Capoeira or the Dance of War

History geek that I am, I unsurprisingly find athletic activities with antique lineages highly compelling. But getting a handle on what many early sports were like is difficult because evidence is lacking, and this is certainly the case with capoeira.

The painting you see here is “Capoeira or the Dance of War,” by Johann Moritz Rugendas. Painted in 1825, it documents the legacy of this martial arts-cum-dance practice that is a hallmark of Brazilian sports identity. But untangling the origins of capoeira is challenging.

The general story now told goes like this — Portugal-occupied Brazil imported millions of African slaves from the 1600s-1800s, treating them brutally in forced work plantations. The slaves fought back in many ways, and among them was by inventing a martial arts form that could also look like dance, which helped the slaves cover up their actions.

But there are two main debates about capoeira’s history. First, scholars debate about the extent to which it comes from Africa versus Brazil — one line of reasoning argues that the African country of Angola had invented a dance called the “zebra dance”, and since 80% of Brazil’s slaves came from there, capoeira must be connected to this lineage. Another issue is whether the capoeira dance style developed in Brazil’s cities or in the communities of escaped slaves in the Brazilian countryside, villages called _quilombos_.

Like martial arts in early communist China, the capoeira was suppressed for a time in Brazil after slavery was abolished in the late 19th century, which is a major reason there is such limited evidence even from this century. The practitioners became associated with thugs as crime grew in overcrowded cities, and the association of capoeira with Africa’s past was something the whiter population wanted to hide.

But by the early 20th century this changed dramatically. Several “Mestres” or leading practitioners of capoeira became popular, starting schools and generally making the martial art a point of pride in Brazil’s African past and current uniqueness. Today capoeira is taught all around the world.