Para os países que falam Inglês
Typical city
in northeastern Brazil during the first half of the twentieth century –
http://caririnews2011.blogspot.com.br
At Carnaíba de
Flores, he surrounded the city and delivered a threatening message: if the sum
requested was not handed over, he would set fire to the village and slaughter
everyone. The sum was considerable, but not excessive, and so the village
notables immediately began to make a collection. But suddenly a very large,
unexpected “flying squad” brigade appeared, and the cangaceiros, warned by
their sentries, prudently withdrew. Afterwards, the band presented themselves
again without warning, took the dialogue that had been interrupted a few months
earlier back up and obtained satisfaction.
An episode
that was well-known and widely talked about due to the rank of the victim was
the attack against the fazenda of a very rich aristocrat, the
baroness of Água Branca. Though he didn’t touch the jewelry the lady wore,
Lampião plundered the rest, pins, rings, bracelets, necklaces, precious stones
and other objects of gold, among which was a golden chain that he later gave to
his partner Maria Bonita. She wore it until her death, after which it ended up
in the pocket of some soldier or officer.
The Lampião
partner, Maria Bonita. She died along the famous bandit in 1938 –
http://memoriaesentimento.blogspot.com.br
Thus, Lampião
unfailingly walked his road, devouring mile after mile of the sertão.[43]
In 1926, he
met Father Cicero in the holy city of Juazeiro. Along with the title of
captain, he received modern armaments and ammunition from the government. He
was supposed to go fight the Prestes column (Luís Carlos Prestes would later
become the secretary general of the Brazilian Communist Party) that had been
formed following the failed coup d’etat of the democratic officers and that had
undertaken a long march through Brazil. Lampião accepted the priest’s blessing,
the title of captain and the arms, but took care not to attack the Prestes
column, since he didn’t consider it his affair.
Photo of the
leaders of the insurgent group known as “Prestes Column”. This group was led by
the Brazilian Army captain Luís Carlos Prestes, who fought against the
government structure that existed in Brazil in the latter half of the 1920s.
http://rotadosolce.blogspot.com.br
In June 1927,
Lampião set a course for an important city, Mossoró, which was even richer than
the others, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte. He communicated that he
demanded a high ransom. As his whole response, the prefect sent him a package
containing one rifle shell. The “captain” was enraged. In one village,
the cangaceiros threw a merchant onto the pavement, distributing his
pieces of cloth to the poor. In others, they pulverized all that came within
range. It was a technique of terror.
In the end,
the cangaceiros divided into four groups and attacked the city. But
Mossoró and its police expected them. Lampião underestimated the enemy and
found himself at a disadvantage. Always a realist, he sounded the retreat and
the one hundred fifty bandits fell back in perfect order. The loss was minor.
The cangaceiros made neighboring cities pay dearly for the defeat.
Lootings multiplied. But they didn’t linger in Rio Grande do Norte, which had a
terrain that was hostile to them (extensive plains without mountains or
forest). Furthermore, that adventure had at least brought them a large amount
of loot. Therefore, Lampião coined a maxim: if there is more than one church in
a city, it is best to leave it in peace.
During more
than twenty years of struggle, Lampião made news in several newspapers, like
this 1926
During the
return journey to the state of Pernambuco, his most violent conflict with the
police occurred; ninety-six cangaceiros against more than two hundred
fifty macacos. Lampião, sure of his chances, launched himself furiously
into a struggle that to all appearances should have been fatal to him. The men
were divided into three groups, and the battle ended with the defeat of the
state troops who, despite their machine gun, left more than twenty dead on the
ground and carried away about thirty wounded. The losses on the side of
the cangaceiros were minimal. Sometimes an act identical to a
thousand others becomes a legend, but a witness has reported that he saw it
with his own eyes.
So one passes
from one year into another, from one state into another, recalling an
adventure, a name, an anecdote or even a mere gesture.[44]
Terrifying and
magnificent with their leather hats shaped like half moons and decorated with a
profusion of medals, silver and gold coins, collar buttons, jewels, rings, in a
barbaric and prestigious luxury.
The bandolier
of the rifle also overflowed with an infinity of buttons and medals. Pistols
and revolvers had holsters of worked and decorated leather, like the belts.
