Brazil's great epic

I always promised myself, when I started this blog, that I'd write about a truly amazing book, that describes a truly amazing historical event. I don't direct my remarks at Brazilians because the book is their national book and anything I can say about it they have probably already said more elegantly among themselves. Everyone I've met from Brazil has heard of this book and most of them have read it.

Os Sertoes, written by former military engineer turned journalist, Euclides da Cunha, and published in 1902, subsequently translated into English (by Samuel Putnam) as Rebellion in the Backlands, tells a story that is dominated by one man, Antonio Vicente Mendes Maciel, known as the Conselheiro, or Counsellor. This driven and ascetic preacher must have been a charismatic figure, although he certainly always had a dark side. He wandered about Brazil in the latter half of the 19th century acquiring followers, mostly from the ranks of the poor and illiterate. On the one hand, the new Republic of Brazil, which he saw as decadent and irreligious, was one of the targets of his sermons. On the other hand, he also incurred the hatred of the established Catholic church - whom he viewed as materialist and flabby but who saw him as a rival for the the loyalty - and the money - of the poor.

In the end, he founded a community in Canudos, in a remote area of north-east Brazil; a harsh and unforgiving lanscape of thorny shrubs, where the local people had learned to cope with the alternate hazards of drought and flood. People gave up everything they had to follow him there, where created a settlement of 5,200 houses, with a church which they built from scratch (which was not finished when the events related in the book took place). It was a community with very simple and austere demands but one that felt a sense of entitlement to take whatever they needed from those around them who were not among their followers. This was bound to bring them into conflict with the authorities sooner or later.

The first stage of the war broke out in Jaoazeiro in December 1896, when a detachment of military sent to defent the town from the depradations of Conselheiro's followers got the worst of the fight. A second expedition sent against Canudos itself was beaten off without even reaching the settlement. A third suffered a worse fate - it was pinned down in the settlement and massacred.

By now the Republican Authorities were truly alarmed. They saw the Canudos rebellion as a plot to re-impose the deposed monarchy and mobilised a huge fourth expedition against it. It was this expedition which da Cunha accompanied, so that his account is a first-hand one. On their march to Canudos, the unfortunate soldiers passed the skulls and uniforms of their predecssors hainging from trees along the route.

The fourth expedition nearly suffered the same fate as the third, when pitched against the determination and fanaticism of Conselheiro and his followers. Ultimately, though, with the aid of reinforcements, they started to take Canudos, street by street - at terrible cost.

Conselheiro died before the rebellion was finally crushed in October 1897. Most of the active men in the settlement were subsequently massacred and many of the women sold prostitution.

I have to say that I expected the book to be heavy going but it completely blew me away. However, if you want a fictionalised account of this tragedy, you can also read The War at the End of the World, by Mario Vargos Llosa - and it is also gripping.

Thanks to Marcos Silva, for introducing me to this amazing story.