Male Revolt
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The Male Revolt is perhaps the most significant slave rebellion in Brazil, which took place in 1835 in the city of Salvador da Bahia. On a Sunday during Ramadan in January 1835 some 600 black slaves and freed men, inspired by Muslim teachers (Muslims were called "malês" in Bahia at this time), and bearing talismans containing texts from the Koran, rose up against the government. Brazilian slaves knew about the revolution in St. Domingue (as Haiti was then known) and wore necklaces bearing the image of President Dessalines, who had declared Haitian independence. Fearful that the whole state of Bahia would follow the example of St Domingue and rise up and revolt , the authorities quickly sentenced four of the rebels to death, sixteen to prison, eight to forced labour, and forty-five to flogging. The remainder of surviving leaders of the revolt were then deported back to Africa by the authorities; it is believed that such ethnicities as the Tabom People of Ghana are descended from this deportation, although descendants of these Afro-Brazilian repatriates are reputed to be widespread throughout West Africa (such as Sylvanus Olympio, the first president of Togo). Fearing the example might be followed, the Brazilian authorities began to watch the malês very carefully and in subsequent years intensive efforts were made to force conversions to Catholicism and erase the popular memory and affection towards Islam.[1] However, the African Muslim community was not erased overnight, and as late as 1910 it is estimated there were still some 100,000 African Muslims living in Brazil.[2]
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Slave Routes - Americas and Caribbean
- The Islamic Slave Revolts of Bahia, Brazil, by Abu Alfa MUHAMMAD SHAREEF bin Farid, Institute of Islamic-African Studies - in PDF
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