Capoeira
First documented among African and Creole slaves in late colonial Brazil, the martial art capoeira spread,
despite periodic clampdowns by the police, to the free underclasses of Brazilian cities throughout the
nineteenth century. Capoeira is now a mainstream sport, taught in Brazilian fitness centres, schools and
universities, and practised by a range of people of different age, class, gender and ethnicity around the
world. Some practitioners now even seek Olympic recognition for capoeira.
The change in meaning and purposes of capoeira has led to conflicts between traditionalists, for whom
capoeira is part of an African cultural heritage, and reformers, who wish to see capoeira develop as an
international sport. There is consensus, however, that capoeira is a weapon to be used against social
injustice and racial exclusion.
Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art explores capoeira as a field of confrontation
where different struggles that divide Brazilian society are played out. It contains a first English language
scholarly account of capoeira’s early history and development to the present day.
Matthias Röhrig Assunção is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of History and the Centre for Latin
American Studies, University of Essex, England. His previous publications deal with slavery in Maranhão
(Northern Brazil), popular culture and the political history of the Brazilian Empire.