Canudos is a municipality in the northeast region of Bahia, Brazil. The original town, since flooded by the Cocorobó Dam, was the scene of violent clashes between peasants and republican police in the 1890s. The municipality contains part of the

Raso da Catarina The Raso da Catarina is an ecoregion in the ''caatinga'' biome of Bahia and Pernambuco, Brazil. It is a sandstone plateau, much eroded, that is extremely dry for most of the year. Vegetation includes low bushes, often thorny, cacti and bromeliads. ...

ecoregion.

History

The town of Canudos was founded in the racially diverse

Bahia Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro) and the 5th-largest by ...

state of northeastern Brazil in 1893 by Antônio Vicente Mendes Maciel, an itinerant

preacher A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach components such as a ...

from Ceara. Mendes Maciel had been wandering through the backroads and lesser-inhabited areas of the country from the 1870s onwards, followed by a band of loyal supporters. As his following swelled, he took on the name Antônio Conselheiro (''Antônio the Counselor'') and increasingly began to trouble the local authorities, who saw him as a Monarchist and thus a threat to their legitimacy.

Settlement

In 1893, following a protest over

taxation A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or ...

and a violent melee with the police forces in Masseté, Conselheiro and his band settled on an abandoned farm called Canudos, so called because a plant, ''canudo-de-pita'' (scientific name ''

Ipomoea carnea ''Ipomoea carnea'', the pink morning glory, is a species of morning glory that grows as a bush. This flowering plant has heart-shaped leaves that are a rich green and long. It can be easily grown from seeds. These seeds are toxic and it can be h ...

'', its popular name referring to its hollow tubes, used for manufacturing smoking pipes) was common in the region. The place was named ''Belo Monte'' (Beautiful Mount) by Antonio Conselheiro, but the old name, ''Arraial de Canudos'', prevailed. Over the years people from across Bahia, including landless farmers, former

slaves Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

and ''cangaceiros'' flocked to join him, and within a few years the fledgling settlement numbered 30,000 people (which made it the second largest urban center in Bahia behind SalvadorLevine, Robert M. “Canudos in the National Context.” ''The Americas'' (Oct., 1991), 207.) and had developed a leather exporting business. As a community, Canudos operated somewhat like a religious commune, with Antônio Conselheiro as the principal member and director. Canudos was a heavily religious settlement, under the sway of Antonio's fanaticism, but despite his fanaticism he did not assume any official position of authority. The settlement practiced common ownership, abolished the official currency, negated Brazilian national laws and participated collectively in the management of the town. Canudos was in essence a reaction against the contemporary Brazilian nation. Neither the local nor national government supported the settlement in Canudos. The local government of Bahia felt pressure from landowners to take action against the settlement because of labor shortages caused by migration. The Brazilian national government wanted a military expedition sent to destroy Canudos in the name of liberalism and progress. In the words of one historian, "The mere existence of autonomous movements not subject to state control was antithetical to the national interest. Canudos stood for such autonomy, and therefore had to be destroyed."

Suppression of the Community

The first three invasions were amply defeated by the villagers. However, in 1897, a considerably larger fourth invasion force managed to overwhelm the village. Their success was in part helped by the death, from

dysentery Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications ...

, of Antônio Conselheiro, during the early stages of the

siege A siege is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or a well-prepared assault. This derives from la, sedere, lit=to sit. Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characteriz ...

. The Brazilian army showed no mercy, brutally massacring the survivors and destroying the entire village. An academician, Alvim Horcades, would thus describe the massacre: "Eu vi e assisti a sacrificar-se todos aqueles miseráveis (...) e com sinceridade o digo: em Canudos foram degolados quase todos os prisioneiros (...) Arrancar-se a vida a uma criancinha (...) é o maior dos barbarismos e dos crimes que o homem pode praticar." ("I saw and witnessed the sacrifice of all those poor people (...) and I say with all sincerity: in Canudos almost all the prisoners were beheaded (...) To take the life of a little child (...) is the greatest of cruelties and crimes man can commit.")

Post-War Canudos

Today the area is submerged by water, the result of the Cocorobó Dam project in the 1970s, which blocked the Vaza-Barris River and flooded the old city. At low water the ruins of the

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

that was once the village's centrepiece can occasionally be seen. Once a year, in October, a

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementa ...

is held to commemorate those lost in what is known today as the

War of Canudos The War of Canudos (, , 1895–1898) was a conflict between the First Brazilian Republic and the residents of Canudos in the northeastern state of Bahia. It was waged in the aftermath of the abolition of slavery in Brazil (1888) and the overt ...

. The

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

of Nova Canudos was built nearby, at

latitude In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north ...

09º53'48" South and

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east– west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lette ...

39º01'35" West, and currently has around 13,000 inhabitants. The story of Canudos was told by war correspondent

Euclides da Cunha Euclides da Cunha (, January 20, 1866 – August 15, 1909) was a Brazilian journalist, sociologist and engineer. His most important work is '' Os Sertões'' (''Rebellion in the Backlands''), a non-fictional account of the military expeditions ...

in the book '' Os Sertões'' (1901; translated into English as ''Rebellion in the Backlands'', 1944), which helped inspire and provide material for the novel '' The War of the End of the World'' by Peruvian Nobel Laureate

Mario Vargas Llosa Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa (born 28 March 1936), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa (, ), is a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist and former politician, who also holds Spanish citizenship. Vargas Ll ...

(1981). The conflict was also described at length by Peter Robb in "A Death in Brazil" (2004). In fictional form it appears in the novel " The First Garment" (1975) by a Georgian writer Guram Dochanashvili. The municipality contains the Canudos State Park, created in 1986 to commemorate the War of Canudos.

References

External links