During the 16th century the Portuguese imported slaves from Africa to labor in sugar cane and cotton production. More than a thousand slaves came to Portugal, many from the African Bantu groups, which introduced many aspects of their culture and are known as the founding people of Capoeira.
When the Dutch invaded Portugal in 1624, many of the Africans fled into forests and villages. It was in the villages called quilombos, where Capoeira took shape as a fighting art over the next few years. Needing to protect themselves from invaders, the slaves began developing a system of self-defense with objects they had: sugar cane knives and staffs. Dance-like movements and music were added to the art in order to disguise its practice and protect the practitioners from persecution.
With the arrival a Portuguese king in the 1800s, Capoeira was outlawed in Brazil. Officials wanted to suppress any means of African cultural expression and nationality. Capoeira posed a double-threat as a cultural art that produced confident, highly adept fighters. However, many of the slaves were freed in 1888 and the art quickly grew into a fighting form used by criminals in gangs and music bands to terrorize and attack the public and other bands in the cities of Recife, Rio de Janeiro, and Bahia. Because the police constantly persecuted the practitioners, the art died down in many of these places. It only remained in Bahia, where it continued to develop into a ritual-dance-fight-game practiced to the beat of drums and the berimbau, a percussion instrument.
Capoeira's survival in modern times can be attributed to two men: Mestre Bimba and Mestre Pastinha. Mestre Bimba (Manuel dos Reis Machado) opened the first Capoeira academy in Salvador in 1932, teaching the "regional Bahia" style of Capoeira, also known as Capoeira Regional, which is aggressive and fast-paced. Although it was practice was limited to areas monitored by the police, the academy started a new era in Capoeira teaching. In 1941, Mestre Pastinha (Vincente Ferreira Pastinha) began teaching the classical style called Capoeira Angola. For the first time, Capoeira was taught and practiced openly in a formal setting. Sadly, his academy was later removed by the government. Nevertheless, these first steps helped Capoeira become the widely practiced Brazilian national sport. Currently, the National Federation of Capoeira in Brazil governs, promotes, and coordinates Capoeira.
The
two major styles practiced nowadays are:
- Regional:
an artistic, open form that focuses on athletic prowess and training.
- Angola: a harder, older style closely tied to the original African systems that came to Brazil
In recent years, another style, Capoeira Atual, was created as an attempt to combine the two styles.
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