Para os países que falam inglês
Canudos, the stronghold of Antônio Conselheiro. Photo of Flávio de Barros, 1897 – http://turma802prouni.blogspot.com.br
Link da parte III
Canudos, the
stronghold of Antônio Conselheiro. Photo of Flávio de Barros, 1897 –
http://turma802prouni.blogspot.com.br
The land
completely covered the hills, the absence of streets and plazas, apart from
that of the church, and the great mass of hovels, made a single dwelling place
out of it. The village was invisible at a certain distance and, surrounded by
the windings of Vaza-Barris, was confused with the terrain itself.
From close-up,
one caught sight of an extraordinary labyrinth of narrow passages that poorly
divided the chaotic heap of huts from the clay roof.
The dwellings
made of straw and stone were composed of three tiny parts: a small waiting
room, a room used as a kitchen and dining room and a side alcove hidden by a
low, narrow door. There was some furniture: a bench, two or three small stools,
cedar chests, hammocks. And there were a few accessories: the bogo or borracha,
a leather bag for carrying water; the aió, a bag for carrying game
made from carúa[25] fibers.
On the floor of the main room, there was a coarse prayer rug. Finally, there
were old weapons: the large jacaré[26] knife
with a broad sturdy blade, the parna-hyba knife of the look-outs with
blades as long as swords, the three-meter goad with the iron point, the hollow
club filled with lead, bows, guns — the musket of thin reed loaded with gravel,
the larger musket loaded with buckshot, the heavy harquebus capable of shooting
stones and horns, the blunderbuss flared like a bell.
Everything was
here; the inhabitants of Canudos had no need for anything else.
“The
wandering jagunços were here pitching their tents for the last time,
on that miraculous heaven-bound pilgrimage of theirs.”[27]
But each of
those cabins were at the same time a home and a fortified nook. Canudos was to
become the Münster of the sertão and its inhabitants “terrible
baptists capable of loading deadly daffodils with rosary beads”.
Canudos
generously opened its pantries, filled with gifts and the fruit of common
labor, to those in need. Social activity was not directed by anyone; it was
self-organized. Only brandy had been prohibited by common agreement. Some were
busy with cultivation or tended the flocks of goats, while others kept watch
over the surrounding areas. Groups were formed to travel far carrying out
expeditions. But all the activity seemed to converge toward the construction of
a new church, drawing its meaning from this; this was the common work around
which the endeavors were organized. This society, which camped in the desert,
was devoted to a sacred mission, considering itself a community, a society that
was religious in its essence that gave body to its spirit by building its
church stone by stone. The new church was erected at the tip of the plaza in
front of the old one. Its greater, massive walls recalled the great walls of
fortresses. The rectangular body would have been transfigured by two very high
towers, with the audacity of a rough Gothic structure. “The truth is, this
admirable temple of the jagunços was possessed of that silent
architectural eloquence of which Bossuet speaks.” [28]
A great amount
of livestock arrived from Geremoabo, Bom Conselho and Simão Dias. Bands went
out from Canudos, going to attack the surrounding territories and sometimes
conquering cities. In Bom Conselho, one of these bands took possession of the
place, placed it in a state of siege and sent the authorities away, starting
with the justice of the peace. Such warlike expeditions alarmed the constituted
powers.
The provincial
government, and then the federal government, denounced the holy city. It gave
an example that was a threat to the state, so much the more so as its notoriety
grew. There was a risk that the experiment would spread. It became urgent to
wipe the city off the map, to make it disappear in fire and blood, to extirpate
it.
Four
increasingly impotent expeditions were undertaken against Canudos between 1896
and 1897.
“The cangaceiros would
make incursions to the south, the jagunços would make forays to the
north, and they would confront each other without uniting forces, being
separated by the steep barrier of Paulo Afonso. It was the insurrection in the
Monte Santo district which united them; and the Canudos Campaign served to
bring together, spontaneously, all these aberrant forces which were hidden away
in the backlands.”[29]
Infamous
bandits revealed themselves to be formidable strategists. The inhabitants of
Canudos made the armies waver.
