo Ministroe Secretdrio do EstadodosNegociosdo Imperio,May 1879, p. 25.
23Brasil,Congresso Nacional, Anais do Senadodo Imperiodo Brasil(hereafter Senado, Anais), 7
July 1879, p. 85.
24Presidentof Ceara to the President of Rio Grande do Norte, 8 Feb. 1879, Arquivo Nacional,
Rio de Janeiro [hereafter AN], Ministerio do Imperio, Correspondencia do Presidente da
Provincia [hereafter Presidente], IJJ9/212.
2"MinisteriodaJustica, 3a secao, summary of report from the president of Rio Grande do
Norte, 16July 1878, AN, IJ1/299. On banditry see Rui Fac6, Cangaceirosefandticos:genesee lutas
(Rio deJaneiro: CivilizacaoBrasileira, 1963), and BillyJaynes Chandler, TheFeitosasand theSertdo
dos Inhamuns. TheHistoryof a Familyand a Communityin NortheastBrazil, 1700-1930 (Gainesville:
University of Florida Press, 1972).
26Thus,it is commonly noted that the emphasis on European immigration reflected a racist
disdain for the capability and potential of the national laborer. See, for example, Robert E.
Conrad, "The Planter Class and the Debate over Chinese Immigration to Brazil, 1850-1893,"
InternationalMigrationReview9:1 (Spring 1975), pp. 41-55; Michael M. Hall, The Originsof Mass
Immigrationin Brazil, 1874-1914 (Ph. D. diss., Columbia University, 1969); Licio Kowarick,
Trabalhoe vadiagem.A origemdo trabalholivre no Brasil (Sao Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 1987);
Thomas E. Skidmore, "RacialIdeas and Social Policy in Brazil, 1870-1940," in Richard Graham,
ed., TheIdea of Race in Latin America,1870-1940 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), and
George Reid Andrews, Blacksand Whitesin Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1888-1988 (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1991).
"7SeeBenjamin Kidd, TheControlof the Tropics(London: The Macmillan Company, 1898).
28WilliamJ.Samarin, TheBlackMan's Burden-African ColonialLaboron the Congoand Ubangi
Rivers, 1880-1900 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989), p. 12. Samarin notes a letter from a
French missionary in Central Africa to the DepecheColonialeas being "practicallya white paper on
the subject of work,"which offered the following explanation: 'The heat of the climate does away
with clothing; as he [the black] is easily satisfied, the soil furnishes him amply with which to nour-
ish himself with the least effort; the wife occupies herself alone with the work of fields and home;
as for her husband, he smokes his pipe, belly to the sun, and deigns from time to time to go hunt-
ing and fishing." (p. 15).
29Anon., O Imp&riodo Brasil na Exposifao Universal de 1867 em Paris (Rio de Janeiro: Typ.
Universal de Laemmert, 1867), p. 68.
'Viriato de Medeiros, Ponderafcessobrea memoriadoDr. AndreReboucas-A Seccanas Provincias
do Norte(Rio deJaneiro: Typ. Academica, 1877), p. 25, for example, characterized the sertdoas an
"exceedinglyfertile"region that was "unfortunatelysubject to extraordinarydevastatingdroughts."
SJornaldo Comercio, Oct. 23 1877.
12Senado, Anais,June 27 1877, v. 1, p. 254.
33Relat6rio ...pela Commissdode Socorrosda Villado Teixeiraao...Presidente
destaProvincia....15 Oct.
1879, AN, Presidente, IJJ9/294.
34Brasil,Congresso Nacional, Anais da CdmaradosDeputadosdoImperiodo Brasil 25 June 1877,
v. 1, p. 252.
"5Forthe proceedings of the Recife congress, as well as an interesting summary analysis, see
Trabalhosdo CongressoAgncola do Recife,outubrode 1878, introducao de Gadiel Perruci (Recife:
Fundacao Estadual de Planejamento Agricola de Pernambuco, 1878). For the Rio congress, see
Congresso Agricola,introduction byJose Murilo de Carvalho (Rio de Janeiro: Fundacao Casa Rui
Greenfield 45

Barbosa, 1988), and Peter L. Eisenberg, "Amentalidade dos fazendeiros no Congresso Agricola
de 1878," in Jose Roberto do Amaral Lapa, comp., Modos de produado e realidade brasileira
(Petr6polis:Vozes, 1980), pp. 167-94.
36Lapa,ModosdeProdufao,p. 120.
37Lapa,ModosdeProdudao,p. 121.
38AProvinciade SdoPaulo, 15 May 1889, quoted in Iraci Galvao Salles, Trabalho,progressoe a
sociedadecivilizada-O partidorepublicano paulistae a politicade mdo-de-obra(1870-1889) (Sao Paulo:
Hucitec, 1986), p. 41. BocaifivaanalyzedBrazilianagriculturein A criseda lavoura.Succintaexposifdo
(Rio deJaneiro: Typ. Perserveranca,1868).
