Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art

Contents
List of illustrations ix
Series editor’s foreword xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction 1
1 The competing master narratives of capoeira history 5
Myths, fakes and facts 5
‘Extirpate the canker’: Eurocentric repression 9
In search of the ‘Brazilian race’: nationalism I 11
The search for a Brazilian gymnastics: nationalism II 14
The search for purity and survivals: ethnic perspectives 20
From ‘survivals’ to ‘extensions’: Afrocentric narratives 22
Regional, corporate and class discourses 27
2 Capoeira in the context of the Black Atlantic 31
African, slave and popular culture 31
Slave culture in Brazil 37
Combat games of the Black Atlantic 44
3 Capoeiragem in Rio de Janeiro, c.1800–1930 67
Rio, capital of a plantation empire 67
Slave capoeira, 1808–1850 71
The broadening of the social base, 1850–1890 79
Nagoas and Guaiamus: the capoeira gangs 83
The republican purge 89
4 Workers, vagrants and tough guys in Bahia, c.1860–1950 93
Imperial Bahia 93