CHAPTER 1

BETWEEN FASCINATION AND FEAR

Musicians' Worlds in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro

During the colonial (1500–1822) and imperial (1822–89) eras, myriadsounds filled the streets of Rio, the colonial and national capital from1763 to 1960. Vendors hawked their wares. People conversed in Yoruba,Kikongo, and Kimbundu and played music on European, African, American,and newly improvised instruments. Passersby could expect to hearthe sounds of slaves keeping rhythm on drums and rattles, or clappingand singing as they trudged through the city bearing enormous loads ofcargo on their backs, shoulders, and heads. The adventuresome, unimpededpaths traveled by those sounds contrasted with the strict codes ofconduct that governed the street as well as the home. Some slaves wererequired to bow or kneel while kissing their master's hand each morning.Outside, etiquette demanded that they cede the walkway to oncomingwhites and forbade them from returning blows leveled against themby whites. The city's social hierarchy was marked by dress, hairstyles, andjewelry. Owners often draped their slaves in fine clothing as a displayof their own status. Place of residence and consumption practices alsohelped define social standing. Private music lessons were among the mostobvious signs of privilege.

In 1845, a Christian missionary from the United States commented onwhat he saw and heard in Brazil. "Music has a powerful effect in exhilaratingthe spirits of the negro, and certainly no one should deny him theprivilege of softening his hard lot by producing the harmony of sounds,which are sweet to him, however uncouth to other ears." "It is said," hecontinued, "that an attempt was at one time made to secure greater quietnessin the streets by forbidding the negroes to sing." The attempted prohibitionultimately failed when slaves ceased working in protest. Thesounds of the street remained etched in the missionary's mind. "Theimpression made upon the stranger by the mingled sound of a hundredvoices falling upon his ear at once, is not soon forgotten."

Passing through Rio, Thomas Ewbank, a U.S. diplomat, noted howmusic shaped the workday. There is a "general use," he wrote, of "a speciesof melody, regularly executed, morning, noon, and night," which calledslaves to work and signaled the end of the day. The sounds that filled Rio'sstreets often blurred the lines between Europe, Africa, and the Americas.As slaves learned to play European instruments, they often added theirown interpretation. Some were said to apply "African imagination" tothe seemingly dull task of ringing church bells. Travelers observed slaveshumming or whistling the latest songs from Europe and noted their masteryof religious songs with Latin lyrics and of other intricate vocal pieces.Musicians performed on Afro-Brazilian feast days, in elite concert halls,and in the confines of wealthy private residences. An observer estimatedthat one-third of the members of the orchestra at Rio's opera house wereof African descent. Well-to-do cariocas (people or things from Rio) competedto bring the best black and mixed-race musicians into their homesfor private concerts.

The number of instruments on which music was played matched thevariety of sounds floating through Rio's streets. But no instrument drewmore attention or elicited more fear among travelers and elites than thedrum. Drums of various shapes and sizes were prominent at the massivegatherings that took place every Sunday at the Campo de Santana,a square where as many as two thousand slaves regularly congregated.Tolerance for such manifestations fluctuated over time. Before abolition,authorities regulated and often forbade large slave gatherings, especiallythose with music. In 1817, dances held by the Nossa Senhora do Rosáriobrotherhood at the Campo de Santana were prohibited. In 1833, a justiceof the peace sought to prohibit slaves from playing drums by arguing thatthe noise attracted slaves from neighboring plantations. In 1849, the policebroke up a group of more than two hundred slaves performing batuque,a broad term used to describe drum circles and various drum-based performances.In response to repressive measures, slaves played drums surreptitiouslyand employed other percussion instruments—scraps of iron,pottery, seashells, stones, wood—or simply created rhythms by clappingtheir hands.

Prohibitions against drum circles and other musical manifestationswere tied to fears of slave revolts and marked by confusion about howand where to draw the line between legitimate music and illicit religiousdevotion. An 1835 uprising of Malê slaves in Bahia stoked fears sparkedearlier by the Haitian Revolution, and it sent shocks of panic through Brazil'sslave-owning circles. The fact that many African-derived religiousrites involved musical accompaniment made it difficult for outsiders todistinguish between entertainment and what elites deemed to be savageryor subversion. As part of larger measures to prevent slave rebellions duringthe 1830s and 1840s various towns and provinces prohibited...