Black celebrations, batuques, and religiosity in Pernambuco (1810-1848)

Abstract

This article examines the relationships between festivities, batuques, and the religious experiences of Afro-descendant populations in Pernambuco between 1810 and 1848. It seeks to understand how festive practices linked to the Brotherhoods of the Rosary, urban batuques, and collective gatherings associated with the Catholic calendar constituted forms of religious expression and sociability within the Atlantic slaveholding context. The analysis of events regarding Brotherhoods' Black celebrations and batuques in administrative documents, political newspapers, travel accounts, and records preserved by Pereira da Costa, articulated with the historiography on Afro-Brazilian religiosity and political culture during the Brazilian empire, allow to situate batuques and black celebrations within the Atlantic slave system.Demonstrating that these manifestations functioned as spaces of symbolic negotiation, where Catholic devotion, African cultural repertoires, and political disputes intertwined, contributing to the formation of Black religious experiences during the nineteenth-century Pernambuco.