popular classes—against capoeiras, but also reinforced many of the clichés about capoeira which still haunt
the art today, namely that it encourages idleness and violence.
In search of the ‘Brazilian race’: nationalism I
The construction of national symbols in Brazil has been, as elsewhere, subjected to periodical redefinitions.
The very meaning of what constituted a nation evolved substantially since the late eighteenth century, when
it only meant people borne by the same mother or, by extension, from similar ancestry. The term was even
used to denote opposition to civilized or Christian peoples, and that is why European colonial sources so
frequently refer to African nations. During most of the nineteenth century intellectuals and politicians
argued about the ‘national principle’; discussions then evolved around the ‘national idea’ or the ‘national
question’. These changes in terminology reflect shifts in emphasis on how the nation was to be defined: by
territory, language, religion, race or political loyalties.^18
The first substantial elaboration of what supposedly constituted the Brazilian national character coincided
with the Age of Revolution in the Atlantic world and the period of decolonization in the Americas,
1773–1848.^19 Even though all free groups did have their own ideas about what it meant to be Brazilian, the
dominant groups imposed their hierarchical and exclusive model. The aftermath of independence in Brazil
(1822) coincided with the establishment of Romanticism as the predominant art movement among the
literary elites. The tropical nature of most of the Brazilian territory, which had already impressed colonial
writers of European origin, furnished an evergreen theme to define the nation. Building on the pastoral
tropes of the Enlightenment, romantic writers exalted in even stronger colours the Brazilian nature. They
founded a core national myth that was to have a long lasting impact on the national imagination.^20
The elites’ search for the national roots of Brazilian identity, keen to distance itself not only from the
former colonizer, the Portuguese, but also from the enslaved Africans considered inferior, concentrated
therefore on its original inhabitants. Native Brazilians seemed to provide an outstanding example of a life in
harmony with nature. Writers such as José de Alencar and Gonçalves Dias exploited the edenic motive of
the Indian in the Brazilian wilderness. In their work, the native Indian is stylized and romantically
transfigured into a medieval knight. The first literary symbol of Brazilian-ness hence resembled a key
character of European romanticism. It is here that we can locate the remote origins of the myth that depicts
capoeira as a creation inspired by the Brazilian nature.
Intellectuals were by no means the only ones to devise symbols of identity and nationhood. Other social
groups had quite different perceptions of the nation. The urban lower classes generally couched their
‘nativist’ reactions against colonialism in strong anti-colonial and anti-Portuguese language. As in many
other national struggles for independence, the bashing of metropolitans (insulted as caiados or ‘white
washed’) became a common feature of political conflict during and after decolonization in Brazil. Popular
lusophobia might not have been more than a negative way of defining the national character, but it re-
emerged later in the century and was always strongly associated with extreme nationalism. Although
sources are not very extensive about popular views of the emerging nation, some documents from mainly
urban rebellions suggest that a radical version of liberalism advocated equal rights for citizens of all
colours, only excluding the African slaves. Harsh repression, however, drove more inclusive visions of a
democratic empire into oblivion or at least limited their wider impact.
Even though the resident Portuguese insulted Brazilian patriots in return as cabras (goats, dark skinned
mulattos), it seems that these rarely adopted African ancestry or even miscegenation as a positive value. Most,
especially the lighter-skinned patriots, preferred to identify instead with the Native Americans. Many
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