In October
1896, the first magistrate of Joazeiro telegraphed the governor of Bahia,
solicited his intervention with the aim of taking measures to protect the
population, so he said, from an attack by the jagunços of Antonio
Conselheiro.
On November 4,
the governor sent an armed force made up of one hundred soldiers and a doctor
under the command of Lieutenant Manuel da Silva Pires Ferreira. On the 19th,
they reached Uaúa, a small village on the Vaza-Barris river between Juazeiro
and Canudos. At dawn on the 21st, the jagunços brutally attacked
them, practically fighting with cold steel against soldiers armed with modern
repeating rifles. The rebels lost one hundred and fifty men. The troops counted
ten dead and sixteen wounded. The doctor went mad. The troops arranged to
retreat to Juazeiro.
Monte Santo
today. This Brazilian city of Bahia had strategic importance in the “War of
Canudos”, served asthe basis for the Brazilian military in time of conflict. – www.filmesraros.com
On November
25, an armed force (five hundred forty-three soldiers, fourteen officers, three
doctors) with two Krupp cannons and two machine guns, under the command of
Commander Febrônio de Brito, left Bahia at the time of the Queimadas. It
reached Monte Santo on December 29. On January 12, 1897, it left for Canudos,
taking the Cambaio path. On the 18th and 19th, the first battles
took place in sight of Canudos as the army crossed the gorge, little
blunderbusses against repeating rifles and machine guns. The jagunços attacked
suddenly, disappearing to reappear a bit further away. They left many dead on
the ground, but inflicted a harsh and unexpected defeat on the army that had to
beat a hasty retreat to Monte Santo.
When the
government became aware of the disaster that happened during the crossing of
the Cambaio, it understood the seriousness of the war in the sertões, all
the more so because the fame of Canudos spread throughout the sertão as
a consequence of this enterprise.
On February
13, 1897, Colonel Moreira César, well-known throughout the nation, commanded
the first regular expedition that embarked from Rio heading for Bahia. On the
eighth day, the expedition reached Queimadas with thirteen hundred men and all
the necessary equipment. At Monte Santo, they skirted the mountain from the
east to arrive at Angico and on the peak of Favela the afternoon of March 2.
The Brazilian
army colonel Antônio Moreira César http://cariricangaco.blogspot.com.br
Sure of his
task, Moreira César launched an assault against the village after a brief
bombardment. It was a catastrophe for him and his men. Like a trap, like an
immense spider web, like a fish net, the village closed around the army. Every
path, every dead end, every turn, every house hid determined people armed with
large knives, pikes and blunderbusses. The army was quickly caught in a tragic
hand-to-hand battle. It was a disaster that quickly turned into a panic. The
famous Colonel Moreira César was fatally wounded. Colonel Tamarindo, who had
replaced him, was killed.
“In the
meanwhile, the sertanejos were gathering up the spoils. Along the
road and in nearby spots weapons and munitions lie strewn, together with pieces
of uniforms, military capes and crimson striped trousers, which, standing out
against the grey of the caatingas, would have made their wearers too
conspicuous as they fled. From which it may be seen that the major portion of
the troops not only had thrown away their weapons but had stripped themselves
of their clothing as well.
“Thus it was
that, midway between ‘Rosario’ and Canudos, the jagunços came to
assemble a helter-skelter open-air arsenal; they now had enough and more than
enough in the way of arms to satisfy their needs. The Moreira Cesar expedition
appeared to have achieved this one objective: that of supplying the enemy with
all this equipment, making him a present of all these modern weapons and
munitions.
“The jagunços took
the four Krupps back to the settlement, their front-line fighters now equipped
with formidable Mannlichers and Comblains[30] in
place of the ancient, slow-loading muskets. As for the uniforms, belts and
military bonnets, anything that had touched the bodies of the cursed soldiery,
they would have defiled the epidermis of these consecrated warriors, and so the
latter disposed of them in a manner that was both cruel and gruesome…
Continuaremos na próxima semana
Extraído do blog: "Tok de História" do historiógrafo Rostand Medeiros
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