{"id":34042,"date":"2016-11-23T12:52:48","date_gmt":"2016-11-23T15:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=34042"},"modified":"2016-12-27T14:33:09","modified_gmt":"2016-12-27T17:33:09","slug":"should-rio-de-janeiro-have-a-slavery-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=34042","title":{"rendered":"Should Rio de Janeiro Have a Slavery Museum?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The Pra\u00e7a XV square is one of the most\u00a0important historical locations in Rio de Janeiro. It is located in the historical center, flanked by the\u00a0Rio de Janeiro State Legislative Assembly (Alerj)<\/a>, the Imperial Palace and the city’s\u00a0<\/span>ferry terminal. Only people with a profound knowledge of history know why Rio’s stock market building is here as well. <\/span>Before goods, people were traded here<\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0There is no sign, plaque, or memorial that indicates this used to be one of the earliest slave markets in modern history.<\/span><\/p>\n

Between the 16th and the 19th century, <\/span>more than 5.5 million enslaved Africans were brought to Brazil,<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>more than 2 million disembarked in Rio<\/a>\u00a0alone<\/span>. In contrast, some\u00a0400,000<\/a> arrived in all of the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, Brazil is the country with the second largest black population in the world after Nigeria. Half of its population is black. <\/span>It is a country that has lived<\/span> less than a quarter of its history without slavery<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Pra\u00e7a<\/a><\/p>\n

The ongoing impacts\u00a0of slavery<\/a> on economic and social structures are far more visible than the public references in Rio’s urban landscape. Black Brazilians make up the vast majority of c<\/span>onstruction workers, maids and nannies. Rio’s wealthiest neighborhood Lagoa is only 1.5% black<\/a>\u00a0while the city’s favelas are majority black<\/a>, as is well described in this series of racial maps<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Historian Sadakne Baroudi<\/a> asserts: \u201c500 years after the introduction of slavery in Brazil, black people are still building our cities. Cities they are systematically excluded from.\u201d\u00a0Baroudi<\/span>\u00a0started researching slavery in Rio over a decade ago and launched an <\/span>educational bilingual website about the history of slavery in Rio\u2019s Port<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Baroudi\u00a0first came to Brazil in 2003, the racism<\/a> she experienced felt almost like the prejudice\u00a0she was used to in the US. Except that here, no one talked about it. One of the common national myths is that because of the\u00a0<\/span>huge variety of skin colors<\/a>\u00a0in Brazil<\/span>, there is a \u201c<\/span>racial democracy\u201d in which racial discrimination is considered irrelevant<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>national narrative is that discrimination ended<\/a><\/span> with the abolition of slavery in 1890<\/span>. In contrast to the US with its strict discrimination policies\u2013the\u00a0<\/span>Jim Crow laws<\/span><\/a>\u2013<\/span>and open race riots, race<\/a>\u00a0is constantly negotiated in Brazil. \u201cSomeone is just darker or lighter than the person next to him, so everyone gets pushed in the middle. There is not a sharp distinction between black and white like in the United States,” says Baroudi.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cIn Brazil people are proud when they tell me, ‘at least we never made anyone sit in the back of a bus.’ The thing is: they are not even in the same bus. The transportation<\/a> system is still segregating people.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another cornerstone of Rio de Janeiro’s urban identity is its\u00a0history as former capital of both Brazil and the Portuguese Empire. The city is proud of its European inspired boulevards, of being a \u201cTropical Paris.\u201d And it is<\/span>\u00a0also a city\u00a0<\/span>in love with modernity, progress and transformation<\/a>,<\/span>\u00a0made mainly at the cost of its black citizens. During\u00a0the last century major urban transformations in Rio meant majority\u00a0black communities\u00a0were regularly displaced: the\u00a0removal of the Castelo Hill<\/a>\u00a0for the redevelopment of downtown Rio\u00a0in the 1920s; the removal\u00a0of Pra\u00e7a Onze for the construction of Presidente Vargas Avenue in the 1940s<\/a>; the metro construction\u00a0in the 1970s; and most recently the 2016 Olympics<\/a> for which around 77,000 residents lost their homes<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Olympic construction works not only shaped the further\u00a0racial segregation of the city,\u00a0they also revealed something of the past. D<\/span>rainage works carried out as part of the <\/span>Porto Maravilha project<\/span><\/a> in <\/span>2011<\/a>\u00a0uncovered the Valongo Wharf<\/a>, Rio’s main<\/span>\u00a0slave market after the Marquis do Lavradio, Viceroy of Brazil, was too horrified by what he saw from his Palace at Pra\u00e7a XV. <\/span>For more than a century and a half, the place was more or less forgotten. <\/span>\u201cI believe they buried it to eliminate the evidence of slavery,\u201d\u00a0<\/span>says Washington Fajardo<\/span><\/a>, president of the city\u2019s World Heritage Institute.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Valongo<\/a>
\nAt the Valongo, slaves could be bought individually, or by weight: for example, a buyer could either purchase one healthy man at a high fixed price or bid on 100kg and get a combination of people available in poorer shape, like some children, a pregnant woman, or\u00a0injured people. The site also had “fattening houses” and mass graves where those who hadn’t survived were thrown or those who wouldn’t survive were left to die.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nothing can be seen or read about this history at the newly recovered archaeological site. There is a sticker on a piece of cardboard with\u00a0some basic facts and a map of the\u00a0<\/span>African Heritage Circuit<\/span><\/a>\u00a0around which visitors can explore the African influences in the Port area. But the region <\/span>does not attract a large number of visitors<\/span><\/a> and the Valongo often feels like an abandoned construction site.<\/span><\/p>\n

