Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art

Since his mention of the berimbau in the diary is from the same year and does not establish any link with
the martial game, one can only conclude that at the time both were probably not yet associated.
The first written evidence—known so far—of an Afro-Bahian combat game being called capoeira
consists of several brief mentions in the newspaper Alabama during the years 1866– 1870. 11 They refer to
capoeira in different contexts and reflect the newspaper’s contempt for the practice. These articles suggest
that at the time some features of Bahian capoeira strongly resembled its Cariocan counterpart. In Salvador,
just as in Rio, capoeira gangs based on neighbourhoods were accused of promoting ‘disorder’
(turbulências). They consisted of black youngsters (moleques) with a strong sense of local community. In
one instance the newspaper describes how
The moleques of Santo Antonio came, wearing a blue cap as a sign of recognition, with their flag, to
attack these from the Sant’Ana neighbourhood.
Even two sailors took part in the quarrel.
The combat turned serious. The fighters became violent, and this resulted in many head wounds and
[other] injuries and at the final outcome of the struggle was the loss of the flag by the Santo Antonio
neighbourhood. 12
Manoel Querino in his later account also mentioned violent clashes between capoeiras from rival
neighbourhoods, and singled out the central Sé parish as the ‘strongest’. He specified that each
neighbourhood gang carried a Brazilian flag that the winner of such a brawl took away from the defeated
gang. 13
Another article in the Alabama reproduced a request addressed to the police chief asking the authorities to
prevent ‘boys to go up the church towers to toll and ring the bells’. This suggests that the practice so
common among caxinguelés (apprentice capoeiras) in Rio de Janeiro also bothered priests and authorities in
Salvador.
All nineteenth-century sources leave no doubt about the Afro-Bahian backgroud of the capoeiras.
Significant in that respect is the portray written by the poet Manoel Rozentino (?—1897):
I love the capadócio [idle person, and by extension, a capoeira] from Bahia
This eternal happy man,
Who walks by provocative
Brandishing his club.
I love the petulant capoeira,
The sardonic cabra [goat, dark mulatto, also a tough guy]
The terror of the batuque, the troublemaker,
Who always walks with his pair of compasses [sentence not clear, can also have the
meaning ‘in tune with the music’]
[…Rozentino then describes how he starts to contemplate a capadócio in the port
area, sitting on a box and fixing his slipper:]
As he saw me standing nearby,
He exhibited a large smile,
THE CAPOEIRA SCENE IN BAHIA 99