39DosSantos, "AgriculturalReform," 120.
"Tellingly, Levine [Valeof Tears,p. 1] points out that Cunha "wasone of the few members of
the elite to achieve firsthand knowledge of the land and people of the hinterland."
4When Alencar, in his official political capacity, argued against aid from the Imperial gov-
ernment in the early days of the drought, he was criticized in O Cearense for relating to the back-
lands in terms of the idealized literaryimages of his work O Sertanejo.0 Cearense, Fortaleza, 3 May
1877, p. 1.
4Vicente Ferreira Gomes, "Itinerarioda cidade da Palma, em Goyaz, a cidade de Bel6m, no
Para, pelo Rio Tocantins, e breve noticia do norte da provincia de Goyaz," Revistado Instituto
Histdricoe Geogrdfico Brasileiro,25 (1862), pp. 485-513. The parallel with European accounts of the
excessive sensuality of the "natives"of Africa is both interesting and suggestive.
43MirceaBuescu, "Regional Inequalities in Brazil during the Second Half of the Nineteenth
Century,"in Paul Bairach and Maurice Levy-Leboyer,eds., Disparitiesin EconomicDevelopment since
theIndustrialRevolution(New York:St. Martin's Press, 1981), pp. 349-358, especially p. 352. Data
for the northeast include Maranhao, Piaui, Ceara, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraiba, Pernambuco,
Alagoas, Sergipe, and Bahia.
44The use of the term satellite bloc in this connection comes from Robert M. Levine,
Perambuco in theBrazilianFederation,1889-1937 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1978), p. 1.
"These are rounded figures. Emilia Viotti da Costa, TheBrazilianEmpire:Mythsand Histories
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 194, cites the strong link between urbanization
and international commerce in the latter half of the nineteenth century: "Citygrowth reflected
the vitalityof the export economy much more than the expansion of the internal market."
"For a discussion of perceptions of the northeast see Gerald Michael Greenfield, "Regional
Image and National Identity:The Northeast and Brazil in the Late Nineteenth Century,"in Isabel
Clemente, comp., Historia,Memorias 45o Congreso Internacional de Americanistas (Bogota:
Ediciones Uniandes, 1988), pp. 105-115.
47RozendoMoniz Barreto,ExposifioNacionalde 1875. Notase observafoes (Rio deJaneiro, 1876),
p. 50.
48Hamiltonde Mattos Monteiro, Criseagrdriae luta de classes(0 nordestebrasileiroentre1850 e
1889) (Brasilia:Horizonte Editora, 1980), pp. 74-76. By 1900, the exploits ofJesuino Brilhante
had made their way into a chap book. See AlexandreJ. F. Cavalcantid'Albuquerque Saba Saboia,
JesuinoBrilhante(Caruari, PE:So-Cordel SaoJose, 1900). On the images and career of this canga-
ceirosee Raimundo Nonato, comp., JesuinoBrilhante,0 cangaceiroromdntico(1844-1879) (Rio de
Janeiro: Pongetti, 1970), andJose Alves Sobrinho, A verdadeirahistoriadeJesuinoBrilhante:canga-
ceiroe her6i(Campina Grande, PB: Universidade Federal de Paraiba, 1977).
4Monteiro, Lutas,pp. 71-2.
"Darby,ThreeFacesof Imperialism, p. 41.
5Carvalho ["Brazil1870-1914", p. 149] remarks the "naivebelief in the power of science and
technology."
52RebouCas, publicos,p. 68.
Socorros
"RebouCas,Socorros piblicos,pp. 99-100.
54Ant6nioMarco de Macedo, Observafoes sobreas seccasdo Cearde os meiosde augmentaro volume
de tguas nos correntes
do Cariry(Rio deJaneiro: Typ. Nacional 1878), p. 50.
"The "proverbialhealthfulness"of the sertdowas noted by, among others, Guilherme Schfich
46 Luso-Brazilian Review 30:2

Capanema in an article in the Jornaldo Comercio, 23 Oct. 1877. On conditions in the backlands,see
Levine, Valeof Tears,p. 81.
56Fora discussion of these and other problems of urban Brazil, especially as related to living
conditions of the masses, see June E. Hahner, Povertyand Politics: The UrbanPoor in Brazil,
1870-1920 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986).
57FrancisJennings,TheInvasionofAmerica.Indians, Colonialism, and theCantof Conquest(Chapel
Hill: The Universityof North Carolina Press, published for the Institute of EarlyAmerican History
and Culture, Williamsburg,Virginia, 1975), p. 146.
Rogues,and Heroes-An Interpretation
58Carnivals, of theBrazilianDilemma,trans. byJohn Drury
(Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), p. 239.
59DaMatta [ Carnivals,p. 255] explains the threat of Ant6nio Conselheiro in terms of his acting
as a "renouncer":"He committed a major sin in the eyes of the established Brazilian authorities:
he left behind the existing social system and all it represented."