The nearby slave cemetery run by a\u00a0small privately initiated institution is even harder to find. In renovating their home in 1996, Merced and Petrucio Guimar\u00e3es uncovered human bones<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span>When they discovered that these bones belong to <\/span>more than 20,000 bodies<\/span><\/a>, a lot of them children and teenagers, buried underneath their new home, they felt the obligation to open a public memorial space, the <\/span>New Blacks Institute and Cemetery<\/span><\/a> (<\/span>IPN<\/span><\/a> by the Portuguese acronym). As part of the Porto Maravilha project, IPN received a little funding, but Merced\u00a0is afraid that under newly elected Mayor Marcelo Crivella<\/a> this will come to an end and the Institute will struggle to continue its work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The other museum dedicated to the preservation of black history in Rio is funded by a much wealthier organization, but is still not in very good shape. Run by the Catholic Church, the small <\/span>Black Museum<\/span><\/a>\u00a0is located in the back of Our Lady of the Rosary and Saint Benedict Church in downtown Rio de Janeiro. The entrance is difficult to find. The inconspicuous sign\u2013\u201cBlack Museum, founded in 1969\u201d\u2013is in fact at the opposite site of the actual entrance, where nothing points to the existence of a museum. After walking through the church assembly hall, you have to turn\u00a0on the lights by yourself. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/a>
\nIn the entrance there is an antique illustration of slaves in Brazil: a pleasant market scene with a slave carrying a stone attached to his ankle, another one with a barrel of water on his head and a woman with a basket of pineapples. The iron collars around their necks have decorative ornaments and look like African necklaces. <\/span><\/p>\n

