Canudos is a

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

in the northeast region of

Bahia Bahia () is one of the 26 Federative units of Brazil, states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo (state), São Paulo, Mina ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. 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 ecoregion.

History

The town of Canudos was founded in the racially diverse

state of northeastern

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 Open-air preaching, preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach com ...

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 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'', 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

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer ...

s, former

slaves Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

indigenous people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

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 ( , ), 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 may include dehyd ...

, 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 by well-prepared assault. Siege warfare (also called siegecrafts or poliorcetics) is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict charact ...

. The Brazilian army showed no mercy, brutally massacring the survivors and destroying the entire village. An academic, 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 that was once the village's centrepiece can occasionally be seen. Once a year, in October, a

mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

is held to commemorate those lost in what is known today as the War of Canudos. The

of Nova Canudos was built nearby, at

latitude In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate system, geographic 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 t ...

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 lett ...

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