Even their saddlebags were richly embellished. The unfailing sharp dagger,
about twenty-five to thirty inches long, that was the accessory of the
true cangaceiro was slid into its inlaid sheath. They were the
incarnation of the mythical warrior, the Avenger.
Lampião and
Maria Bonita – http://onordeste.com
They arrived
suddenly. They emerged from the desert, there where they were no longer expected,
to vanish as if by magic into the endless expanse of the sertão. In the
villages they passed through, they opened the doors of the prisons and the
strongboxes of the rich. They seemed to possess the gift of ubiquity.
Omnipresent, they escaped police forces as if by magic, the body impermeable to
bullets, death and misfortune.
“He takes from
the rich to give to the poor” — so it was said of the cangaceiro. In fact,
the cangaceiros lived abundantly: always ready for battle, but
dissipating the fruits of their robbery in feasts, richly decorated clothes,
thousands of acts of generosity that they dispensed around themselves. With
their behavior in the face of wealth, they were the exact opposite of the great
local property owners. The wealth that the latter had accumulated, the cangaceiros distributed
anew. The big landowners conceived of wealth only as private goods, which
excluded others, impoverishing them. The cangaceiros, by consuming what
they had taken, made everyone participants in the luxury.
Other bandits
who participated in the band of Lampião –
http://blogdomendesemendes.blogspot.com.br
Whereas in the
ancient “feudal system”, power came from conquest, now it is increasingly based
on money. The cangaceiros represented the power that despises money.
Expending their dough in purchases paid for without haggling, in banquets and
in gifts was a question of honor for them.
If the state
guaranteed the power of the “colonels” and the right to property, actually the
right to exploit other people’s labor, the cangaceiros seemed to
revive the tradition of the bandeirantes, whose great and tireless warrior
caravans followed one another in the conquest of the northeast. “Far from the
coast, where metropolitan decadence was found, the bandeirantes, profiting
from extreme territories such as Pernambuco in Amazônia, seemed to belong to a
different race due to their reckless courage and resistance to adversity.”[45]
While the
“prestige” of the fazendeiro was based exclusively on exploitation,
the cangaceiro rekindled the spirit of conquest. He had gained the
money that he dispensed so generously by risking his life, robbing the rich and
powerful who were loathed but feared by all.
In the 1930s,
the state felt the necessity to reinforce its control over the entire northeast
and to completely pacify that vast region far from central power. The
reorganization of the police, the institution of checkpoints, the use of radio
and telephone, the introduction of more efficient instruments, the development
of roads and means of transportation; a vast apparatus was put into action to
liquidate banditry. Repression intensified.
Not by chance,
during the last years, Lampião remained hidden most of the time. The ranks had
diminished. Ammunition had become increasingly dear and almost unfindable.
Toward the end, only fifty-five men remained, and when any action was carried
out, it almost always occurred in small groups.
Cangaceiro
known as “Zeppelin” and his fighting material. In this type of fighting in
northeastern Brazil, it was normal for the police to cut the heads of
cangaceiros and photographing. This macabre practice was used to present
to senior officers and other authorities the result of the fighting.
Specifically,
a betrayal caused Lampião’s end.
On July 28,
1938, he was poisoned in Angico, in the state of Sergipe, with some men and his
partner Maria Bonita. His “compadre” Corisco’s revenge was terrible. He
massacred the entire family of the traitor, who was enrolled directly in the
military police.
Corisco’s
history was that of all his comrades: revenge and flight. He had been drafted
into the army and then deserted. Also a victim of injustice and abuse, he was
furthermore humiliated to the point of being trampled by a police deputy. He
entered the cangaço. He quickly became the best cangaceiro after
Lampião. He managed to find the police who had humiliated again, took the
deputy by the feet, ran him through, and inflicted a number of cuts on him with
the dagger, making him bleed slowly like a pig.
Continuaremos na próxima semana...
Extraído
do blog: "Tok de História" do historiógrafo e pesquisador do cangaço
Rostand Medeiros
http://tokdehistoria.wordpress.com/2012/09/22/cangaco-millenarian-rebels-prophets-and-outlaws/