The picture is by French painter <\/span>Jean-Baptiste Debret<\/span><\/a> (1768-1848). His lithographs are among the most important graphic documentation of\u00a0daily Brazilian life in the early decades of the 19th century. They appear frequently in school books. In his paintings, slavery looks like an exotic episode in Brazil’s ancient history, far from representing the brutal reality of this dark chapter.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Collars<\/a>
\nThe almost romanticization of slavery in Brazil is not uncommon.\u00a0There is the attitude that Brazil employed “<\/span>escravid\u00e3o suave<\/a>,<\/span><\/em>” or “soft slavery,” the myth being that the Portuguese were too laid back to run an efficient slave system. Today the basic idea that slavery was in fact brutal is still contested. In the Black Museum there are no tags, no signs\u00a0and no explanations of the displayed objects. Also, the role of the Church during slavery was complicated.\u00a0With this\u00a0institution running the museum, Baroudi questions: \u201cWho controls the narrative?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Successful black history museums can be found outside Rio, such as S\u00e3o Paulo’s\u00a0<\/span>Museu Afro Brasil<\/a>,<\/span>\u00a0or the recently\u00a0launched and celebrated\u00a0<\/span>National Museum of African American History and Culture<\/span><\/a> in Washington D.C<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>The 400,000-square-foot museum is next to the Washington Monument on the Washington Mall, near the most famous\u00a0museums in the US capital. The building is \u201cbronze and brooding,”<\/span> in the words of architect David Adjaye,<\/span><\/a> “floating in a sea of white marble and limestone [the other museums].\u201d<\/span>\u00a0And museums established to inspire\u00a0reflection and a coming to terms with\u00a0dark periods in their nation’s history, such as Santiago’s Human Rights Memorial Museum<\/a>, are a growing and important phenomenon<\/a>. But these outstanding museums are not dedicated to preserving and reflecting on the legacy of\u00a0slavery; rather, they are dedicated to the history and culture\u00a0of Africans in the Americas in general, or other human rights themes. In fact, despite its tremendous scale and impact worldwide, the world is practically devoid<\/a> of museums reflecting on slavery.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Smithsonian<\/a><\/p>\n

Rio’s Port Region<\/a>, where millions of enslaved Africans\u00a0disembarked, has gained two new world class museums in recent years. The R$185 million Museum of Rio Art<\/a> (MAR) was inaugurated in 2013. The R$250 million Museum of Tomorrow opened earlier<\/a> this year in time for the Olympic Games. Yet the history of the region and its significance to Brazil–and the world’s–slave trade remains unrecognized in this dramatically redeveloped space.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Museum<\/a><\/p>\n

This institutional erasing of the Port’s past and continued lack of a museum memorializing slavery<\/a> has angered many black Brazilians and historians.\u00a0Ronilso Pacheco, representative of the NGO Viva Rio and member of the Coletivo Nuvem Negra (Black Cloud Collective), a black student group at PUC-Rio, writes<\/a>: <\/span>\u201cIt disturbs my own history, and my historical consciousness, to know that a black past is deliberately ignored and destroyed so that a white middle class future can be erected in its place with celebration and pageantry. Could anyone imagine building a Museum of Tomorrow at Auschwitz? Never.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

History teacher and Rio politician Marcelo Freixo<\/a>, who ran for mayor last month, is one of the few official voices to\u00a0express this view, saying<\/a>:<\/span>\u00a0\u201cNothing against the Museum of Tomorrow, but what about our past? The Port Region was an entry point for slaves, but the whole black past is in a container box. Berlin has a museum about the Holocaust, why isn’t a slavery museum in the Port Region?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The question merits serious consideration and discussion among Rio’s governments, academics and civil society. For the city to move towards a\u00a0just future, it must reckon with, confront and appropriately recognize\u00a0its brutal past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas The Pra\u00e7a XV square is one of the most\u00a0important historical locations in Rio de Janeiro. It is located in the historical center, flanked by the\u00a0Rio de Janeiro State Legislative Assembly (Alerj), […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":34130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1267,1668,1288,2242,328,336,1329],"tags":[9,315,1041,772,1261,168,506,188,716,2178,148,146,1347,124,1189,421,279,1511],"writer":[2204],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34042","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gentrificationwatch","8":"category-participationwatch","9":"category-highlight","10":"category-democracy","11":"category-understanding-rio","12":"category-violations","13":"category-by-international-observers","14":"tag-9","15":"tag-african-diaspora","16":"tag-black-awareness-month","17":"tag-cais-do-valongo","18":"tag-central-rio","19":"tag-centro","20":"tag-exclusion","21":"tag-history","22":"tag-museum","23":"tag-museum-of-tomorrow","24":"tag-port-region","25":"tag-porto-maravilha","26":"tag-pretos-novos","27":"tag-race","28":"tag-racism","29":"tag-segregation","30":"tag-slavery","31":"tag-valongo","32":"writer-lisa-hollenbach"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34042"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=34042"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=34042"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=34042"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=34042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}